I still remember the first time I heard about The Terminator. It was 1990 and I was watching the film Predator with my father. My father was a John Wayne fan and I was a Hulk Hogan kid. Still, when I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger for the first time, I knew this would be my new hero. I asked my father if this guy was in anything else and he started talking about these other films. “In one, he’s a robot and they shoot him, but he keeps chasing them, they blow him up, blow his legs off, but he just keeps on coming.”
Another year or so went by and I started seeing tv spots for Terminator 2: Judgment Day. My older brother and I, not understanding the simple concept that films were released into theaters first and then much later on home video, went to the local video rental shop and asked for T2. They gave us The Terminator, and I was hooked from the opening score to the last scene of Sarah Connor’s Jeep driving toward a storm in the distance.
Nearly twenty years and two sequels later, we’ve seen the franchise go from small-but-great to huge-and-successful to campy-and-loud and the main star go from an impervious villain to a slapstick, family-friendly side character. Still, I never stopped being and Arnie fan and I never stopped being a Terminator fan.
Now that there is another Terminator film coming out, I think that it may be prudent to decide whether or not I spend my money on the film. To do this, I must weigh the pros and cons of the information we have so far. So here we go:
HOW WAS THE LAST FILM?
Pro: That sudden, dark ending really left us hanging. There is no other way but forward.
Con: Let’s be honest, the last film hardly fits in with the first two entries of the series. It was campy, the theme was missing, and it completely missed the whole “No fate but what we make” theme of the series.
THE DIRECTOR
Pro: In interviews, McG comes off a very nice, earnest fellow, who knows a lot about film and just wants to make a good movie.
Con: So does Uwe Boll. Plus, McG is responsible for Charlie’s Angels.
THE ACTORS
Pro: Christian Bale, Michael Ironside, Sam Worthington, and Linda Hamilton returning for voice overs.
Con: Umm… damn. I guess I could say that Common has yet to prove his worth, but I have no idea what he’ll be doing in the film.
THE RATING
Pro: There really isn’t a pro for the pg-13 rating, especially as an Action film. Sure, it means the studio can risk more cash on a project, but more money does not mean more quality.
Con: The pg-13 rating often forces films to cover up blood, omit swearing (which, in a cyborg-caused apocalypse, I would be frequently heard doing), and edit out plenty of so-called “acts of violence” in order to play for for a “wider audience”. If this franchise is looking to redeem its integrity, it’s going to need not to hold back, and I just can’t be sure that it could do that if it has to pull its punches so that a pre-teen audience can enjoy the film too.
THE RUMORS
Pro: Rumors are that the film is a very dark and awesome depiction of the future, perfectly in line with the tone set by the first two films in the series. And they say there’s a CGI Arnold cameo.
Con: A dark atmosphere could be completely ruined by a bad score, and with Danny “Everything-Sounds-Like-Batman” Elfman doing the music, it’s entirely possible. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had a CGI’d Patrick Stewart. And it looked like ass.
CONCLUSION
Will I see it? I don’t know, but probably. With or without Arnold, and whether it’s McG or Jonathan Mostow, it’s still a Terminator film and I’m still a Terminator fan. It won’t make me love the good films less, but it might make me appreciate them more.
Kain424, signing out.