Current mood:	content
Entry tags:	movie review, terminator

Posting on a couple of random thoughts:

Playing auntie with a 2yo nephew is fun. All you have to do is chomp bacon and make RAWR RAWR noises as you chew and he thinks you're the Funniest Thing EVER. You win bonus points for letting him feed you a piece and you chomp it all the way up his fingers. (Yes, he got bit. No, he didn't mind.)


On the rumor I'm hearing about the proposed Buffy the movie reboot without JW or any of the original cast on board: This is going to be EPIC FAIL. Which is too bad, because the casting, etc issue could so easily be avoided by simply choosing a different timeline/Slayer to play with, and then you don't have a bunch of PO'd Buffy/SMG/JW fans boycotting and badmouthing. Or simply do a vampire movie without the name Buffy attached. Sounds like they want to reboot the movie franchise with a different take anyway, darker/drama/etc. So... again. Not understanding their logic.


And I watched Terminator: Salvation this weekend. Spoiler thoughts on the movie and TV series below the cut.

First the movie. Not bad. I enjoyed. It is definitely darker, an action movie without the comedic one-liners/goofy character trope that actions movies usually harbor. In my book that was a good decision, because of the subject material and story it just would have not been fitting. That being said: as pertains to today's movie audiences... probably not a chick flick in general. Because of lack of said humor to lighten the drama. Lots of action, explosions, terse and intense characters, yada yada... but definitely not a light-hearted blow things up action flick a'la Transformers ilk.

Second: Forget Christian Bale. I'm terrible with names, but the dude playing the new Terminator hybrid stole the show. He was the heart of the movie, no pun intended (for those who have already seen the movie, you know what I'm referring to).

And can I say that the final denouement -- the choice John Connor made, to not sacrifice the few for the sake of the many -- thrilled me to no end. Because it's a type of Jus In Bello decision that pops up rather frequently in my TV shows. And sometimes there's a part of me that thinks the sacrifice is worth it in the big picture sense. But then, in my fiction world, I want the heroes to stand for something, and to be RIGHT. And here, by refusing to act as the "monsters" do with their heartless logic, by doing the MORALLY right thing even if he wasn't sure how bad the price would be... he not only showed the difference between man and machine, but why the machines couldn't win. Because they can't understand. And that this fact played a big part in The Machines decision to begin creating their hybrids, because they knew they lacked a fundamental understanding of humanity and therefore kept losing to John Connor, and yet their very pragmatic actions of creating the prototype T-800 also created the loophole for them to lose YET AGAIN to the humanity entwined within the machine. Also their counting on humans being willing to sacrifice some of their own for the Bigger Picture vs the "we bury our dead" value on every human life... why the second part of their plan failed. Which probably also explains the slightly more machine/far less human parts integrated in the T-800 models we later see in the movies, etc. The Terminators keep adapting with logic, even though they don't GET IT. Can't afford to have too many of their Infiltrators go off the reservation.

Which leads me to the TV series: Holy crap. Specific description of this being a prototype "infiltrator terminator." Cue my glee.

FutureJohn has yet to learn to trust machines, and this is his first apparent encounter that lead to him getting the idea that a hybrid model could be subverted to his own purposes. And seeing their early physical designs in metal form. There are some gaps in that these models are not exact, but the framework is there for us to use our own logic and mentally fill in the progression from this FutureJohn and how it could have lead to T2 and Cameron and all that jazz. And even how Weaver could have come to see the futility of Skynet's gameplan and therefore creating her own branch off of Terminator strategy for survival in designing (redesigning/redirecting the designation/control over the creation of???) The Turk/John Henry, finding a new "prototype" for a hybrid that could cross against the light as this very first hybrid did.

And the confusion between programming and potential humanity/self identity linked within this new movie Terminator -- yet again paralleling some of the questions we've had raised about Cameron and how human can she be despite her metal?

The TV show referred to how Kyle brags that John Connor rescued him from Terminator boot camp -- now shown as canon in the movie. Cue my squee again. :)

The only thing I can't really wank at all was the appearance of Kyle Reese without any mention of a brother. That part didn't fit TV canon at all, but that was the only thing I couldn't find a way to wank or handwave. Maybe I missed a reference that would explain.

Dude, I'm okay with that. It's all awesome.

Stupid FUX, cancelling our show.

Still, I can now happily imagine PastJohn, FutureJohn, Cameron, John Henry, and Weaver all meeting up at some point, and things really getting messed up. That would be AWESOME.