LUCIDMEDIA

On Dubious Expectations for Terminator: Salvation

Written by Adam A. Donaldson Thursday, 21 May 2009 13:39

The Terminator is one of Hollywood’s most recognizable franchises, but it’s also one of its most temperamental. With four movies spread over 25 years, it’s always seemed like the next Terminator film was just over the next horizon. But of the three sequels following the original film released in 1984, only one it can be argued, measured up to the weight of fan expectations. Truly, Terminator II: Judgment Day was one of the rare sequels that not only matched the original, but surpassed it. But if Judgment Day was perfection, then Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was decedent. So, where does that leave the forth film in the series: Terminator: Salvation.
First, let’s look back at what came before. The Terminator was the epitome of storytelling simplicity; it was Spy Vs Spy, it was the Herculean 12 tasks, it was Man vs Machine. According to legend, the idea came to filmmaker James Cameron while he was doing post-production on Piranha II: The Spawning, the making of which was also a nightmare. Terminator II didn’t get going till seven years later, with Cameron returning to past success after the release of his first true commercial failure, The Abyss. But it was a litigious free-for-all that kept the third film off the books for so long. The bankruptcy and sell-off of assets of Carolco sparked a furious legal battle over ownership that was only resolved in 2000.

As one of its most bankable properties, anyone that owned The Terminator was bound to make a mint on merchandising and sequels. It was already a forgone conclusion that Cameron wouldn’t be back following the success of Titanic, and his wife of the time Linda Hamilton, who played “Mother of the Future” Sarah Conner, said that if Cameron wasn’t back, then neither was she. But all studios needed was the main ingredient, the man who despite the years and the half-hammed attempts at broad family comedy was still synonymous with The Terminator: Arnold Schwarzenegger. With Ah-nuld on board, anything was possible, which makes this new film a perilous one for the franchise: the first without that ubiquitous Schwarzenegger quality.

Hard to believe then that Schwarzenegger wasn’t Cameron’s first choice for the killer robot from the future; that honour was Lance Henrikson who instead ended up playing one of the movie’s ill-fated cops. Schwarzengger’s physical presence and still developing mastery of the English language made a believable Terminator where you could almost see the machine underneath. To the contrary, his nemesis Kyle Reese, a human soldier also from the future played by Michael Beihn, was kind of lanky and filled an air of righteousness and incorruptibility. From right off, as much as you believe that The Terminator would kill Sarah Conner if he got the chance, you also believe that Reese would die to protect her.

Embodied in that dynamic are the two, most important themes of The Terminator and at least its first sequel: death and love. Humans are capable of both, almost in equal measure. Another theme in the films is inevitability. In any time travel story the point of going into the past is to change the future either intentionally or through unintended consequence. In Terminator it’s kind of both because while the evil computer system SkyNet sends its assassin into the past to alter its present, it actually sets up the exact circumstances that lead to its own creation, and defeat. John Conner, saviour of humanity in the war against machines and the son of Sarah and Reese, would never have been born had Reese not gone into the past to save Sarah Conner.

Self-fulfilling prophecy is always an interesting storytelling device, but Terminator takes it up a notch. Basically everything comes to pass: Reese conceives John with Sarah, the remains of the Terminator become the building blocks through which SkyNet is created and Sarah heads off to raise John with the intent of training him to be the future leader of mankind. Except the seeds of change are also now sewn, as followed up in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. By knowing the date of Judgment Day, the date that SkyNet launches a nuclear attack on its enemies: humanity, it changes the game because if you know when a disaster happens, you can prevent it.

But not so fast, another key theme in the Terminator franchise is escalation. In T2, SkyNet roles the dice with another jaunt through time to eliminate John Conner, this time when he’s a boy by using the shape-shifting T-1000. Made of liquid metal, the T-1000 could take on the appearance of anyone he touched and could “morph” his hands into various stabbing weapons. In response, the human army sends a T-800 to combat the improved, evil Terminator rather than a human agent. Then, in Terminator 3, SkyNet spares nothing by sending the highly advanced T-X back in time to eliminate Conner and his chief lieutenants just prior to Judgment Day.

It’s a solid plan, and a solid plot to hang the film on as well, but what was missing was that sense of escalation. The T-X is basically all gimmick because it looks like a woman and is cable of doing, well, just about anything. In T2, the T-1000 had viable limitations, but the power of the T-X seemed limitless. Also, why send the same old T-800 to combat that? I mean beyond the fact that that’s the character played by your star? But seriously, no upgrade love for the Arnold version Terminator? (Although a deleted scene in T3 reveals why all the T-800s look like a former Austrian body builder. Or do they?)

I’m not sure if James Cameron had any of the subtexts here discussed in mind when he made his movies, but I’m reasonable certain that’s why they’ve resonated as classics more than Rise of the Machines. While I think nearly everyone appreciated that the end of T3 didn’t pull punches by delivering the Judgment Day ending, the first and second Terminators still constituted a complete story that didn’t need any elaboration. And the third film’s justification, saying that Judgement Day was just inevitable, really seemed kind of lame. The result for a lot of fans was just a feeling that money men and studio bosses saw dollar signs and followed their instinct to get them.

I think that’s the primary concern in seeing Terminator Salvation; will it deliver on the promise and rich character work of Cameron’s films, or will it put the focus on action and explosions and terrible puns like T3. McG (real name Joseph McGinty Nichol) was not the first (ideal) choice in fans minds to direct, and certainly nothing in his background as a filmmaker (Charlie’s Angels 1 & 2 and We are Marshall) says he was the right choice. But then again, all Cameron had to his credit before Terminator was Piranha II, so there you go. Certainly, McG made some smart choices in getting name screenwriters like Jonathan Nolan, Anthony E. Zuiker, Shawn Ryan and Paul Haggisto do a polish on the script, but it remains to be seen what translates from page to screen, especially with so many cooks in the kitchen, as it were. I guess we’ll find out starting today whether this is the start of a whole new era for The Terminator, or a confirmation that the best is behind us.