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almost screams for another sequel

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almost?!
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 07-02-2003, 09:17 AM:
 
The film has pretty much everything any terminator fan would want to see. Destruction, mayhem, and did I say destruction. The film did lack the solid character development that Cameron brought to the first two films. But even if Cameron did not have anything to do with this one it brought together the elements of the first two films to combine for two hours of fun and entertainment. Maybe not perfect in it's story telling but that doesn't matter when the action and visual effects take over. I give this one *** out of four stars.
 

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-02-2003, 05:04 PM:
 
I think T3 is going to be a huge summer hit based on all of the very favorable comments I have read on other forums and here. The only unfavorable review I read was the one by Mike Clarke in yesterday's USA Today. He seem to have a problem enjoying mainstream movies most people like. Hope to catch it soon and when I do, it will be in the best theatre with awesome picture and sound. That theatre is Consolidated Ward 16 with their large 60 foot screen in four of their largest auditoriums and a sound system I consider better than THX.

-Claude
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-02-2003, 05:31 PM:
 
I thought the trailers for T3 were mediocre at best, and since James Cameron wasn't involved, I really had low expectations for this. Sounds like it may turn out to be a pleasant surprise instead. Hope so for theatres, cause the other summer "blockbusters" haven't really had legs at all, except maybe for "Finding Nemo".
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 07-02-2003, 11:32 PM:
 
***SPOILERS***

I dont know if anyone else will agree with me or if I am just making a crazy connection in my mind but all I could think about during the last half of this film was the movie "WarGames". I dont know maybe it was the whole we have to stop the super computer that is in control of the millitary from destroying the world thing??? I liked this movie a lot but it just kinda bugged me I suppose.
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 07-03-2003, 12:32 AM:
 
Remember, it was the software that caused the problem...Not the machines themselves. Right, Bill Gates?
 

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Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 07-03-2003, 08:29 PM:
 
A great flick. Throughly enjoyed this one. The female Terminator was good eye candy and gave Ahnold a challenge.

5-6 trailers and about 6 ads before the film totaling 20 minutes was a bit nerve wracking as the damage at the beginning of Reel 6. Looked like someone ran the film through a cheese grater.
 

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Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 07-04-2003, 12:21 AM:
 
I liked the film, after having heard all the hype and anti-hype, it was good. I do believe that a fourth is in the works, but may not have much if any arnold in it, that is if he makes a try at the Cali Gov's Mansion.

As for it feeling like war games? Hey since Terminator ONE came out, it was skynet that took over the world. How could it feel like anything else? But this time, Matt Broderick didn't win the tic-tac-toe game and not all is right with the world.

The film ended very flat, so except for the last ten minutes, and the first 20 minutes of commercials, it was a lot of fun.

Dave
 

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Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 07-04-2003, 10:35 AM:
 
I like it, it is quite obvious that they are bringing it to a 4th. Good film, worth seeing in a theater with a good sound system, the mix is great!
 

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Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 07-04-2003, 11:50 AM:
 
It was definatly a good movie and the sound was some of the best that I ever heard in a feature film. In fact it blew a couple of fuses in one of our power supplies. Depending on the time line, they can easily make a forth movie without having Arnold and hopefully they can finally make one not involving time travel unless they introduce and later send the Kyle Reese character back in time (also giving Arnold his cameo) though I would hope that they would save that for the end of the fifth movie effectly making the third, forth and fifth films a kind of trilogy in their own right leading back to the original.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-04-2003, 11:12 PM:
 
Regal Cinema World 8, Eugene, 12:00 noon, house #3, SDDS. Attendance about 40. The presentation was technically excellent. Print was flawless, no lab splices or other defects, very sharp and clear, very steady image. Xlnt SDDS sound, not a single dropout from start to finish. Way to go Regalistas!

THIS MOVIE ROCKS! I went in with very low expectations, and it turns out to be the best action film I've seen in quite a while. The story and special effects are very good. Ahnuld looks like he's still pumping a lot of iron -- he's not over the hill yet. I was disappointed when it ended -- I wanted more. They better do another sequel! I will pay to see this again in a theatre where it really needs to be seen to be appreciated.

Maybe this will be the first live-action "blockbuster" this summer that actually has some staying power...

Talk to the hand.
 

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Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 07-05-2003, 08:54 PM:
 
Saw the movie today. Let's start with negatives because there aren't that many- it is obviously not as epic as T2. And the female Terminator doesn't have the same impact as the T2 villain in terms of conveying danger.

However, this has been one of the most entertaining movies of the summer. After X2, this has been the second most entertaining for me. A definite pleasant surprise. And the chase scene, the highlight of the movie, beats anything in the entertaining Italian Job. I would recommend this movie for the first half alone.

And good news. Arnold has gotten his timing back. He made potentially disastrous phrases like the old Talk to the Hand work.

Even though, there are a lot of T2 sequences seemingly rehashed, I don't think anyone will get bored by this movie. Safest bet this summer.
 

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Posted by R. Andrew Diercks (Member # 1725) on 07-06-2003, 12:46 AM:
 
Overall, good movie. I just thought John Conner's character was a weiner. He had more balls at 13. Never once did he convince me of any leadership qualities. Even when he did cuss at the terminator. I did like the concept that judgment day had to happen. Destiny has always intrigued me and I was suprised to see them explore it.
 

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Posted by Steve Anderson (Member # 364) on 07-06-2003, 09:16 AM:
 
Fun movie to watch, Arnold has some great lines
Arnold was on Leno last week and Leno told how Arnold found out they didn't have enough money budgeted for the " crane/firetruck" sequence and was going to cut some of the scenes car stunts....so Arnold wrote a check on the spot to cover the entire sequence!
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-06-2003, 09:59 AM:
 
If that story about Ahnuld covering the expense of the extra firetruck/crane footage is true, it just goes to show he knows what his audience wants to see. That's a great sequence to watch.


 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-07-2003, 12:18 PM:
 
July 6, 1:05PM, Cinemark 17 in Springfield, House #10, SR-D. Attendance about 200, close to a sellout. Image quality very good except not perfectly stable. SR-D sound EXCELLENT!!! This is the first time in the 4 years they've been open that the sound has been better here than at Regal Cinema World (where I also saw T3 on 7/4). Give whoever re-EQ'd this house a raise!

I enjoyed this even more the 2nd time, and it was more fun seeing it with a large crowd. There were actual oohs and ahs from the audience along with the laughter. This film has the ideal combination of interesting storyline, great action sequences, and humor. Can't wait for the DVD to come out. Can you tell I like this a lot?
 

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Posted by Joe Beres (Member # 678) on 07-08-2003, 02:32 PM:
 
I, too, went in with low expectations and came out pleasantly surprised. Yes, it did lack character development, but am I the only one that found Edward Furlong's performance and thus the John Connor character in T2 to be annoying? Linda Hamilton made T2, but the original is still the best, in my opinion. Anyway, T3 is a very good action movie, and certainly does not disappoint if it is an action move you are looking for.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-08-2003, 10:11 PM:
 
Carmike 8, Lawton, 10:00pm show 7/7, Screen 4, THX-DTS. Awesome surround sound on this one and the bass packs a whallop. Too bad the cinematography looked like crap. You could tell Adam Greenberg, ASC sure didn't lens this one! I suspect Don Burgess wasn't given any time at all to choose proper lights, lenses and film stocks to make the Super35 movie look decent at all. But they'll probably try to "clean everything up" for the DVD.

Did anyone else notice some odd motion jumping problems on the crane chase sequence? It looked like frames were dropping out on a few camera setups, almost like they were filmed at 30fps and then converted down to 24fps but with chunks taken out.

I have to give this movie a "split-decision." I can't give it a thumbs-down since the flick had some pretty impressive action set pieces that filled out the film. If that is all you want then you'll like this movie. However, the film also had some bad problems that threated to ruin the show for me. Overall, many folks will find the film pretty entertaining. But this sequel will be quickly forgotten as well.

Jonathan Mostow is no James Cameron. His timing, the way he frames shots and a lot of other little things added up to make me think the platoon-size contingent of producers actually did the writing and directing on this film. In fact, I'm really suspicious this is in fact the case, given the fact so many writers have worked on it. Sure, the action sequences were entertaining. But the movie on the whole is very very derivative. Too damned many cooks in the kitchen.

James Cameron has been "missing in action" for several years now and has never been a prolific filmmaker. But he is commanding enough to make a movie HIS vision rather than it come from a committee of producers.

And then for the visual stuff, I thought a lot of the CG work really stank. The H-bomb explosions looked "tiny" through errors in speed of movement to scale. The CG chrome terminators in an early scene were fake as hell. And the fruity "disco-laser" sound of their guns made me fully aware Gary Rydstrom was not signed onto this project for more hyper-reality sound. Those early terminator prototypes with the miniguns looked really stupid. I was expecting one of them to shout, "danger, Will Robinson!"

***Spoilers Ahead***

There were errors in logic regarding the T-X character. Sure, I liked how she could adjust her breast size. It was clever how she could log into the Internet by speaking bits into a cellphone. And I liked how she could verify DNA by tasting a victim's blood. However, if she can morph herself into different metal shapes why in the hell does she need a metal endoskeleton? Isn't that less advanced? I guess the producers wanted her to tear off her legs so she could crawl around after the protagonists in the same manner as the first terminator. Remember the legless terminator scurrying after Sarah Connor, crawling through the hydraulic press?

Remember this logical rule Arnold gave about the advanced "mimetic polyalloy" type of terminator in "T2"?:

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It can't form complex machines. Guns and explosives have chemicals, moving parts. It doesn't work that way. But it can form solid metal shapes. ...Like knives and stabbing weapons.

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With that memorable rule in mind (and it should be memorable from all the versions of "T2" we now have floating around on DVD) I have a hard time grasping why the T-X terminatrix can change her plasma cannon into a flame thrower. Where is her fuel source for that thing?

If the Terminator in this film uses two miniature fusion cells for power sources, why didn't he just suicide bomb Sarah Connor in the first Terminator film?

Early in the film, the T-X is about to kill Kate Brewster when out of nowhere Arnold comes to the rescue. How did he know what was happening at the vet clinic? It sounds kind of like Roger Ebert's "Fallacy of the Predictable Tree." Of all the vet clinics in Los Angeles, how did Arnold know which vet clinic to choose?

Even though the crane sequence was really pretty cool, how could the T-X "see" where to remote drive those police cruisers and ambulance when they were out of sight blocks ahead? Sure cars have internal computers, but those computers don't control steering, braking and acceleration. And they don't come with CCD cameras.

How come John Connor and Kate Brewster don't get crushed when Arnold sets off that mini H-bomb inside the mountain? I mean, they show the mountain caving in and all. Better yet, how do John and Kate get out? I guess they're leaving that one up for the sequel.
 

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Posted by Sam Hunter (Member # 1119) on 07-08-2003, 10:17 PM:
 
SUPER SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!
BEWARE!!!!!

In the T3 movie at the end John Conner stated that SKYNET did not have a core computer as it was a PROGRAM and that it was shared in every PC in the world. SO my question is if this is the case what happens to skynet when it attacks civilization and destroys all the home computers and such? Where does it go from there?
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-08-2003, 10:28 PM:
 
Sam, most movie producers don't care about logical stuff like that Skynet in cyberspace thing. They just say, "wouldn't it be cool if we worked an Internet angle in on this Skynet thing?" And then when the screenwriter responds, "that doesn't make any sense," the producer shouts back, "you're fired," and hires yet another script doctor.

You do make a very good point about that one though.

I didn't buy the Skynet in cyberspace thing either. I really didn't buy a high security military developmental team actually having computer systems accessible to the outside world, much less allow the team to be stupid enough to let it get infected by an exterior rouge virus in cyberspace.

I have some knowledge of military purpose computing. Telos here in Lawton writes all the Army's ballastics software, such as the targeting software for Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS). The Army is big into "networking" the battlefield. But highly critical systems, such as computers that support an ICBM missile silo or any other system holding highly classified data is going to be locked down in a very NOT-networked-at-all "standalone" setup. That, in and of itself, makes the very concept of Skynet somewhat implausible.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-09-2003, 12:00 PM:
 
Well, the movie crashes stuff and blows stuff up real good, and it has a sense of humor, and Ahnuld isn't taking himself too seriously. That was plenty enough for me. I mean, really, I didn't care one bit about how the Terminatrix was remote-controlling the cars for example. She was doing it and it was cool. I bought it. Of course all the computer stuff with Skynet was absurd. I didn't care. Trying to read plausibility into something like this is just not worth the effort. Watch it and enjoy it and don't think too hard .
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 07-09-2003, 12:47 PM:
 
When it comes to science fiction, plausibility is a big factor. It is the filmmaker's job to make an absurd situation like time traveling robot assassins believable. James Cameron did a good job with the first two Terminator films. He also did excellent work on the "Aliens" film too. Maintaining plausibility and suspending disbelief is a job that always comes with the territory of the science fiction genre. When a futuristic movie doesn't do that job, then it just becomes bad sci-fi.

It is unfortunate viewers aren't more discriminatory over errors in logic and believability when it comes to other types of movies, like action movies with cops or soliders. The technical advisers on such films are only there to keep certain people in the audience from screaming "bullshit" --with those certain people happening to be real life cops and soliders. I've lost track of how many times I've heard my father, a retired Marine, grumble "bullshit" at something he saw in a war film.

I always chuckle at scenes where a cop will go into a building by himself chasing a murderer when in reality the police officer would stay outside, wait for a legion of backup and then surround and choke off the area. Real cops usually don't get into direct gun fight situations unless they are answering a domestic dispute or conducting a highway patrol stop. But Hollywood rarely likes to make cop movies about that.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 07-09-2003, 01:53 PM:
 
Well, movies have to have their own "reality" sometimes or there wouldn't be anything interesting to show. Computer stuff for example is almost always misleading or outright wrong in films. Cop procedures probably the same thing. When a film is pretending to be realistic about this stuff but then makes obvious blunders, that's more objectionable to me. It seems like T3 is so far over the top that I didn't care about the details being blurred. The outline of the story is still interesting, even if specific technical issues are badly mangled.

As far as James Cameron vs. Jonathan Mostow, Cameron is the better filmmaker and he's legendary (notorious?) for his attention to detail. But Mostow has made a worthy successor to the Terminator franchise and I don't think he needs to be ashamed at all. James Cameron pretty much said that in a recent interview.

One thing I did miss was Brad Fidel's original Terminator music in the opening credits. They did play that theme during the closing credits though...
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 07-10-2003, 11:09 PM:
 
James Cameron is one the BEST directors....ever.. No comparison whatsoever......
 

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Posted by Stephen Isaacs (Member # 1674) on 12-02-2003, 03:18 PM:
 
I think this was a sad sequel to the other two movies and as always leaves everything open an up in the air
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-04-2003, 09:42 AM:
 
Great review Stephen! David, if you listen to he "Terminator" music in the credits, you'll hear that it is only an homage to the original theme, and there have been noticable changes.

I enjoyed this one as I watched it, but after it was over I was kind of let down. Question: In Terminator 1 Kyle Reese says that nothing dead can travel through the time field, and the living tissue that surrounded the terminator allowed it to travel time. But in T2 and T3 the TX's are liquid metal. Are they able to form living tissue to travel through time? Why was there never any blood? When the TX's are shot, you just see metal damage.
 

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Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 12-07-2003, 11:44 PM:
 

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But in T2 and T3 the TX's are liquid metal. Are they able to form living tissue to travel through time?

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Obviously by then they had improved the time-travel technology to allow the liquid-metal TXs to transport. DUH.

-Aaron
 

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 12-08-2003, 01:44 AM:
 
If I'm not mistaken the T1000 and the TX were both from further in the future than Arnold, so that would explain the better time travel. I could be wrong though.
 

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