Alan Taylor
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Exploiting the narrative possibilities of time travel on a more vigorous and elaborate scale than its relatively self-enclosed predecessors, “Genisys” effectively returns us to the events of James Cameron’s “The Terminator” (1984), stirs in the buddy-Arnold dynamics of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991), borrows the man-machine-hybrid plot device from McG’s “Terminator Salvation,” and more or less pretends that Jonathan Mostow’s “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” (2004) never happened (“never happened” being an admittedly unstable concept in this particular universe).
Its screenplay is one of those rare disasters generally reserved for a Syfy Channel Original, and indeed, the whole thing plays like the fourth sequel to Sharknado rather than the fourth sequel to James Cameron's The Terminator, which for some reason it replicates shot-for-shot in a series of 1984-set sequences.
He means Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-800 model robot, a relentless killer from the future in The Terminator that gets reprogrammed as a noble automaton starting with Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
With “T2,” Cameron and co-writer William Wisher Jr. took the ideas and concepts they introduced in “The Terminator” and thrilled millions with a memorable, dare I say, classic, science fiction action epic.
For better but mostly for worse, it fits right into the modern blockbuster: Like a Marvel film, it’s a hodgepodge of stuff, mixing in brainless plotting (involving heady scientific concepts), passing thrills and nostalgia for a happier time of less sloppy blockbusters, including 1984, the year of “The Terminator,” and 1991, the year of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”
Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter Review by Mark Dujsik | June 30, 2015 The Terminator series is a prime example of the concept of theme and variation.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Directed by James Cameron
influenced Terminator Genisys (2015)
Plot Themes Characters
Exploiting the narrative possibilities of time travel on a more vigorous and elaborate scale than its relatively self-enclosed predecessors, “Genisys” effectively returns us to the events of James Cameron’s “The Terminator” (1984), stirs in the buddy-Arnold dynamics of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991), borrows the man-machine-hybrid plot device from McG’s “Terminator Salvation,” and more or less pretends that Jonathan Mostow’s “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” (2004) never happened (“never happened” being an admittedly unstable concept in this particular universe).
Hollywood’s latest effort to reinvigorate a cash cow ransacks James Cameron’s lean landmark actioners Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day, lifting all the obvious touchstones from the franchise (yes, even Terminator Salvation) while rewriting Terminator history and fundamentally altering not only key characters, but the rules of the world.
He means Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-800 model robot, a relentless killer from the future in The Terminator that gets reprogrammed as a noble automaton starting with Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
The second movie, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, is an action spectacular — with truly groundbreaking special effects — that followed a lot of the same themes of the first film, only with the switch of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator from a villain to the hero.
In her place is a resourceful, determined warrior, more akin to the Sarah from Terminator 2 .
For better but mostly for worse, it fits right into the modern blockbuster: Like a Marvel film, it’s a hodgepodge of stuff, mixing in brainless plotting (involving heady scientific concepts), passing thrills and nostalgia for a happier time of less sloppy blockbusters, including 1984, the year of “The Terminator,” and 1991, the year of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
influenced Terminator Genisys (2015)
Plot
The inspiration for all this alternate timeline madness is, we’ve learned, Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future Part II.
Genisys, whose misspelled subtitle refers to the advanced operating system that will eventually become Skynet, takes a Back To The Future Part II approach, sending characters careening from 2029 to 1984 to 2017.
From “Back To The Future Part II” to “Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban” to “Insidious: Chapter 2” – not to mention countless prequels and re-imaginings – this sort of temporal rejiggering has become commonplace.
I’ve seen some comparisons of Terminator: Genisys to Back to the Future Part II.
Delivered in wee truckloads of exposition by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, "Terminator Genisys" is like "Back to the Future Part II" times 20, or the more recent "Looper" with a hundred extra loops.
The similarly twisty but far smarter and more respectful "Back to the Future Part II," this is not.
Ian Holm plays Napoleon for the second time (he had previously portrayed the character in a 1974 mini-series called "Napoleon in Love", and would eventually reprise the part in 2001's The Emperor's New Clothes).
The Godfather (1972)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
influenced The Many Saints of Newark (2021)
Visuals Themes
However, the cinematography is obviously digital and some of the CGI is pretty shaky—the look is quite a let-down when compared to visual mafia masterpieces like The Godfather or Goodfellas (then again, The Sopranos was always meant to look more mundane).
And in abandoning the tube for the big screen, the movie had to compete with Mafia classics such as “Goodfellas” and “The Godfather.”
(There was a guy in a Members Only jacket who went into the bathroom behind Tony, and might have retrieved a weapon a la Michael Corleone in The Godfather .)
Pundits have long debated the infamous cut-to-black, though it’s insinuated that Tony is killed by the Man in the Members Only Jacket who retrieves a gun from the bathroom like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” (1972).
Much of The Many Saints of Newark calls on other mob films like Goodfellas and even a little bit of The Godfather , but it also quietly continues the deconstruction that takes place throughout The Sopranos .
It’s the type of epic family tragedy that informs The Godfather movies: Christopher Moltisanti is only a baby here, but his dad, in his inability to keep young Tony from the life, has an invisible hand in killing his son, too.
We’ve seen time travel and alternate dimensions successfully used to kickstart a franchise with the exceptionally well received 2009 Star Trek reboot.
Influenced both by Back to the Future 2 and J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot, the movie plays with time lines and alternate universes to establish its storyline.
I do not agree with these comparisons (I think Genisys is much more like J.J. Abrams’ first Star Trek movie), but the tone of how the characters react to these ludicrous time traveling situations is similar.
With inconsistencies and alterations to “Terminator” history explained by the characters’ contact with “a nexus point in the time flow,” the strategy is similar to that employed by J.J. Abrams in the new “Star Trek” movies, with the result being both sequel and reboot.
The Terminator series ostensibly lends itself to the sort of time-travelling reboot so well demonstrated by J.J. Abrams' Star Trek in 2009.
With Terminator: Genisys, Paramount has taken a page from their new Star Trek franchise and attempted to reboot a series of movies while pretending it's a sequel instead.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)
Directed by David Lynch
influenced The Many Saints of Newark (2021)
Plot
“The Many Saints of Newark” works as a prequel in the way David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” worked as a prequel: introducing more questions than it answers and doubling back on familiar terrain to riff on themes that fascinate the filmmakers far more than conventional resolutions.
Like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me or The End of Evangelion , this film is so deeply immersed in the dense mythology and self-contained symbolism of its epochal TV predecessor that to assess it as a stand-alone story on its own terms would be a meaningless endeavor.
Five years after the release of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) and consequently Ellen Ripley, the Terminator franchise continued the mark of having females spearhead action films, a contrast to the Ronald Reagan inspired films of Chuck Norris and Sylvester Stallone.
As with the Alien films, Terminator and its first sequel turned out to be a surprisingly compelling and fascinating look at our society’s future destination.
Instead, the constant barrage of overlong battle sequences, twisted metal and widespread devastation recalls Michael Bay's Transformers movies.
If you want pure mayhem, “San Andreas” and “Godzilla” and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” and even the crack overdose of Bay’s next-to-last “Transformers” movie are better choices.
Se incluyen referencias necesarias a los dos primeros filmes de Cameron y se niegan e ignoran los otros dos filmes y, como si se tratara de un requisito en Hollywood, se recurre nuevamente a la ciudad de San Francisco y a la destrucción del imponente puente Golden Gate, tal como ya lo mostró Pacific Rim (2013), Godzilla (2014), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2014) y San Andreas (2015).
And let's not forget Pacific Rim, Star Trek Into Darkness, Godzilla and Rise of the Planet of the Apes before that.
The Godfather Part III (1990)
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
influenced The Many Saints of Newark (2021)
While this quote is meant to specifically reference Michael Corleone’s circumstances in The Godfather: Part III , it’s also illustrative of the invisible forces within the organized crime world.
They still glamourise their own mobster existence through the lens of film culture (instead of quoting Al Pacino, they watch Humphrey Bogart and Edward G Robinson in 1948’s Key Largo ).
Tony watches Key Largo on TV and quotes the Stones; he rings up “uncle” Dickie to buy beer for him and his pals, including Teen Carmela.
Hollywood’s latest effort to reinvigorate a cash cow ransacks James Cameron’s lean landmark actioners Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day, lifting all the obvious touchstones from the franchise (yes, even Terminator Salvation) while rewriting Terminator history and fundamentally altering not only key characters, but the rules of the world.
You’d think Terminator Salvation would have followed suit, but for whatever reason it held onto that sub-par entry if only through the character of Kate Brewster, otherwise known as Mr. Savior of Humanity John Connor’s wife.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned, however, after skipping 2009's Terminator Salvation since he was busy running California (some say into the ground).
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
Directed by Joseph Sargent
influenced Terminator Genisys (2015)
Characters
(Compared to Ava from “Ex Machina,” Skynet looks as outdated and old-school as anything in 1970’s “Colossus: The Forbin Project.”)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Terminator Genisys (2015)
Visuals
The action continues at full-force as things progress, but director Alan Taylor eventually runs out of visual “Terminator” references to ape and begins blatantly ripping off everything from The Lost World: Jurassic Park and The Matrix (which itself was influenced by Cameron’s movies).
Something else that doesn't make sense, T5 also has a call-out to Chris Marker's La Jetée.
I came of age in the 1980s, which means I was weaned on classic science-fiction films like Aliens, Blade Runner, and, most especially, James Cameron's The Terminator.
El filme está lejos de alcanzar la importancia cultural que tuvo la película original, cuando, en la década de los ochenta, Terminator junto con Blade Runner (1982) y Robocop (1987) recurrieron al género de la ciencia ficción para reflexionar en torno a una de las problemáticas fundamentales de la posmodernidad, estudiada a fondo por el filósofo francés, Jean Baudrillard: el impacto de la tecnología moderna en el cuerpo humano, así como los sentimientos ambivalentes que podemos sentir hacia el avance tecnológico y las ansiedades sobre nuestra propia naturaleza en un mundo así.
The action continues at full-force as things progress, but director Alan Taylor eventually runs out of visual “Terminator” references to ape and begins blatantly ripping off everything from The Lost World: Jurassic Park and The Matrix (which itself was influenced by Cameron’s movies).
Suicide Squad (2016)
Directed by David Ayer
influenced by Terminator Genisys (2015), Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Characters Plot
To that end, she assembles contract killer Deadshot (Will Smith, Concussion), retired psychiatrist and Joker paramour Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, The Legend of Tarzan), combustible gang leader Diablo (Jay Hernandez, TV’s The Expanse), the reptilian Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Concussion) and Australian bank robber Boomerang (Jai Courtney, Terminator Genisys) under the command of true patriot Rick Flag (Joel Kinnamon, Netflix’s House of Cards) and his alternating girlfriend and evil-witch thing June Moone/Enchantress (Cara Delevigne, Pan).
So from a black site in Louisiana, Waller gathers her targets, including infamous assassin Deadshot (Will Smith, of “Concussion” ); “whole lot of pretty and whole lot of crazy” Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, of “Z for Zachariah” ), onetime psychiatrist turned partner in crime to the Joker (Jared Leto), who is still on the loose; Australian thief and wildcard Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney, of “Terminator Genisys” ); the fire-controlling and unwilling Diablo (Jay Hernandez); and the mutant Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, of “Concussion” ).
Supporting players like Joel Kinnaman (2014's " RoboCop "), Jai Courtney (2015's " Terminator Genisys ") and an unrecognizable, tattooed Jay Hernandez (2016's " Bad Moms ") strike as so disconnected from one another they might as well be performing all their scenes in separate rooms.
Courtney — whose face perpetually looks like that of a soccer player whose dive didn't fool the referee — is next set to play Captain Boomerang in Suicide Squad, which should help drive the merciful final nail into DC Comics' movie efforts.
As a counterpoint, look at Loki in Thor: The Dark World , tasked with a similar “do it or else” mission after languishing in prison.
It’s the sort of vague and emotionally meaningless villain plot that we’ve seen before in bland and/or awful superhero movies like Thor: The Dark World and the latest Fantastic Four reboot, and Suicide Squad doesn’t do it any better.
El filme está lejos de alcanzar la importancia cultural que tuvo la película original, cuando, en la década de los ochenta, Terminator junto con Blade Runner (1982) y Robocop (1987) recurrieron al género de la ciencia ficción para reflexionar en torno a una de las problemáticas fundamentales de la posmodernidad, estudiada a fondo por el filósofo francés, Jean Baudrillard: el impacto de la tecnología moderna en el cuerpo humano, así como los sentimientos ambivalentes que podemos sentir hacia el avance tecnológico y las ansiedades sobre nuestra propia naturaleza en un mundo así.