Made in 2009 Terminator: Salvation is the third sequel to 1984’s The Terminator and the fourth film in the series. It features Christian Bale as John Connor with Sam Worthington as new character Marcus Wright. This time Arnold Schwarzenegger does not physically appear (as he was Governor of California at the time), however, his face was digitally mapped and used to create the new model terminator seen in the first film.
War Against the Machines
Set in 2018, John Connor (Bale) is just one of the survivors of the events of Judgement Day (seen at the end of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), and is now one of the key figures in the Human Resistance. He is not the main person in charge and has to answer to his superiors who live inside a nuclear submarine.
The resistance plan to launch an attack on a Skynet base in San Francisco but John discovers a “kill list” which indicates that the machines are planning on killing the Resistance’s command staff in a week’s time. John’s name is second on their list under Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin). No one else in the Resistance realises the significance of Kyle Reese, but John knows that he is the man who will become his father. Despite John's efforts, Kyle is captured along with a number of others and taken to a prison.
In the ruins of a base in Los Angeles, Marcus (Worthington) is discovered to be the only survivor. It later turns out that he is a cyborg, created by Skynet, only he doesn’t know that he is a machine. John believes that Marcus' mission is to kill him and orders his destruction but after Marcus saves his life, the two make a bargain, they will go in together and rescue the prisoners, including Kyle Reese.
Continuity Just One of The Problems
Immediately the audience will notice that things don’t seem to be matching up with what they have seen during glimpses of the future in The Terminator and Terminator 2. In both of those films the humans and machines seemed to have ray gun-like weapons, whereas in Salvation they seem to be using the same kinds of weapons that are in use today. It could be argued that the fact that terminators have been sent through time mean that the future is not happening in the same way. As it said in the first two films, the future is not set, so perhaps Skynet’s own interference with the timeline has resulted in the changes the audiences are witnessing. Indeed Kyle Reese in The Terminator made it seem as though the machines had taken over very rapidly and dominated most of the world, in Salvation the machines have their territory and the humans have theirs.
Continuity errors aside Christian Bale steps into the shoes formerly occupied by Edward Furlong and Nick Stahl, this time he is not a scared child or frightened adolescent trying to stay one step ahead of the machines. He is a freedom fighter but in this instalment he is a soldier on the front line, not one of the commanders hiding onboard a nuclear submarine. The man of action is a role that Bale can play well (as he did in Batman Begins), and Sam Worthington also does a good enough job convincing the audience that he has no idea why his mind is in the body of a machine. However, it is young Anton Yelchin who really steals the show with his portrayal of Kyle Reese, a teenage who cannot even begin to realise how important he is.
The biggest problem with Terminator: Salvation is that it had so much potential to pick up after the very poor Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It could have given the audience a real insight into the war against the machines. Sadly it writes cheques that it simply couldn’t cash. The inclusion of a digitally recreated Arnie as one of the new breeds of terminator is a nice touch, however, it just cannot salvage the proceedings.
Essentially there is very little that can redeem Salvation and the audience will be left to wonder why the machines felt the need to explain their plan to Marcus, why their facilities include doors that can be opened with access codes, etcetera. There are so many questions left unanswered that Terminator: Salvation cannot be seen as anything more than another largely pointless addition to the franchise.
2/5
Better than Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines but that is not saying much.
Christopher Sharman - In 2009 I self-published my first novel entitled The Darkness Saga: The Light (currently available at amazon.co.uk) which has been ...
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