Yes, I think it was a mistake to increase the size of Connors part, I think I heard somewhere that Connor was going to be a character in the peripheral with the war going on in the back ground and the story would be more focused on Marcus.

It seems that as Bale is such a “big star” (and he is in most cases bloody good) they had to give him more screen time. I wish they could have been braver and left him to T5 or 6.

Good action films with a good story tend to be focused and taught this one had too many subplots (bale was not needed and just ended up giving plot updates for the audience); a need to jump between them all the time and to scamper as fast as it could it could to the next big set piece.

I think the most distracting thing for me was the cutting of the film. It seemed so abrupt and harsh in places and other times comical. I might be wrong and it could have just been the cinema I watched the film in but the scene at the camp (which by way never seemed that scary as they NEVER showed what skynet was up to!) with the man climbing the wall. Robot….. Man climbing….. Robot shoots…… Man asleep on wall…….. Robot ………. Man…… Robot (again) Cuts to new scene. WTF! It just looked stupid like a double take or maybe it was my head overheating at this point.

Basically we need a re-edit for DVD/bluray not a director’s cut not a special edition. I know you cannot make a silk purse out of s sow’s ear (as they say) but someone needs to get all the material shot and lock themselves in a editing suite for two months then we may just may have something worth watching again.

Yea, McG…. wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt but the loony first ending (Marcus with Connors skin!?!?!) and the possible Sky net army travelling to London 2011 for terminator 5 makes me think we got off lightly. Perhaps someone behind the scenes is reining him in when ideas get too crazy!

http://chud.com/articles/articles/19577/1/EXCLUSIVE-WHAT-WENT-WRONG-WITH-TERMINATOR-SALVATION/Page1.html

I will never understand why the Terminator franchise was handed to the 2 hacks who wrote Catwoman. Everyone acknowledges that T3 sucked and then they get hired again to write T4. Then they re-write it on the fly to suit Bale. No wonder it was such a mess.

On the topic of time travel, there are a few rule sets that a narrative can use and I recommend the following site for the interesting but also sometimes confusing low down on the subject.

http://www.mjyoung.net/time/terminat.html

It seems that the future that we are seeing in Salvation is the time line brought about due to the meddling in the previous films, hence Connors “this is not the future my mother told me about” and Skynets technological research being more advanced.

I though Having Skynet talk to Marcus was a mistake, I appreciate that the image of the doctor was just a avatar but in that one scene Skynet lost all its mystique and dread ending up being a 2 dimensional baddie that gives its master plan away allowing for it to be thwarted.

Here’s to the extended cut as I have heard that there was a massive 40 minutes of footage not included so they could squeeze another showing in per day at the cinema. I am hoping that at least 20 minutes of that is “character building” footage which what was desperately missing from this film.
I want to give this new trilogy the benefit of the doubt and I keep reminding myself that although the Star wars prequels were (in most people’s opinion) not as good the first three, Revenge of the Sith was monumentally better than the Phantom menace aka “Muppets in space”.

I will undoubtedly go see the sequel, because I am a die hard Terminator fan, but I can’t imagine ever watching Salvation again.

I just saw “Terminator Salvation” a second time with some other friends who haven’t seen it before. It was still a fun & enjoyable film, here’s a few things I didn’t pick up on the first time I saw it -

1 – geeze, this whole film just really seemed like an introduction – it ended and my little brother turned to me and asked “that’s it? … that was just like watching long movie trailer, let’s get things started now …” – John Connor has his scar and is now looked at as the resistance commander, Kate’s pregnant, Kyle is idolizing Connor, there’s a little more proof that some terminators can be good (or are actually half human), and now the war/story can really begin … if this was all a set up for the next 2 films, then the next 2 films should be pretty amazing

2 – Christian Bale is perfect for this character – he has the fire/charisma inside him to play a very charismatic leader of men – the whole smoldering, just about to explode, intensity thing Bale’s got going is just what you’d expect of John Connor (a man should be incredibly paranoid right now, he’s got machines constantly being sent into his past trying to erase his existence, he’s been told that the machine he grows closest to is going to kill him, and he keeps against his better judgement growing attachments to different machines)

3 – Connor grows to trust and risk his life to save Marcus Wright, knowing that Wright is a machine (and oh yeah, SPOILER ALERT – who’s putting money on Marcus Wright coming back in this series again? all he needs is one thing, and suddenly the resistance has a kick-ass ally on their side)

4 – Kudos to Danny Elfman’s soundtrack by the way – I thought the music was better than usual, didn’t notice it the first time, but that was Tim Burton’s favorite composer

5 – Sam Worthington’s career prospects look really bright because of this movie (I don’t know why, but it seems like the Australians we bring over to Hollywood are always the man’s man type of actors that are getting rarer these days)

John could have had a different father initially. As for the photo… okay, you got me. :) As Captain Janeway says, one rarely gains by dissecting this stuff too closely.

I completely respect the choice to disregard all sequels to T1. But if you allow sequels, I think you’ve got to believe that the war is preventable.

“Well, in fairness, John did learn in T3 that he would be killed in the future by a T-800 who took advantage of his closeness to that model. Maybe he’s swung too far the other way, but you can understand why he’d want to cut off any emotional ties he might have to the machines. (The Sarah Connor Chronicles, incidentally, had an entire subplot devoted to the question of whether members of the Resistance might go out of their way to undermine Connor’s attachment to the “good” Terminators.)”

“I want to root for John Connor but here he’s kind of an out of control, self centered egomaniac. Why not give a scene or two of him struggling with how to deal with the machines? In T2, as Sarah Connor points out, Arnold’s terminator is the father John never had. Young John obviously loves the machine and cries as he orders him not to destroy himself. Bale’s John Connor is all rage and and hatred towards Wright’s man/ machine hybrid when he is the one who should have some compassion for him, not Blair. Speaking of Wirght, he is the more interesting character in this film. John Connor gets lost in it at several points. I can totally see now the additions Bale must have asked for. Apparently John Connor has to remind a pilot in the middle of a dogfight to make “Evasive maneuvers!” and “Bail out!”.”