The thrilling teenagers who were once in the video room in front of the TV have been pushed into the middle of the economic wave by the times, or to recolor the yellowed images in their minds, or to see the face of the idols of the past, everyone. Shouting the revolutionary slogan of buy, buy and buy, they took out a lot of tickets and squeezed in.
Don’t you see, Transformers repeatedly broke the box office record when one was worse than one. The Jurassic Park, which was repeatedly demolished and rebuilt, was reopened and crowded. The six-part Star Wars that once came to an end was reunited with old faces. Seven, the news of the Final Fantasy 7 and Shenmue 3 remakes at the E3 game exhibition aroused cheers. Therefore, when Schwarzenegger, whose temples were stained with frost and dust, walked out from behind the governor’s desk, put on his leather jacket, put on sunglasses, and picked up the shotgun, five clashing sounds like the theme of destiny sounded loudly with feelings. How can the overflowing fans continue to remain calm?
0 Classic textbooks and prerequisites
Terminator: Genesis is the fifth part of the Terminator series, but it is obviously more related to the first and second parts in plot. For old audiences, the names behind those new faces make them feel more cordial. For new audiences, even though the two works of 1984 and 1991 are well-known, the time difference of more than two decades has inevitably become a gap for many people to understand the story.
Terminator 1 released in 1984 is one of James Cameron's famous works. In the not-too-distant future of the film world, the artificial intelligence Skynet system developed by mankind launched a nuclear war (Judgment Day) and wiped out most of mankind. A small number of survivors formed a resistance organization to fight against the army of robots controlled by Skynet. Among them, the leader of the resistance organization John Connor was the most troublesome for Skynet. When Skynet was on the verge of defeat, in order to reverse the situation from the root cause, it sent a human-looking Terminator T-800 shuttle to the assassination of John Connor's mother, Sarah Connor in 1984. The human side sent a soldier Kyle Lis to protect Sarah's safety. Kyle and Sarah fall in love during their desperate journey against the robot killer. In the end, Kyle protects his lover with his life, and Sarah is about to become a mother, the mother of John Connor.
Terminator 1 cleverly applied a classic causal problem like the "grandfather's paradox" in the time travel hypothesis, and constructed a subtle theatrical turning point. The T-800 played by Schwarzenegger is even more memorable with a cold-blooded and powerful image. It was only 7 years later that Schwarzenegger himself refreshed the immortal obelisk in film history.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day, also written and directed by Cameron, has become one of the classic pronouns in science fiction movies. Whether it is the plot, characterization and special effects, it will still be amazing even if it is put today. The film continues the story of the first part. The immortal Skynet still sends a more advanced robot T-1000 to chase down the young John Connor, but the protector is replaced by the Terminator T- reprogrammed by humans. 800. Under the protection of T-800, John and his mother Sarah wanted to escape the liquid alloy killer while trying to prevent the birth of Skynet. With the assistance of scientist Myers Dyson, a group of people successfully destroyed the core of Skynet, and after defeating T-1000, the Guardian T-800 was used to ensure that future technology is no longer used to study Skynet. Choose self-destruction.
Cameron's Terminator series ended here, and the second part became his masterpiece (one of). That cold-blooded and cruel liquid multi-alloy machine killer that can freely change its appearance stands out in most of the Hollywood blockbusters where the special effects are just staying in the speed explosion, which is breathtaking. And Schwarzenegger’s T-800 incarnation is the reverse of the guardian, and the interesting interaction with the boy John adds a bit of warmth to the iron and blood; while the handsome one-handed motorcycle on the motorcycle holds it. The precision and domineering of the airborne heavy machine gun sweeping across the army without killing one person, and the last farewell thumb in the steelmaking furnace, these pictures are permanently fixed in the favorite memories of the fans.
After Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machine and Terminator: The Salvation Army, I don’t know if it’s because of Cameron’s absence, but I always feel the lack of aliveness. Although Schwarzenegger once again served as the guardian of Terminator 3 in 2003, the repetition of the plot and the mediocre performance of the villain made the actual look and feel of the film inferior to its predecessor 10 years ago. The 2009 Terminator: The Salvation Army directly abandoned the serial number to show its ambition to start a new chapter. The cast is always shining, and the CG spares no effort. However, it turns out that the audience does not buy the apocalyptic man-machine war theme that even Schwarzenegger does not have, so the new series of attempts will end here.
1 Salute, salute, and... Salute the
Terminator once said: I will be back. But instead of taking over a mess, it's better to play and restart.
When the governor made it clear that he wanted to return, the safest way was to let Schwarzenegger take charge of his most classic role-the T-800 as a decent guardian. Obviously, the screenwriter thinks it needs to be a little bigger, so we not only saw the governor in sunglasses and leather jacket reconnected with the second-generation image, but also saw the first-generation CG governor appeared naked, and then the former picked up the shotgun to make the latter one. Shooting flying... a bit messy? This is what the screenwriter wants...
Friends who have been bombarded by the time shuttle setting quickly realized that this is a problem with the timeline. However, in order to better make everyone nostalgic and tribute, this setting is obviously one of the best solutions under the premise of not subverting the original story and retaining a certain degree of rationality.
So the old audience can sit down happily, warm up a pot of aging wine called youth, and grab the old part of the film that has been soaked in the film to drink.
The moonlight treasure box ball lightning that exploded late at night is of course an indispensable sign, and of course there is a muscular naked man landing on one knee. Then, as usual, naked men have to go to the street to find a few punks for clothes. Then the second-generation protagonist came on stage smoothly, and screamed for a while.
Here Terminator Derby knocked out a generation of villains. Kyle Lis, who fell from the sky, robbed the tramp’s pants as shamelessly as in Terminator 1, and was chased by the police-the difference is that the police chasing him became T- 1000.
Now that the T-1000 is out, the clone trackers in the second part, the blades of both hands and the classic disguise are also indispensable. But I'm sorry, you are not the lead actor, please bring your lunch from the backstage after the tribute is over.
Later stories ushered in different developments, but the details still spare no effort to awaken the dusty memories of the audience. The governor with a serious face will surely smile with his signature mechanical toothy, and he must hide the gun in a doll bear when he meets Kyle and Sarah in the future (the second part is flowers) In the future, Sarah will definitely go to a small warehouse in the suburbs to get a gun. The John Connor version of Terminator (T-3000) who is chasing after him must also learn from the predecessor T-1000 from the raging fire after the explosion. Out.
Of course, Sarah Connor’s photos are once again used as clues and props to anger the sense of existence. The scientist Miles Dyson in Terminator 2 appears as a veteran in the new timeline, and Dan, the son of Miles, who was once just a passerby child. Ni Dyson has grown to become the CEO of Skynet's research and development company Cyberdine. In addition, the soundtrack and the storyboard are also echoing the past that has been remembered by fans in a variety of obvious or hidden, deliberate or accidental forms.
2 The broken timeline.
This film also emphasizes a point that runs through the Terminator series: the future is uncertain, and only people can decide their destiny. This can also be regarded as an explanation for the plot setting of this work from a perspective, but it is obvious that this new work has a bolder handling of time-traveling tricks.
The Terminator series has always been based on the paradox of time travel causality. For example, the guardian Kyle Rees sent by the future John Connor became his father and was sent by Skynet to assassinate Sarah Con in 1984. The chip of the Terminator T-800 was used by Cyberdine to develop the prototype of Skynet. The future John Connor used the knowledge about the future obtained from his mother to fight against the army of Skynet machines. These are the same stories involving time travel such as Interstellar, Predestination and Doraemon. They are exchanged with the law of causality and the interest of the story.
In a nutshell, the law of time travel followed by Terminator’s previous works is: a specific history leads to a specific future, while future forces can change the future direction by changing the past, and each rewriting of the past leads to a shift in the timeline. . And unlike Back to the Future and other works, the changes in the past will not affect the existence of the traverser (for example, even if the future of Skynet disappears, the T-800 that came to this world from the future will still continue. exist).
Although you lose if you are serious, these traversal plots built on paradoxes can easily mess up the story. In the first three movies, there were three crossings at different time points (1984, 1994, 2004), but they were fairly self-consistent in their respective timelines, because Skynet has not been completely eliminated.
[Briefly sorting out the timeline based on personal understanding (only the first three movies):
Original timeline: Sarah Connor gave birth to John Connor in 1985-Skynet system went online in 1997, and war against mankind-John in 2029 Connor led the rebellion to break through the core of Skynet-Skynet sent Terminators back to 1984 to assassinate Sarah Connor, while John Connor sent Kyle Lis to protect.
Timeline #1: Sarah Connor in 1984 encountered the Terminator, fell in love with Kyle Reese and became pregnant (possible timeline divergence)-The Terminator chip was reversed research and went live in 1997-2029 John Connor attacked Skynet, the Terminator T-800 sent by Skynet failed, and then sent T-1000 to assassinate John Connor as a child in 1994. (Special note: Due to John Connor’s biological father in Terminator 1 and Skynet’s prototype problem, the original timeline and timeline #1 are usually considered to be the same timeline.)
Timeline #2: 1994 (timeline divergence point) ) John Connor and his mother defeated the killer T-1000 sent by Skynet with the help of the rewritten version of the program T-800, and destroyed Skynet-related research data-the 1997 trial day did not happen, but Skynet In the end, it is still at war with humans-the future John Connor will participate in the resistance organization against Skynet-T-850 assassinated John Connor in 2032, but was captured by humans-Skynet eventually sent TX back to 2004 to hunt down the resistance organization Leader, the human side sent a reprogrammed T-850 as a protector.
Timeline #3: 2003 (possible timeline divergence) John Connor and Kate Brewster met while avoiding TX chase and were protected by T-850-TX went to the air base to assassinate Kate’s father as Cyberdine Xintian.com The project’s successor, at this time, in order to eliminate the computer virus, the military activated the Skynet system-John and Kate came to the nuclear war shelter, and Judgment Day began-the two joined the resistance organization, and the follow-up man-machine war story and Terminator: The Salvation Army meets. (Special note: because the details are not clear, timeline #2 and timeline #3 can also be considered to be the same timeline)]
However, in order to create a gimmick of Chronicles, the fifth film directly depicts the already chaotic timeline Throw the headphone cord in your pocket and knead it. From the setting point of view, the timeline position of the fifth part seems to be the original timeline (#1 timeline), because the Judgment Day known to Kyle Lis still occurred in 1997.
But during the crossing, Kyle witnessed John Connor's infiltrated Terminator T-5000 (from the wiki, don't ask me why Skynet uses this number) attack, which does not match the original setting. After that, the encounter between Kyle and the killer T-800 was even more bizarre. The former encountered the T-1000 that should have appeared in 1994, while the latter was directly volleyed out of the game by his own compatriots.
So Kyle saw Sarah Connor and the Guardian T-800, who were completely different from John's description. According to Sarah's description, the Guardian came to protect her when she was a child. Kyle and the cinema audience were finally told that this was a brand new timeline. In the process of traveling back to 1984, Kyle even accidentally acquired this memory of time and space.
Considering the conflict of stories, we had to make up for the setting of parallel universes for this movie world, and push the detailed explanation to the space-time quantum electromagnetic field and the "story needs". As for who sent the Guardian and whether the timeline conflict can justify itself, it is estimated that it will take until the sequel to have an official answer.
Since the original appearance of history has long been fragmented, the future must be different. So Kyle and Sarah are no longer Judgment Day in 1997, but back to 2017, which is more modern. Finally, facing the son who has become a big weapon, no, has become a machine, a dog is staged. An ethical drama of blood domestic violence.
3 Regarding the film: The past vs. the future
In order to cooperate with the reinstallation of the T-800, and also to echo Schwarzenegger's glorious return, the guardian in the film left a classic line: I'm old, but I'm not obsolete. I am old, but not obsolete.
On the one hand, it is a true portrayal of the governor's strength and strength. On the other hand, it is also the ambition of the Terminator series to try to make a comeback. Taking the nostalgic route with the help of the psychological mechanism of memory beautification, it is natural to make a pour of tears in the old tears, and it is not easy to try to gain a foothold in the current film world where big productions are blooming, and to obtain stable audience support. After all, it is the end. Those 3 and 4 can be regarded as a lesson from the past.
Compared to a handy tribute, how to use old themes to create novel works also tests the skill of the director. The one or two of the Terminator of Cards has already been in front of him, showing the concept of time shuttle and robots to perfection, not to mention the rhythm control and expression skills of the film. If you want new works to be the best, telling stories with quality and quantity is a basic requirement. How to grasp the main contradiction between humans and machines, the past and the future, has become the key to the soul of the film.
Obviously, for the dual needs of novelty and tribute, the film cleverly chose a timeline hybrid approach to accommodate the most popular elements of the previous work. In the future part, the Skynet offensive campaign relayed by Kyle in the Terminator generation is finally displayed as an image, and variables are added to the key parts to lay a grassy gray line for the film's development and follow-up.
Excluding the prelude to the future war, the 1984 adventures of Kellys, the three-part confrontation between the father, daughter and son-in-law in the future with the nano-robot version of John Connor and the final battle structure can be regarded as a standardized three-stage structure with a barely appropriate weight and rhythm. Perhaps because of the resentment of old fans, I always feel that compared to the melee of the new and old Terminators in 1984, the several duels in 2017 seem too flat.
As a technologically advanced collection of nanomachines T-3000 (from the wiki, don’t ask me how this numbered Skynet came up) version of John Connor, face the T-800 several generations older than himself, and fight Shi just barely gained the upper hand, even failed to make the other party crash and restart, and the performance on IQ was even more...not to mention.
This is actually a common problem in this film. After all, the difference in strength is too great, and it can basically be killed instantly, but then there is no scene in the fighting scene. Imagine that John Connor, who was ambushing in 2017, is a core technology executive of an IT company. It is really easy to use the resources and his own capabilities to do some global monitoring. Directly calling the police force can make the three wanted criminals indigestion; step back. , Anyway, the protagonist’s goal is always Cyberdine’s building, so focusing on accelerating the transformation of Skynet and waiting for the rabbit by the way is more than chasing insurance. But in this way, the chase and explosion scenes are gone, absolutely impossible.
It can be found that this kind of plots that are forced to join for the bridge section and pay tribute to the plot are all admired. Take T-1000 as an example. When facing Sarah and Kyle at close range, he can obviously use the knife directly, but still maintain Kyle's form (see, I will deform) and quarrel with Real Kyle. . And the protagonists are all in the late stage of procrastination. Now that we know the exact launch date of Skynet, we should go back a week, a month or a year early. Isn't it common sense to leave a buffer time? That's not okay, how can it reflect the sense of urgency in this way.
Even if it is possible to find various justifications, there are many such passages, it will always appear deliberately, and lack a sense of tension from the tension of drama. What is particularly regrettable is that the villain absorbed John Connor’s memory and personality. It should have been able to create a deeper conflict with Kyle and Sarah, but this full of feelings was only taken away in a stroke. John It just suggested that the family should be neat and tidy, and then they turned against their parents (after all, Skynet is the mother-in-law).
Regardless of the plot that cannot be studied in detail, the characters are quite satisfactory. The governor is naturally very much in the spotlight, and anyway, acting as a robot doesn't need to care too much about acting. You just need to stand up and play cool and show some warmth to your goddaughter Sarah by the way. Kyle, played by Jackie Courtney, is more youthful and agile than the original version. After all, he can escape his mortal fate and of course be happier. Emily Clarke's Sarah Connor is no longer the confused waitress in the original movie because of the changes in the plot setting, but has grown into a wise and brave female man. The male and female protagonists, as the destined year-end love & heroic parents, shyly and bashfully meet each other frankly after the battle. By the way, it seems very interesting.
Jason Clarke starred as the villain John Connor, limited by the script, it is difficult to get better performance. After all, most of the time he played the robot with human memory. It would be weird to be too human or too much machine. But compared to Bell's adult version of Connor, Clark seems to have a black belly and more than capable. Simmons, who just took the best supporting role, played an old police officer who witnessed the Terminator War in 1984 but was regarded as a paranoia. His role and role were quite limited and a bit wasteful. Also wasted is Doctor Who, Matthew Smith. The role he played was divergent before the release, and the actual appearance of the film was only a glimpse of one minute. It is estimated that there will be other scenes in the sequel.
Even if everything is not satisfactory, it is still remarkable as a popcorn drama. For fans of Terminator and Governor, this movie is definitely not to be missed. To be honest, seeing Schwarzenegger’s smile is enough to pay back the fare. The first 30 minutes including the T-800 and T-1000 is even more satisfying, not to mention the Conner family. It's fighting scenes.
There is an easter egg after the film's subtitles, which is very old-fashioned: Skynet is not dead. See you in the sequel.
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