I like Arnold. Even though most of his movies are kind of dumb, I still enjoy them. But Terminator Genysis really is bad.
While Terminator Salvation wasn't great, it at least didn't make time travel the central theme, like this film. In fact, this is the first film to adopt the "Back to the Future" zaniness of time travel as part of the core plot. Time travel was simply a means to get the main players on the stage in the first three films, and the fourth dealt entirely with the war between humanity and the machines. No, this film has our main characters going backwards, forwards ... ugh....
Yes there are spoilers below:
The first problem with this film, in my mind, was the lead for Jon Connor. Nothing against the guy who played him, but he just didn't fit. I don't know what it is, but I couldn't buy him as the leader of the resistance. I have no idea who played the adult Jon Connor from T2, but that guy at least looked the part. Surely, they could have found someone better.
Anyway, what happens in this installment of the Terminator series is a total unraveling of everything that came before. In a bad way.
While it was cool to see the final future battle and the use of the time machine, that's where it kind of went off the rails. Apparently, Skynet knew immediately when it sent the "first" Terminator through that it failed. So, somehow, it was able to send through a few more terminators ... all of which would end up failing as well. So then it decides to take control of Jon Connor's body and then send him back to jumpstart Skynet in 2017. Honestly, it's getting to be that Skynet is a B-horror movie monster. No matter how many ways you kill it, it will just return in some absurd fashion in the next sequel!
I will say that I enjoyed the 1984 part of the film. It was fun to see them recreate the original in so many ways. But aside from that, there were so many odd moments of forced humor (Bad Boys song during the mug shot sequence? This isn't 1988). And the plot just got to be so so weird. And that's where it fell apart:
Since Sarah and Kyle are stuck in 2017, that means Jon Connor can never be born without them returning to 1984 ... unless this film intends to totally do away with the character entirely, replacing him with Kyle Reese as the guy who somehow saves humanity. Either way, it renders Sarah Connor irrelevant as well.
If Skynet (in the beginning of the film) knew the T-800 would fail, it then sends over at least one T-1000, and a T-3000 (or whatevr). Why not just send those in the first place?
JJ Simons character was really forced. Yep, it just happened to be one of the cops in 1984 LA who encountered Reese ... and 33 years later, he happens to be a detective in San Francisco ... because of course he was.
If "Pops" was able to get on the construction crew for the new Cyberdyne building, wouldn't he be somewhat aware of the "secret" basement where Skynet's core really was (as shown in the mid-credits scene)?
Etc etc etc
While Terminator Salvation wasn't great, it at least didn't make time travel the central theme, like this film. In fact, this is the first film to adopt the "Back to the Future" zaniness of time travel as part of the core plot. Time travel was simply a means to get the main players on the stage in the first three films, and the fourth dealt entirely with the war between humanity and the machines. No, this film has our main characters going backwards, forwards ... ugh....
Yes there are spoilers below:
The first problem with this film, in my mind, was the lead for Jon Connor. Nothing against the guy who played him, but he just didn't fit. I don't know what it is, but I couldn't buy him as the leader of the resistance. I have no idea who played the adult Jon Connor from T2, but that guy at least looked the part. Surely, they could have found someone better.
Anyway, what happens in this installment of the Terminator series is a total unraveling of everything that came before. In a bad way.
While it was cool to see the final future battle and the use of the time machine, that's where it kind of went off the rails. Apparently, Skynet knew immediately when it sent the "first" Terminator through that it failed. So, somehow, it was able to send through a few more terminators ... all of which would end up failing as well. So then it decides to take control of Jon Connor's body and then send him back to jumpstart Skynet in 2017. Honestly, it's getting to be that Skynet is a B-horror movie monster. No matter how many ways you kill it, it will just return in some absurd fashion in the next sequel!
I will say that I enjoyed the 1984 part of the film. It was fun to see them recreate the original in so many ways. But aside from that, there were so many odd moments of forced humor (Bad Boys song during the mug shot sequence? This isn't 1988). And the plot just got to be so so weird. And that's where it fell apart:
Since Sarah and Kyle are stuck in 2017, that means Jon Connor can never be born without them returning to 1984 ... unless this film intends to totally do away with the character entirely, replacing him with Kyle Reese as the guy who somehow saves humanity. Either way, it renders Sarah Connor irrelevant as well.
If Skynet (in the beginning of the film) knew the T-800 would fail, it then sends over at least one T-1000, and a T-3000 (or whatevr). Why not just send those in the first place?
JJ Simons character was really forced. Yep, it just happened to be one of the cops in 1984 LA who encountered Reese ... and 33 years later, he happens to be a detective in San Francisco ... because of course he was.
If "Pops" was able to get on the construction crew for the new Cyberdyne building, wouldn't he be somewhat aware of the "secret" basement where Skynet's core really was (as shown in the mid-credits scene)?
Etc etc etc