Age of The Nerd
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines has probably become the most notorious installment in the Terminator franchise for being glaringly substandard in almost every way. Admittedly, there are a few technical errors and the goofy tongue-in-cheek meta humor doesn’t help, yet they continue with to rely on that similar type of humor in the newly released Terminator: Genisys. It is believed by the author of this article that half of the issue is that T3 had to live in the shadow of it’s far superior predecessor, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. No matter how good T3 was ever going to be, it would probably have always shipped some harsh criticism simply because that’s what happens when trying to create a sequel to an Academy Award-winning phenomenon. The other main issue was the fact that the man responsible for the first two films, Mr. James Cameron, would no longer be at the helm.
To create some positivity about Rise of the Machines, we are going to explore five things that are good about this sequel.
1. Starting with perhaps the most obvious one, even T3’s most hardest critics cannot deny that it took guts for the studio to allow for the conclusion that it had. That ending would completely alter the path of the whole franchise that the first three movies took. At least it was thought so at the time. This new path structure was carried through into Terminator: Salvation which, riddled with production issues, did not fulfil the expectations of the fans.
2. Not a lot can be said for the performance of Nick Stahl as John Connor but, unlike Edward Furlong in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Stahl at least had a passing resemblance to actor Michael Biehn, which made it more believable that he was his biological son. Regarding Terminator: Genisys, Stahl looks even more like Jai Courtney!
3. This third point may be hard to agree with for some but it is felt here that Terminator 3 had tighter pacing. While character development is crucial, it had a little negative impact on the pace of the second movie. The original had a good combination and balance of everything, while Terminator 2 went further at the detriment of entertainment.
4. The decision to make the T-800 “cool” in T2 was a great choice to get asses on seats and gain a bigger profit. It is also fun if you are 12 years old. But the humour and light hearted moments to make the terminator more human just comes off as corny if you are over 25. Terminator 3 did the reverse and provided us with a cold, emotionless cyborg just as he was in the original. This makes for a more shallow character but a cyborg should be! Rather than being the hero, the T-800 was more of an anti-hero in T3, providing some consistency with the original. It did not appear that the T-800 was going to brutally kill the bikers at the beginning of T2 as he did in the beginning of The Terminator, so the more teen friendly approach was evident from the start.
5. The idea for Skynet to finally overtake the world using cyberspace was sinister because of the sense of any realistic possibility of that actually occurring. Sophisticated technology is everywhere today and it is much more so than it was in 1991. These days, we have computer operated vehicles and observing conversations voicing concern over such things have never been isolated. In 2003, the year of release of T3, a worm called the SQL Hammer was maliciously created and became the fastest spreading virus in technological history! Worms also being distributed through email were starting to make themselves known. The internet was becoming serious business and definitely something for all to be concerned about! So, for the filmmakers to take the cyber approach for Skynet was cunning and had the capacity to instigate thought provoking discussions.
All in all, I personally feel Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, is still a better sequel then the following installments, and that includes the newly released Terminator: Genisys. What do you guys think? As always we love to hear your feedback in the comments section below!
