The current issue of Entertainment Weekly covers a bunch of upcoming movies ("Star Trek", "The Day the Earth Stood Still", "Land of the Lost"...) that will be spotlighted at the upcoming Comic-Con. One of them is "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins", Starring Christian Bale as the adult John Conner. As a big fan of the first two Terminator movies (and I thought the third one was "okay"), I'm cautiously optimistic about this one. I thought the first season of Fox's "Sarah Connor Chronicles" was done very well and am hoping it returns. This new movie takes place in the future and deals with the John Connor-led war against the machines that is mentioned in the other movies and the TV show. IT should be interesting to see if this movie references the TV show at all (I have no doubt at all that it wil reference the other movies quite a bit--and Entertainment Weekly even mentions that Arnie MAY make a cameo--we'll have to see about that. Of course purists may not give a Cameron-less, Shwarzenegger-less Terminator a second look, but, like I said, I'm going to try to be cautiously optimistic as long as possible...

"Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins" at IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0438488/

And here's the trailer:
http://www.toxicshock.tv/news/2008/07/2 ... tian-bale/

The Terminator series was great, although Arnold was showing his age in the 3rd installment. I think we all know how the next one will end since it was foretold in the previous three. Maybe the terminators can win one for once.

I read that The Sarah Connor Chronicles will be back on FOX starting 9/8.

Cool. Thanks for the info CDF Fan.

I'm actually looking forward to this movie. It intrigued me whenever they would show flashbacks (or is that flash-forwards?) of this time period in the Terminator movies. And now we get a whole movie set in this time! Of course, it doesn't mean we'll see Ground HK Tanks and T-800 endoskeleton soldiers shooting laser guns, but here's hoping!

Haven't heard a whole lot about this movie lately. It comes out in May (it's shaping up to be a potentially big year for sci-fi fans). It seems like this should be a cool movie, though there are obviously a lot of factors that could spoil it (not the least is the fact that it's got a new director (McG), who I'm sure will put his own stamp on the flick (good or bad). Quote from the director in Entertainment Weekly: "I wanted to respect the audience, and be very mindful of the mythology. We take this very seriously."

Here's a new trailer that looks pretty cool--and check out the glimpse of the giant robot (terminator?) at the end. I don't know if that's messing with the story or anything, but it sure looks cool.

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi360907545/


And, as far as messing with the original Cameron storyline, I suppose being as how time travel is central to the "Terminator" storyline, it could be said that the future will look vastly different than the one depicted in the first three movies. Terminators and humans have been sent all over time between the first three movies and (especially) the "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" TV series. All that is bound to mess up something in the future (unless of course the future is set in stone). Hopefully it will all add up to a great movie come May (fingers crossed).


Here's the latest from Entertainment Weekly. The first page shows Christian Bale as John Connor and a T-600 terminator.

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20249045_3,00.html

Between this movie and the new Star Trek movie, I'm getting tired of time travel and alternate reality plotlines. This'll be the THIRD Trek movie that deals with time travel (fourth if you count the Nexus time loop in Generations). ENOUGH!

Anyone catch this yet? I may go next weekend.

I actually somehow managed to sneak out to a showing on Sunday. I almost NEVER see a movie during the opening weekend, but it just happened. I liked it, but have to admit that I was actually expecting it to be a little different. I'd like to hear what others think. It definitely has a different feeling from the first three (or at least the first two REAL ones) movies (which is both good and bad for fans of the originals). I think that, for all the hype and unintentional attention given to it because of Christian Bale's foul-mouthed rant, this movie has a distinct chance of getting lost in the sea of Summer Blockbusters that are in the process of being released. We saw how drastically "Wolverine" fell off when it went up against "Star Trek" in its second week. I just saw that "Terminator: Salvation" couldn't even beat the new "A Night at the Museum" movie for first place--not a good spot to be in with all the competition either already out there or about to be released...

I also should mention that it really wasn't a prime moviegoing experience on Sunday. I wasn't expecting to see it. The opportunity suddenly came up. I was tired and almost (gasp) fell asleep during the first part. This isn't a reflection on the movie itself so much as the simple fact that I was feeling very tired. Also, during a critical scene there was a huge storm outside with golfball-sized hail that you could clearly hear INSIDE the theater as it pounded the roof. Then there was a power surge that caused the screen to go dark while the audio continued (blown projector lamp or something like that). By the time it was back up and running the mood was broken...plus we spent the rest of the movie worrying that my friend's car was heavily damaged by the hail (it wasn't, but we didn't know that until after the movie). I should probably try to see it again, but don't know when I'll get the chance...

I think you should give the movie another chance as well, Col Manning. It sounds like everything was set up so you couldn't enjoy the movie properly; too many distractions. I mentioned to my friend John that it's out now, and we kinda agreed that yeah, we should see this...just haven't nailed down a specific day yet So it won't be long before I see it myself.

I caught it today not knowing anything beyond it taking place in the future and it being Arnie-less and I have to say I enjoyed it. Great action film that I think will do alright at the box office despite the lack of a major action star (I consider Bale more of an actor) but nothing ground-breaking. My major gripe with movies nowadays is the lack of risk-taking in the concept and story dept. which is the same issue I have with Star Trek and most recent pictures. I will say if you go in with no expectations which is easier to do with the Terminator series than Star Trek you will enjoy it. I have to take points away for not having one persistent threat like the other movies but I definitely give it points for casting, mostly for the actor (Chekov from the new Trek) who plays young Kyle Reese, an almost perfect likeness of Michael Biehn.
Another good point: not much shaky camera business!
I give this one a 7.5 out of 10, great summer action flick.

Finally saw this Wednesday night. There was a huge line of people waiting to see Transformers--I'll wait a few weeks for the crowds to die down before I see that.
Anyways, it was pretty much what I expected a Terminator movie to be, and it was entertaining enough--if you ignore the plotholes. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.
All through the movie though, I kept wondering which scene was the one in which Christian Bale had his infamous outburst in

You know, that's a VERY good question. I wonder if that's posted on the internet somewhere... And I have to admit that the thought of the outburst did indeed have an effect on my experience watching the movie. It didn't ruin the experience, but it just made it that much harder for me to suspend disbelief when I kept picturing John Connor spewing all that venom (and of course he was Christian Bale in my head, NOT John Connor--which kind of ruins the whole suspension of disbelief thing right off the bat).

i saw it today on the plane. i thought it was kind of dull. i really hated that john connor wasn't in charge of the resistance. it was just silly after hearing how he trained and united everyone only to see him taking orders from people on a sub.