Ten years ago today, we finally got to see the "future war" between man and machine, that was only glimpsed at for approximately three minutes in the greatest sequel of all time, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day"(just don't tell "Aliens" and "The Godfather Part II", I said that). With a brooding, gun-toting, buzzcut-sporting Christian Bale, hot off the mammoth success of "The Dark Knight", installed as the adult version of the venerable John Connor, the stage was set for a serious relaunch of the rollicking franchise, created twenty-five years earlier by James Cameron. It was not to be. It's easy to point the finger at "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" director McG, and I'll be doing plenty of that, but the movie gods just weren't on the side of this sequel/prequel in the summer of '09. If you'll remember, Michael Bay's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" was released a month later, to rule with $402 million domestically compared to the relatively paltry sum of $125 million for "Salvation". Neither movie is great, but the passage of time has revealed Terminator 4 to be the better product, and in this context, that's a belated victory. Once the hype subsided, Transformers 2 became a reviled film, the encapsulation of everything we hate about Bay's hollow, bloated, bombastic style of aggressively commercial filmmaking. That doesn't retroactively let "Salvation" completely off the hook, but I'm here to explain why it deserves more consideration than it got from fickle fan-boys during Obama's first year in office.
McG wasn't the right guy to lead the Human Resistance, that much is universally agreed upon. A glorified music video director, his absence from the world of blockbuster cinema in the 2010s confirms that he just wasn't cut out to follow in the footsteps of Cameron, Ridley Scott, or even one-time rival Bay. In fairness, Joseph McGinty DID put together a nice cast, though. Sam Worthington was about to headline the decade's biggest blockbuster, and the "Avatar" connection should have meant more than it did. The late Anton Yelchin gave us a teenage Kyle Reese, whose eventual rise alongside Connor could have been interestingly explored in the sequels that got cancelled. Similarly, Bryce Dallas Howard never got a chance to flesh out John's wife Kate Brewster, a "T3" character with a ton of potential(Howard's role in the "Jurassic World" franchise hints at what might have been). Common and Moon Bloodgood LOOK bad-ass as hardened Resistance members(isn't that a "Terminator" requirement?), while Michael Ironside's ineffective early leadership had the makings of a savory subplot. Damn, I wish this movie could be remade with an R-rating and a Marvel director(not Alan Taylor).
I guess the real purpose of this blog is to try and inject some positivity and optimism into a film series that I've loved since I first saw Arnold blow away every Sarah Connor in the phonebook. "Dark Fate" is a do-or-die, last-chance reboot, and it remains to be seen what impact the REAL Sarah Connor, Linda Hamilton will have this November. It's important to make peace with the past before we proceed into the unknown future, and accept "Salvation" as a satisfactory entry in a long-running saga(save your slander for "Genisys"). Today's twentysomethings might not fully understand that the first two films are landmarks in the sci-fi action genre. If nothing else, "TS" fill in the blanks of the mythology. There's no shame in not living up to a pair of James Cameron epics. The fourth "Terminator" is also better than the fourth "Alien" and the fourth "Indiana Jones". How about that? Love live Skynet, even though there's a robot rolling around at my other job right now. The War is on. Join the Resistance.
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