I never know I'm such a fan of robotic, technology stuff; do not misunderstand, please, since I'm not that kind of creepily interested in such stuff. I'm just slightly into the Terminator series, even since I was a child back then.

Let me tell you something, Terminator 2 (picture below) is one of the most epic movie I've ever watched that really touched the depth of my heart. The reason is simple - the acting in the movie was superb (even by comparing 1991 to today's standard), and the music composed were just pure genius. It blended into the background flawlessly and brought out the mood which the audience were suppose to feel.

Two out of five of our senses are being captured, easily.




Next, the storyline of Terminator 2 was nicely written, and with the directing from James Cameron, it brings the movie to life. Why it's nice, you asked? Easy, because it has employed some really unique and distinguishing plot style. From the begining of the show, it deliberately misleads the audiences and drop some pretty obvious hints to the audience as to the roles of the good and bad guy. It's simply beautiful when it is later revealed to us that the movie has been feeding us some fake information. To make the movie even better, there are a lot emotions part which are played out pretty well. All kind of expressions are portrayed in a darn realistic way, and the most impressive part is the fascinating idea about the Terminators.

Again, it's a simple reason. Because they're robots, and our first impression will tell us that robots simply can't feel any emotion. That's when the good part kicks into play -- one simple emotion that the Terminators play out will affect us in a great deal, and each and every of their moves will be apparent to our eyes.

This is what I called a character-point of where a character needs to bring life out of their character with only minimal gestures/emotions. It's damn hard to do that, but it's achievable and it'll sort of spring us with a sudden surprise. We'll be thinking that we never expected them to be able to feel it this way.

That's why I'm going to say Arnold acting as the Terminator is truly epic. Simple word, it's perfect. His initial cold, inhuman personality eventually evolves into something which we will never forget, as a fatherly figure to John Connor, as his guardian to defend him from the evil T-1000, and eventually, sacrifices himself for the greatest good of humanity. These invoke so many beautiful emotions, and the part where he's being lowered into the lava is just so heart-wrenching. It's like when we think that they (Terminator & John) can eventually be together as father-and-son, but the next second it's farewell for both of them.

I think the beauty of the story is more than mere words can describe.

And the most impressive part is that the movie only used up 100U$Dmillion to complete the production, which is a small amount (for 1991's technology) as compared to the upcoming movie which spent twice the budget of its predecessor.

Yeah, you get it right. Too much money are tied up on the eye-catchy effects (I dubbed it the "wah" effect), which I think is completely unnecessary. First, the car-chasing scene spends too much time on creating an epic feeling (which fails miserably), and I don't think the need of creating a super nuclear explosion just from a hydrogen fuel. At least Terminator 2 did it on the right moment - during the Judgment Day. That... at least is acceptable.

Without the help of a great, memorable story, those "wah" effects won't last long enough to be inside your head until the end of the movie. I call that failure, wasting money on stupid things. Apart from that, I don't think I should go much more further as I might attract some hate mails in the near future. Luckily, I've kept my identity annoymous.

Who knows a bugger with a lame name L3G3nD Lim? FAT CHANCE that you'll catch me!

Of course, this isn't the end. Let me bring your attention to the next spin-off: Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles. Just to be frank, the reason I started the show is because of Summer Glau. Gosh, I mean, who could ever resist her ever charming outlook and her acting skill? Firefly/Serenity are good examples of why people should like her.

Back to the topic, she's the key person to the series -even though she's just a support character- posing as a Terminator comes from the future, reprogrammed to protect the future resistence leader. For you reader's information, the story takes off into a different timeline with Terminator 3 movie. In simple words, it's just a spin-off.



Summer Glau poses as a Terminator whose name is Cameron. I've watched a few episode (just flipping through the show) and noticed that she did retain her ability in acting, and perhaps, even better than her previous roles. With minimal expressions/emotions to be portrayed as a Terminator, it's a really tough task to make people fall in love with Cameron herself. But Summer manages to do the trick. Fantastic, I must say, and especially her outburst of emotions when she's pinned in between the cars (Season 1 ending, Season 2's 1st episode) are... are just morbidly fascinating. How can I not fall in love with such an actress?

I may not be in the position to judge whether the scene represents her personality or simply OOC (Out-of-Character), but through the scene in the eyes of first-timers, it's fantastically done.

To watch it or not, I still have no conclusive result yet. Gotta wait until I finally got my hand on the whole series itself. So, I shall reserve my opinion furthermore, at least until I finished watching the show.


As a conclusion of this post, I truly think that the idea of robots are inspiring. The reason is simply because of the expression part. Terminator 2 is epic, Terminator 3 is so-so, while the opinion on Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles is still pending for further judgment. On a sidenote, I, Robot by Will Smith is another nicely done movie. Worth watching.

How I wish all the movies I watched will be as good as T2.

Haha.

Labels: Review