I don't know what to make of T3.

[Glenn X]

My gut tells me that it's probably going to suck (to paraphrase Paul Simon, "Where have you gone, James Cameron? Terminator fans across the nation turn their lonely eyes to you. [Woo, woo, woo.]"), but this trailer sure kicks @ss.

http://www.terminator3.com/domestictrailer/

[Skins24]

Either way, it's going to make alot of money on name alone...

[NASMTrainer]

Ever since I got the Sony Grand Wega 60" LCD TV and the (pieced, not boxed) Boston Acoustics Surround Sound. I don't even go to the Movies anymore. I wait for the DVD. If the movie does suck, well, 2.99 is all it cost me.

[KevinthePRF]

It's looks better than the Matrix Reloaded which I saw(and I'm not old either)

All I know is the TX better show up naked like the first two or I'm going to want my money back.

[AJWatson3]

i don't know about t3 either. the previews look pretty damn cheesy to me. the only one that i saw and liked was the preview before reloaded... the tv spots are horrible...

i loved the first terminator... the second one was pretty cool too, and it seems like the new one is going to be t2 with a chick. i just don't know where this franchise can go. but i suppose if they can make the movie and rake in $200millin they won't give a $hit how original or engrossing it is. and damn, when will ahnuld quit with the action flicks and make "jingle all the way II"???? he has lost it.

[WallyG3]

I wasn't too impressed with the trailer. You can totally tell when they are using "digital actors" in stead of real ones. I don't want to be able to tell the difference. I had no idea how many "digital actors" were in Attack of the Clones until I saw the bonus DVD. I'm not talking about the aliens, I mean the humans. A good special effect is one you don't notice.

[Riggo-toni]

Digital actors suck!

Is Cameron directing this one?

He did such an incredible job with Aliens (#2), then soembody elese did the third one, and it SUCKED. Same thing will probably happen if he's not doing this one. He seems to be the only guy who can put out decent sequels. But hey, what would I know - I'm over 30....:doh:

[Gamebreaker]

I had an eerie feeling it's going to suck too. It took watching the previews two times for that feeling to really sink in. The first time I was too deep in denial to accept it.

[Tarhog]

I believe Cameron is the Executive Producer. But the Director (sorry, name eludes me at present) is the same guy who did U-571, that awesome sub movie a year or so ago. That gives me hope this will not disappoint. T2 was one of only a few sequels that (IMO) surpassed the original.

Then again, my objectivity may be skewed from recent screenings of 'Daddy Daycare' and 'The Lizzie Maguire Movie'....

[Glenn X]

Back when I first heard that they were making T3 -- making it without writer-director James Cameron and with a pushing-60-years-old Arnold Schwarzenegger -- and I was bemoaning the fact that Arnold had lost it (Exhibit A: Collateral Damage; Exhibit B: The 6th Day; Exhibit C: End of Days) and that I couldn't believe that they were making another Terminator movie after all these years, a friend of mine asked me, "Glenn, do you want T3 to suck?"

"No," I replied. "In fact, I hope it's good. Really good. I mean, who the hell wants to go and see a sh*tty movie, right? If it's good, great. However, I have this sinking feeling that it won't be. If Cameron were still involved, I'd be majorly psyched right now because if anyone could do another Terminator movie and make it worthwhile, it's Jim Cameron. But he's not involved, so who cares?"

As a result, I made a promise to myself to stay the hell away from T3. I don't need to subject myself to another Alien 3 or Beverly Hills Cop III type of cinematic disaster, thank you very much.

However, for those here who are planning on seeing it, I'd greatly appreciate hearing what you have to say about it when it's released. If it turns out that enough people here have enough positive things to say about it, I might just reverse field and decide to check it out.

P.S. Tarhog, as previously stated, Cameron is in no way associated with T3. Arnie kept trying to sweet talk Cameron into doing another Terminator movie for about three years during the late '90s, but the director kept flatly maintaining, "I made my Terminator swansong with T2. I took the characters and the storyline as far as they could be taken with T2. There's nothing more to say cinematically. I'm done."

However, Gale Anne Hurd, Cameron's ex-wife and the producer of T1 and T2, has received an exec producer's credit on T3. But that's really nothing more than an honorary and symbolic gesture to Hurd by T3's makers because she agreed to sell them her one-half share of the prequel & sequel rights to the Terminator franchise, thus paving the way for them to be able to make T3. (Orion Pictures originally owned the other one-half share of these rights, which was then purchased by now-defunct Carolco Pictures, and then subsequently re-sold during a post-Carolco bankruptcy fire-sale to the company that would become T3's primary production partner, C2 Pictures... which is headed, ironically, by the same duo who once ran Carolco, CEO Mario Kassar and producer Andy Vajna. [is your head spinning yet? Yeah, mine too. ])

However, Hurd really had nothing to do with T3 in any appreciable way. She's just a tossed-in name in the credits. For better or worse, T3 is really the product of other people: producers Mario Kassar and Andy Vajna, screenwriters Teddi Sarafian, John Brancato, and Mike Ferris, director Jon Mostow, and star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

P.P.S. KevinthePRF, if you want to catch a pretty niiiice glimpse of the Terminatrix in her birthday suit, look no further than the international theatrical trailer.

http://www.terminator3.com/internationtrailer/

[Tarhog]

Thanks Glenn....IMDB gave Cameron a screenwriting credit for 'T3', but it appears you're correct, not involved in any way. In light of Cameron's ego, I'd keep his point of view in perspective until I see the film....you never know....might surprise. I'll definitely see it and let you know.

[Glenn X]

Originally posted by Tarhog

IMDB gave Cameron a screenwriting credit for 'T3', but it appears you're correct, not involved in any way.

He'll receive a "Characters Created By" credit on T3, which is standard WGA (Writers Guild of America) procedure on a sequel when the original film's screenwriter, the person who created the characters, settings, and dramatic situations drawn upon for the sequel, is not involved.

Originally posted by Tarhog

In light of Cameron's ego, I'd keep his point of view in perspective until I see the film.

Ego grows on trees in Hollywood. It's an occupational hazard. But more than that, it's a necessity for those who want to succeed in a town that's all about compromise.

Remember a fellow by the name of Hitch****? He had an ego that could reduce studio execs, set dressers, actors, et al. to piles of quivering mush in a matter of seconds.

Or how about Oliver Stone? His on-set tirades are legendary.

Cameron's own egomaniacal tendencies are perfectly in line with this grand Hollywood tradition, Tarhog.

But seriously, my beef with T3 has little to do with Cameron's view of the film, pro or con. (BTW, Cameron has never had anything negative to say about T3 publicly. In fact, all he's ever said was that he couldn't bring himself to do another Terminator movie because he had no personal interest in doing so. However, if someone else wanted to take a crack at it, let 'em have at it, he said.)

For example, Cameron has recently gone on record as saying that he's less than enthused about 20th Century Fox's upcoming Aliens vs. Predator flick, but I could care less. I'm looking forward to it. As I see it, it probably won't be anywhere near as good as Cameron's Aliens, but it'll probably be a helluva lot better than Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection. And right now, that's good enough for me.

Anyway, my beef with T3 boils down to the fact that it renders T2, a film that I adore, meaningless.

If NORAD's implementation of Skynet, the malevolent artificial intelligence that aims to rule the world, and the coming of Judgment Day (a.k.a. WWIII) are gonna occur anyway, then what the f*ck was the point of T2? What was the point of a grizzled, tough-as-nails Sarah Connor, her ten-year-old son, John, and a reprogrammed killing machine from the 21st century all going on a spectacular and dangerous mission to end Skynet's nascent existence and, with it, the looming threat of nuclear annihilation if their efforts were ultimately going to be for naught? What the f*ck was the point of them subjecting themselves to all that peril, with Schwarzenegger's character perishing in the process, if it was all gonna finally amount to jacksh*t?

This is the kind of narrative problem many filmmakers face when they make a sequel to a film like T2, a film whose ending was intended to be absolutely, positively final.

Okay, so Skynet somehow reemerges for a third go 'round. Cyberdyne Systems somehow recovers the data on Skynet that was supposedly lost when Sarah, John, and the Terminator blew Cyberdyne's lab and corporate offices to kingdom kum in T2. Or something like that. So what's gonna happen in T3? Are the good guys, a 20-something John, his pretty girlfriend (Claire Danes), and a long-in-the-tooth Terminator, gonna prevail again, forestalling nuclear winter once more?

Even if they do, so what?

What's to prevent an unwitting Cyberdyne Systems from somehow resuscitating bad ol' Skynet again for a fourth go 'round?

Or a fifth?

Or a sixth?

Or until Arnie's pushing up daisies?

As Stallone has learned the hard way, when you come down with sequelitis, not only does it often prove to be damn near incurable, you also tend to very quickly lose sight of whatever it was that you were initially trying to say with that first movie.

Of course, I could be wrong here. I hope I am.

I mean, it's not like the second and third installments of the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard franchises, respectively, were exactly necessary from a dramatic standpoint, however, they were rather clever, kicked @ss, and proved to be very enjoyable.

I hope the same scenario plays out on T3... but I'm not banking on it.

Originally posted by WallyG3

I wasn't too impressed with the trailer. You can totally tell when they are using "digital actors" in stead of real ones. I don't want to be able to tell the difference. I had no idea how many "digital actors" were in Attack of the Clones until I saw the bonus DVD. I'm not talking about the aliens, I mean the humans. A good special effect is one you don't notice.

With all due respect, Wally, if you couldn't instantly tell that you were watching a veritable video game up there on the silver screen when you saw Episode II, you need to get your eyes checked.

In fact, in both Episode I and Episode II, there were many times that I felt as if somebody from Skywalker Ranch had screwed up and accidentally sourced the wrong material -- like a demo of an extended video game "cut scene" from one of LucasArts' myriad Star Wars games -- into the finished films. And this was more than just digital "people." This was digital everything: digital grass, digital mountains, digital sky. And oftentimes all of it in one shot or one whole scene.

With frequently little more than greenscreen backgrounds and tennis balls attached to sticks (which are used for actor eyeline matching on characters to be superimposed into the film later, during postproduction) for his cast to interact with, it's no wonder that George Lucas got such wooden performances out of his flesh-and-blood performers. :doh:

At any rate, I like to pine for the good ol' days of painted-by-hand mattes, optical FX with expertly crafted, highly photorealistic miniatures, and in-camera make-up FX (in other words, excellent pre-digital era FX techniques) as much as anybody. But the reality is that CGI, for better or worse, is here to stay. And from what I saw in the T3 theatrical trailer, from "liquid metal" morphing FX to an army of computer-generated endoskeletons, I didn't detect much to complain about.

Besides, even if they are CG endoskeletons, they're eminently cooler looking than those CG "roger, roger" robots from Episode I or even (dare I say it?) the CG Storm Troopers of Episode II.

[phanatic]

Ok heres my take. When the kid in T2 told the terminator not to kill anyone I shouted "Oh come on man that's BS". And yes I was in the theater. So if this film is nothing but special effects without the harsh realities of death, then I'll be disapointed.

[Glenn X]

phanatic, surely you recognize that young John was the Terminator's moral compass, the heart to Schwarzenegger's Tin Man. If Arnie had been allowed to go around hollowing everybody out with his Winchester rifle, it would've become exceedingly difficult for any thinking, feeling moviegoer to root for them, as they would've been just as morally bankrupt as their foe, the T-1000: without compunction with regard to the killing of innocents, sometimes mere bystanders, who stood in the way of desired goal(s).

[88Comrade2000]

Actually, T4 is on the drawing board. Whether that becomes reality, it depends on t3's box office.