Terminator is better than Terminator 2, and as cool as it is Terminator 2 should never have been made (or should have a different script).
I know the mob is raising the pitchfork, but hear me out, there are two main ways time travel can solve the grandparent paradox, these are Singular Timeline (i.e. something will prevent you from killing your grandfather) or Multiple Timeline (you kill him but in doing so you created an alternate timeline). Terminator 2 is clearly a MT model, because they delay the rise of Skynet, but Terminator is a ST movie. The way you can understand it’s an ST is because the cause-consequences form a perfect cycle (which couldn’t happen on an MT story), i.e. Reese goes back to save Sarah -> Reese impregnates Sarah and teaches her how to defend herself from Terminators and avoid Skynet -> Sarah gives birth to and teaches John -> John uses the knowledge to start a resistance -> The resistance is so strong that Skynet sends a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah -> Reese goes back to save Sarah…
The awesome thing about Terminator is how you only realise this at the end of the Movie, that nothing they did mattered, because that’s what happened before, the timeline is fixed, humanity will suffer but they’ll win eventually.
If Terminator was a MT then the cycle breaks, i.e. there needs to be a beginning, a first time around when the original timeline didn’t had any time travelers. How did that timeline looked like? John couldn’t exist, which means that sending a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah was not possible, Reese couldn’t have gone back without the Terminator technology, which they wouldn’t have unless the resistance was winning, and if they are winning without John, the Terminator must have gone back to kill someone else and when Reese went back he accidentally found Sarah, impregnated her and coincidentally made a better commander for the resistance which accidentally and created a perfect loop so that next time he would be sent back and meet Sarah because she was the target (what are the odds of that). Then why is the movie not about this? Why is the movie about the Nth loop after the timeline was changed? The reason is that Terminator was thought as a ST movie, but when they wanted to write a sequel they for some reason decided to allow changes in the timeline which broke the first movie.
Not to mention that it’s fucking stupid to have all your infiltration units have the exact same face and body. The first movie even showed other terminators with different faces, so why is every T-800 Arnold?
This tries to play on the idea that skynet is terrifyingly smart in some ways, but still deficient in others.
It doesn’t really “make sense” but it’s the whole reason there’s a chance of an “ongoing” conflict between humans and skynet. If skynet was as smart as it should be, humans would be long gone.
And you know how they explained time travel not making sense in Doctor Who? They called it “wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff” and hand waved all that shit away.
And that’s fine, but if one Dr. Who explained time travel in detail, showing things that would be impossible, the next doctor shouldn’t violate those rules, it’s about in-universe consistency.
You are correct, I haven’t. But if the next Doctor said Time travel was impossible and spent the entire show not time traveling (because time travel is impossible) I bet that would raise some eyebrows.
No, the problem is internal consistency, in Star Wars the force works the same way in all films. But imagine if on one movie someone was shown using the force to move objects, and on the next movie the same character was shown trying to reach for something important and failing and not using the force and when asked he replies “it’s not possible to move objects with the force”. That’s the problem here, internal consistency, on one movie it’s said it works one way, on the other it’s said it works differently. I love both movies, I just think T2 shitted on one of the main things from T1.
Ah! A fellow holder of the belief that time travel stories are better when they are internally consistent! I hate e.g. Looper for having time travel that makes no goddamn sense. It takes me out of the story when the characters are literally watching the timeline change before them as it magically radiates out from one point. And then our protagonists somehow remember the original timeline… Bah.
…So I must ask - have you seen Primer? If not, maybe you’d like it!
I really, really appreciate this unpopular opinion, it made me see things in a different light. Unfortunately, the convincing you just did pales in comparison to how good Terminator 2 was. It wasn’t just a cool flick, a sequel, a “time travel movie”, etc, it was something special and it was amazing. But I fully understand and appreciate when time travel in movies doesn’t make 100% sense, because it almost never does …
I found a few movies that I genuinely enjoy that make the (or made at the time this was written and I tried it) bottom quartile. Malibu’s most wanted and “the crew” are movies I don’t skip by (but also never see any more :( ) basically ‘organized crime by the inept’ movies tickle me the right way
I actively like Star Trek Generations (48 on RT). I think it’s accessible if you’re not a Trek fan, and delightful if you are. A bit campy at times, sure. But it’s a human plot dealing with age, death, and change.
I like Generations way more than say, First Contact.
Generations, for all its flaws, was a science fiction story passing the torch from TOS to TNG, and saying something about the characters and world of Star Trek.
First Contact was a generic action-adventure movie wearing a Star Trek uniform.
Honestly, I consider Generations to be the only interesting TNG movie.
The Way of the Gun (2000), 46% fresh. I really, actually do like this movie. I know, Ryan Phillipe makes things complicated. Like, starting in the first scene with Sarah Silverman.
“There’s always cheese at a mousetrap.”
The problem that this movie faced was that there was no reward for having a long attention span. Critically panned, the Way of the Gun rewards those who get carried along in the story; those who understand the roles the characters play in each others’ lives, the Shakespearean knit in the fabric.
Longbaugh and Parker are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern witnessing the collapse of the house of and unborn Hamlet, whose supposed parents are a mob underboss and his trophy wife. His actual parents are at the shootout where he was born.
All militarists know that war is horror - they relish the horror of it.
That’s why they love movies like Saving Private Ryan (which justifies the horror by ascribing justification to it) while disliking movies such as The Thin Red Line or Catch 22 (which strips any kind of justification away from it).
Ah, I see your point. I didn’t relish the horror. I didn’t even understand the horror. When I was growing up, I was taught in a way that minimized or disregarded suffering. SPR did not do that. It showcased it and in a horrendous way. While some may relish in that, I didn’t and it made me reconsider my childhood support of any armed conflict as justified. I didn’t understand the costs involved. While I’m sure the movie didn’t capture everything, what it showed was horrendous.
Idk about your point of justification. It’s been a while and I don’t remember that.
Weaponized masculinity portrays the horrors of war as some kind of “test” of masculinity - you’ll see this in a lot of fascist propaganda. It’s literally what fascists mean when they spew their “blood and soil” bullcrap. It’s pretty sick - I grew up in Apartheid-era South Africa, and they brainwashed us like that.
While I’m sure the movie didn’t capture everything, what it showed was horrendous.
The problem I have with movies like Saving Private Ryan is that they don’t address the central conceit of the vast majority of “war media” - ie, that war is an activity primarily waged by armed combatants against other armed combatants. This is absolutely not the truth - wars are primarily waged by armed combatants against unarmed non-combatants. This is especially true when we discuss colonialist warfare - it is being literally demonstrated right now in Gaza.
Idk about your point of justification
You remember Tom Hank’s little line about “earning it?” The more you think about it, the sillier it becomes.
I personally refuse to watch the film again. Not because was bad which it is not, but because it depicts war so graphically I’m opposing war even more since I saw the opening scene.
Filming on film and showing in the theater is wildly outdated and unecessary. At the same time we have reached so much bloat in digital content that even the act of sorting what is worth watching takes a lifetime and feels disappointing. It also feels like a guantlet to find anything for a rewatch to the point I give up and just do other things like write tepid takes on lemmy.
I think a lot of people sees Heaths performances and go this is awesome that makes this an awesome movie, didn’t help that he died around the same time.
This then lead to it being this best movie ever meme, where anyone that didn’t think so was hevely down voted and sometimes insulted and it managed to remain like that for many many years.
Personally I hold the opinion that while Heath did a incredible performance, had he had a better script and maybe even a none Batman script. It would have been an absolutely marvellous performance. Also that as he did such a good job but the rest of the movie didn’t, he’s work stod out more as being really good.
Don’t know if it might help but I’m using “Feeeed” RSS for Reddit and the likes Feeeed RSS IOS link and I’m using “RSS mobile” for news RSS mobile IOS link.
Definitely as a millennial I'm of the last generation that will remember arranging to meet up somewhere in advance and sticking to that plan (or rearranging over landline with more than a day's notice...)
But something I've noticed when I ask people in my team what their dream jobs are the younger people tend to say 'run their own businesses', 'work for themselves' etc. Whereas in our generation (in my circles anyway) that definitely wasn't so prominent. Maybe a side effect of seeing influencers making it big?
I mean yeah, I've been unemployed for a significant part of my working life. I guess you can also add to my list being the last generation encouraged to get a degree by well meaning parents and teachers at school 'because it will guarantee you getting a job for life'.
Definitely as a millennial I’m of the last generation that will remember arranging to meet up somewhere in advance and sticking to that plan (or rearranging over landline with more than a day’s notice…)
This is related to an interesting phenomenon I noticed while chatting about this with my parents. The question “where are you?” was hardly asked back in the day. With landlines, you already knew where they are. The only time that question was asked involved payphones. And those barely exist anymore either.
Just spitballing here, but the “dream job” question might also come down to the destruction of the middle class (and the recognition thereof). 20 years ago it looked a lot more like you could make a good living working for someone else, doing something interesting. Plus there was more trust that employers would “do right” by their employees. There were pensions and quality healthcare benefits.
Now all that (and the security it brings) has dissolved. It may not be Gen Z people wanting to make it big or be a celebrity, but a desire to live comfortably and seeing that they can’t trust an employer to let them do that. If the only way you can build security for yourself is by building a big pile of money, then people are going to seek that out.
Edit: and when I say that “20 years ago” these things existed, I don’t mean that they were still functioning like they did another generation earlier, but it was way better than it is now and there was less awareness of what was happening.
I remember those times, those were the before or early cell phones times, where like half the people carried a phone. You would be at the restaurant wondering if Jon would ever show because he is kind of a flake… then Donny would suggest calling Jackie because she has a cellphone and is always with Jon, but then none of it matters because Donny’s phone is shit because he has T-Mobile which doesn’t yet have coverage in this part of the country, so he just carries it as a status symbol.
I did not like Donnie Darko until I rewatched the movie with the directors commentary. It felt like reading the Clif Notes after struggling to understand an obtuse old book in English class. I don’t think it’s a good thing per se that the movie’s plot struggles to stand on its own, but my appreciation for what was attempted really went up a lot after getting the supplemental material.
Tbh the actual cast and direction of the The Hobbit movies wasn’t that bad, but intentionally drawing out a single book that could’ve been done in 3-4 hours into 3 whole movies in a vain attempt at recapturing the LoTR trilogy’s fame is what made it weaker.
Rings of Power, however, throws out a lot of the stuff that happened in The Second Age and straight-up ignores Tolkien’s works at times. Granted, Amazon didn’t have legal rights to the Silmarillion and the LoTR appendices, but it’s still a shame we basically got a gutted version of what could have been a great show. Galadriel was also pretty boring as your generic “Marvel strong stoic action woman” kind of character.
What’s mad is they could have done a millennium long epic of Sauron’s domination Númenor. Could have made the whole thing as long or as short as they want and build from there.
They could have had political intrigue. conspiracies, betrayal, double-crossing and all sorts.
Who's claiming The Fifth Element is deep? The style and design are excellent, but it's a bog standard action flick until Chris Tucker shows up and steals the movie
Let the 20th century’s middle children have their joke. Comon, it was a little goof and you come in guns blazing. Relax, save your energy for fighting something that matters.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll be over here rubbing IcyHot and cannabis lotion on my joints as I quietly await an early death
Christopher Nolan hasn't made a truly good movie since The Prestige. Everything since then has been too long, too convoluted, and/or too loud (or in the case of Oppenheimer, not loud enough).
I could hate on the Dark Knight all day. The month it came out, my brother put it best, “It’s two movies. A good, short, Joker movie and a bad, long, Batman movie.”
When you watch this film and only the Joker scenes, its 10x better.
While I haven’t watched enough of his movies to have a overall opinion of them. As the only movie of a certan trilogy that I found good came out before The Prestige and the second which I VERY unpopulary don’t like came out after. I can somewhat agree with you.
Really? I found it to be extremely mid. It took at least an hour for the film to not feel like a trailer montage and find proper pacing. The writing didn’t feel organic at all, and felt like actors reading historical quotes from a page at each other. Also, when Florence Pugh’s character started riding Oppenheimer’s dick while he said his famous Bhagavad Gita line, I burst out laughing in the theater and had a really hard time taking the rest of the movie seriously.
I think this movie will be forgotten in 3 years, if not sooner.
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