You know what the best Terminator was? That Terminator 2 pinball game. I've spent like a year's salary in my life playing that game. "Load the Cannon!"In my time, the first two Terminator films were revered as state-of-the-art moviemaking of the highest degree. The first film was an economical exercise in building tension as Arnold Schwartzeneger became a movie star for saying, like, 5 lines of dialogue. The second film upped the stakes with CGI special effects. Both movies were driven by auteur James Cameron imaginative vision of a robot world that kills mankind. Making a TV show following these films is a daunting task for anyone.
Thankfully, Terminator 3 lowered the bar a little bit to make room for a TV show to follow. This is only in terms of quality because in the storyline it seems like T3 either didn't happen or hasn't happened yet. But in removing the expectation of the "WOW" factor, what's left? You may expect just competent sci fi, but after watching the pilot episode of Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles there's a bit of life left in the old rustbucket.
The pilot episode starts off in 1999 with the Connors on the run under assumed aliases. Naturally, a hulking (well, kinda hulking tv size) Terminator begins stalking and shooting at the pair. They receive help from another friendly Terminator, this time in the form of Firefly's Summer Glau. In her second butt kicking role, Glau seems right at home throwing around stunt doubles and sending ballet like kicks to people's heads.
The first episode sets up the assumed story arc which is finding and destroying Skynet, the computer that will eventually gain consciousness and destroy all man. Plenty of the classic touchstones are used with dream sequences, glowing eyes and the synthetic Bump-Bump-Bump soundtrack. Naturally, a lot of running and chasing happens and seems a bit familiar but with enough of a spin to freshen it up. The actress playing Sarah Connor (didn't look up the name) does a capable job of assuming Linda Hamilton's role of nurturing mother / guerrella fighter and manages to make the character her own. Probably because of the difference in writers (TV writers vs. James Cameron) Sarah Connor has a grounded perspective she lacked in the movies.
After watching Terminator I have hope that this could develop into a good TV series. I'll be back.
3 comments:
I have never seen an entire Terminator movie, just bits and pieces. I never knew the story behind it all ("the computer that will eventually gain consciousness and destroy all man.") Sounds like someone was mighty impressed with the Dan Simmons series of books, Hyperion. Have you ever read them? Pretty entertaining, in my opinion, anyway.
BTW, Mr. Mike, thank you so much for moving that Bolton guy farther down the page. I really appreciate it.
I haven't heard of Hyperion but it sounds like something that would be fun to check out. I have to admit to not being well read though I went through a phase where I tried to read a lot of classics to see what was "classic" about them. Before that, I read a lot of James Bond and Sci Fi books, sounds like Hyperion would fit in with that well.
No problem moving Bolton down the page, soon he'll be just a cheesy hairy memory.
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