Ep. 30 - Terminated! Part 3

This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] JJ: Hey, JJ. Hey, Olaf. Here we are again. School's almost done. I guess I gotta get out of my locker. I don't understand why you hate that so much. I'm just saying hello. Would you prefer that I'm like, greetings and salutations?

[0:30] Olaf: No, that would be worse. Yeah. What do they say in Demolition Man? Oh, and they do this thing where they don't actually say hello.

[0:36] JJ: Yeah, be well. Demolition Man on my guilty pleasures list, but we're not talking about that.

[0:39] Olaf: Something that brought me joy as a child.

[0:42] JJ: Something that brought you joy. Because today's topic is not that. We're going to talk about a couple things that bring us mostly just rage and disappointment.

[0:49] Olaf: Well, it's more disappointment for me. I feel like the rage maybe might be coming more from you, which is fine. It's going to be completely validated. It doesn't elicit that kind of emotion, but it's definitely disappointment for sure.

[1:06] JJ: Well, I don't have a lot of rage for these two movies because by now my spirit has been broken. So I'm more just exhausted and disappointed. So I got a lot of my rage out on part three.

[1:22] Olaf: And I feel like we've collectively decided we need to talk about these two movies because we've already talked about all of the other ones. So it's more about completing the series.

[1:33] JJ: It's not like them where they're like, we have to keep the series alive. We're just trying to end it.

[1:40] Olaf: But if you watch these, it kind of feels like that's what they're trying to do too.

[1:45] JJ: Well, I feel like they can't figure out what they're trying to do.

[1:49] Olaf: The problem is they're just trying to make money. Well, let's save all of this and let's go back to the movie theater.

[1:58] JJ: Today, we are going to talk about Terminator Gen Y-Sys.

[2:20] Olaf: Gen Y-Sys.

[2:22] JJ: One of the dumbest movie titles out there. And then Terminator Dark Fate, the final installment in the Terminator franchise as of right now.

[2:33] Olaf: Who knows?

[2:34] JJ: Who knows?

[2:35] Olaf: Yeah. So here we are and we're talking about these movies and they're not great.

[2:42] JJ: No, and I'm trying to think because last we left off, it was we sort of buttoned up Terminator Salvation was the one that came before this movie.

[2:51] Olaf: And there's like six year gap between Salvation and Genesis, the fifth movie, the fifth Terminator movie.

[2:58] JJ: Don't call it Genesis.

[2:59] Olaf: Gen Y-Sys.

[3:00] JJ: They can't spell it correctly for whatever reason. There is no reason to spell it the way they did.

[3:08] Olaf: I'm trying to think. Was there some sort of...

[3:10] JJ: No.

[3:11] Olaf: No.

[3:12] JJ: No, there wasn't.

[3:13] Olaf: I don't know.

[3:14] JJ: I just rewatched this last week.

[3:16] Olaf: So did I. And they make no reference to why they got really clever with it.

[3:19] JJ: It's just spelled that way.

[3:20] Olaf: So I felt like Salvation, we had a really good conversation on why, how that movie could have been better than it was. And it wasn't a bad movie.

[3:30] JJ: I felt like even the franchise itself, because you and I watched Salvation together years ago, and even on a rewatch, I still enjoy that movie.

[3:40] Olaf: Yeah, it's passable.

[3:41] JJ: The same cannot be said for the movie we're going to be talking about right now.

[3:47] Olaf: Yeah, we're going to start off with Terminator Gen Y-Sys. It is spelled G-E-N-I-S-Y-S.

[3:57] JJ: Oh, I thought the Y was in the middle.

[3:59] Olaf: No.

[4:00] JJ: Oh, it's G-E-N-I-S-Y-S. G-E-N-I-S-Y-S.

[4:02] Olaf: Yeah.

[4:03] JJ: I got it. Okay.

[4:04] Olaf: There's no real reason for it. And yeah, it's dumb.

[4:07] JJ: Okay.

[4:08] Olaf: This came out in 2015. It has a meta score of 38, which that's about right on.

[4:16] JJ: Rotten Tomatoes has it as a 26%. But here's the kicker. The audience score, 52%.

[4:24] Olaf: Okay, look, I thought you were going to tell me something higher. Half? Okay.

[4:29] JJ: That's pretty high. I mean, you got 30s and 20s, and then all of a sudden we're in the 50s. So I don't know.

[4:38] Olaf: Okay.

[4:39] JJ: That seems a bit much for me. It's directed by Alan Taylor, who doesn't have the best record.

[4:47] Olaf: He directed Thor, The Dark World, which the majority of people dislike in the Marvel Universe.

[4:55] JJ: It's definitely at the bottom.

[4:56] Olaf: And then he's done mostly just television and HBO television.

[5:01] JJ: Yeah.

[5:02] Olaf: The cast, we've got Arnold Schwarzenegger back.

[5:05] JJ: I don't have a problem with some of this casting, by the way. Emilia Clarke, I'm not to steal your thunder, Emilia Clarke is Sarah Connor.

[5:11] Olaf: Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones is Sarah Connor. And honestly, she's all right.

[5:17] JJ: I thought she did, because she's the only other actress to play this character, right? Nobody's ever played Sarah Connor except Linda Hamilton.

[5:25] Olaf: Well, if we're just counting movies.

[5:26] JJ: Right. That's what I'm saying.

[5:28] Olaf: Because Lena Headey played...

[5:30] JJ: In the TV show.

[5:31] Olaf: In the TV show.

[5:32] JJ: Right. You're right. And I liked her also Game of Thrones.

[5:35] Olaf: Yeah.

[5:36] JJ: I thought Emilia Clarke did a serviceable job as Sarah Connor.

[5:42] Olaf: Yes. I thought she tried really hard to find that intensity that Linda Hamilton brought to part two and overall was in the ballpark.

[5:53] JJ: Yeah. She was definitely in the area.

[5:56] Olaf: JK Simmons is also in this, but he plays a character that really doesn't exist.

[6:01] JJ: Yeah. He's a throwaway.

[6:02] Olaf: He's a throwaway, so he's fine. He's entertaining for the little bit that he's involved in.

[6:08] JJ: Right. It's interesting that I can almost compare his character to the therapist character in the first two movies.

[6:15] Olaf: Kind of.

[6:16] JJ: Like a character that's in there, except he believes and he's on their side, but he's kind of that type of character.

[6:23] Olaf: And I think he would have been if this had continued on.

[6:27] JJ: Yeah. They would have brought him back.

[6:28] Olaf: Because they clearly were trying to make more movies based off of this one.

[6:33] JJ: Correct.

[6:34] Olaf: And that did not happen.

[6:35] JJ: Right.

[6:36] Olaf: Jason Clarke is John Connor.

[6:39] JJ: And I like Jason Clarke.

[6:40] Olaf: I really like Jason Clarke. He's done a lot of great stuff.

[6:43] JJ: I like him a lot. Yes.

[6:45] Olaf: He is so miscast for John Connor.

[6:49] JJ: The only thing that they got right as far as him and John Connor.

[6:54] Olaf: Is the scar?

[6:55] JJ: Is the scar.

[6:56] Olaf: That's it.

[6:57] JJ: Because other than that, you get no sense of the kind of guy.

[7:02] Olaf: He's the hero soldier that saves the humanity.

[7:05] JJ: Or even based off what you've seen in the past.

[7:09] Olaf: You see a shot of John Connor in the future in Terminator 2.

[7:15] JJ: Yeah.

[7:16] Olaf: And he's all grown up and he's got the scar.

[7:18] JJ: He's got the scar.

[7:19] Olaf: That's where we established the scar.

[7:20] JJ: And then you see Eddie Furlong as a kid version.

[7:24] Olaf: Right.

[7:25] JJ: Which there's such a gap, you can be like, okay, yeah.

[7:27] Olaf: Sure.

[7:28] JJ: He can become that.

[7:29] Olaf: And then you get Christian Bale, who he did a pretty good job.

[7:32] JJ: He did a great job.

[7:33] Olaf: And he ended up with the scar.

[7:35] JJ: And he gets the scar at the end.

[7:37] Olaf: So if they hadn't taken this movie in the direction that we're going to talk about, I can totally buy your approach or your feelings towards the miscasting of Jason Clarke.

[7:49] JJ: Because I, too, also really like Jason Clarke.

[7:52] Olaf: I've always been – I always like it when I watch something and he's in it.

[7:56] JJ: I'm like, oh, he's always going to deliver.

[7:58] Olaf: Yeah.

[7:59] JJ: He's going to show up and give you what you need.

[8:02] Olaf: Right.

[8:03] JJ: Exactly.

[8:04] Olaf: Not for this movie.

[8:05] JJ: And I feel a lot of that is because of where they took the John Connor character.

[8:10] Olaf: But even before they take him there – spoiler – he turns bad.

[8:15] JJ: And I only spoil it now because just like every single Terminator movie trailer that has come out since Terminator 2, they ruin the plot twist in the trailer.

[8:24] Olaf: And it's like, why would you do that?

[8:27] JJ: It makes no sense.

[8:30] Olaf: I hate it when trailers do stuff like that.

[8:34] JJ: I feel that piece of information.

[8:36] Olaf: And the Terminator franchise has done it consistently.

[8:39] JJ: Yeah.

[8:40] Olaf: Yeah, they have.

[8:41] JJ: I don't get it.

[8:43] Olaf: They did it for Terminator 2.

[8:45] JJ: I don't think there was a plot twist in Terminator 3.

[8:48] Olaf: No, there wasn't.

[8:49] JJ: They did it in Salvation.

[8:50] Olaf: They did it in this one.

[8:52] JJ: Yeah.

[8:53] Olaf: Yeah, yeah.

[8:54] JJ: No, I know.

[8:55] Olaf: It's unfortunate that they choose to do that.

[8:58] JJ: And I'll agree that at the beginning when we're sort of in the familiar timeline of, oh, this is John Connor, and he's defeating the machines in the future with Kyle Reese, it is kind of hard to buy that he's the hero.

[9:14] Olaf: Yeah.

[9:15] JJ: Because he's playing it more – well, whether he's playing it more or not this way, Jason Clarke to me comes across as an intellect.

[9:22] Olaf: Yeah.

[9:23] JJ: It's not just that he's playing it as an intellect, but he's just playing it as this calm, laid-back, I just know what's going to happen, so I'm not concerned.

[9:34] Olaf: Right.

[9:35] JJ: I agree.

[9:36] Olaf: There's none of this intensity of I am the savior for the human race leading all of you and defeating Skynet.

[9:44] JJ: Right.

[9:45] Olaf: There isn't this intensity that he most likely would have developed after Terminator 2 and being raised by Sarah Connor.

[9:54] JJ: And this brings a question up that I have that which we can get into right after you finish the rest of the cast.

[10:00] Olaf: Yeah, we haven't finished the cast yet.

[10:05] JJ: We mentioned J.K. Simmons, Matt Smith from Doctor Who and a bunch of other movies and some other not great movies.

[10:16] Olaf: He just plays a version of Skynet.

[10:19] JJ: I guess.

[10:20] Olaf: Sort of.

[10:21] JJ: It's kind of confusing.

[10:23] Olaf: And then we have Lee Byung Hun who plays the T-1000.

[10:28] JJ: You've also forgotten.

[10:30] Olaf: No, no, no. I have not forgotten because that's the worst one.

[10:34] JJ: Right, right.

[10:35] Olaf: Okay.

[10:36] JJ: Lee Byung Hun, he does his best job at playing a robot.

[10:41] Olaf: At playing Robert Patrick.

[10:42] JJ: No, at playing a robot.

[10:44] Olaf: Well.

[10:45] JJ: He doesn't come close to anything that Robert Patrick does.

[10:48] Olaf: I know, but it's almost like Robert Patrick is the standard, you know, the T-1000 from Terminator 2.

[10:54] JJ: It is sort of the standard of like, oh, this is what we're kind of going to model this type of character off of.

[11:01] Olaf: Lee was given this role mainly to appease the Chinese audience to make more money.

[11:07] JJ: Yeah.

[11:08] Olaf: Which I don't have a problem with ethnicities taking over roles.

[11:14] JJ: Don't have an issue with that.

[11:15] Olaf: Though I will say that Robert Patrick's T-1000, when it came to the past, he already looked like Robert Patrick.

[11:24] JJ: He didn't assume the appearance of the copy killed.

[11:28] Olaf: Right.

[11:29] JJ: If the Terminator always looks like the Terminator, wouldn't the T-1000 always look like the T-1000?

[11:36] Olaf: Only if the actor playing the Terminator T-1000 can still look like.

[11:41] JJ: Unfortunately for Robert Patrick, he does not age well.

[11:45] Olaf: Time has not been kind.

[11:48] JJ: Time was much more generous to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's been able to play this longer than maybe he should.

[11:55] Olaf: But Robert Patrick, God bless him, did not age well.

[11:58] JJ: Look, nobody's going to beat Robert Patrick as a T-1000.

[12:01] Olaf: So I already know that Lee's got uphill battle.

[12:05] JJ: But he really comes off as just kind of playing a robot and less a T-1000.

[12:10] Olaf: Now, there are times where you can see him trying to do his best impression.

[12:14] JJ: Sure.

[12:15] Olaf: Of Robert Patrick doing the T-1000.

[12:17] JJ: But in the end, he's not even tasked.

[12:20] Olaf: He's not.

[12:21] JJ: Spoiler alert, he's in only the first 10 minutes, 15 minutes of the movie.

[12:24] Olaf: It's not like he has to carry this character for two hours.

[12:29] JJ: If I was directing the movie, I'd be like, look, a lot of people have been waiting to see a T-1000 again.

[12:36] Olaf: Really?

[12:37] JJ: I don't know if I was really anticipating.

[12:39] Olaf: My thing is, no other Terminator villain has been as good as the T-1000.

[12:46] JJ: I agree.

[12:47] Olaf: But a lot of it has to do with Robert Patrick.

[12:49] JJ: So to bring back the T-1000 would be great.

[12:53] Olaf: Sure.

[12:54] JJ: Well, then they end up eliminating him in 10 minutes.

[12:56] Olaf: I can buy the T-1000 not looking like Robert Patrick. I just ask that you do a good job of playing the character that you made.

[13:04] JJ: I don't think he did a bad. Here's the thing. I have no problems with his characterization, his choices. It was just generic.

[13:12] J.J.: He's but he's only in 10 minutes. I mean, he's not even the main spoiler. He's not the main villain.

[13:17] Olaf: Yes, I know that they get rid of him in 10 minutes.

[13:19] J.J.: It's like okay the first 15 minutes of the movie are the only good parts, but we haven't gotten there yet.

[13:25] Olaf: I was saving the good stuff for last. Oh, sorry. Oh my gosh. Well, it's hard when the good stuff's at the beginning.

[13:33] J.J.: Yeah, so Lee Byung-hun is RT-1000 and then last and definitely least we have...

[13:42] Olaf: Jai Courtney. I think it's Jai Courtney. I think he pronounces it J. Is he J? I've always heard it as Jai.

[13:48] J.J.: Oh, is it Jai? Okay, I don't know. I could be wrong, but that's how I've never heard it any other way.

[13:53] Olaf: Oh, I've always heard J, but who knows?

[13:55] J.J.: Well, Jai or Jai Courtney is Kyle Reese and look, I don't have a problem with Jai Courtney. I really don't. He's done some other movies that I've enjoyed. His Captain Boomerang is amazing. Just fantastic. I wish he was able to do more with that character.

[14:15] Olaf: I liked him in, was it the Jack Reacher, the Tom Cruise? He was in the first one.

[14:22] J.J.: Yeah, as the villain. Yeah, he was good enough. He couldn't have been more miscast as Kyle Reese and it's honestly, I feel like the movie tried as little as possible to even come close to representing Kyle Reese as he's been represented in the past. Like he is nothing like Michael Biehn.

[14:39] Olaf: He's nothing like Anton Yelchin who was a fantastic younger version that I could see becoming Michael Biehn. No, he's this big kind of brute guy who isn't really behaving anything like...

[14:54] J.J.: The Kyle Reese we know.

[14:55] Olaf: Well, no, he's so going back to the beginning now where we're talking about not believing that Jason Clarke is John Connor as the savior of humanity, you know, in the beginning because you're right. He almost like knew how it was all gonna play out. So he was really calm and collected. He knew how to defeat him and knew he had like all of the answers.

[15:22] J.J.: Yeah, where you get Kyle Reese in this movie almost playing the John Connor character type, the soldier, the rough... I mean, you know, he's rough around the edges, but not rough around the edges like Michael Biehn was rough around the edges.

[15:36] Olaf: No, he seemed... Michael Biehn played this character so well because you felt the history. You felt that this guy grew up in this gruesome future war. He's lived on rats and any other thing that they can eat and they're constantly just being hunted. He's tough, but wiry and...

[16:03] J.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. He's not big.

[16:05] Olaf: He's got the weight of the world on his shoulders and you know, he's going back because he loves this woman. So you have all of that. You get none of that with Jai Courtney. He could play a Terminator. He's big and built. He doesn't seem to have any kind of sense of weight as far as what he's been through.

[16:26] J.J.: So let me ask you this because I feel like a lot of these things we're mentioning about the characters, the John Connor character, the Kyle Reese character, even Sarah Connor's character, all of the things we know about these characters from T1, from T2...

[16:38] Olaf: Mm-hmm.

[16:39] J.J.: They choose per the script to actively say we're not gonna... we're gonna totally flip it and create this alternative 1984 that then maybe dictates how all of these characters are gonna be, even from a performance standpoint.

[17:04] Olaf: Yes, I'm not giving them a pass.

[17:07] J.J.: So you're sort of right in the sense that, yeah, the studio is like we're gonna change stuff. The thing, the issue I have is Jai Courtney's Kyle Reese, nothing has changed for him until the moment the timeline changes and that's not until he runs into the T-1000 and then is rescued by Sarah Connor.

[17:30] Olaf: Right. Until then he is Michael Biehn's Kyle Reese.

[17:35] J.J.: Nothing, nothing for him has changed. Everything except that he's having memories of... that doesn't happen until the weird time displacement and the Skynet attacking, which happens as he's going to 1984, right? But he's still not... he's never Michael Biehn.

[17:54] Olaf: Oh, he's never Michael Biehn's here. No, I know you're right. I mean, and that's when you watch the first Terminator and you get to see Michael Biehn in his current time in the war zone with the picture because of the execution of that first movie, all of those pieces fit and it makes sense and then you are pulled into his emotional attachment to Sarah and all that. I get it.

[18:29] J.J.: That being said, again, I've mentioned this a second ago, the first like 15 minutes of this movie are actually pretty good. I'm invested now.

[18:39] Olaf: Until he goes back. No, okay.

[18:43] J.J.: I wanted to talk about the bad stuff first, but that's not happening. So we're gonna talk about the good part of this movie. Okay, here we go. 'Cause you will not...

[18:54] Olaf: You know, you're like, yeah, let's get into that.

[18:58] J.J.: Okay, here we go. So the only real good part of this movie is the first 15 minutes. The movie starts and it opens, we're in the future war and honestly, they do a really good job of recreating the idea of what the future war looked like based on James Cameron.

[19:16] Olaf: Right, and it looks really good. Now, is there a little bit too much CGI in it?

[19:21] J.J.: Yeah. Do the majority of T-800s that you see look fake because they're all CGI? Yeah, there's a couple shots where they actually use practical ones and those look good. But overall I enjoyed it because I'm like, okay, we're out of the sunshiny desert that we had in Salvation that was so incorrect and that was... but it was also like...

[19:44] Olaf: No.

[19:46] J.J.: Because here's the thing, here's the thing, and I didn't mention this the last time, but in Salvation it wouldn't have looked like that because everything got nuked, so there wouldn't be bright sunny days. It would be dark all the time. Like what James Cameron had going, we would see T-800s walking around and we would see all that stuff and there'd be all the skulls and everything. It wouldn't be this just empty desert.

[20:14] Olaf: So...

[20:15] J.J.: Anywho, we finally get a good view of the future again at the start of this movie and like if you just forget about the portrayal of John Connor and Kyle Reese, if you just kind of like let that slide, you can enjoy it and you're like, okay, cool. All right. Hey, that's John Connor. Hey, okay, Kyle Reese. Okay, if that's what you're trying to say, fine. Okay, I don't really buy that, but I'm liking the other stuff that I'm seeing and then they're attacking Skynet. You see all the fairly familiar stuff even though they've gone through some minor changes because the studio's like we just want to put our own spin on it and, you know, not just have it look the way it should because it's been established. Whatever. Okay, fine.

[21:04] Olaf: But then you get to see in silhouette the T-800 with the flesh and everything, yeah, go into the time displacement. It looks fantastic. You see him disappear and then we kind of, we get a view of what it might have looked like with the human resistance deciding to send their own person back, right? Like I didn't mind that so much. Again, I have to kind of ignore the performances of the actors.

[21:31] J.J.: I agree because even before they send Kyle back, you know, Clarke again to me plays it very intellectual. Yeah, like he's not this rough, gruff guy. He's like, you know, you're gonna see she's gonna need your help and I need just very smooth. He's not rough around the edges like we want him to be. So I just kind of suspend that and just look at what the filmmakers are trying to do and I'm like, okay, well, I like this. That's cool.

[22:00] Olaf: And then he starts his time displacement to go back and that's where we get a little bit of a change because Matt Smith shows up and attacks John Connor. We don't... I'd say we don't know what happens, but the trailer already told us what happened, right? Which is ridiculous because we don't see Jason Clarke again for, I don't know, 20 minutes, 25 minutes.

[22:28] J.J.: No, no, he shows up probably maybe about that. Yeah, it may be a little less.

[22:32] Olaf: Yeah, but anywho, now we are back at the first Terminator film timeline, '84, and they recreate shot for shot the opening of Terminator.

[22:44] J.J.: Yeah, CGI doesn't look amazing.

[22:48] Olaf: I loved it. Yeah, I was like I am in. This is great. Yes, I want to see how this plays out. Okay, cool.

[22:58] J.J.: And it's shot for shot. It looks fantastic.

[23:00] Olaf: It looks good. And then we get our Arnold versus Arnold fight, which is okay. It's not amazing, but it's still cool. I was like cool, but as an... I am like what is happening?

[23:12] J.J.: That's how I was like, well, you're like, how did he get there? Are you all this stuff? Yeah. But you know, we'll get to that. At the moment I'm just like wow, that's... this is cool. This is cool. All right, cool.

[23:24] Olaf: And you know that fight ends and now we jump back to Kyle Reese who shows up and again with some minor changes, they're still doing shot for shot of when Kyle Reese shows up in that term.

[23:38] J.J.: Yeah, the only difference is now he's interacting with the T-1000, but he still gets away from him, goes into the same dressing department store, gets the same shoes, same shoes, same shot of the shoes, all that stuff. So that was great. And even with the T-1000 hunting him, I'm like, all right, we're in the Terminator, the first Terminator timeline, but we have a T-1000 from Terminator 2. Okay, this is interesting. He's not Robert Patrick. We've already established that. That's a shame, but you know, I'm still in, right? And now he's bumping into the cops.

[24:12] Olaf: Right, he originally had that. Turns out one of them was a young J.K. Simmons, right? We find out later.

[24:19] J.J.: Yeah, so I've been into it and then Sarah Connor shows up and saves him and you're like, oh, okay. What's happening now?

[24:26] Olaf: Yeah, and then we're in the van and it all goes to hell and it really starts with a stupid joke and it's that stupid joke that makes no sense is...

[24:37] J.J.: The mark of when this movie just...

[24:41] Olaf: Yeah, it really is because you're hoping that whatever explanation they're gonna give you isn't the one that they give you.

[24:47] J.J.: Like the one that they don't even give you an explanation.

[24:51] Olaf: Well, they don't, but they try to like sort of lead you down this path and you're kind of like going, I don't... this doesn't... this is not a good way to go. I don't know any of these things we're doing here. So the plot of this movie, I mean, the title of this movie is so dumb. I didn't realize there was one. I'm sorry, the plot of this movie is so convoluted and ridiculous that from this point on that we've just been talking about, they have to work so hard to put so much exposition in just to try to make sense of what's happening.

[25:28] J.J.: And that's the studios going, well, we have to make Terminator relevant still.

[25:33] Olaf: Mm-hmm. Well, we're just gonna bump up Judgment Day.

[25:36] J.J.: Yeah, it just keeps changing. And so I agree because even at the very, very, very beginning, it shows you these flashes of memory of like Kyle Reese as a kid and in the Sarah... it shows you certain things at the very beginning. You're kind of like, okay, well, we'll get to that in a minute.

[25:54] Olaf: Oh yeah, we'll get to that later, which...

[25:57] J.J.: That's one of the few things that they do answer. We do get to those, which still doesn't make sense to me.

[26:03] Olaf: No, but at least you got an answer to that because a couple times in this movie the question is posed, who sent the current Terminator that is protecting Sarah back to...

[26:15] J.J.: 1972, yeah, whatever.

[26:19] Olaf: When Sarah Connor is a kid, when she was a little girl, who did that? Nobody knows. Nobody knows.

[26:25] J.J.: It's never answered. Now granted, I know they were trying to make multiple movies. So maybe they would have answered it.

[26:30] Olaf: Yeah, but I think that was too big of a risk to take in trying. They were way too confident in this movie, which makes no sense because at some point in the making of this, somebody had to go. This is not good. This is bad.

[26:45] J.J.: Yeah, it just it's like when Mission Impossible made Jim Phelps the bad guy. Some of the audience was like, I don't like this. The OG TV show audience was like, I don't like this. For me, that's how I felt when you find out John Connor is a bad guy. I was like, why are you choosing to do this? I get you trying to like, turn it on its ear, shock value, fine.

[27:09] Olaf: They're really going, what haven't we done?

[27:12] J.J.: Yeah, yeah. And how can we again, how can we make this still relevant? Now, the idea of making Skynet changing in the name, whatever, but that everything is linked. Everybody's got their phone linked to their computer linked to their work. I can still buy that. I can buy because that's happened.

[27:32] Olaf: That's happened now.

[27:34] J.J.: And that was essentially Skynet then. Right. I mean, it was always this AI that was linked to everything, except in the past, it was just defensive stuff that caused the attacks.

[27:47] Olaf: Right.

[27:48] J.J.: This time, it's everything. It's a complete, it's like a dark horse infiltrate.

[27:52] Olaf: Right.

[27:52] J.J.: So I could appreciate that part of the story.

[27:57] Olaf: Sure.

[27:57] J.J.: But everything around that and the execution of that is just not good.

[28:04] Olaf: Yeah.

[28:04] J.J.: They're just throwing stuff at the wall, seeing what sticks. They're forcing a lot of jokes. There's so many jokes in this and none of them work.

[28:14] Olaf: No, they're all bad. None of them feel natural or they all feel out of place.

[28:20] J.J.: Well, it's just you're right. She's like, you're supposed to come back and save this little girl. I'm not that girl. How would she even know what that who that is?

[28:31] Olaf: Yeah.

[28:33] J.J.: So we're watching this movie. Not a whole lot's been explained to us, other than we got to see the beginning of the first Terminator movie and then suddenly the T-1000 from Terminator 2 is there. You're like, okay, I don't know how that happened. But we find out in the movie that when Sarah Connor was a kid, she's hanging out up at her cabin at Big Bear, which was a thing established in the first Terminator movie. She's out on the lake with her dad and all of a sudden a T-1000 is there to kill her.

[29:09] Olaf: Right.

[29:09] J.J.: And before the T-1000 can kill her, the Terminator shows up with a rocket launcher and somehow takes him out or at least stops him enough for him to see it, for him to kind of like casually walk away with her.

[29:24] Olaf: Right.

[29:24] J.J.: Because you see a shot from behind of someone dressed up in black leather walking away with Sarah Connor in one arm and a spent rocket launcher in the other. So then we're like, well, who sent.

[29:38] Olaf: Right.

[29:39] J.J.: That's what I want to know. That's what the audience wants to know. Who sent the Terminator? Who sent the T-1000? How did the T-1000 and the Terminator know to go there? Because if you've watched the first Terminator, the Terminator doesn't even know where Sarah Connor is. He had to go down the list of names in the phone book. It just so happened that there were only four of them. And Linda Hamilton's was the fourth. If she was the first, that movie would have ended real fast.

[30:07] Olaf: We wouldn't be talking.

[30:08] J.J.: Yeah. So there's all these questions about how they knew to go there, why they were sent there. But now we have a Sarah Connor that's raised by a Terminator. So I can understand her like rough and ready kind of attitude, but I don't understand how she knows everything.

[30:25] Olaf: Or that she knew that there was this, that he was waiting for you.

[30:30] J.J.: This Terminator shouldn't know about the 1984 timeline or the 1992 timeline, which they also tried to go to until Jai Courtney with his new memories said, no, no, we got to go to 2017.

[30:45] Olaf: They were going to go to 1997 to stop, to stop judgment day.

[30:52] J.J.: But you're right. I mean, they don't explain what I can say, what I guess weird. They just thought, oh, these things, we're going to mention these things, but we're not going to explain it because the audience, that's not important.

[31:03] Olaf: It's not important.

[31:04] J.J.: The audience is going to be too busy watching the spectacle to wonder. And honestly, I think they just thought the audience is dumb.

[31:14] Olaf: Yeah.

[31:14] J.J.: And that's, I don't understand why studios still do that. Dumb the audience, dumb down the audience, because especially with a intellectual property like this one, when you have like generations of people now that kids that are now adults that are like sort of like, okay, yeah. And then you, you sit down and you're going, what do you, do you think I haven't seen these other movies? You don't, you just think I forgot about this franchise. And I'm just coming in here willing to accept whatever it is you're going to give me.

[31:43] Olaf: Yeah.

[31:44] J.J.: And then another thing about this movie that bothers me, they're running away from the bad John Connor. Okay. And they're on the roof of the police station.

[31:51] Olaf: Yeah.

[31:51] J.J.: Which is like a skyscraper.

[31:58] Olaf: Yeah.

[31:58] J.J.: And it has a helicopter.

[32:05] Olaf: Right.

[32:05] J.J.: Which they get in and Jai Courtney just knows how to fly. There aren't really helicopters in the future war because that's such an easy target for the machines to destroy. And he grew, he grew up in the future war. He wouldn't know how to fly a helicopter.

[32:25] Olaf: But hold on in salvation. They are flying helicopters.

[32:29] J.J.: Yeah. And he gives you that throwaway line with John taught me how to fly. They do such this, they try so hard to connect Kyle and John together and make that sort of the attachment a little too hard.

[32:45] Olaf: It really bothered me that Jai Courtney was an ace helicopter pilot.

[32:50] J.J.: Oh yeah. In a world where his time in the cockpit of a helicopter is next to nothing.

[32:59] Olaf: Well, again, again, that one, that one to me, especially at that point, at that point in the movie.

[33:06] J.J.: I'm not even done.

[33:08] Olaf: I'm not even done with this sequence.

[33:11] J.J.: Well, and we can continue because at that, but for me, at that point in the movie, the fact that he could fly a helicopter, it didn't matter. I mean, I was like, whatever.

[33:19] Olaf: And that's, that's what the studio was hoping for.

[33:22] J.J.: But the studio is hoping for it. We've ground them down. They don't care. The studio is hoping that we won't care because we're so into the movie that because we like it so much.

[33:31] Olaf: I didn't care because I didn't care anymore.

[33:35] J.J.: But here's the other thing that bothered me. John Connor shows up in another helicopter. Where was that? There was one helicopter on the roof.

[33:45] Olaf: I don't remember a stat, an establishing shot of a second helicopter so that we know.

[33:51] J.J.: Yeah. He just shows up in another helicopter. Now he's flying it great, but I can buy that because he's a robot.

[33:58] Olaf: Because he's a machine.

[33:59] J.J.: Yeah.

[33:59] Olaf: Yeah.

[34:00] J.J.: But it makes all of a sudden like in most buildings, especially skyscrapers, if they even have a landing pad for a helicopter.

[34:11] Olaf: L.A.

[34:13] J.J.: Yeah.

[34:13] Olaf: Yeah.

[34:15] J.J.: And now this takes place in San Francisco.

[34:18] Olaf: I mean, I mean, I'll give him a pass on that.

[34:20] J.J.: What we've sort of glossed over quite a bit is Arnold Schwarzenegger as Pops, which is.

[34:32] Olaf: Yeah, I will say this.

[34:34] J.J.: Nauseating.

[34:35] Olaf: His turn as the Terminator in Genisys is pretty bad.

[34:41] J.J.: It's awful. It was almost like he kind of forgot how to be the Terminator. And then you also just have the sense that he's also surrounded by all these people that are making a different kind of Terminator movie.

[34:54] Olaf: Yeah, I mean.

[34:55] J.J.: So nothing, nothing gelled and his interpretation of his own character didn't gel. It was like he was doing like a bad impression of himself.

[35:04] Olaf: Well, it's almost like he even he as the actor and the character didn't know what was going on. Like nobody, nobody explained it to him either.

[35:12] J.J.: Well, it doesn't make any sense to anyone. So he's his character, because remember now the Terminator he's playing in this movie isn't the Terminator from '84 or the Terminator from '91. So it's a totally different Terminator who's been on the earth and on the in for one by the time we meet him 12 years, 15 years and then another 40 because and he's still this he hasn't evolved.

[35:40] Olaf: He hasn't learned.

[35:43] J.J.: Well, he has evolved. He tells he tells jokes and he does something that for whatever reason studios have latched on to and think it's the best thing ever. And it's what the fans want is they latched on to a deleted scene from Terminator 2 where Arnold tries to smile and it's so bad that they cut it out of the movie and it makes sense why they would because it's not good.

[36:12] Olaf: Granted, it does reappear in the director's cut and I still don't like it.

[36:19] J.J.: But now all of a sudden they always want to throw this joke in where the Terminator smiles and he does it a couple times in this movie. And none of them and none of them are good.

[36:28] Olaf: No, it doesn't.

[36:30] J.J.: It doesn't. And that's the joke that he's bad at it.

[36:33] Olaf: And that Kyle Reese has to like react to it.

[36:36] J.J.: And that's the joke.

[36:39] Olaf: His whole function in this movie like there was a part of me when they had to go back to they're going to decide to go to 2017, right? Because, you know, we got to make it relevant. I'm like, oh, he's by himself then for like 30 years.

[36:52] J.J.: Yeah.

[36:53] Olaf: And that's a story. That's a story that I'd be interested in seeing. What is he doing from '84 to 2017?

[36:59] J.J.: That's what I got. He joined a construction crew and helped build the thing that they're going to tear down.

[37:04] Olaf: Right.

[37:04] J.J.: And then he got laid out conveniently because he somehow knows about that, even though at this point when they're going to jump in time, he doesn't know about that.

[37:14] Olaf: No, but that's something that's a new timeline.

[37:17] J.J.: Right. But that's something that he figures. I mean, as he's living, he finds out.

[37:21] Olaf: Okay, that's fine.

[37:23] J.J.: I think the only interesting thing that happens to Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in this movie is at the very end he gets resurrected because he falls into a vat of liquid metal.

[37:35] Olaf: Right.

[37:36] J.J.: And he's upgraded. So the idea of his character now having some liquid metal abilities.

[37:43] Olaf: Yeah.

[37:43] J.J.: Similar to the Terminator three villain. I'm like, that's sort of interesting. One again, another set up through a possible if we're going to make another one, there's an end credit.

[37:56] Olaf: Yeah, I know.

[37:57] J.J.: And it's it's so they didn't get rid of him anyway. They didn't do what they set out to do, which was and they never do.

[38:05] Olaf: Right.

[38:05] J.J.: And they never do. So, yeah. So that's this movie. Ideally, this movie, as we are both aware, didn't do well. The audience didn't reject it, but we didn't embrace it either.

[38:17] Olaf: No.

[38:17] J.J.: And it was not well received to the point where the studio is like, well, that's not happening anymore.

[38:24] Olaf: Yep.

[38:24] J.J.: We're done with this.

[38:25] Olaf: Yeah.

[38:25] J.J.: They were like, I don't know why they didn't like this. What part didn't they like?

[38:31] Olaf: Yeah.

[38:32] J.J.: All of it.

[38:33] Olaf: All of it.

[38:34] J.J.: Didn't like any of it. We don't have to wait too much longer, like between this movie and then Terminator Dark Fate. There's only a four year gap, but we get the news a year before that because I got to shoot the movie that they are going to go back to the well here and see if they can do something again with Terminator.

[39:08] Olaf: Terminator Dark Fate had an advantage when it was announced that it was happening. Not only were they like Tim Miller's involved and he was the director of the first Deadpool.

[39:20] J.J.: Right.

[39:20] Olaf: He hasn't directed a lot of stuff. He's mostly known as an executive producer on most things.

[39:26] J.J.: But not only was he involved in Deadpool, we liked Deadpool.

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[52:50] J.J. Gonzalez: In their defense and to their credit, like when we see Linda Hamilton on the bridge, it's nice to know that she's still Linda Hamilton, she's still Sarah Connor from the second one. Mind you, she's even more jaded than before, right? And you know, tortured by the loss of her son, even though at this point she has literally become the Terminator.

[53:10] Olaf: Yeah, like in T2 she was becoming a Terminator, but she's stopped herself and John Connor also helped her see the way, right, not become a Terminator herself, right?

[53:25] J.J. Gonzalez: Right, but now that's all she is. She just hunts down Terminators, and they never explain how she gets rid of them. Like she says, "Yeah, I get these coordinates and then I go to these places and I get rid of the Terminator," and then I wait again and it shows up with her rocket launcher and her shotgun, which apparently is enough.

[53:44] Olaf: Until now.

[53:48] J.J. Gonzalez: Until a particular version. Yeah, so we get this timeline split now. It's now an alternate future. The technology is different, it's more advanced, and it's Legion, even though things still look relatively similar. I mean, it's LA. I mean, they're basically just staying up with the times of what's happening. They're like, "It's different but the same." And now Gabriel Luna shows up as the Rev-9 instead of the T-1000 slash the T-3 bad guy, Terminatrix version. I forget what her T-X, T-X something, maybe just the TX. I think that's all they could muster up for the third.

[54:30] Olaf: So look what they took what T3 did, and they just said, "Well, what if it's just a turn, the liquid metal can come off of that, right? Just do its own thing."

[54:41] J.J. Gonzalez: So I didn't have any issues with Mackenzie Davis with Grace. There were moments where I thought Linda Hamilton was forcing things a little bit from an acting standpoint, but that's just being very nitpicky. Overall, this is a much better movie than the last one. It's just I did not like Grace's obstacle.

[55:02] Olaf: Oh, the fact that she needs water and medications and stuff. The augmented soldiers apparently are only designed for a short burst to kill a Terminator because if they don't kill it quickly, they're dead anyway, right?

[55:16] J.J. Gonzalez: So it's essentially like a kamikaze pilot.

[55:21] Olaf: Yeah, I mean, yeah, you have a certain amount of time to do your job. If not, it's like every mission's a suicide mission. And then even if you do kill the Terminator, you've used up all of your energy, so you're gonna die anyway.

[55:34] J.J. Gonzalez: Well, unless you've got the resources, which I didn't know she knew how to find those resources in a world that is different from where she came from. She can just go into a bodega and be like, "I need all this stuff."

[55:49] Olaf: Well, which by the way, when they go into the little medicals, put it into the pharmacy, she shows up with the gun, she just starts grabbing stuff. But you see there's little time of like she's scanning. She's doing her augmented scanner. I'm gonna give her a pass on that. I'm not gonna be overly critical there because there are times where she's literally just like, "Yeah," hands are just pulling stuff.

[56:12] J.J. Gonzalez: So I'm trying to, I was just watching this movie, I was trying to put my finger on what exactly it is that prevents me from really embracing this movie as not an equal to the first two because nothing would be, but just as a good addition to the franchise. I feel like there's always the potential to create something that is equal to the first two. It just hasn't happened, and this hasn't happened for four attempts.

[56:39] Olaf: Well, that's because you've had all the wrong people doing it for all the wrong reasons. It's always like, "We just want to make money. We want to force this franchise to do a thing so that we can cash in."

[56:52] J.J. Gonzalez: Well, now in this particular movie, though, I know this is the close ones. This one, I think they've actually tried to do something, but you know, you're still having studio interference. It's still not James Cameron at the helm.

[57:07] Olaf: So let me ask you this. We get to the end of the movie, credits roll. Were you feeling okay?

[57:13] J.J. Gonzalez: I feel like what they've done in this movie is good enough. I'm willing to see what else happens.

[57:23] Olaf: No, okay. I was not. I mean, like, yeah, I can't see. Well, they didn't leave it really that open for what's next. Sarah and Danny live, but that's it. Grace didn't make it, right? Arnold's Terminator, they went out of their way to be like, "This is it. We gotta get rid of them. I'm done."

[57:43] J.J. Gonzalez: Because he even says, "I won't be back."

[57:51] Olaf: Yeah, he even says that. And then I didn't mind his final fight with the Rev-9 and destroying the Rev-9, but his last words of "For John," I didn't, it felt corny and forced.

[58:02] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, it didn't, I don't know. He'd already said "For John" so many times with his text messages and writes and stuff that I'm just like, maybe you should have said something like "For Sarah" or "For you."

[58:17] Olaf: Yeah, there was, it was almost a bit of a stretch for me to buy that once he killed John, now he's a cuddly teddy bear. He has no purpose, and then he finds purpose. Like he's sitting around somewhere, and then he sees the guy beating up on Alicia, so he goes and saves her. Like what? Those things, like the last movie were more intriguing to me. Like what's he doing?

[59:01] J.J. Gonzalez: Once your programming has completed, then what? He's got no objective, right? You can't time-travel back.

[59:10] Olaf: And that's the thing. We haven't seen anything like that where a Terminator gets eliminated, gets as a robot. Like you've just completed your mission. You killed John. Would you just stand there?

[59:18] J.J. Gonzalez: And I mean, shut down and just walks away.

[59:24] Olaf: We don't know which when it happens.

[59:30] J.J. Gonzalez: You don't think about the fact that, well, where are you going?

[59:34] Olaf: Yeah, 'cause you shouldn't even know where you're going now, right? And maybe that's what happened 'cause he's in Guatemala.

[59:41] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, but I mean, if you think about it, with the first Terminator, he had a little home base. He had a really crappy motel room.

[59:49] Olaf: Well, he had the motel room because he hadn't completed his objective yet.

[59:54] J.J. Gonzalez: I know, but that you, so maybe he was, maybe he could go back there. Maybe too. I don't know, at least turn off or something, right?

[1:00:05] Olaf: Maybe he was on his way to do that, and then he saw, and then he sees them, a domestic dispute.

[1:00:11] J.J. Gonzalez: And then, yeah, which I didn't really buy. I'm like, as a robot, you would see these people in distress. It's not your objective to save anybody.

[1:00:23] Olaf: It's not your objective to save anybody. You haven't learned any kind of empathy, right?

[1:00:30] J.J. Gonzalez: Or anything. Again, that's, I mean, we're talking about, I need, first of all, he's introduced into the movie an hour in.

[1:00:37] Olaf: Yeah, and then we have to, we're not gonna spend too much time on exposition on why, so we're hoping that you'll buy this five-minute story that I'm gonna tell you and move on because that's not why we're here.

[1:00:49] J.J. Gonzalez: Anyway, they're like sort of married, and he's raising this kid, and at one point Linda Hamilton's like, "How does that work?" And he's like, "We do not have a sexual relationship. I wouldn't have a physical relationship. We don't have a physical relationship."

[1:01:06] Olaf: He goes, "She liked me because I could change diapers with minimal complaint and efficiency. I was a good listener, and I got a great sense of humor."

[1:01:19] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, but then you have to wonder at what point is this lady like, "Was he gay?"

[1:01:28] Olaf: All of that stuff, even now, because I just watched it again, I was like, "Whatever, this is not what a Terminator movie."

[1:01:36] J.J. Gonzalez: You're right. I mean, it just creates a lot of questions.

[1:01:40] Olaf: Well, I mean, but not nearly as many as the last movie that I know are even more important.

[1:01:46] J.J. Gonzalez: I understand those questions from the last movie, but we're talking about this movie. So this would have been so much easier if he still gave the same story about saving the woman and the kid, but then they died. It also would have been easier for him to have just been hiding out in a hut in the mountains as our Terminator.

[1:02:05] Olaf: Yeah.

[1:02:06] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, I didn't buy it.

[1:02:09] Olaf: To try and, yeah, and that's why this doesn't hold up is the story doesn't hold up.

[1:02:14] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, no, I agree. There's something about the first, the simplicity of the first movie and then the amazing, almost perfect execution of the second movie that none of these movies, this one, probably the closest, and it's by a mile. They're still so far away.

[1:02:30] Olaf: I mean, I would say this one and Salvation are...

[1:02:34] J.J. Gonzalez: Yes, I agree, but it does have some decent action set pieces.

[1:02:39] Olaf: Yeah, and it has better characters.

[1:02:42] J.J. Gonzalez: Yes, the casting is a lot better. Danny, it's fine.

[1:02:46] Olaf: She's alright. I feel like her character arc is a bit rushed.

[1:02:51] J.J. Gonzalez: Well, I mean, when you think about the first movie, it's like, "You're Sarah Connor. You're gonna give birth to the leader of humanity."

[1:03:01] Olaf: Yeah, but we don't see most of her arc. A lot of her arc happens between Terminator 1 and 2.

[1:03:07] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, the stuff we don't see. We see her grow as a person and as someone who has strength and courage in the first Terminator, but she's still got a long way to go.

[1:03:17] Olaf: She's still relying on Kyle to save her, and you know.

[1:03:21] J.J. Gonzalez: So do you feel like in this movie Danny gets to that place of strength?

[1:03:26] Olaf: Yeah, way too fast.

[1:03:29] J.J. Gonzalez: Maybe she's basically being her future self by the end of the movie. You see some signs of that at the beginning. She works late, she's like, has to wake up her brother, she's the one who's making breakfast for her dad. She's already doing the...

[1:03:41] Olaf: Okay, but that's, I mean, we're talking about waking your brother up to get to work on time and make sure your dad does this.

[1:03:46] J.J. Gonzalez: I'm gonna go talk to your boss for you. I'm gonna stick up for all of these workers.

[1:03:51] Olaf: She's there are certain things she wasn't this meek. I'm gonna go out like in the first movie. I got a, you know, yeah.

[1:04:01] J.J. Gonzalez: Okay, well then she needed to completely change the way she reacted to stuff when the Rev-9 first shows up. Like she should have just suddenly been like, "Oh, okay, I got to take care of this."

[1:04:10] Olaf: No, no, because she didn't. And now we're all of a sudden at the end of the movie, we're like, "Okay, now I'm Sarah Connor. I'm a badass."

[1:04:17] J.J. Gonzalez: Well, that's because she had Sarah Connor with her then, which is what Sarah Connor didn't have in the first one. She had Kyle Reese, but look what happened to Kyle Reese. Danny has the OG. She's got Sarah Connor. She better get there quicker.

[1:04:30] Olaf: It was too fast.

[1:04:32] J.J. Gonzalez: Anyhoo, anyhoo, that is Dark Fate. I'm glad that this one came at the end and not the reverse.

[1:04:39] Olaf: Like I'm glad we were left with this one as opposed to the fifth one. It ended on a slightly better note.

[1:04:46] J.J. Gonzalez: I mean, writer note. Yeah, not a great note. No, but it's much brighter.

[1:04:52] Olaf: Well guys, we finally did it. We got through all of the Terminator franchise, and it's a shame that it has to be such a grind because the first two were so good.

[1:05:01] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, but I never imagined that Terminator 2 would be the end, so I always had hoped that there would be more.

[1:05:06] Olaf: Yeah, I just really thought that it would be handled better. I really thought that James Cameron would have continued on with it.

[1:05:12] J.J. Gonzalez: But yeah, we always have the first two.

[1:05:16] Olaf: And so here we are.

[1:05:17] J.J. Gonzalez: And so does everybody else. Here we are. We're at the end, and we can say goodbye, and thankfully, it wasn't as bad as if we had finished with Genisys.

[1:05:26] Olaf: So guys, thanks so much for listening. We hope you enjoyed listening to us talk about this.

[1:05:33] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, catch us wherever you catch your podcast, Back to the Movie Theater. Until then, to be continued.

[1:05:40] Johnny Clay: Back to the Movie Theater is hosted by J.J. Gonzalez and Olaf Adzit, produced by me, Johnny Clay. J.J. Gonzalez and Olaf Adzit, theme song and incidental music by The Dimes. Visit us at bttmtpodcast.com for trivia, play-alongs, merch, and more. That's bttmtpodcast.com. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok, and find us on YouTube at Back to the Movie Theater with J.J. and Olaf.