Sunday, May 21, 2017

So when's Skynet going to take the hint?

Oh my god, please stop. Stop making Terminator movies. Huh? What? Yes, of course I know that you are not personally responsible for continued entries in the The Terminator series, but I just needed to say it out loud. Because apparently this happened at Cannes the other day:
"Hello everybody, guess what? I'll be back...again!"
"Goddamnit Arnold, I thought we agreed..."
Skynet sends a cyborg to 1984 to murder
Sarah Connor? No problem. Skynet sends a
septuagenarian Austrian ex-governor? Um...
And I'm hoping you'll join me in preemptively judging Terminator: 6: Genisys 2: Judgement Salvation or whatever the hell they end up calling it, before it has a chance to suck. In case I wasn't clear, there is going to be another Terminator movie, complete with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And look, he'll always be the Terminator to me but he's pushing seventy. Seventy! I know the in-movie lore establishes that Terminators can age but goddamn, they're starting to stretch credulity here. Credulity in their movie about killer cyborgs who travel back in time to murder a waitress.

Anyone else think Titanic should
have been about the band instead
of horny, kind of unlikeable teens?
Ok, but he did just do Terminator: Genisys and that was only a couple years ago, and it was terrible. Like, aggressively bad so what makes anyone think doing another one is a good idea? I'm glad I pretended you asked. The answer is that James Cameron will be directing the new one. You know, the guy that made the two decent Terminator movies and Aliens? Awesome, right? And then you remember that he also did Titanic and Avatar, which are objectively terrible. Huh? No, I'm sorry, but they really are.

But I'm getting away from my point and it's a point that I really hate that I'm making: sequels suck. And I say I hate saying it because it's the kind of thing people say right before they explain how they only see independent films like Francis Ha, and that they listen to vinyl and reverse-engineer ancient beer recipes.
"It's exactly like the beer the ancient Sumerians
used to drink, except I had to substitute carmine for the
  blood of Assyrian prisoners. Check out my GoFundMe."
I think it was pretty obvious that I was
kidding. It goes two real examples, then
the joke example. I mean, army ants...
Ok, fine, not all recent sequels suck. The new Star Wars movies were good, Mad Max: Fury Road was great and of course there was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But for every Fury Road there's a Prometheus or a Terminator: Genisys which I'm sorry to say I rented one night. Why? I think I must secretly hate myself. I'd already sat through Terminator 3, and Terminator: Salvation and I guess I figured they were due for a win, but holy shit, I mean, holy shit. It just tried so hard to remind us of earlier, better movies in the series and unfortunately it succeeded.

"Not quite, it'll be the Old West and there'll
be a train chase at the end. Close though.
Oh! And I get to say 'hasta la vista, partner.'"

-Schwarzenegger
Oh well, there's nothing to stop Terminator Part 6 and I know it's not even written yet, but I don't think I'm being unfair when I predict that it will be awful. In fact, let me predict the plot: Skynet sends another Terminator-possibly some variant of the liquid metal one from T2, back even earlier in time to kill, oh let's say Prudence Goodwyfe-Connor, Sarah's great-great-great pilgrim grandmother. The human resistance sends another reprogrammed Schwarzenegger-Terminator to stop him/her/it. There's some shooting, a horse and buggy chase and then the Schwarzenator sacrifices himself to save the future. Again. Am I warm?

Also mentioned in the article was Schwarzenegger's new Conan movie which has been in development for years, so who knows if we'll ever see it? But I'm totally on board for this one because the set up is that he would play an elderly, world-weary version of the character and who wouldn't want to watch Conan battle monsters and barbarians before having to sit down for a minute and then shout at the kids to get off his damn lawn?
"Now, gather around young warriors, and I shall tell you of the long ago days of yore.
An age of heroes, when everything cost less and young people were more respectful
towards their elders. Also, your generation is lazy, and how come you swear so much?"

-Prologue of Conan the Curmudgeon,
coming summer 2019 in 3D and IMAX

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