Now that the latest installment of the franchise has been released it's time to rank them. Over the course of 30 plus years there have 5 films and a TV show. Apparently the tv show dealt with Sarah and John Connor being on the run after the events of T2. I never watched the show so I could care less about and it won't factor in here. There are a lot of different opinions out there about the franchise and some of them are absolutely correct. Being that I'm in my mid-40s, I've seen every film in the theater. Here are my rankings (the percentages are the Rotten Tomatoes ratings)...
5. Terminator Genisys (27%).
My thoughts on the film are already out there. This is easily the worst film of the franchise. It's not that good at all.
4.Terminator Salvation (33%).
Another installment no one asked for was released in 2009 (sensing a trend yet?). The film was helmed by underwhelming director, McG. The budget was estimated at $200,000,000 with a domestic gross of $125,000,000. Terminator Salvation is probably better known for Bale's infamous on set tirade than anything else. The film is set in 2018, 14 years after Judgement Day. Bale is John Connor, prophetic resistance commander in the war against Skynet. Sam Worthington is Marcus, a criminal executed prior Judgement Day who turns out to be a part human/part terminator early infiltration model. Both Skynet and Connor are obsessed with finding a teenage Kyle Reese. Connor needs Reese to send him back to 1984 in 2029 so Reese can rescue his mother. Skynet wants Reese dead so Connor can't send him back to 1984 in order to impregnate his mother and thus giving birth to John Connor. WTF??? So Skynet is on to Kyle Reese being John's dad, how you ask? Because that's how the writers wanted it apparently. This actually could've been a mediocre story of the war on Skynet. But we didn't get that. After seeing this, I felt that it didn't matter who Connor's father actually was. In order to exist he just needed Sarah to get pregnant in 1984. There were no records of the father according to the original film. There's good action sequences but most the time they don't make any sense.
3.Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (70%).
Released in 2003 and directed by Jonathan Mostow, the film had an estimated budget of $200,00,00 and took in over $150,000,000 domestically. The film takes place in July 2004, Judgement day was averted thanks to the gang from the previous film. John Connor (Nick Stahl) is a drug addict drifter who's having some struggles with being the savior of the human race. He meets up with a veterinarian type woman Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) who doesn't like the idea that he's stealing animal meds. In the future Skynet has decided to kill off the leaders of resistance so John Connor won't have any of his top lieutenants. Skynet sends back a new terminator, a TX, who just happens to be female...
Impeccable fashion sense. Given.
Eventually Ah-nuld shows up (he's a T-850) and he saves Kate and John from the TX. The T-850 and the TX do battle while Skynet is activated. This is bad. The gang escapes to Crystal Peak, a government fallout shelter, in hopes of stopping Skynet. The T-850 defeats the TX but Skynet succeeds in taking over and launches the nuclear arsenal. The film ends with John taking the mantle as the eventual leader of the resistance. Oh by the way, it turns out John Connor was killed on 4 July 2032 and his wife, Kate Brewster, reprograms the T-850 and sends it back in time.
This wasn't a bad film but in the first two installments, the future timeline was 2029. Why the change? Since Skynet is a non-organic life form, why does the terminator need to be a woman? I guess it's a better infiltration unit because she's not quite as imposing and she's got weapons built into her. There are a lot of problems with the story in this film, like what happened between the 2029 timeline and 2032? What prompted Skynet to change it's go-to theory of killing John Connor and go after his subordinates and wife? There's also some weird sh*t that the TX does that doesn't make sense. From tasting blood and computing DNA matches to a deeply weird terminator orgasm face...
It's a bit disturbing.
For a film no one asked for, this wasn't too bad but it hasn't really stood the test of time and much like Terminator Salvation, it gets skipped over by the most recent installment.
2. Terminator 2: Judgement Day (93%).
James Cameron's 1991 sequel pretty much solidified himself as a must see director. The film had a then unheard of budget of $102,000,000 and took in a staggering domestic gross of nearly $205,000,000. The special effects of the film were groundbreaking and pretty much melted my brain as a 20 y/o kid. The story takes place in 1995, John Connor is 10 years old and is living in foster care since Sarah is in a secure mental facility. Skynet sends back a T-1000 liquid metal terminator to do away with John. John from the future sends back the Ah-nuld terminator to protect his 10 year old self.
In addition to the non-stop action (some of it a bit over the top), we get the origin story of Cyberdyne Systems and Skynet. It turns out that Cyberdyne used portions of the T-800 from the first film to make advances in robotics but neglected to let the public know. They're more or less responsible for Sarah being thrown into a mental hospital and becoming a bad-ass conspiracy theorist nut.
Emphasis on the bad-ass portion
Sarah, John and the T-800 head to Cyberdyne to destroy the 1984 T-800 parts and lay waste to the building. This leads to the climatic terminator showdown where the T-1000 is defeated and thrown into a vat of molten steel.
As awesome as this film was in 1991, it's kept from the top spot because of of the cheesy attachment the annoying 10 y/o John Connor forms with the T-800. Edward Furlong plays the young John Connor and the kid was mildly annoying in 1991 and when I watch the film now, he's super annoying. I guess that's how a 10 y/o kid would act in those circumstances but the performance didn't age well. Then there was the scene where the T-800 computes that he too must be destroyed lest he falls into the hands of Cyberdyne and we get this "emotional" scene...
In 1991 I probably thought this was a cool ending but I'm skipping the last few minutes of the film if I'm watching it today. I like to believe some studio head made Cameron out this into the film because the test audience wanted a more "human" ending. Who knows.
1. The Terminator (100%)
Released in 1984, this was only Cameron's 2nd directorial feature. The budget was $6,500,000 (massive considering Cameron's debut film, Piranha 2: The Spawning had a budget around $150,000) and it raked in over $38,000,000 domestically. I remember a friend telling me about this film, he described it as Ah-nuld being an indestructible robot from the future and who goes around shooting up Los Angeles. SOLD! Excellent performances all around. The action was very fast paced and in your face. Some of the special effects don't stand the test of time too well, but they are a lot of great films with the same problem.
The plot is actually pretty straight forward, a cyborg is sent back in time to kill the mother of the human resistance so that machines can dominate the earth in the future. The leader of the resistance sends a naked guy back to save his mother so that he can be born. The thing here is, was Reese ordered to mate with Sarah Connor? He tells Sarah that he came through time for her and that he's been in love with her ever since John showed him a picture of her. That's a lot of pressure to put on a guy. Linda Hamilton's performance is really good considering what she becomes in the next installment. She starts of the film as a scared girl who's life is a mess (as most 20 something would be regardless of gender) and by the end she's throwing out witty catchphrases that were normally set aside for male action leads...
To be fair, it was close between Terminator and T2 for the top slot. It came down to the fact that I'd rather watch the first film more than any other. Call it sentimentality or whatever. The plot is simple. In T2, it gets a bit more convoluted. Plus, T2 clocks in at 137 minutes versus Terminator's 107 minutes. I'm going to be more prone to skip through parts of T2 where I wouldn't do that with Terminator. Besides, it's Cameron's films that are far and away the best of the franchise. The list is chalk but that's just how I feel man. It's really hard for a the 2nd installment of any franchise to beat the original but it has happened. This isn't one of those cases. Thank you for your time.
No comments:
Post a Comment