I am watching the first 2 Terminator movies in their entirety for the first time.

[Squilookle]

I always figured the movies should have followed a natural progression of:

T1: human good guy vs solid metal bad guy.
T2: solid metal good guy vs liquid metal bad guy
T3: liquid metal good guy vs... something even worse. Probably projectile based.

Yeah, disagree there.

Even that there shouldn't have been a T3 aside, the hierarchy you describe does touch on a problem I have with the films (and wider Terminator media as a whole) that there's this constant escalation of what Terminators can do. The TX isn't the worst offender in this, but it did kickstart the trend. The T-1000 was powerful, near invincible, but it didn't reach the rediculous levels we saw later.

Totally get you there with the escalation thing- that whole self-dick measuring problem is what made each lightsaber fight in the prequels more and more flashy and stupid. Only reason I would suggest it for T3 (if there even was a T3, since T2 wrapped things up pretty well as-is) would be because in the film that left Schwarzenegger behind, audiences would be wanting something new worth going to see kick ass. That aside, yes- escalation is poison for franchises, generally speaking and should be mostly avoided.

Its the parody video I saw on Youtube that makes me think its a bit cheesy, mostly because Stallone is a bit of a cheeseball himself:

The one I always return to is that time Rambo was in a musical

It was Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies that had the "Cheese" right?

Sure- his musical was even better:

 

[BrawlMan]

Love both movies. T3, while entertaining, is a bad fanfic that copies nearly everything from T2, which took some things from the original. Salvation at least tried something different. Genysis fucking sucked, and similar to my feelings in the Alien franchise, there are only two movies. I really wish they would stop trying to ressureect all of these 80/90s movies. Do something new once in a while.

I always figured the movies should have followed a natural progression of:

T1: human good guy vs solid metal bad guy.
T2: solid metal good guy vs liquid metal bad guy
T3: liquid metal good guy vs... something even worse. Probably projectile based.

And yeah, that does mean getting rid of Arnie. In his old age he's getting harder and harder to believe as a precision designed killing machine.

Also if you're going over the 80s sci-fi action classics, don't forget Escape from New York

Ah the movie that inspired Solid Snake's existence.

Also not just Sci Fi movies, but general cheesy 80s action movies like First Blood/Rambo and Commando.

Remember, 90% of everything is crap. With that said, action films from 80s/90s (even some of the bad ones) aged much better than most of the ones from 2004-2016. You know how many movies copied the Bourne Supremacy. Shaky cam really got overboard and overplayed.

T2 gave me plenty of nightmares as a kid. There was the two separate times T1000 killed me twice. One was where my family was already dead, and another one where he clawed my face and stuck his finger knives in it. I had wild imagination. There are times I wondered, if Skynet actually happened would I or any of my relatives survive the harsh future of 2029.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

Oh no, it doesn't make them bad, just dated. I mean 12 Angry men is dated, but its still a good movie.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

I am in a classic 80s Sci Fi action movie mood at the moment so I am starting with Terminator, Alien, Predator, Robocop, and what have you.

Cool, but let me just tell you that only "Aliens" count as a 80/90s action movie. First "Alien" is a sci-fi horror through and through.

 

[Hawki]

But I am of the opinion that Arnold is scarier when he still has flesh and not when's purely the Robot Skeleton (Horribly dated and bad looking Stop Motion here)

Isn't just the stop motion, it's the anamatronic as well, where he's getting the bullet out of his eye.

There's some effects in T1 that have aged spectacuarly (e.g. the future war scenes), but some of the T-800 effects aren't among them.

And I just think Predator is cooler then Terminator.

Hmm...

Tough call.

Love both movies. T3, while entertaining, is a bad fanfic that copies nearly everything from T2, which took some things from the original. Salvation at least tried something different. Genysis fucking sucked, and similar to my feelings in the Alien franchise, there are only two movies. I really wish they would stop trying to ressureect all of these 80/90s movies. Do something new once in a while.

Admittedly I've got similar charity towards the Aliens series like Terminator. Both are a case where I feel it's a case where the first two installments in each franchise stand above all the others, and after that, it's a scramble for the lower rungs. But for Terminator, T3 is the only film I actively dislike. Aliens, while that partly depends where we're including stuff like the AvP films and Prometheus, I still like stuff like Alien 3 and Covenant in addition to the first two.

Oh no, it doesn't make them bad, just dated. I mean 12 Angry men is dated, but its still a good movie.

Dated in what way though?

It's certainly dated in some regards, in that it's set in the 50s (with one of the jurors being a refugee from Europe), and the jury is all male (very unlikely in the 21st century), but I'd say it's pretty timeless in regards to its themes of prejudice for instance.

 

[Marik2]

Now first let me get this out of the way, I have seen these movie before, especially the second one. But I haven't seen both of them in a long time and often I never saw them in their entirety. I remember watching the 3rd movies onward in theaters though. But the legendary first two I am watching with more or less fresh eyes.

I am in a classic 80s Sci Fi action movie mood at the moment so I am starting with Terminator, Alien, Predator, Robocop, and what have you.

And this is in preparation for Terminator Dark Fate which is confirmed to come out in October and is bringing back not only Arnold, but Linda Hamilton as well as Sarah Conner and directed by Tim Miller:

Theyre still making another terminator? I dont get why we need another terminator.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Only seen T1 and T2, T3 always seemed like it was just a copy of T2 that didn't really tell a different story just gave this round's Terminator boobs

 

[Hawki]

Only seen T1 and T2, T3 always seemed like it was just a copy of T2 that didn't really tell a different story just gave this round's Terminator boobs

It's worse than that. T3 undoubtedly follows a lot of the beats of T2. But what's worse is that it pretty much undermines the plot and themes of the prior films.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

Well lets not forget 12 angry men is all about one of them...meaning Puerto Rican. Which I guess in the 1950s was as bad as Islamic was in 2003.
All i'm saying is that its the equivalent of say...ZeroDarkThirty in 2061. Some but come one...

 

[Casual Shinji]

The first Terminator movie was not great in the first place. It was made even worse by comparing it to T2. T1 is like every sequel after T2. And people are suprised, somehow. T2 was the anomaly.

Ha, good one. Oh wait, you're actually serious.

 

[Hawki]

Well lets not forget 12 angry men is all about one of them...meaning Puerto Rican.

I thought the accused was coded as being African American? There's reference to Harlem after all.

Still, that's part of the play's strength in that it can apply its themes to any group within society. The 10th juror can be just as prejudiced against X as he can against Y, and the third juror's always going to have issues with his son. Apart from the reference to juror 11 fleeing Europe as a refugee, it could easily be transcribed into any timeframe.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Well lets not forget 12 angry men is all about one of them...meaning Puerto Rican.

I thought the accused was coded as being African American? There's reference to Harlem after all.

Still, that's part of the play's strength in that it can apply its themes to any group within society. The 10th juror can be just as prejudiced against X as he can against Y, and the third juror's always going to have issues with his son. Apart from the reference to juror 11 fleeing Europe as a refugee, it could easily be transcribed into any timeframe.

Well I mean you are very correct in that variables, X, Y, and Z do change, 200 hundred years ago it was fuck the black man, 100 years ago it was fuck women, 50 years ago it was fuck gays. Yes in that historical variables are just that, variable.
My point being that a movie in the 80s about OMG a black woman being a captain of the Space Force is as outdated(meaning for lack of a better term...noteworthy) as is, I dunno, a gay man in the MCU. Its just...kinda past its time.

Also I do not claim this as a 100% clarification, but I do remember being taught he was Puerto Rican
https://www.quora.com/What-ethnicity-was-the-accused-kid-in-Twelve-Angry-Men

 

[Trunkage]

The first Terminator movie was not great in the first place. It was made even worse by comparing it to T2. T1 is like every sequel after T2. And people are suprised, somehow. T2 was the anomaly.

Ha, good one. Oh wait, you're actually serious.

James Cameron misses more than he hits. Avatar and Titanic relied on special FX. Abyss was similar but had an okay concept. True Lies was a parody. Counting his screenplay for First Blood 2, he's had 2 or 3 good movies.

Edit: Make that a definite 3. I forgot Alien

 

[Agema]

I prefer The Terminator to Terminator 2.

Spoiler: tl;dr

They are slightly movies of different eras. The Terminator comes more from the rawness, grit and brutality of the 80s, but by the time the 90s had rolled along everything was a little more gentle, family-friendly, heart-warming, buddy-buddy etc. and Terminator 2 follows this pattern. This instantly leads to the mild disappointment of some weak-arse, annoying teenager teaching the T-800 to be nice, and oh-so-conveniently they've supplied an advanced model so we can get all the action with minimal bloodshed (and an audience friendly 15 rating).

Terminator 2 does of course have vastly superior special effects - it's budget was something like 10-20x higher. And I guess that's kind of nice, but ultimately mostly what that achieves (in my view) is a film more interested in special effects than it is in anything else. All very James Cameron. Also evident in T2 is the general flabbiness that started to pervade blockbusters, with increasing running times for relatively little reward (culminating in Michael Bay as the king of empty, wasted minutes of your life). But with T1 already existing, T2 is really just a repeat: the originality's not there (although T1 is in ways quite derivative too: essentially it's a classic slasher horror except done as a science fiction action movie). There's more depth of characterisation and the human condition in T2.

Quick summary:

Terminator 2 is a great movie, perhaps more important than T1 as it's probably one of the most influential movies for the modern blockbuster today (and still better than nearly all of the subsequent movies that copy its DNA). And I think in many ways it's certainly a more developed and fleshed out movie that its predecessor. But I prefer Terminator 1 for its purity. It's an absolutely balls-to-the-wall, unfliching ride done with style and panache, a clear objective achieved with no waste or clutter. Kind of like the ultimate action B-movie.

 

[Agema]

James Cameron misses more than he hits. Avatar and Titanic relied on special FX. Abyss was similar but had an okay concept. True Lies was a parody. Counting his screenplay for First Blood 2, he's had 2 or 3 good movies.

Cameron is overly interested in SFX, and it's unquestionably damaged some of his movies, The Abyss and Avatar probably being the worst affected.

But Titanic - whilst at heart simplistic and often twee - is still a good movie. True Lies is far from his best, but a superior action movie. I honestly don't think he's directed a bad film: even when misfiring he tends to produce something as good as many of his peers pack out as their regular standard.

Edit: Make that a definite 3. I forgot Alien

Aliens, to be pedantic.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

The first Terminator movie was not great in the first place. It was made even worse by comparing it to T2. T1 is like every sequel after T2. And people are suprised, somehow. T2 was the anomaly.

Ha, good one. Oh wait, you're actually serious.

James Cameron misses more than he hits.

My arse he does. Every single movie James Cameron has ever made is at the very least watchable. Avatar probably at the bottom of the stack but that's still a good movie. Not a great one, but a good one. His holy trinity of Terminator 1, Terminator 2 and Aliens have been codifiers for science fiction action since they burst onto the scene and have never been equaled; Predator comes close, so very close though. True Lies is one of the best action comedies you will ever see anywhere (if a little uncomfortable in places), the Abyss is a great character piece and Titanic....well, its an epic. I watched it recently and its really a hell of a movie to watch and is honestly only let down by a truly literal scene of character assassination.

Also are we counting Alita as one his movies since he only produced it?

 

[Casual Shinji]

The first Terminator movie was not great in the first place. It was made even worse by comparing it to T2. T1 is like every sequel after T2. And people are suprised, somehow. T2 was the anomaly.

Ha, good one. Oh wait, you're actually serious.

James Cameron misses more than he hits. Avatar and Titanic relied on special FX. Abyss was similar but had an okay concept. True Lies was a parody. Counting his screenplay for First Blood 2, he's had 2 or 3 good movies.

Edit: Make that a definite 3. I forgot Alien

Every movie he's made has relied on special effects, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Avatar became forgetable very quickly because it was pretty much all tech. Titanic is a terrific movie, the only thing wonky being the romance and DiCaprio. Apart from that the movie is still one of the most impressive combinations of practical and digital. The craft on display in Titanic is impeccable.

And you say 'True Lies was a parody' like it's a bad thing. That is honestly one of my favourites of his, because it's just Cameron flexing his directorial muscles and not taking himself too serious. And you end up with one of the most wonderfully fun action romps.

As for The Terminator, it keeps things simple and is all the better for it. I'd argue better than the sequel. The original has loads of clever little moments woven into the narrative, whereas Terminator 2 needs to speak more than show. T2 also feels the need to mimic the original quite a bit, something Cameron did with Aliens too.

Aliens is probably my least favourite. My dislike for that movie has grown substantially over the years.

 

[stroopwafel]

Terminator 1 is still the best. That and the first Alien are my most favorite sci-fi movies still. Both had more action packed sequels, both by Cameron but both also lost the moody atmosphere in the process, which was the biggest draw for me and which has never been surpassed by any other movie. T2 and Aliens are still very good movies in their own right, but more like, what Hollywood blockbusters were in their prime.

btw the other thing that has never been surpassed is the design of the original Terminator. George Costello and Stan Winston did an absolutely amazing job designing them. Nowadays they try too hard making something look 'evil' but T800 had a very simple and sleek appearence but was all the more menacing for it. Basically no more than a metallic human skeleton it conveyed the message of an unstoppable, mechanical, sterile killing machine perfectly. HR Giger's Alien design was also quite good but similarly here many of the creature's expressions were obfuscated, contrary to now when any and every subtlely is thrown out the window in favor of exaggeration.

I agree in general '80s movies are dated(espescially the haircuts) but regardless of their quality they were often quite experimental in their creativity and less formulaic. It's no surprise the entire era is still the progenitor of modern pop culture. Hence people still get hyped about Terminator, Alien, Predator etc. Their designs are iconic to this day. I don't see that with any 'modern' creature.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

But I am of the opinion that Arnold is scarier when he still has flesh and not when's purely the Robot Skeleton (Horribly dated and bad looking Stop Motion here)

Isn't just the stop motion, it's the anamatronic as well, where he's getting the bullet out of his eye.

There's some effects in T1 that have aged spectacuarly (e.g. the future war scenes), but some of the T-800 effects aren't among them.

And I just think Predator is cooler then Terminator.

Hmm...

Tough call.

Love both movies. T3, while entertaining, is a bad fanfic that copies nearly everything from T2, which took some things from the original. Salvation at least tried something different. Genysis fucking sucked, and similar to my feelings in the Alien franchise, there are only two movies. I really wish they would stop trying to ressureect all of these 80/90s movies. Do something new once in a while.

Admittedly I've got similar charity towards the Aliens series like Terminator. Both are a case where I feel it's a case where the first two installments in each franchise stand above all the others, and after that, it's a scramble for the lower rungs. But for Terminator, T3 is the only film I actively dislike. Aliens, while that partly depends where we're including stuff like the AvP films and Prometheus, I still like stuff like Alien 3 and Covenant in addition to the first two.

Oh no, it doesn't make them bad, just dated. I mean 12 Angry men is dated, but its still a good movie.

Dated in what way though?

It's certainly dated in some regards, in that it's set in the 50s (with one of the jurors being a refugee from Europe), and the jury is all male (very unlikely in the 21st century), but I'd say it's pretty timeless in regards to its themes of prejudice for instance.

Even the animatronic wasn't that great. Stan Winston is great at making models, but when it comes to actually animating these models, its never been that great, even in Jurassic Park I could tell the T-Rex was just a static robot.

The only animatronic that was pulled off well was Jaws.

 

[stroopwafel]

Even the animatronic wasn't that great. Stan Winston is great at making models, but when it comes to actually animating these models, its never been that great, even in Jurassic Park I could tell the T-Rex was just a static robot.

The only animatronic that was pulled off well was Jaws.

Disagree. There is a definite suspension of disbelief but I found the stop-motion effects way creepier than any CGI. Maybe it's the twitchy, unpredictable movement. For some reason CGI might look more 'realistic' but I find the uncanny valley effect more immersion breaking than 'fake' stop-motion.