The Terminator, 09 June 2020, streamed via Hulu
Is it weird that, although I’ve never watched this before, I consider it one of the formative films of my childhood? I was four years old when The Terminator came out, and sometimes it feels like the next twenty years of sci-fi action were a response to it.
- WHOA, remember when phone books were a thing? And perms?
- Just...killing all the Sarah Connors in the area? Surely the future has more precise data-mining than that! C’mon, Skynet, have you not been taking care of your servers? Didn’t even cloud anything? Where is your reverse image search? (If you’re sending a dude back in time, surely he could post them a message about having multiple backups.)
- This is certainly a very white version of Los Angeles.
- I am extremely annoyed that the best Reese can do to escape is jump from car to car. There’s no widespread data tracking yet, people! There’s no dependable facial recognition! Databases can’t all handshake yet! The Terminator found Sarah pretty much by accident the first time around! Head out into the Mojave, change your names, and live your life on the hustle.
- Geez, Arnold has some good genes. He looks pretty much the same now? Meanwhile, I can’t even reconcile pictures of then-Biehn with now-Biehn.
- Oh, yeah, they did not play around about Reese being extremely in love with John Connor, dang. And then he completely sublimated it into a picture of Sarah, I guess. But also: Way to live out a traditional time travel paradox, y’all.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 10 June 2020, streamed via Hulu
- It’s hard not to love prison-swole Sarah Connor. And taking John on a trip through Central American militias? Sarah motherfuckin’ Connor never learned to surrender to destiny. (I wonder what she would have done if she hadn’t been wrapped up in all of this? Like, what would be next after being a waitress?) But also, how did she decide which computer factory to blow up?
- Listen, Sarah, I know you’re all badass now and everything, but bras can only ever help you when you’re on the run or in combat. Pinky swear!
- John spilling everything he thinks about his entire life at the slightest hint of a stable caretaker is low-key tragic. But also, Sarah mentioned how John’s terminator would never hit him, as she’s musing about father figures, so I guess this means Sarah’s buried her share of bodies in Nicaragua.
- John’s choices starting from when he decides to follow his mom and save Dyson pretty aptly demonstrate that he could, in fact, be a pretty decent leader in the future. Comforting his mom, ordering the terminator to check Dyson’s wounds, then rip his skin off, and making sure the kid is out of the way for a while. That’s a helluva job at grokking a situation at a look and knowing what all your moves should be.
- Poor Miles.
- Wait, is there a good reason to destroy the terminator? Like, if he could get repaired and just not, like, DIE, it seems like it wouldn’t matter if there was still that one chip hanging out in the present. I mean, it’s dramatic and all, but seriously.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, 11 June 2020, streamed via Netflix
- Wait, what the hell? Were we supposed to be invested in John this whole time?
- Listen, franchise, if you’re trying to jam some young people's romance into this narrative, you might have a misperception of your raison d’etre.
- “No fate but what we make.” I can’t decide if it’s ironic or sad that the Connors are determined to prevent destiny even while their future-selves are trying to crystallize what they do in the past in order to preserve the rebellion in the future.
- Their near-escapes are remarkably the size of truck wheel wells.
- Oh, nothing big, just a frickin’ PARTICLE ACCELERATOR right in the middle of what appears to be at least a mid-sized city. Why do they need a particle accelerator at a weapons development facility?
- Poor Nick Stahl had to limp through the entire movie. Did they have to write in a sprained ankle or something? (I could look this up, I suppose, but I don’t care that much.)
- Okay, that was an unexpectedly bleak ending. But...okay. Huh.
Terminator Salvation, 12 June 2020, streamed via Netflix
- This is not, to my regret, a movie about the immediate aftereffect of Judgment Day, of course, because that’s a thing I would probably find interesting. What did John and Kate do in that bunker?
- I like how the Matrix apocalypse is basically the inverse of the traditional robots-take-over narrative. Terminator and most other robot apocalypse has the robots aiming to CTRL+H humanity. The Matrix universe had the robots pulling humanity into their world.
- ”Like all machines, it has an off switch.” Wait, that directly contradicts what they said in the last movie! They couldn’t stop Judgment Day because there wasn’t an off switch!
- Okay, fine, I’m down with meeting past future Kyle Reese. THIS IS ACCEPTABLE. (RIP Anton Yelchin.)
- Why can’t we have a movie all about Star? Taciturn post-apocalyptic moppets are the best kind of moppets.
- Seriously, we can’t escape English-only racism even during the robot apocalypse?
- Aw, they Manchurian Candidated him! Poor Marcus. But technically, isn’t his mission totally over now? He got Connor in there--does he have any directive beyond that?
- Surprise T-800! I wish they had John show even the littlest bit of exasperation at that, though. Like, Goddamn it, you AGAIN?
- Marcus donning the Resistance jacket before heading out to save John is such a tiny detail, but pretty wonderful on a character level.
- STAR SAVED HUMANITY. I mean, at least the humans in California.
- Everyone’s cool with just removing the heart of a sentient being? Y’all, I have some concerns.
Terminator Genisys, 13 June 2020, DVD via public library
- Look at John listening to Reese blather on about his plans for the future, as if Reese will have any choice in the matter. (What reason, do you think, did John use when he foisted a picture of his mother on Reese? Like, that’s pretty weird, right?) Just once, I would love to see adult John Connor whisper, “Thanks, Dad,” to Reese under his breath.
- I was skeptical about Emilia Clarke, but given her dynamic with T-800 is “surly teenage girl and her dad,” she’s kind of perfect.
- Oh, hey, re-visioned memories! So this is just one constantly revised timeline, rather than multiple branching timelines? But what about all the paradoxes? If they jump to 2017, then wouldn’t that mean John would be much, much younger when the apocalypse hits? How recursive is this timeline? Is there any version control?
- I’d like to point out the Terminator’s version of 2017 is better than our version of 2017. Aside from Siri evolving into Skynet, I mean.
- Okay, whoever decided to equip the T-800 with a giant teddy bear is a genius and deserves several awards.
- Nooooooo TERMINATOR JOHN?! And THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR IS SKYNET?! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON. Wait, you can defeat all terminators with magnets? The Resistance really shouldn’t have had to fight so hard.
- Seriously, they stopped terminators with a frickin’ MRI. I legit had to pause and yell out my feelings. GIANT MAGNETS. CAN STOP. TERMINATORS. WTF.
- Okay, so, I buy Pops furnishing and organizing his underground bunker, but...who picked out that wallpaper? Do we need to talk about terminators having an interior decorating chip?
- So we have at least three T-800s that develop feelings: in T2, here in Genisys, and then in the next movie, Dark Fate. What’s with that one model that it has that capacity? I think the T-X got a little smirky, but the T-1000s never budged. (Marcus and John don’t count, since they started as humans.)
Terminator: Dark Fate, 14 June 2020, Blu-ray
- The flashback where John dies is hella BRUTAL, y’all.
- I love that so much of this movie takes place in Mexico, with a serious slice of the dialogue in Spanish. Put together with migrants hopping trains and frickin’ ICE being a major chunk of the plot/setting, well, THIS MOVIE HAS SOME THINGS TO SAY, AMERICA.
- The Rev-9 can separate his liquid metal self from his endoskeleton? IF ONLY THEY HAD SOME GODDAMN MAGNETS.
- It should be noted that Grace is definitely DTF with Dani for this entire time, and thankfully it’s not as disturbing as Reese being infatuated with John. I mean, since Grace isn’t secretly Dani’s mother or something.
- SARAH MOTHERFUCKIN’ CONNOR. What a delightful entrance! And how much do I want to see the Sarah Connor episode of America’s Most Wanted?
- Carl the Terminator is a treat, y’all. I have so many questions. But it’s nice to know interior decorating still remains a skill with this T-800! Anyway, it’s never going to be unsatisfying to watch two terminators beat each other down to their skeletons.
- So, uh, if you watch all six of these in a row, you apparently will be crying by the end. Probably. Even though a Sarah & Dani series is everything the world needs now.
That was fun. I mean, I understand time much less than I used to, but that’s not really a surprise. Next up, X-men!
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