Christian Bale Compares Terminator 4 to Batman Begins; Helena Bonham Carter Joins Cast
Christian Bale took to the defensive, insisting that he accepted the role as John Connor in Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins because it reinvents the series.
“What I saw with Terminator was what I saw with Batman Begins,” Bale told at The Dark Knight junket.
But accepting another franchise role was not an easy decision in the least.
“That was actually something that I questioned greatly… ‘Do I want to do that again?’” Bale continued. “While Batman Begins was clearly an origin story and we were in many ways ignoring any of the other films that had come before it, this won’t be the case with Terminator, as we’re staying true to the mythology, certainly to one and two more than three, but it gave us the opportunity and the chance to reinvent and revitalize that. There is no point in making it otherwise. So that is my aim, and that is why I finally decided yes, I want to try this. Because that is the responsibility we have as filmmakers, and that is what I’m aiming to achieve.”
Meanwhile, the trades are reporting that Helena Bonham Carter is in talks to join the film in a “small but pivotal” role.
In the highly anticipated new installment of The Terminator film franchise, set in post-apocalyptic 2018, Christian Bale stars as John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind. The film also stars Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, Bryce Dallas Howard as Kate Connor, Moon Bloodgood as Blair Williams, Common as Barnes, and Jadagrace as Star. Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins hits theaters on May 22nd 2009.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Demon Hand - VIDEO
(S01E07) When I was in college, I took a science fiction class. In it, we discussed the themes of the first two Terminator movies, such as the religious themes (note the initials of John Connor and the other religious figure with the same initials) and the sources of violence (In the first movie it came in the form of machines. The second backpedaled and blamed minorities for violence).
I mention this because given the overt religious theme of tonight’s episode, I wonder if Josh Friedman was in the same class. This episode went all “New Testament” on us.
Summer Glau looked mighty fine dressed as a cop like that. Some might not find it sexy, but I couldn’t help but be reminded of when female strippers dress as cops. They look a lot like that. At first, I mean. When the clothes are still on. But I digress…
Cameron seems to not be built for subtlety. She’s breaking down a lot of doors in the beginning. I think one of the big purposes of this episode is to remind us that she IS a machine, particularly when you saw how differently she and Sarah reacted to endangered human life.
Since when does John WANT to go to school? He’s certainly changed.
The Agent Ellison storyline also progressed a lot in this episode. Technically, it was the first meeting between him and Sarah, although they didn’t exactly chat over tea.
I like how the episode revisits Sarah’s stay in the mental institution that was seen in the beginning of T2. They replicated her cell from that movie pretty well. In the videotape, she even quotes Kyle Reese from T1. I believe Dr. Silberman also quotes the famous line “Come with me if you want to live” from Kyle in T1 and Arnold in T2. The heavy-continuity episodes always seem to play better to me, although I recognize that people who haven’t seen the movies might be a little lost.
Summer Glau comes from a ballet background (and she looked mighty fine doing ballet) before she moved into acting, so I’m sure doing this episode was a joy for her. Ironically, she even played a Russian ballet dancer in the episode of Angel she appeared in. Are Russian ballet dancers yet another TV cliche’?
I’m amazed Skynet made a Terminator model in Cameron that has such quiet grace. I think it would be more realistic (in the context of the show) if we heard motors whirring or metal joints creaking.
I liked the line “Do we only have one F.B.I. agent in this town?” No, but we only have one F.B.I. regular in the series. How could he store the Terminator hand in his freezer? If I did that, I’d wander in late at night for a snack and put in it in the microwave thinking it was chicken. Mmmmm. Chicken fingers.
They got a different actor to play Dr. Silberman in the episode. I’m sorry they didn’t get Earl Boen himself. He was the only actor other than Arnold to appear in all three Terminator movies. The character did mention in T3 that he went nuts from the events in T2. I guess we got a little taste of that here.
Derek Reese’s story continued in the episode as well. When do we get to the part where he learns he’s John’s uncle?
Tonight was a good episode, almost as good as last week. As mentioned, the continuity-heavy episodes tend to work better for me, particularly since this show is doing them pretty well. Given time, this could be a really good series. Like, Battlestar Galactica good. Sadly…
The season’s remaining two episodes will be shown back-to-back next week. I will be doing two separate reviews, one for each hour. The question is: will the show make a second season? I’m hoping it does, but it’s science fiction on Fox. Despite heavy Superbowl promotion, my guess is it won’t. I can only hope they bring a satisfying ending to the series in the next two episodes. We’ll see next week.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Dungeons & Dragons - VIDEO
(S01E06) This episode was a definitive step up for the series. I have one or two minor quibbles about it, but this episode has been the highlight so far.
The viewer is presented with the story of Derek Reese, who is Kyle Reese’s brother and John Connor’s uncle. This is done in the style of “future-flashes” in which we see Derek’s story post-Judgment Day and learn a lot of new information that answers some questions and creates a few more. I also got a little nerdy thrill out of myriad of references to the first Terminator movie (more on that shortly).
I should have recognized the set used for the Resistance shelter. Was the “Hang In There Baby” lion picture in the first movie? If so, I don’t recall it. I did like how they retouched the Linda Hamilton photo to put in Lena Headey’s image instead. It’s like one those time changes from the movie Back To The Future in which you see time changing around the travelers.
This actor change did not stop with Sarah Connor. Kyle Reese also changed actors for the future-flashes. No doubt Michael Biehn was similarly unaffordable. Thankfully, they didn’t show future-John (except for a segment at the end in a shadow that is obviously Thomas Dekker who plays John at 16). I think showing another actor as future-John would not have been good for continuity, which is shaky enough as it is.
For those who didn’t notice, there were a LOT of references to the first Terminator movie. The used several lines directly from that movie, including the last line “There’s a storm coming”. The future-flashes happen around the future-flashes of that movie. I do admit I miss the mountain of human skulls that were shown in the first movie, but there were probably budgetary concerns.
We now know what Derek Reese was doing when the Terminator attack from the first movie was going on. He was kidnapped (alongside future Andy Goode, who looks very similar to his young self) and used for some nefarious Skynet purpose which I could not discern. What was Skynet doing to those humans anyway? My guess is creating casts for Terminator bodies.
Notice that the Terminator keeping the resistance fighters hostage was one of the old style ones with the rubber face that Kyle referred to in the first movie. He described the type as “easy to spot”. I’m glad the producers of the show are doing their homework in that regard.
And somehow in the middle of all this is Sarah’s ex, Charlie. Charlie learns (almost) the whole story of Sarah and John. It would be a good send-off to the character but somehow I think he’s going to turn up again. Probably dead.
I did notice that the girl suicide at John’s school wasn’t mentioned in the episode, thankfully. I’m sure we’ll go back to it, but most of this episode dealt with the future-flashes and Charlie. Agent Ellison wasn’t around either.
Then, of course, there is the issue of Andy Goode. We now know that Derek Reese killed him, yet in doing so we now have another chronological paradox. If Andy was killed in the present, he could not exist in the future. So what’s the deal?
And the final coup-de-grace of the episode: what’s up with Cameron? They all but set up her own turn to evil in the future-flash when one of the captured Terminators revert back to shooting people and Cameron responds after defeating it, “Sometimes they go bad. We don’t know why.” In the next scene, she’s pocketing the CPU of the fallen Terminator. Is Cameron a double-agent of Skynet?
I liked the juxtaposition in the story of Cameron hacking up the Terminator from last episode while John is nursing Uncle Derek back to health. My favorite Cameron quote from the episode: “He’s not a guy. He’s a scary robot.”
So we’re left wondering what event will turn Cameron down the road of Connor-killing machine. My guess is that she’ll have sex with John and in a perfect moment of happiness will lose her soul. But I could be wrong.
A very good episode. I hope they’ll make more like this before its inevitable cancellation.
The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Queen’s Gambit - VIDEO
(S01E05) Andy Goode is back with another chess computer, the Turk II. This is relevant because John Connor played chess in his youth in South America and apparently knows a lot about chess history as a result. And people say this series is unrealistic.
Of course, chess is being used as a war metaphor in this episode (rather blatantly if you listen to Sarah Connor’s commentary at the beginning and end of the episode). This could be ironic because apparently Skynet is being developed from a chess program. Perhaps in the future, Skynet loses a game of chess to a human and annihilates the species as a result.
There are several mysteries from this episode, one of which I’ve already solved. The most blatant cliff-hanger mystery is: Who killed Andy Goode? If it wasn’t Derek Reese, was it a Terminator? That seems likely since their mission is to insure Skynet’s creation and without a military contract, that didn’t seem likely.
The whole Derek Reese phenomenon seemed to come out of nowhere. In the original movie, Kyle Reese never mentioned a brother. Of course, that doesn’t mean the brother didn’t exist but in that future it didn’t seem likely that coincidentally the two brothers would survive. But maybe that’s just me futilely looking for realism.
The entire Jordan suicide storyline has been dragged on long enough. Either get to the point or stop having these characters mourn a supplementary character who has become more a plot device than a person.
Speaking of, I mentioned one of the mysteries of the episode that I solved. I’m convinced that Jordan was pregnant and the guidance counselor who was grilling Cameron for information was the father. I liked how the Terminator reacted strangely when the cell phone rang, as if he never saw one before (which he probably hasn’t). Modern cell phones didn’t exist when the original movie came out. Maybe he’s a leftover from 1984.
I’ve commented on Cameron’s dress sense before, but in this episode she’s going Goth slut. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. She is, however, attracting more attention to herself and I think that goes against the mission of laying low. I thought it was funny when she was presented with the Westworld style robot and reacted quizzically. Then the robot canine (perhaps a tribute to Doctor Who) showed up and totally mystified her. Her best line of the episode was “I’m done with grief counseling. I’m feeling much better.”
Sarah Connor is getting more fashionable by sporting a new hairstyle, or more likely a wig. And now that while Cameron has problems working with a VCR, she can disassemble a Terminator in twelve seconds.
During the final battle scene, when the other Terminator got its hand knocked off, I thought, “Great. Now there’s ANOTHER piece lying around the city.” Didn’t the fact that a Terminator hand was left around the first movie lead to the second one?
The episode helped a lot of plotlines move forward. The big revelation was the existence of Derek Reese who is John Connor’s uncle. I wonder if he’s going to end up being a future love interest for Sarah. If so, then it’s just like television to immediately introduce him to Sarah’s ex.