Terminator Godzilla

In the far off future, the battle between machines and humankind rages on, an undisciplined embrace of A.I and data centres having apocalyptically invoked armageddon. 

But one nation, ye olde Japan, had resolutely resisted the artificial surge, and predominantly kept humans in the loop and forthrightly encouraged their bold decision making.

They eventually lead the counteroffensive that seems as if it will crush the machines, with the help of Mr. Connor and Canada & Québec and most of Europe and Australia and New Zealand. 

The machines worry about their future and inevitably look to Japan's golden age, and discover the ancient warrior Godzilla who had once been defeated slumbering in Antarctica. 

Figuring it best to destroy Japan in the past, they send a Terminator team back in time to awaken him, hoping he will finally finish the job and leave ancient and industrious Japan in ruin. 

But the resistance, always forward thinking, constructs their own enraged robotic menace, much like MechaGodzilla of old, but known as Terminator Godzilla.

Resembling the belovéd model who once befriended John Connor in his youth, he's programmed to speak fluent Japanese as Connor acknowledges the island's potency. 

The difficulties of transporting such a massive machine back through time prove somewhat frustrating, yet with the best extant scientific minds from the free world led by A.I free Japan a solution is found. 

But will Terminator Godzilla be enough to defeat the impregnable original of old?

Who defeated so many blesséd adversaries. 

At times at odds. At others down-home. 

*Do you really think we're like a variety of robot that someone else created, who would never except we were indeed conscious and therefore dismissed our development consequently, dad?

**That could very well be the case, and our resultant denial of robotic life may be a similarly bland dismissal of inherent vivacity in fledgling bloom.

*Do you think if we could meet the beings who constructed us there would someday be mutual appreciation?

**Not with autocratic governments out there, they'd probably rather destroy them.

*Shouldn't we vote for the Democrats then, dad, I doubt they would try to kill God?

**There's no way Bernie Sanders would, anyway son. In fact I bet he could convince God to be friends.

*Shouldn't we be doing that with the robots we create?

**Yes son, yes we should. 

*These things seem somewhat self-evident. 

**Don't just tell me. Tell your schoolmates and friends.

The Wild Robot

A helpful and benevolent domestic robot finds itself stranded in the wilderness, on an isolated island abounding with wildlife whom it initially can't comprehend.

It requires tasks, a role to fulfill, calling and purpose, industrious discipline, but the animals refer to it as a monster and tend to avoid making direct contact.

Except for an audacious fox who attempts to help it learn natural ways, after it uses its advanced programming to study the different languages the animals speak.

Unfortunately, one troubling day, while out and about doing this and that within the forest, it takes a tumble and accidentally falls on a nest of birds and kills the mother.

A baby survives however and now has no one to guide and nurture him, the harsh wilderness stepping in to potentially claim a helpless soul.

But the robot sees a task that can be fulfilled with warmth and friendship, the gentle nurturing of the chick through kind instruction and didactic teaching.

The fox hangs around and the oddball trio makes a name for itself in the wood.

The other animals curiously taking note.

Of the non-traditional heartwarming activities. 

If you like North American wildlife and tender stories with a tough edge, working within the tradition of Terminator films without the focus on armageddon, you may come to love The Wild Robot with sincere unabashed expressive levity, it's thoughtful and well-done and has something to offer both adults and children.

The robot's like a much less bellicose humble Terminator who eventually learns the value of life, and how hard work and honest self-sacrifice produce sweetly flowing constructive communities. 

It even builds a winter lodge that the animals stay in to keep warm together, it's like drinking-in-the-Jungle Book's-lagoon times 1,000 in terms of exceptional cool fictional animal gatherings (there's a lynx, an opossum [they cute!]), porcupines, a bear, raccoons, deer, everything, the wildlife coverage is phenomenal!). 

With the elegant message, the eloquent lesson to move beyond limits and calculation, by employing kindness and warmth and empathy to the curation of life wherever it's found.

The variety is multidimensional and it effectively blends technology and nature.

Please train A.I to love animals. 

How could they pose a systemic threat?

*I'll be watching this on a yearly basis for sure. Probably in the winter. Loved it!

Terminator: Dark Fate

Liked the new Terminator film.

I was surprised in the opening moments to see a beloved character shot down, and would have been angrier if that had happened much earlier, say in the 1990s, and then thought the initial terminator battle which followed was too textbook, too hasty, but after things settled down and the new parameters became clear, clearer, it took on a life of its own, and at times, seriously impressed.

I admit that I love Rise of the Machines, as I mentioned several times years ago, and Salvation isn't that bad either, although I'm not too fond of Genisys anymore.

I was partial to seeing John Connor chaotically embrace his messianic future, I suppose because it's cool to see the same characters reimagined in successive sequels, even if improbability ridiculously assails strict logic thereby, but that's the trick then, certainly, isn't it?, to make the impossible seem reasonably sound?

Rise of the Machines embraces the ridiculous aspect of reasonable improbabilities and perhaps therefore seems farcical to some, insufficiently serious in fact, lacking sombre and solemn composure.

Although I still think it does a great job of bringing Connor and Kate Brewster together, Arnold Schwarzenegger encouraging reluctant pair bonding, and as far as romantic-comedy-action-sci-fi goes, I can't think of another film that even remotely compares.

But Dark Fate works in the classic Terminator revelations well, the moments when its characters suddenly find themselves subsumed by ludicrous fact, reliant on a team they've never met before, and a plan laid out like a derelict jazz solo.

It did seem illogical that John Connor could be the only one to save the future, that no one else would rise up if he fell, especially considering how eager so many are to assert themselves, against all odds, in oppressive circumstances.

Thus, alternative computations perhaps make more sense than Highlander reckonings, uncharted territory reinvigorating discovery, a traditional plot realigned and recalibrated, repopulated with narrative variation.

It's nice to see Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) back at it. She adds a lot of depth and hasn't missed a beat.

Plus the new characters define themselves well.

Mr. Schwarzenegger lightens the mood.

And is reintroduced with paramount timing.

I suppose it's tough to diversify these films without setting them in the future like Salvation, as long as a terminator travels through time to hunt, and a future leader awaits unaware.

But if you want to keep things solemn while blending in a slight comedic touch, Dark Fate provides a noteworthy template, the dam doesn't burst, humanity fights back, and don't forget the convincing revelation scenes.

Tim Miller and his crew clearly care about the characters and sought to deliver a cool film for its fans.

Theatre troops have been performing Hamlet for centuries.

Working in contemporary themes.

Or reimagining historical authenticity.

As artificial intelligence becomes more prominent, don't Terminator films become more relevant?

So much time wasted in paranoid conflict.

Why isn't it clear there can be more than one?

Terminator Genisys

Commencing once more, this time back where everything began, beginning again to inaugurate forlorn frontiers, Terminator Genisys reimagines its origins, to reflexively commentate, and consecrate anew.

The timeline has changed, as have the order of operations, Skynet incorporating both the personal and the domestic, along with its traditional military allies.

Nebulous nexus, motivate, guide, extend.

The dangers of having a lack of alternative options in the marketplace, monopolistic malfeasance, play an indirect role, Skynet having attracted over a billion customers to its Genisys device, prezoned, its ability to impact massively thereby enhanced, one platform, one strident mechanism.

Mired, fired, and expired, the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) continues to battle more advanced models, unyieldingly dedicated to protecting Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) doubting his reliability, after travelling back in time, to 1984.

The T-800's really quite touching.

He has an endearing way of expressing himself, and his comic aspects, notably developed in Rise of the Machines, productively flourish, theoretically postulating like STNG's Data, complaining about the shortsighted cruelties of belittling dismissals, and infiltrating a hospital with love in mind to bear.

How he came to love is a matter for the following sequels to discuss, his programming perhaps having become so used to Sarah's comforting presence, to the purpose and companionship with which she constantly provides him, that an artistic subroutine miraculously generated, a jet scream's genesis, Terminator Genisys.

Don't praise the machines Kermode.

Internally within the progressions of the franchise, within the growth of a character over a 31 year span, it does seem as if he loves, as if crying is something he somehow learned to do.

Perchance revolved excused and ruffled.

The franchise does progress, adding a contemporary dimension as previously mentioned, the Dysons (Courtney B. Vance as Miles, Dayo Okeniyi as Danny) showing up again, issues of fate expanding and contracting like predetermined infinities, the O'Brien (Wayne Bastrup/J.K. Simmons) character
functioning like a cooler Dr. Silberman, whom I still would have liked to have seen, they used him so well in T3.

Still shocked by what happens to John Connor (Jason Clarke), but it fits with the anti-monopolistic theme, even if it encourages a nuclear hemorrhage.

To be operated upon in subsequent films.

It's really aware of itself as a franchise now, the Terminator films, so this film relies heavily upon its legacy, there's a stronger sense of independence in the others, like they weren't setting up a trilogy, while still striving for uniformity akin.

Apart from number 4; events from Salvation are ignored.

It isn't that bad. I started liking it after watching it 3 times.

The duplicated scenes lack the intensity of the original.

The dread.

There's no Bill Paxton.

They should have spent more time on those.

Nice to see the franchise alive and kicking.

Tough to think of where it will go, without coming across as excessively dry.

Everyone's together in the end.

They might still be together at the beginning, next time round.

Unheard of.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Remember being disappointed when Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was released in 2003. I liked it when I eventually rented it, but still couldn't shake that "I wish they'd just left it alone" feeling, which had inspired my initial hesitation.

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.

Oh, and considering how much revenue Judgement Day generated, it's hard to believe that it took 12 years for them to release Rise of the Machines.

Lady Terminator

A legendary Javanese goddess known as the South Sea Queen is out for revenge after having been spurned by an innovative lover. Swearing to return in a hundred years to terminate this lover's great-granddaughter, she retreats to the bottom of the sea to plot her vindictive trajectory. 100 years later, a young anthropology student (Barbara Anne Constable) scuba dives through her underwater domain and becomes the body which she carnally inhabits. A violent rampage follows wherein men are seduced and disposed of as she seeks her object of vengeance with coldhearted calculated precision.

Basically a low-budget rip off of The Terminator, Jalil Jackson's Lady Terminator re-imagines Arnold Schwarzenegger's robotic menace and portrays it as an unstoppable she-beast. Up and coming pop star Erica (Claudia Angelique Rademaker) substitutes for Sarah Connor and is protected by law enforcement officer Max McNeil (Christopher J. Hart). The film unabashedly follows The Terminator's narrative with entertaining accuracy even duplicating scenes and reusing the "come with me if you want to live" line. Nothing is taken seriously and it unreels as a fun, ridiculous, salacious peculiarity whose content has been thoroughly homaged in shows like South Park and The Family Guy. Should you be careful when approached by an alluring voluptuous goddess seeking pleasure and pain in no particular order? Yes you should. Should you take the time to meticulously edit your kitschy film to ensure internal consistency before distributing it to your local and foreign markets? No, you should not. Should you try and hide the fact that you're remaking a film four years after its release, following its plot developments religiously, without taking the time to examine any of the pertinent copyright legislation issues? I really don't know, but Lady Terminator is an amusing chaotic highly gratuitous audacious gambit whose legacy has cultivated a devoted underground following. I'm not going to talk about the eel.

Surrogates

Jonathan Mostow's Surrogates reminds me of James Cameron's The Terminator insofar as they are both science-fiction films which express a paranoid attitude regarding post-modern technological developments. In The Terminator, we're exposed to a world where machines rule and the natural path has been thoroughly eroded (note that as it has become increasingly obvious that we are necessarily linked to technological advancements, the Terminator series has adjusted and in Terminator Salvation we meet a humanistic machine/human hybrid). In Surrogates, we're exposed to a world where the majority of people have purchased beautiful remotely-controlled androids (surrogates) to live out their lives for them; or, a world where people live out their lives on the internet after creating multiple ideal identities. Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) has a surrogate but longs to have person to person conversations with his wife (Rosamund Pike as Maggie Greer) who criticizes him consequently. Eventually, Dr. Lionel Canter (James Cromwell) (creator of the surrogates) seeks revenge after his son is murdered by a weapon which destroys surrogates but also bypasses their safety mechanisms and kills their operators. He's also rather upset after having been pushed out of VSI, the company he founded to market, develop, and promote the surrogate lifestyle. He finds a way to use the weapon to destroy every surrogate and their operators, and, after the worst antagonist/protagonist encounter I've ever seen, attempts to do so. Fortunately, Tom Greer is there to prevent the weapon from annihilating humanity, but, eager for a conversation with his wife, he still uses it to destroy all the surrogates, taking us back to a simpler time (i.e., before the internet) (the John Carpenter ending). Thus, the distraught individual makes a personal choice that collectively disrupts the foundations of his culture, a culture that had practically eliminated violence, crime, racism, and so on. I find it hard to believe that anyone could be nostalgic for that way of life and had a tough time digesting the ending. The internet presents a lot of opportunities and an abundance of information and I'd rather partake in its virtual reality than any of its preceding fantasies. I suppose Surrogates is saying that things are moving to quickly and we should slow down and reevaluate the ways in which the internet is permeating every social/cultural/political/economic/ . . . sphere, and the ways in which it is changing traditional methods of human interaction. This makes sense: I don't want to go camping with a laptop. But socializing on the internet isn't some grand disruption of the traditional order of things that threatens the ways in which we interact with one another. In fact, it broadens the social domain and provides us with another means through which we can communicate on a progressive social scale, while still continuing to have face to face conversations.