Terminator 3 vs. Terminator Salvation

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It seems that most Terminator fans love the first two, hate the last two, and find the middle two here, to be so, so. Kind of good, kind of not, right on the line. Which is how I feel about them as well.

T3 feels rushed overall, and I thought the villain was a bit weak, but Terminator Salvation, off to a strong start from what I remember, has what seems like a big plot hole in the climax:

WARNING: "SPOILER" spoilers below
Why would Skynet build a Terminator that was capable of overriding their entire system


Which weakens the climax. The ending also feels like nothing has changed to take us into another chapter where as T3's ending does.

What do you think?



T3 all the way,more fun although kinda been there fun...salavation was too grim with not much happening, no dread feeling,it was just a waste of talent to me, could have been a much much better film , i am really sorry to say but it was a waste of 2hrs to me



I thought they both had some different things going for them that made them both worthwhile in some respects. What T3 had going for it the most was Schwarzenegger. He helps keep the film grounded in what came before while finally propelling it, finally, towards where the saga had been only talking about heading up to that point. The rest of the cast is pretty strong as well, but this was a bit of a precursor for GENISYS (a film that I actually like somewhat, even if it's just as a big, dumb action film) and DARK FATE, with action that doesn't necessarily feel grounded in the world that it's actually happening in. That wasn't really a problem in T1 and T2, and that's partially why those films are better than the rest.

SALVATION had a lot of really good ideas going for it. For one, I wish they'd had the guts to keep the original ending for the film. That would have really set things up for an interesting continuation had they ultimately decided to go that route. But actually taking the events of the franchise into the war with the machines made it fresh. Although not a possibility at the time, but it could have really used Schwarzenegger's presence in the film. He'd played the villain and the hero (twice) to that point, but seeing him (and possibly multiples of him) in the film as a soldier on the front lines of the war (either for or against the machines) would have been interesting. After seeing him sent back from that future three times, it would have helped the film to see him actually in that future (not counting the CGI recreation). Also, in the hands of a better director, SALVATION could have been more than the decent, but ultimately missed opportunity of a film that it ended up being.



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I didn't know that Salvation had an original ending, so I just looked it up. It doesn't seem like the original ending would have added much difference really, but maybe I would actually need to see it play out.



Between these two, Salvation.
T3 was way too comedic... and the stuff that wasn't meant to be comedic, was unintentionally funny anyway.
The only thing T3 had going for it was... erm. The crane scene when it smashed through that building. 1 scene. That's it.



With Salvation though, I would have hoped for more future war stuff like we saw in the first 2 movies.
You know, ruined buildings, laser guns, dark night scenes with people ducking and hiding in the ruins from Hunter-Killers... back-projection style shots like we saw in T2.
T800s walking around shooting at stuff.

I mean, even T3 had a scene like that at the start... but instead, Salvation was just shot in a desert with the occasional scene in a bunker.
Hell, Salvation even had the main characters sitting on a rooftop with a campfire burning in full sight of the flying machines!

That... isn't a futuristic Terminator movie.

Everything else about Salvation though outshines T3 by a huge margin.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
T3 easily.

Salvation had the stupidest fight I've ever seen with the T-800 constantly grabbing John Connor and throwing him around when really if a T-800 grabbed you it could;

1) crush your skull instantly (see Mountain vs Viper)
2) punch your mid section and rip out your spine (see Mortal Combat)
3) Just rip you in half

etc,etc,etc

..........….but nope, this guy has plot armour so lets throw him around several times and allow him to fight back.

Ultimately they're both bad and we have 2 Terminator movies that are light years ahead of the others, so far ahead in fact that none of the others are worth mentioning.
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We've gone on holiday by mistake
Between these two, Salvation.
T3 was way too comedic... and the stuff that wasn't meant to be comedic, was unintentionally funny anyway.
The only thing T3 had going for it was... erm. The crane scene when it smashed through that building. 1 scene. That's it.



With Salvation though, I would have hoped for more future war stuff like we saw in the first 2 movies.
You know, ruined buildings, laser guns, dark night scenes with people ducking and hiding in the ruins from Hunter-Killers... back-projection style shots like we saw in T2.
T800s walking around shooting at stuff.

I mean, even T3 had a scene like that at the start... but instead, Salvation was just shot in a desert with the occasional scene in a bunker.
Hell, Salvation even had the main characters sitting on a rooftop with a campfire burning in full sight of the flying machines!

That... isn't a futuristic Terminator movie.

Everything else about Salvation though outshines T3 by a huge margin.
Yea surely if you're doing a Terminator movie shot in that bleak future it's gonna be a night shoot with that world presented the way it was previously. You could use some excuse like "we have to hide during the day". I really hated that about Salvation, looked more like a Mad Max movie.

Really though it's **** decisions being made by mediocre Directors/writers.



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But in a nuclear post apocalypse, there is still going to be daylight, isn't there? Why does the entire movie have to take place at night?



But in a nuclear post apocalypse, there is still going to be daylight, isn't there? Why does the entire movie have to take place at night?
It's been suggested that nuclear war could cause a large amount of cloud cover and other environmental effects that would probably at least reduce sunlight to some degree.

Google "nuclear winter" if you want more information.



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Well as I understand it, this movie takes place a few years after a nuclear war doesn't it? Wouldn't that allow the sun to come back out?



Welcome to the human race...
Kyle even explains it in the first film - the idea is that humans have to hide during the day because they'd be easier to detect in broad daylight than under cover of night. That's the reason why (Salvation aside) most of the franchise's future scenes take place at night.
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Didn't say you can't have daytime scenes... but Salvation being based in the future, the future we saw in the first movies, it had absolutely nothing in common with the vision we originally saw.


It's also told by Reese, that they have to stay down by day, and they can move around at night but have to be extremely careful.


Salvation basically throws that out completely... opting for a movie shot expressly in daylight, out in the open... with the one night time scene the main characters are sitting completely out in the open... on a skyscraper's rooftop... with a bloody campfire going for good measure.



Well as I understand it, this movie takes place a few years after a nuclear war doesn't it? Wouldn't that allow the sun to come back out?
Yo:

Google "nuclear winter" if you want more information.
I specifically included this line because I anticipated you'd ask yet another follow-up question. One gets the sense that no answer will be satisfactory (for whatever reason), so I'd just as soon let you duke it out with the Internet rather than get stuck in that loop again.



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Oh okay, I thought that Salvation took place in a time, when maybe Skynet was not quite as advanced and the army not quite as big yet, so maybe could move around in the day more compared to later on in the future.



Oh okay, I thought that Salvation took place in a time, when maybe Skynet was not quite as advanced and the army not quite as big yet, so maybe could move around in the day more compared to later on in the future.

Well, if you go by John Connor's scars, Salvation takes place maybe a couple months before the future scenes we saw in T1, T2 and T3.


Salvation has Hunter Killer's though too, and we see the birth of the T800 near the end of the movie, so Skynet is definitely as advanced as Kyle tells Sarah in the first movie.


Just feels as though the filmmakers either didn't read the canon... or they were under massive influence of studio suits who hadn't read the canon.
Turns out though that the next movies, Genesys and Dark Fate, threw the canon out the window anyway.

For me, Salvation is everything a Terminator sequel should be in terms of general story, action, characters, and choreography... it's just the aesthetic chosen (the basic setting for the movie being daylight all the time, mainly in a desert), isn't what a Terminator movie set in the future should be.

Edit/addition: Also, humans having airplanes also threw me completely. Surely air superiority belongs to the HKs.
In the future that Kyle tells Sarah about, humans wouldn't have even dared try to fly an airplane.



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Oh okay. So it's not that people do not like the daylight, they just don't think that people should be able to move around as freely in it then?



Welcome to the human race...
Well, if you go by John Connor's scars, Salvation takes place maybe a couple months before the future scenes we saw in T1, T2 and T3.


Salvation has Hunter Killer's though too, and we see the birth of the T800 near the end of the movie, so Skynet is definitely as advanced as Kyle tells Sarah in the first movie.


Just feels as though the filmmakers either didn't read the canon... or they were under massive influence of studio suits who hadn't read the canon.
Turns out though that the next movies, Genesys and Dark Fate, threw the canon out the window anyway.

For me, Salvation is everything a Terminator sequel should be in terms of general story, action, characters, and choreography... it's just the aesthetic chosen (the basic setting for the movie being daylight all the time, mainly in a desert), isn't what a Terminator movie set in the future should be.

Edit/addition: Also, humans having airplanes also threw me completely. Surely air superiority belongs to the HKs.
In the future that Kyle tells Sarah about, humans wouldn't have even dared try to fly an airplane.
It's important to note that the "original" T-800 and Kyle Reese time-travel from the year 2029 while the events of Salvation take place in 2018. I think this also explains away some of the marked differences between Salvation and other future scenes - they don't have the laser guns and the T-800 is only just introduced at the end when they are later commonplace, also how the tactics for both sides have evolved in the ensuing decade. Not going to argue that Salvation has a lacklustre aesthetic, though.