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TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY – Brad Fiedel
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
James Cameron’s sci-fi masterpiece The Terminator became something of a cult classic following its release in 1984. It made a movie star out of its leading actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and left fans desperate to know more about this world of unstoppable time-travelling killer robots and their human interactions, to the extent that a sequel was inevitable. Terminator 2: Judgement Day picks up the story several years later, but things have not turned out well for the original film’s protagonist, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who is now incarcerated in an institution for the criminally insane, where doctors refuse to believe her apocalyptic predictions. Her teenage son John (Edward Furlong) is delinquent on the streets of Los Angeles, bouncing around between foster homes, while the tech company Cyberdyne is secretly continuing tests on the remains of the original Terminator from the first film. Things go from bad to worse for Sarah when a massively upgraded liquid metal terminator, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), is sent back in time from the future to finish the job the original robot could not, and kill John; the T-1000 is a technological marvel that can shape-shift, repair its own wounds, and convincingly blend in with humans. In response, the leaders of the human resistance send back a T-101 Terminator (Schwarzenegger), physically identical to the original film’s unstoppable killer, but this time re-programmed to protect John from harm. Read more…
TERMINATOR: DARK FATE – Tom Holkenborg
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
It’s been a somewhat depressing experience to watch the once brilliant and groundbreaking Terminator franchise descend into one of the most risible series of films in Hollywood’s recent history but, unfortunately, that’s what has happened. In the aftermath of Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, there was a 12-year gap before Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines appeared in 2003, during which time creator James Cameron went off and began prepping Avatar and its 282 sequels, leaving directorial duties in the hands of Jonathan Mostow. Terminator Salvation came and went in 2009 amid Christian Bale’s on-set meltdown, and Terminator Genisys opened in 2015 with the hope that Emilia Clarke could transfer her Daenerys Targaryan Game of Thrones fan base to the big screen as a new version of Sarah Connor. Spoiler: she couldn’t. The only constant through all this has been the presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but as is often the case in this situation, his original terrifying performance as the ultimate unstoppable killing machine eventually morphed into something approaching self-parody, especially when you consider that the Governator was 68 years old when Genisys came out and was barely able to walk without limping, let alone do any stunts. Read more…
THE TERMINATOR – Brad Fiedel
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The Terminator is one of the most acclaimed and important science fiction action movies ever made. Written and directed by James Cameron – then a fresh-faced 29-year-old making his mainstream debut after spending his apprenticeship working with Roger Corman’s New World Pictures – it took inspiration from the classic genre writings of people like Harland Ellison, and told the story of a young woman named Sarah Connor, who when the film begins is living a mundane life in suburban America in 1984. Connor’s world is turned upside down when a Terminator, an unstoppable human/robot cyborg assassin, is sent back in time from the year 2029 to murder her. She is saved by Kyle Reese, who explains that he was also sent back in time on the orders of John Connor, the leader of a group of resistance fighters on the brink of victory against the machine army that took over the world following a nuclear holocaust, and who is Sarah’s future son. The Terminator’s mission is to kill Sarah before John is born; Kyle’s mission is to protect her. The film was a massive success at the box office, reaping in almost $80 million from its paltry $6.5 million budget, and made stars of its young cast, which included Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose career was subsequently launched into the cinematic stratosphere. Read more…
TERMINATOR: SALVATION – Danny Elfman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The fourth installment in the long-running Terminator film franchise, Terminator Salvation picks up the story following a nuclear holocaust, caused by the Skynet automated defense system that played an important part in the original trilogy. John Connor (Christian Bale) has survived the blast, and is now struggling to bring together a rag-tag band of human survivors to battle against the immense, unstoppable machines that now control the world. The film was directed by Charlie’s Angels helmer McG, and co-stars Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin and Bryce Dallas Howard.
Joining the Terminator lexicon for the first time is composer Danny Elfman, replacing Marco Beltrami (who composed the third film’s score), who himself replaced Brad Fiedel, who composed the original movies’ iconic musical accompaniment. Read more…
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