1) It’s just trying to sell something to a new generation, who frankly, probably don’t have much connection to the original. They simply have tried to milk the same cow for too long. Time to move on!
2) I thought it was actually pretty ‘fun’. I’m sorry if people watch too many movies now where they think it will bring them something bigger than temporary entertainment.
3) Two things: One, in the first Terminator, the terminator wasn’t sent back in time to kill a young man, but instead to kill his mother, Linda Hamilton’s character, before he was even born. He was supposed to kill “Sarah Connor,” and actually did kill 2 of the 3 in the L.A. phonebook, lol. But not the right one.
Second, Titanic isn’t “one of the” highest grossing films of all time. It’s the highest grossing film of all time. It’s number one.
4) Well, maybe…I think it’s a little simplistic to cite lack of humor as a major factor that undermined T-4. Would the movie have been improved—or done better at the box office—if the spunky kid with the backpack occasionally said some wise, yet smart-alecky wisecrack? I don’t think so. The worst things about the Terminator movies have been ham fisted attempts to shoehorn humor (does anyone really recall “Talk to the hand” with any fondness?)
Dark Knight came out right as the recession was hitting and did well, and continued to do well as the recession deepened. You look back at the 70s, certainly a bleak time, yet Godfather, Chinatown, and Apocalypse Now all performed admirably.
I would agree that the money ruined T-4. The Terminator movies have always been simple narratives. You plug in too much money, you get more shareholders who all have disparate opinions, and that turns what was once a streamlined B-movie into a clunky franchise.
What was T-1 about? A woman runs from a machine. What was T-2 about? A boy runs from a machine that can turn his fingers into knives and during the quiet moments there’s a lot of talk about fate. What was T-3 about? The boy and his wife-to-be run from a machine, which can turn her hands into any weapon imaginable and take control of other machines and there’s a lot of rehashing and something involving Sarah Conner’s casket and…
What was T-4 about? I don’t know. I lost track. Something about a convicted criminal who’s turned into a machine and wakes up during a post apocalyptic…something. And there are transformers. And motorcycles. And they’re kidnapping humans for some reason rather than killing them, which is what Terminators are supposed to do.
Basically, the more narrative crap the filmmakers and shareholders heaped onto the franchise, the more the franchise sagged under the weight of its own mythology, the worse the movies became. T-3 got a free pass because everyone remembered how great the first two were. T-4 got no such luxury.
Skynet was a great villain as long as its activities were largely relegated off-screen. In T-4, Skynet is just kind of lame. There’s no mystique.
