Watched it again a couple of times last weekend and was seriously impressed. It's arguably better than T2 although it depends upon what time in your life you view it/them.
T2 was great when I was a kid (it's still good [I also watched it last weekend]). The apocalypse is averted, the future remains open, and things can reattain a level of relative normalcy if the trauma can be creatively dissimulated.
Solid sci-fi, convincing absurdity, collaborative outlook, intact.
T3 represents a sequel which strategically follows a similar pattern to its predecessor(s), revisiting familiar scenes and situations in order to socialize on the franchise's precedents, while reimagining them with enough mutated historical ingenuity to subtly transmit an evolutionary code.
Without screwing things up.
Such revisitations are done at great risk for if the scenarios fail to entrance, the predecessor/s quickly begin/s to appear more appealing.
T3's resolution is somewhat less innocent, however (it's much less innocent), which, for those of us who saw T2 when they were 12 and T3 many years later, while still remaining in possession of the firm environmentally friendly conscious T2 shyly promotes, fictionally nurtures a degree of realistic despondency, brought about by an increasingly monolithic technocratic agency's dismissal of environmental concerns (the environmental movement, from what I remember, was stronger in Canada in 1991), by directly working its principle audience's growth into the script, bizarrely taking into account different trends and fashions, while harshly yet romantically preparing them for the post-symbolic (notably when John [Nick Stahl] resignedly yet affirmably utters a cliché when he's flying to Crystal Peak with Catherine Brewster [Claire Danes]).
Hence, within T3, a pagan dimension in touch with the eternal timeline and its intertemporal distortions (whether or not these distortions should be viewed as part of the eternal timeline is up for debate but the evidence provided by T3 suggests they should not) intervenes and ensures that two somewhat unwilling individuals are given a fighting chance to subvert an inevitable machinismo (to continue to fight for a more collaborative playing field against forces possessing incontrovertible resource rich 'class-oriented' biases)(the timeline is reconstituted to the best possible version nature can provide after which its 'unwitting' agents must generally fend for themselves).
And who has returned with updated loveable psychological subroutines? None other than the converted patriarchal killing machine who saw the light (was reprogrammed) and began using his organic metallurgic abilities to protect humanistic interests instead (himself). Much of what his counterpart from T2 learned flows within but now that Mr. Connor's older and realizes what he's up against, his counterarguments to that created by his significant other's interpretation of his childhood memories occasionally lack his youthful antagonistic conviction.
After surviving the intermediary years, he comes to understand the T-101's (Arnold Schwarzenegger) no-nonsense methods.
Mechanically, T-101's primary adversary is a younger more flexible model, but even though he's an older design, this doesn't mean he can't compete.
In regards to the dialogue established by the changing feminine gender paradigms culturalized by the gap between these two sequels, in T2 the only strong female character with knowledge that would make a significant historical difference is locked-up in a mental institution; in T3 the feminine is split, one character representing independent unyielding destructive technocratic oppression, the other, bourgeois stability transformed (consequently) into a fierce warrioress.
In regards to identity, as far as John and Catherine Brewster go, and ignoring the acute crisis the T-101 must face, T3 seems to be suggesting that if you're unclassified or professional (notably in the "you're not exactly my 'type' either" exchange), and if democratic institutions become so diluted that their impact no longer bears any teeth, or a well-funded psychological campaign produces a wide-ranging cynicism regarding their effects even when they're still capable of bearing fruit, you'll both be stuck necessarily contending with an entrenched systemic opponent who had been modestly brought to heel after the Second World War.
Try and think about what Barack Obama would have been able to do then.
Which seems to be T3's prescient message, which could explain the lacklustre reviews it received during the George W. Bush Era. I don't know. But it takes the risk of bombing due to the ways in which it relies so heavily on T2's format and manages to ironically cultivate greener pastures to the contrary, which is a sign of bold writing, and great filmmaking (directed by Jonathan Mostow, screenplay by Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato).
And the Dr. Silverman (Earl Boen) scene is priceless. I'll watch it again just to see that alone.
There's more humour within too, notably the ways in which the 'asocial' terminators affect those they meet, my favourite line being "and, the coffin," subtly reflecting the difficulties the eccentric encounter on a regular basis.
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