THE
TERMINATOR
The Terminator 1984 trailer
With
another Terminator movie coming out this 2019, I figured making a quickie review on the
past movie series of The Terminator. The Terminator is one of my favorite
movies that I got to watch. Although I have not followed any other media of the
Terminator story other than the Sarah Connor Chronicles which came out as a TV
series that came out in 2008 and 2009 for two seasons.
The
movie first came out in 1984 directed by James Cameron and features the now
famous Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as T-800 model 101 or otherwise known as
the titular character The Terminator. His character was also the one that used the famous tag lines "Hasta La Vista, Baby" and "I'll Be Back". If there are some of you waiting for me to say the other tag line "You Ugly MF" that is on another movie and another review.
The
movie came out with several movies but the famous movies that came out was the
first batch for the trilogy. The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day
(1991) and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine (2003). These were the famous movies
that came out that starred Arnold with him.
The
second batch of trilogy for the movie series are Terminator Salvation (2009),
Terminator Genesys (2015) and the upcoming movie Terminator Dark Fate (2019).
In Terminator Salvation Arnold was a no show for the movie but a CGI of him was
made for the sake of having the iconic actor making an appearance in the movie but
in his younger self. In Terminator Genesys and Dark Fate, Arnold once again reprise
his role as the Terminator. In the upcoming movie Dark Fate Arnold is not the
only original actor to reprise their role from the original movie, Linda
Hamilton also returns to reprise her role as Sarah Connor and this time they
team up to protect another target that the new breed of Terminators is coming
to kill.
The
movie is about a time travelling humanoid machine that went back in time to
kill the biggest obstacle of their master, Skynet, the human John Connor. In the
first movie Skynet sent back in time one of the Terminators it had created to
kill the mother of John Connor, Sarah Connor, who at that time was just an
ordinary office worker who has no affiliations with any military ranks. John Connor
in order to have his mother protected from Skynet he sent back one soldier
named Kyle Reese, who in turn was also his father. He sent back Kyle Reese
without telling him that they are father and son in order to preserve the flow
of time and in order for him to be born.
1991 scene
The
story was rather confusing since in the second movie Arnold or T-800 is no
longer the bad guy of the story but rather the good guy sent back by also John
Connor to protect his younger self from the T-1000 Terminator which this time Skynet
sent back in time so that Judgment Day will go as scheduled, but it was stopped
by T-800 and protected John Connor as well as preventing Judgment Day from
happening, or rather postponed. Third movie Rise of the Machine is the third movie
where Arnold portrayed his role as the Terminator again. Just like in the
second movie T-800 is once again sent back in time to protect but not only John
Connor but also Kate Brewster his future wife, in this movie it was not John
Connor who sent back the new T-800 but it was his wife. John Connor according
to the new T-800 was already dead and killed by his hands, caught by the
resistance and reprogrammed in order to be sent back in time to protect both
John Connor and Kate Brewster with the directive to send the couple to the
supposed resistance base once Skynet starts its human extermination. This time
around the antagonist is a female terminator T-X which seemed to be a
combination of the endoskeleton of T-800 and the liquid metal properties of T-1000.
One
of the iconic scenes in the movie was the time travelling scene in almost every
movie (except Salvation) where characters from the future appear out of nowhere
inside a ball of energy and naked. Arnold as the T-800 taking clothes that will
fit him from others. In the first movie he sported what seemed to be a brown
trench coat and armed with a shotgun. The trench coat later becomes what I suppose
is the signature outfit of his character, an all-black outfit of leather jacket
unzipped with an under shirt and black leather pants which he got from big bike
riders and black shades, also the shotgun is still there which is also I think
the signature side arm of T-800 in every movie.
Edward Furlong (1991)
Nick Stahl (2003)
Christian Bale (2009)
Jason Clarke (2015)
Both
in movies 2 and 3 they kept the same appearance of the T-800 making it look
like that it never age and got to hand it to Arnold for being the professional
that he is for keeping his body fit for each movie of the Terminator that he
came out to reprise his role. Except in Terminator Salvation he was given a
homage where a CGI of his younger self from the first movie was used in the battle
against John Connor and his companion Marcus Wright, a human experimented by
Skynet by making him a human-terminator hybrid which failed and kept his
humanity and fought alongside humans and later sacrificing himself to save the
life of John Connor.
In
the movies Genesys reprised his role once again as T-800 but this time the
timeline is being altered since this time around Kyle Reese who was supposed to
come back in time to protect Sarah Connor ends up being saved by Sarah Connor
who was later revealed to have been trained by the T-800 who was sent back in time
to protect Sarah Connors since she was 9 years old. The Genesys serves as a
reboot of the first Terminator movie altering the course of action as well. This
movie has given viewers some sort of confusion as to how will the story go this
time since in this new timeline Kyle Reese is alive along with Sarah Connor who
has just started to become lovers and John Connor is to be conceived in this
new timeline. But that remains to be seen as of yet.
In
the new upcoming movie Dark Fate is said to be a direct sequel to The
Terminator 2 Judgment Day movie. According to the wiki the movies Rise of the
Machines, Salvation and Genesys are all alternate timelines which might explain
why John Connor was no where to be seen between movie 2 and 3 as described by
T-800, forcing Skynet to target other characters that will help build the
resistance. T-800 said that John Connor could not be detected in any timeline
after the Judgment Day incident, he was “off the grid”.
T-1000
T-X
T-1000 Genesys Version
It
seems like in this new movie it is like a reunion of the main casts of the
movie series which will I believe will be the hype of the movie. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and Edward Furlong the stars of The Terminator
and Terminator 2 Judgment Day are said to be reprising their roles T-800, Sarah
Connor and John Connor respectively. Another rumor has been going around is
that Michael Biehn was said to reprise his role as Kyle Reese but according to
Biehn he will not be in the movie. So, things are still yet to be seen once the
movie comes out and as well what role does the two new characters have in the
new Terminator movie other than being a new target to be terminated by Skynet.
It
would also seem regardless that the spin-off series Sarah Connor Chronicles
follows the move Judgment Day it seems like this new movie has a timeline of its
own. There are different charts as to how the Terminator timeline goes and how
it follows the story from the first movie to the current one. But since this
movie involves too many time travelling and some alterations in the story, the
movie has created many possible timelines for itself.
Considering
the age of Arnold Schwarzenegger who is always seen in tip top shape having to
see Linda Hamilton back to reprise her role and seemed ripped as well for her
character Sarah Connor are both very impressive. The movie also showcase Arnold’s
character the T-800 to be a model that age through time ever since it was sent
back in time to kill John Connor, just like in the movie Genesys, his character
which mission was to protect the young Sarah Connor and to train her also age
as time goes by making it look like more human except for the endoskeleton.
Another thing to take notice of in these movie series are the special effects and animatronics used for the film. Imagine since 1984 they have been using puppets and animatronics for the moving endoskeleton of the T-800 and slowly evolve to modern special effects in each film continuity. CGI or Computer Generated Images and Chromawall effects were later used for most scenes for adding more effects and explosive effects in some scenes.
I
have to wait for the movie to come out in order for me to see if Arnold’s T-800
character is the same as the T-800 in the movie Genesys who waited for the arrival
of Sarah and Kyle who time travelled from 1984 to 2017, but as I have said it is
something to wait for since it was said in a wiki that this T-800 is just one
of the T-800 models that was sent back in time by Skynet and these models can
have aging feature to make them look like more human.
Just
by watching all the movies itself, a viewer will have to piece everything out
to connect which continuity to follow, even though there are those who has made
timeline charts, there are too many of it made by fans and movie reviewers but I
want to see a timeline released by the producers, writers and directors themselves
for a much more accurate chronology. This is because aside from the movies and
the spin-off tv series, there is an online series that came out on YouTube and
comics that came out.
Dark Fate Trailer
So
right now, it is a waiting game for the new movie to come out to see what story
it has for the fans, considering that the plot is almost all the same since the
first movie. Main character is being hunted down by a time travelling humanoid robot
and is being protected by a time travelling soldier or a reprogrammed Terminator
T-800 from the future turned good. Whatever this new movie has in store for the
fans is something to be seen specially that Edward Furlong is to reprise his
1991 character in this movie so that is another thing to wait and see how he
will appear in this movie since the trailer has only shown Linda and Arnold
reprising their respective roles in the new movie along with the two new
characters and the new terminator enemy that also has a new feature which is to
be seen.
Will be making another review for each movie on another date.
