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Terminator - Dark Fate


Uncle Buck

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On October 24, 2019 at 7:48 AM, Outpost31 said:

That is exactly what I was hoping was not the case. 

I don't know why it's so hard for action movies to write legitimately likable heroines.  Literally the easiest way is to put a normal woman into an extraordinary situation and watch her rise to meet those circumstances.  It is literally as simple as watching Alien, Aliens, Terminator, Terminator 2 and doing the same thing. 

You do NOT bring an extraordinary woman (the human/machine hybrid) and put her into an ordinary (for her) situation.  That is not good writing literally by every established method of good writing.  You do NOT bring a super experienced woman into an ordinary situation for her (Sarah Conner). 

If you look back on this page this is exactly what I have been griping about the entire time. 

You bring Sarah Conner back.  Perfect.  Wonderful.  Give her a defect.  It's literally that simple.  But no, she comes back as this cocksure, arrogant, "Terminator hunter" pro.  That is a crock of ****.  Then you add this human/cyborg hybrid.  How is that building strong, likable heroines back? 

Terminator - Innocent, inexperienced, normal every day woman suddenly has a ****ING CYBORG HUNTING AFTER HER THAT IS UNKILLABLE.
Terminator 2 - Sarah Conner struggles with her mental health and her fractured relationship with her son and an unhealthy obsession with stopping the apocalypse.  She is extremely damaged, and yet she overcomes it.
Terminator - She is now a badass who does this for a living and it's totally normal for her. 

Even Halloween, which is a franchise I definitely do not like, gets the concept.  Laurie Strode or whatever her name is suffers from PTSD and it strains her relationship with everyone.  Only when facing her literal demons does she rise above her issues, confront them and defeat them. 

It is so Goddamn simple to write good female characters in an action/horror setting and yet ever since about 2010, Hollywood has failed miserably.  Although I'm generally alone in this, I have loved everything about the new Star Wars trilogy except for their terrible writing of Rey.  She is the best example possible of a Mary Sue. 

It was the same for Mad Max: Fury Road.  They literally brought in feminists to fix this story and they made it worse for the female characters.  Imperator Furiosa is a Mary Sue if there ever was one.  You don't take away her leg and somehow make her a developed character.  Then they had women literally throwing themselves at a sexually abusive and possessive monster.  It's like... HOW IN TF is that empowering at all? 

Terminator 3 and all the other ones were equally terrible on their female characters and it's disgusting. 

Give me 150 million and the rights to Terminator and I will make a fitting conclusion to the trilogy.  These ****ing morons in Hollywood are so out of touch with reality, with fans and with how to write a ****ing movie it's a miracle Hollywood isn't dead right now.  The only reason they're not is because, as much as they say otherwise, people don't care at all about quality in storytelling or writing, they just care about spectacle. 

Ugh.  I'm glad I saw this review.  For a moment - very brief - I had talked myself into actually going to see this movie in theaters. 

I am so disappointed I could cry. 

Just wanted to say Mad Max Fury Road was amazing. And if feminists were actually somehow involved in the story according to you, then I'm glad they were :D

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Then they had women literally throwing themselves at a sexually abusive and possessive monster.  It's like... HOW IN TF is that empowering at all? 

They did that to increase their quality of life in a horribly messed up, post apocalyptic society.

I generally agree with your entire post though. Just think there is more nuance to Fury Road. I thought the good lady tribe at the end was cringy though.

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On 10/23/2019 at 8:03 PM, devils1854 said:

58% on Rotten Tomatoes with 33 reviews, 55 on Metacritic with 22 reviews.

It seems like the more liberal critics are praising it for its girl power and what not, and all other critics say its a total piece of crap.

Surprised the critics score isnt higher given that fact.   RT critics scores are heavily based on wokeness, and that's why there is often such a huge disparity between fan score and critic score.

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On 10/23/2019 at 8:03 PM, devils1854 said:

58% on Rotten Tomatoes with 33 reviews, 55 on Metacritic with 22 reviews.

It seems like the more liberal critics are praising it for its girl power and what not, and all other critics say its a total piece of crap.

It's at 67% now. 

Which still isn't great, mind you, but it was surely a lot better than most were expecting it to be. 

I wanted this to be good for a multitude of reasons: the return of R-rated Terminator from the director of Deadpool with Cameron attached as a producer (he apparently co-wrote the story treatment, but otherwise had no involvement with the film since he was reportedly never on set) and after a plethora of bad Terminator movies, and while my hopes aren't sky high, this does let me hold out a little bit of hope at least. I'll see it cautiously optimistic in theaters.

Edited by KManX89
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On 10/24/2019 at 1:05 PM, Outpost31 said:

Salvation could have been awesome.  MKe that a hard R, remove Sam Worthington and do a couple other things and that future war angle could have been awesome.  

Little fun fact: McG said he was allowed to make the movie he wanted to make and WB wouldn't interfere regardless of rating. Then when WB inevitably meddled and cut it to PG-13, he backpedaled on his promise for an R rating and said it was unfair to keep kids from seeing the movie because of 2 scenes in the whole movie (which is literally all they had to cut to avoid an R rating since these are the only 2 additions in the R-rated DC on Blu-Ray), so somewhere McG was lying. He clearly didn't set out to make the gritty future war movie we all knew it should've been, and if he did try, he obviously didn't try very hard. No surprise, really just judging by his filmography going in (he directed both Charlie's Angels' and We Are Marshall before TS).

Rating isn't everything, but it's Terminator for God's sake, have some f'ing balls. I don't want a neutered movie with UNSTOPPABLE KILLING MACHINES offing people off-screen and/or with no blood. Besides, when has watering down something R-rated ever worked? I honestly can't name one time. On the other hand, Dredd stayed true to the gritty source material of the comics and Sly Stallone film (love it or hate it), and that was quite good. And the DC of DareDevil turned a terrible film into a genuinely solid one. Sometimes a lack of restrictions helps. Judging by the trailers, this new film at least gets that right, the action/fight scenes look amazing.

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5 minutes ago, KManX89 said:

Little fun fact: McG said he was allowed to make the movie he wanted to make and WB wouldn't interfere regardless of rating. Then when WB inevitably meddled and cut it to PG-13, he backpedaled on his promise for an R rating and said it was unfair to keep kids from seeing the movie because of 2 scenes in the whole movie (which is literally all they had to cut to avoid an R rating since these are the only 2 additions in the R-rated DC on Blu-Ray), so somewhere McG was lying. He clearly didn't set out to make the gritty future war movie we all knew it should've been, and if he did try, he obviously didn't try very hard. No surprise, really just judging by his filmography going in (he directed both Charlie's Angels' and We Are Marshall before TS).

Rating isn't everything, but it's Terminator for God's sake, have some f'ing balls. I don't want a neutered movie with UNSTOPPABLE KILLING MACHINES offing people off-screen and/or with no blood. Besides, when has watering down something R-rated ever worked? I honestly can't name one time. On the other hand, Dredd stayed true to the gritty source material of the comics and Sly Stallone film (love it or hate it), and that was quite good. And the DC of DareDevil turned a terrible film into a genuinely solid one. Sometimes a lack of restrictions helps. Judging by the trailers, this new film at least gets that right, the action/fight scenes look amazing.

You’re preaching to the choir, pal.  Although I think Carnage would make a good PG-13 movie.

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6 hours ago, FourThreeMafia said:

Surprised the critics score isnt higher given that fact.   RT critics scores are heavily based on wokeness, and that's why there is often such a huge disparity between fan score and critic score.

No, that's not why there is a huge disparity. Fans are looking for different things than critics. Hence the reason why there's crap like Transformers and Twilight for the longest time despite horrible reviews.

Wokeness also gets exaggerated too much when critics care more about the execution rather than just the theme.

Edited by Xenos
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21 minutes ago, Xenos said:

Wokeness also gets exaggerated too much when critics care more about the execution rather than just the theme.

1. Black Panther
5. Blackkklansman
6. Get Out
10. Moonlight
13. Wonder Woman
25. Spotlight

Just a few of Rotten Tomatoes all-time best movies.  Black Panther is the highest rated movie of all-time.  Moonlight is top 10.  Wonder Woman is the 13th best movie of all-time. 

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/

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3 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

1. Black Panther
5. Blackkklansman
6. Get Out
10. Moonlight
13. Wonder Woman
25. Spotlight

Just a few of Rotten Tomatoes all-time best movies.  Black Panther is the highest rated movie of all-time.  Moonlight is top 10.  Wonder Woman is the 13th best movie of all-time. 

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/

Couple of things:

1) Rottentomatoes used to have a better aggregate system. Now everything goes solely by rotten or fresh as opposed to what the critics actually say or their rating.

2) Not sure those movies you listed necessarily contradicted what I stated.

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2 hours ago, Xenos said:

No, that's not why there is a huge disparity. Fans are looking for different things than critics. Hence the reason why there's crap like Transformers and Twilight for the longest time despite horrible reviews.

Wokeness also gets exaggerated too much when critics care more about the execution rather than just the theme.

Im not saying some of critics arent legit, but there is plenty of indisputable proof that many of the critics base their reviews heavily on wokeness.   Look beyond just the scores and read some of the actual reviews that spend 3/4s of the article talking about the politics and messages that it does and doesnt push.   Look no further that the Dave Chappelle Sticks n Stones special.   One of the funniest comedy specials of the last decade, and most of the critics just whined about how offensive it was...while Amy Schumers specials, full of feminist themes, stolen jokes and stories of how bad her lady parts smell, get high scores from critics whilst talking about how brave and innovative she is.

So, yeah, the scores are very much based on wokeness, and there is plenty of proof to support that.

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21 hours ago, FourThreeMafia said:

Im not saying some of critics arent legit, but there is plenty of indisputable proof that many of the critics base their reviews heavily on wokeness.   Look beyond just the scores and read some of the actual reviews that spend 3/4s of the article talking about the politics and messages that it does and doesnt push.   Look no further that the Dave Chappelle Sticks n Stones special.   One of the funniest comedy specials of the last decade, and most of the critics just whined about how offensive it was...while Amy Schumers specials, full of feminist themes, stolen jokes and stories of how bad her lady parts smell, get high scores from critics whilst talking about how brave and innovative she is.

So, yeah, the scores are very much based on wokeness, and there is plenty of proof to support that.

I miss the days when we had two critics, Siskel and Ebert, and Ebert hated 80% of the movies he watched.

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