Terminator Salvation R Rated Version

[Riley Dyen]

Im finding that there are some movies that I like more upon a second viewing. It could be that once expectations are set aside (either upheld or smashed upon the first viewing) that it's easier to accept a movie a bit more... forgivingly. While I certainly still don't love Terminator Salvation (click link for my initial review), I'll have to admit I found myself enjoying it more the second time around.

The film wasn't the huge hit the studio was hoping for in the U.S., bringing in only $125MM. However it did much better overseas, bringing it's worldwide total to a respectable $371MM. As far as reviews go, it earned a 32% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with the average review being 5/10 stars (I gave it 3/5). In our informal poll over at our Terminator Salvation contest, most people are giving it 3 or 4 out of 5 stars.

The movie suffered from lack of any real depth to the characters, little focus on John Connor (miscast with Christian Bale IMHO), and a story line that concentrated on Marcus Wright, who while being about the best thing in the movie, felt really out of place in the fabric of the entire mythos.

The best thing about the movie are the action set pieces, and on Blu-ray with a home theater set up they deliver. The picture quality is (pretty much as usual) excellent, showing uber-detail. The disc makes ample use of surround sound and the subwoofer in particular (always a good thing as far as I'm concerned).

One thing to be aware of in the Director's Cut version of the film is that it does NOT have the 30-40 minutes of additional footage that McG said it would have when he talked about it earlier this year - the extended version is only about three minutes longer (and yes, it includes the topless scene with Moon Bloodgood). I don't know what happened to all that extra footage since this is supposed to be the Director's Cut of the movie. The topless scene is (as far as I could remember) the only brand new scene in the movie - the rest of the three minutes are just extensions of existing scenes in the movie with a bit more language and violence.

Oh, and if you want to watch the Director's Cut and you don't have a DVD player, you're out of luck: That version is only available on Blu-ray. The DVD version is quite sparse - I don't believe it even has any special features at all, but here are the specs on the Blu-ray [Update on the DVD version - apparently Target stores are offering a Director's Cut/SE version of the film on DVD. This is odd because it's not available at Amazon.com nor at Warner Bros' official store]:

One thing that bugged me a bit was the lack of any top level menu, and I think this isn't specific to this disc - I really wish that some standard for Blu-ray was established when it comes to the menu system. On DVDs there's ALWAYS a top level menu and usually you can just hit the MENU button to skip all the trailers they put up front. On this (and some other Blu-rays) you have to skip each opening trailer individually to get to the movie, and here it went straight INTO the movie instead of bringing up a menu with the usual settings, chapter selection, etc. You can access it but it's with the sub-menu pop-up option.

The "Re-forging the Future" and "Moto-Terminator" featurettes are interesting (the moto-terminator one more if you're into visual effects and concept design). My major takeaway from these featurettes was that they left me feeling kind of bad for the people behind the production. Even on films that aren't very good most of the time the folks working on them are so very passionate and excited about the movie they're working on, that I feel sorry for them when the film doesn't turn out to be as great as they had hoped after putting all that hard work into it. There is also BD-Live content available, but since my player is not connected to the internet I wasn't able to access that.

On the theatrical version there's what they call "Maximum Movie Mode" or MMM. Instead of just an audio commentary, you get picture in picture video segments where McG breaks into the film to give more insight into the film and his approach to the project. There are also galleries, a Terminator timeline and other video segments that you can access while viewing the film. MMM on this film is a VERY cool feature and is one of the benefits of Blu-ray over DVD. It's much more informative and interactive than a director's commentary, and it includes a description of the alternate ending that McG wanted to do in which John Connor becomes a Terminator at the end of the film.

Terminator Salvation is a 2009 American military science fiction action film that is the fourth installment of the Terminator franchise, serving as a sequel to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), but also as a soft reboot.[a] It is directed by McG and written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris. It is the only Terminator film to date not to feature Arnold Schwarzenegger, though his likeness briefly appears digitally. Instead, it stars Christian Bale and Sam Worthington with Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard, Common, Michael Ironside, and Helena Bonham Carter in supporting roles. In a departure from the previous installments, Salvation is a post-apocalyptic film set in the year 2018. It focuses on the war between Skynet's machine network and humanity, as the remnants of the world's militaries have united to form the Resistance to fight against Skynet. Bale portrays John Connor, a Resistance fighter and central character, while Worthington portrays cyborg Marcus Wright. Yelchin plays a young Kyle Reese, a character first introduced in The Terminator (1984), and the film depicts the origins of the T-800 Terminator. After troubled pre-production, with the Halcyon Company acquiring the rights from Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar, and with several writers working on the screenplay, filming began in May 2008 in New Mexico, and ran for 77 days.

Terminator Salvation was released on May 21, 2009, by Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States, and by Sony Pictures Releasing under its Columbia Pictures label internationally,[3] and grossed over $371.4 million worldwide but received mixed-to-negative reviews. While originally intended to be the first installment of a second Terminator trilogy, these plans were canceled following the Halcyon Company filing for bankruptcy after the film's release. The franchise rights were sold in 2012 to Annapurna Pictures, resulting in Terminator Genisys, a reboot of the series, being released in 2015 with Schwarzenegger reprising his role.[4]

In 2003, Dr. Serena Kogan of Cyberdyne Systems convinced death row inmate Marcus Wright to sign over his body for medical research following his execution. Sometime later, the automated Skynet system is activated, becomes self-aware, and perceives humans as a threat to its existence, starting a nuclear holocaust known as "Judgment Day".[b]

In 2018, John Connor leads an attack on a Skynet base where he discovers schematics of human prisoners being incorporated as living tissue for a new Terminator: the T-800. John survives a nuclear explosion on the base, and proceeds to extraction. Following John's departure, Marcus emerges from the base's wreckage and begins heading toward Los Angeles.

John heads to the Resistance headquarters aboard a Los Angeles-class submarine and confronts General Ashdown. He reveals that the Resistance have discovered a hidden signal that they believe can shut down Skynet's machines, and plans to launch an offensive against Skynet's headquarters in San Francisco in four days, due to an intercepted kill list created by Skynet, which will eliminate the Resistance's leaders within the same time frame. John learns that he is on this list, including Kyle Reese. John realizes that Skynet has learned that Kyle will eventually travel back in time and become his father.[c]

Arriving at Los Angeles, Marcus encounters Kyle and a mute child named Star during a skirmish with Skynet's machines. Kyle and Star are subsequently abducted and taken prisoner by Skynet. Two Resistance A-10 airplanes are shot down while trying to intercept a machine transport. Marcus rescues downed pilot Blair Williams, and they make their way to John's base, where Marcus is wounded by a magnetic land mine. Attempting to save his life, the Resistance discover that Marcus is a cyborg, with a cybernetic endoskeleton and a partially artificial cerebral cortex. Although Marcus insists that he is human, John and his wife Kate suspect that Marcus has been sent to kill them, and John orders him to be executed. Blair helps Marcus escape. During the pursuit, Marcus saves John's life from Skynet's hydrobots and the two make a bargain: Marcus will enter Skynet's headquarters in San Francisco to help John rescue Kyle and the other prisoners if he lets him live.

John pleads with Ashdown to delay the offensive so he can formulate a plan to extract the human captives, but Ashdown refuses and relieves John of his command. However, the Resistance disobeys Ashdown's orders and instead awaits John's signal. Marcus enters the base, interfaces with the computer, and disables perimeter defenses so that John can infiltrate and release the prisoners. Marcus learns from Skynet that he was resurrected to lure John to the base; when the Resistance launches its attack, John will be killed, achieving Skynet's goal. The hidden signal that the Resistance received earlier is revealed to be a ruse, and Skynet uses it to track down and destroy the Resistance command submarine.

Refusing to accept his fate, Marcus tears out the hardware linking him to Skynet and leaves to aid John. John locates Kyle and Star, but they are ambushed by a T-800 Terminator. As Kyle and Star escape, Marcus appears and fights the T-800 while John rigs together nuclear fuel cells to destroy the facility. Marcus is outmatched and temporarily disabled until John comes to his aid, after which John is stabbed through the chest by the T-800. Marcus destroys the T-800 by tearing its head off and he, John, Kyle, and Star are airlifted out. John detonates the explosives, destroying the entire base.

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