Be Excellent To Each Other

16:43 - I'd have shot him then and there for being a surly cunt who looked at me like a chav. How did you lot get on?

Mr Mandleson's centralised eye patched, peg legged, parrot wearing, cutlass weilding, arrrrrr-ing backup server hasn't cranked up to full speed yet, so I haven't watched it.

Will report back when I have. Hopefully tomorrow night.

Oh man, but he's grumpy that Bale fellow.

He's shite at being Batman as well, don't forget.

I was really eager to see T4 in the cinema but it about 45 mins in I turned to the missus and said "isn't this a bit shit?"

I was right.

Not enough Termies in it and the ones that were in it were thick as C16s.

I saw it on the plane out to LA and thought it was all right.

The machines should have won. There have been four terminator films now, and in all four, the terminators have failed miserably. Hardly bloody intimidating.

Anyway, I've not seen it, and don't want to, despite getting excited by the prospect years ago. I've heard so little that sounds good about it that I'm quite happy pretending the story ended at the end of the second one (although I enjoyed terminator 3 as a silly load of nonsense with a couple of great bits and a terrific (though stupid) chase bit in the cars with the whole street getting trashed). Bollocks sequel, though).

I genuinely loved the bulky, hulking redesign on the terminators, along with their added synthy whirring and groaning. Everything else was brutally underwhelming. Bale as Connor is just a complete nonentity as a character.

Made it through, but kind of wish I hadn't as that bit with the heart at the end was a truly definitive "oh, fuck OFF" moment.

It may have embarrassed itself fairly often, but Sarah Connor Chronicles was a much better piece of work.

SCC was pretty decent but by the end I was glad it got cancelled as they used the timeline thing to basically do whatever they wanted with the story and with no consequences.

I watched it on the plane, if I hadn't been sat still for 12 hours, there is no way I would have watched it all (see also Transformers 2). Not only was it a bit rubbish, it actually made little to no sense at all.

I thought it was only just OK. I hated the end.

Yeah, we have a really useful weapon against the machines which would make everyones life easier but fuck that to save one bloke who we know dies shortly after these events anyway.

Just pissed me off is all.

It's a shame Bale has begun to believe his won hype. Now he's gone a-list, he's turned into a right grumpy, growling cunt.

I can assure you that fame won't affect my temperament.

I watched it all and liked it. It was a bit Transforminators (particularly the sound effects for the big robot thingy), and it did suffer a bit from being a 12 in places (the bit where the guy gets shot by a minigun while trying to escape - he just goes "urgh" and falls over. After being shot by a minigun. He should have been turned into man-pesto), but it was otherwise enjoyable.

And A-10s! In a film! That's an extra 500 bananas right there.

I thought it was watchable and had big robots. I can hardly remember it now though.

Is it really that bad? I just torrented this film, i don't know if i want to waste my time with it.

You'll be ok as long as you watch it on a PC and not a console.

Watched it on the flight back from Borneo. It was meh. Better than Angels and Demons. Does that help?

I watch it on a Phillips DVD/DivX player. What does that count for?

It's not THAT bad, but it's not terribly good either. Let me try to think of the good bits in a vague and general term that won't spoil things.

A-10's, yep, they're cool.

Anton Yelchin's very good in it, though not as good as he is with a comedy Russian accent. I wish the entire film had revolved around the entertaining Yelchin, and Sam Worthington, in a future 'buddy movie' type affair. They were good. The bits with them mucking around in the first half are good.

The chase sequence is good.

Erm.

Errr.

Argg,

Yeah, that's about it. Christian Bale hovers over the film like some awful black-hole-white-hole sucking the fun out of the land and spewing out gravel in its stead.

Pixels and bios mostly.

I second the motion!

I remember reading that


John Connor was only meant to get a few mins of screen time at the end and that he was going to die and have his face stitched onto the Wayne Rooney-o-tron friendly robot.

Cale was due to play the Rooneybot but decided that a star of his enormous calibre should play John Connor.

This led to hasty rewrites that left the film a confusing mess. The whole story is dogshit.


Things I liked about the film:

Spooky Helen Bonham-Carter-o-screen.
CGI Arnold (for about 1 sec*).



Things I really didn't like:

Christian Bale's face and voice.

The lack of proper terminators.

The motorbike termies, the fish termies and anything else that wasn't humanoid.

*Terminators that throw you rather than just close their hands around your neck and squeeze.

John's wife in T4 being about the same age as John's wife in T3... and being able to perform a heart transplant in open air with her vet's training.

Kyle Reece. Didn't buy into him at all. Apparently he's the best thing in it.

You read this on here by me, and I read it in a few places I trust, including Empire magazine. The first part is definitely true, McG talked about it at Comic-Con last year. The Bale-as-Terminator, Connor-as-minor-character thing is only a rumour I think, albeit a widely reported one.

True... but the actress playing her in T4 is a hottie. She was my 'best thing' about the film.

Oh, goody. Terminator with a wanker's indie whinge soundtrack, 35 year old teenagers and spindly twat-faced women who weigh less than my shoes beating up armoured robots, while flailing their arms around like menstrual schoolgirls.

Does anyone remember the last time Whedon got hold of a major sci fi thriller franchise? That's right: Alien 4.

Good things end. Anyone who cares about a story must learn when to stop electrocuting the corpse and let. It. Die.

Which, apart from the "Wub you mummy!" bit, was great. Certainly better than 3.

I like the Wub u Mumz0r bit. Not enough feel good scenes involving wobbly little clitty nosed skullrillas.

Comparing it to Alien 3 is a bit of a cheat, really. You could say it's certainly better than licking Piers Morgan as well, but that doesn't mean it wasn't crap.

I did quite like the underwater bit, though.

I think we've done this one before, but it's arguably even worse when they (or whatever monster/killer is doing it) do grab your neck and squeeze, but somehow all this does is make their victim look a bit worried, but still leave them with the ability to talk their way out of trouble. Like in T3, for instance. A robot is crushing your throat, but no matter! You can talk him down. It's not as if your throat has anything to do with your voice, after all.

I quite like Alien 3...

You were saying that Whedon wrecked the series with 4. In that context, comparing it with 3 is perfectly valid.

What you meant to say was "Whedon took a great series that was ruined by Alien 3 and made 4, which was better, although not up to the standard of the first two."

Doesn't have quite the same punch though, does it?

I like Whedon, but good lord to the Terminator franchise.

But Alien 4 was rubbish anyway, even without holding it up to the standards of the first two. It made no sense, was full of annoying characters and lots of weird and pointless scenes (man stands around in a room full of aliens saluting a dead bloke, like an idiot, and then pulls out a piece of his own skull and looks at it... what? Ripley 'mercifully' kills someone by SETTING THEM ON FUCKING FIRE. They'd have died in like two hours anyway in the crash, damn it. The alien sneaking on board the escape craft, which was such a shocking twist after it happened in the first two films. The guy killing someone with his Robocop ricochet-vision. The screeching weirdo in the wheelchair, and everyone standing around watching him and his friend in trouble instead of helping him. The utterly ridiculous womb thing. It's just stupid thing after stupid thing, with no tension or surprise or reason to care about anyone - even Ripley acts like a blithering idiot several times).

I loved the way the aliens escaped, though. That was great. And the effects still stand up fairly well today overall.

The first film was great because it was tense and unpleasant and frightening. The second because it was exciting and amusing (and had some neato characters). The third was crap. The fourth was just nonsense that also had aliens in.

I've watched and loved the first three films many times. 3 less so. I loved TSCC and Summer Glauminator is the best thing ever. Ever. With this though, I'm not sure what the point was. You could have done a smart reboot where Connor is treated as the script originally treated him, but this 'star pissing about with canon continuity' business should not be tolerated.

I mean, plan to kill Skynet was fair enough, they didn't know it was a trap, obviously they never retained copies of Return of the Jedi after Judgement day. But then Christian 'Batjohn' Wayneconnorbale gets all shtty and is like "Saving Kyle Reece is more important" and shit, so everyone is like "yeah" and shit. As far as I can tell Reece is important because Connor is his son and Reece has to grow up and go back in time and spaff his muck up Linda Hamilton because she's dirty then get terminated for his trouble, or else there'll be no John Connor. So yes, for Connor... the world does end and that's a reasonable concern, but what's in it for anyone else? No John Connor means no whining pussy. Great soldier but I'm sure they've got others. What's he ever actually done to 'save mankind' then? Prevent Judgement Day? Did he bollocks. Reece says Connor was a 'great warrior' or somesuch in the original, but what's so great about him, once we get more than a few seconds of him post holocaust?

Fucking bin him and Bale off, reboot it properly, let someone inventive take it over. Or just give us a conclusive series of TSCC with moar nakedness from the girls in it, then bury the whole fucking franchise before it gets mouldy.

No. No more reboots. Kill it with a rail spike through the noggin'. Same goes for Alien and Predator franchises.

Good lord, am I getting tired of reboots. And sequels. And reimaginings.

See, I don't get that. I'm of the 'Let everyone have a go, and when we luck out with a good one, it'll be awesomesauce" school of thought.

Well good luck with the waiting.

Since they seem to be increasingly staggeringly unoriginal films, I'd at least like to see some staggeringly unoriginal films with some staggeringly new original robots/aliens in them. Or something. I resent this tyranny of the sci-fi triumvate too, surely there's a load of top sci-fi books someone can adapt, eh?

There are a lot of empty, blank posts in this thread. Which is strange.


Unrelated, but do you think they'll ever make a fourth Aliens film?

Even this Avatar thing is going to be underwhelming in terms of alien creativity.

Don't forget her giant rubbery nipples and inside-out tits.

I really liked Alien 3.

At least in T3 he was conflicted and trying to fight the TX's nanobots or whatever.

The T4 Arnie-tron seemed single minded enough.

this.

It's a brilliant film that is let down by only one thing, the CGI alien looks shit.

I agree, but it was *checks* fuck me, 1992. Right in the middle of the 'lets do everything in CG' period

from IMDB (Alien 3)

'Dude, Where's My Pulse Rifle'? 'HX-1 And T101 Go To Hunt Sarah Connor'?

I think you should start NaSc*WriMo for December, and get right onto this, man.

*reenplay

If you don't like any of the Alien movies after the second one, don't watch 'em.

Pretend the Terminator series ended at T2.

It's like the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy film... I'm a massive fan of the book and although the film is largely shit, I feel happier having a shit film of it than no film at all. Besides, it had Zooey Deschanel in it, being all lovely and stuff.

Current issue of Empire says there's a prequel to Alien in preproduction - which means precisely nothing with regard to it actually happening. Umm, trying to think what the basic plot summary was I read, but I think it said something about the species that piloted the ship found in Alien and what they used the aliens for. Ridley Scott is onboard though it wasn't clear if he was directing or producing - he is allegedly quite pissed off with what has happened to his "baby".