Soooo Many Reboots: Terminator Films Part 2

I'm Back!(again!) And we're going to talk about the various attempts at rebooting the Terminator franchise

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Hey there, I'm back again. Yeah, well yeah, we'll get to that in a minute. Where I leave off. Oh right. The Terminator franchise. Part one was all the classic Arnold you can handle. But in 2003, he ran off to go run the state of California as the governor. So what did they do while he was gone? Try to reboot the series without him. And then with him. Twice. So many attempts at rebooting. And we're gonna talk about the post Arnold Terminator films today on the Unforgettable Luncheon. Hi, it's your palsteamed Hams. I hope you're ready for an unforgettable luncheon. Before we launch into the show, I'd like to address the elephant in the room. Stampy, should I tell him what's going been going on? Okay then. Since my last episode, when I promised I'd be more consistent, life got in the way. My hours at my job picked up uh considerably, leaving me with no real time to do this. Then in November, I lost that job. So my priority shifted, you know, trying to find a new job. I got a new job at the beginning of January, but was still working a lot. Now that my shifts have kind of slowed down, I'm back to telling my nerd jokes on the interwips. So to quote Dr. Ian Malcolm, life uh finds a way. Don't worry. I promise this time I'll be more consistent. Now, on with the shoe. In 2003, Rainer Wolfcastle prototype Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to run for and win the office of Governor of California, which he held from 2003 until 2011. Now while he was doing that, he couldn't reasonably make movies, you know, realistically. So what were filmmakers to do? Wait it out? Nope. Recast the role? Oh no. They wanted their movie now. So instead, they decided to make a bit of an origin story, if you will, for John Connor. Terminator Salvation from 2009 is that story. Starring Christian Bale as John Connor, and yes, this is that movie where he had his wonderful temper tantrum. Oh good for you! It depicts his early days in the war against the machines. A rage against the machines, if you will. He thought it was funny. In 2003, condemned prisoner Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington, is talked into donating his body to research for Cyberdyne systems after he dies. Seriously, how is that company still around after what happened last time? It's like it's like OCP, I swear. Sometime after that, Skynet becomes self-aware, and we all know where that's headed. Flash forward to 2018, John Connor is part of an attack on a Skynet base, where he discovers plans to use humans as living tissue to create a new Terminator, the T-800. You know, the one that chased the Connors for about two movies. John survives the base being nuked by Skynet, and literally he was like really close when a nuke went off. I mean, he should have been vaporized, but nope, nothing happened. No, I don't know why. I don't know the physics of it. I don't care. And after a fight with a legless terminator that just happened to still be active, he heads off to the extraction point. Right after he leaves, Marcus pops up from the ground, naked and covered in mud. Seriously, what is this franchise's obsession with people just popping up naked? Anyways, he grabs a coat and stuff and takes off towards LA. John heads to the Resistance HQ, which is a Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine, where he learns of a hidden signal that may be able to be used to defeat Skynet. But they have to attack Skynet's HQ in San Francisco in four days, because an intercepted hit list uh shows that uh the resistance leadership along with John, yeah, in four days they're targeted to be kaput. Just above John in that list, though, is Kyle Reese, because Skynet knows that Reese will be John's daddy one day. In LA, Marcus meets Reese. He's played by the late Anton Yelchin, and a young mute child named Star. Uh, they've met during a fight with a T600, a big burly terminator with a minigun already attached to its arm. Kind of like an upgraded Ash, you know, Williams, except no chainsaw. Kyle and Starr are later abducted by the machines after visiting a resistance hideout, and of course, a pair of A10 Warthogs attempt to take the prisoner transport down and are shot down in the process themselves. Marcus rescues one of the downed pilots, Blair Williams, played by Moon Bloodgood. And yes, I checked, that is her actual name. It's like her middle name, but it's her actual name. The two head towards John's base. Along the way, a magnetic mine meant to stop machines, basically attack machines only, uh, wounds Marcus when he attracts one unwittingly. The resistance medics try to save his life, and in doing so they find out that he's a cyborg. He's got a cybernetic endoskeleton, a heart, a partially artificial cerebral cortex, uh, all packed in all that. Marcus contends he's human. He didn't know he was a robot. John is like, oh hell no, not this shit again. And wants him executed. Blair helps Marcus skiddle the hell out of there, and Marcus ends up saving John from some of Skynet's underwater bots. John makes a deal with Marcus. He'll let him live if he helps John rescue the prisoners from Skynet HQ. Like buying a TV stuck on full volume for a dollar. You can't turn that down. John asks the resistance command to delay the attack so he can figure out a way to get the prisoners out. But command was like, no dice, and relieves John a command. Like any good action movie, the resistance members tell Command to go piss up a rope, and they join John and wait for his signal. Marcus sneaks in, connects in with the computer, and disables the perimeter defenses so John can get in and get the prisoners out. Marcus finds out during a chat with Skynet that Skynet's whole plan was to have Marcus bring him there. So when the resistance attacks, he gets killed in the shootout, thereby winning the war for Skynet. Skynet also reveals the hidden signal was a ruse and uses that to track down the command sub and blow it up. So those fuckers got what was coming to them. Marcus tears the hardware out, linking him to Skynet, and goes to help John. John finds the prisoners, including Kyle and Starr, but is ambushed by a brand new T-800 with Arnold's face CGI'd onto it. Because that was the only way they were gonna get it in. Marcus fights the T-800, while John rigs up some nuclear power cells. Remember those from Terminator 3? Yeah, you do. Rigs up the nuclear power cells to blow Skynet sky high. Marcus is temporarily disabled by the T-800. John comes to his aid, but of course gets stabbed through the chest for his trouble. Marcus yanks the T-800's head off, destroying it, and he, John, Kyle, and Star are airlifted out. John detonates the bomb and Skynet HQ is gone. Kaput. Outta there. John's stab wound went right through his heart and would have been fatal, but Marcus offers his heart for transplant and sacrifices his life for John to show that he is human and he cares about the humans. John goes on the radio while recovering, telling the resistance that while the battle was won, the war is far from over. Now this was meant to be the start of a new trilogy, but the production company went bankrupt, so the rights were sold off. But my question is, you blew up Skynet HQ, essentially Skynet's core. You nuked it. How were you planning on making a trilogy? That like ended things right there. What were you gonna make two more movies out of? No more movies from this supposed trilogy were ever made, as again the production company, the Halcyon Company, filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and the rights were sold off to Annapurna Pictures, resulting in the next film. Terminator Genesis is a 2015 film that served as another reboot of the franchise, this time with Arnold actually appearing as a Terminator, as he was no longer engaging in his political career. This one kind of meshes together the first two films as sort of like a retelling. It's more of a standalone film, if anything, as the planned sequels were canceled after his poor performance at the box office, because that always happens. Now this one starts in 2029, with John Connor, this time played by Jason Clark, launching a final offensive against Skynet. Before they can finish the job, Skynet sends a T-800 Arnold edition back to 1984 to, of course, off Sarah. Kyle Reese, this time played by Jai Courtney, volunteers as tribute to head back and protect her. And, you know, knock boots with Sarah. While he's floating butt-ass naked in the time field, because you can't have clothes on in that time field, apparently, John is attacked by another resistance member, Alex, played by Matt Smith. You might remember him as the 11th Doctor on Doctor Who, and the only member of the cast with any actual time travel experience. This creates a time paradox where Reese starts seeing memories from like an alternate version of his childhood. So we're starting with the alternate timeline nonsense now. Great. Anyways, so the Skynet T-800 arrives where he's supposed to in the original film, you know, the little observatory where Phil Paxton and the other punks kind of give him shit, only to be attacked by a reprogrammed T-800 Arnold edition nicknamed Pops. Pops fights the naked T-800 until Sarah, played by Amelia Clark, no relation, but we know her as Khaleesi, puts a 50 cal round through it, crashing its system. Turns out Pops was sent back to 1973 to protect Sarah after her parents were killed by a T-1000. Its organic components age normally, explaining why Pops looks Arnold's real age. Reese arrives in 1984 and immediately steals a homeless man's pants, as is tradition. And is pursued by the T-1000, who is disguised as a cop. As is tradition. He's cornered until Sarah and Pops rescue him with the line Come with me if you want to live. She said the thing. She said the thing. They escape through the sewers and melt the T1000 with a series of acid traps. No molten metal this time, it's acid. Pops' arm is caught in the acid and melts the skin off. Now Sarah and Pops had made a makeshift time displacement unit with the intention of traveling to 1997 when Skynet first became self-aware. But Kyle, knowing that the timelines are all fucked up, remembers the warning he got as a child and they reset their destination to 2017. With Pops' exposed endoskeleton, he can no longer safely time travel, as with that time displacement field, you can only send organic matter through, hence why everybody's butt ass naked. So he volunteers to stay back and prep things while waiting for them in 2017. Sarah and Kyle pop up in the middle of a San Francisco freeway in 2017 because it can never be any place convenient. You know, and of course, naked and are instantly caught by the cops. They learn at the hospital that Skynet is now called Genesis and is a soon-to-be-released global operating system that will control everything in your day-to-day life, which of course the general public is all for, because we're lazy fucks and we'll just let AI do everything for us. Yeah, because that always works out well in these movies. John shows up out of nowhere and springs them from the hospital. Pop shows up and shoots John, revealing that he's a T3000 Terminator. It turns out good old Alex was actually Skynet in a physical disguise as a T5000 Terminator who infected John with nanomachines that turned him into a cyborg on a cellular level. So he kind of is like a to a point like a T1000, just advanced, like he's got the whole shape-shifting, liquid, metal y type stuff, which is crazy. They don't explain more, but you know. You know, he's brainwashed to ensure Skynet's creation. So John traveled back to help Cyberdyne systems with the creation of Genesis. Pops traps John long enough to give them time to get the fuck out of there. A day before the worldwide attack, the group heads to a secluded safe house to prep to destroy Genesis's mainframe. They head towards Cyberdyne's HQ in San Francisco with John in hot pursuit. During some airborne action, Pops decides he's gonna dive bomb his heavy ass in the John's chopper, so it crashes. John still manages to get to Cyberdyne and turn Genesis' timer down to 15 minutes because dramatic tension. Kyle, Sarah, and Pops plant bombs around the building. Pops traps himself and John in the magnetic field of a prototype time machine. Both are destroyed, but just before the explosion, Pops' remains and his CPU most importantly, are flung into a vat of experimental liquid metal, the polymimmetic alloy that the T1000 was made of. Kyle and Sarah escape to an underground bunker and blow the mainframe up before Genesis can come online. Pops appears, now upgraded to T1000 levels and rescues them. They head to Kyle's childhood home to pass the message along so that they travel to the correct time of 2017. A mid-credits scene set up a non-existent sequel where it turns out that Genesis was actually underground and was never blown up. This one actually wasn't bad, but again, I don't know how they were going to make a trilogy out of this. You know, after this film did just absolute crap of the box office, though, the rights reverted to the original owner, James Cameron, who took time away from exploring the Titanic and raising the bar while blasting a seam song to help make the final film that we're talking about today. Terminator Dark Fate, released in 2019, is less a reboot and more of a sequel. It ignores everything past Terminator 2 Judgment Day, which helps it actually make a bit more sense. But only a bit. This is a Terminator film, after all. You know. So in 1998, three years after Cyberdyne Systems went boom in Terminator 2, Sarah and John are hiding out in Guatemala when they're ambushed at a cantina by a T-800, which Skynet sent back prior to being erased from history. Which, if he sent it back, but you know, paradoxes and whatever, I don't care. Terminators walks up in a crowded cantina, shoots John in the chest with a sought-off shotgun, drops his gun, walks off. Nobody even bothers to attempt to stop him except for Sarah, but everyone else is like, Mark? This guy walks in and shoots a child.

unknown 17:58

Hmm.

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You know, he's never seen again. Flash forward to 2020, an advanced Terminator called a Rev 9, played by Gabriel Luna, appears in Mexico, targeting a young woman named Danny Re Danny Ramos, played by Natalia Reyes. The Rev 9 is a new type of Terminator that has not only a solid endoskeleton, but a liquid exterior that can separate from it. At the same time, a cybernetically enhanced soldier, Grace, arrives from 2042 to protect Danny. Now, she has the funniest fucking first appearance and appearance in any Terminator movie. Okay, most people time traveling end up in an alley or a road or a park. Grace materializes in the middle of a bridge. Not on the bridge, but in the middle. And she falls through, bouncing down like a goddamn Plinko chip down to the ground. It's honestly hilarious if you watch it. Anyways, you know, the Rev 9, who uses the name Gabriel, which I'm just gonna call him Rev 9 because I say Gabriel, I'm gonna shorten it to Gabe, which is gonna bring me to Gabe Kaplan, who is the star of Welcome Back Cotter. And I realize this would be a whole different movie if they were about to be killed by a murderous Mr. Cotter, who spouts bad dad jokes before he kills you. This is the kind of stuff my brain goes through, so you're welcome. Anyways, Rev 9 infiltrates the factory Danny works at with her brother, disguised as their father. He kills her brother but is intercepted by Grace, who escapes with Danny. Rev9 pursues them and has them cornered when they're rescued none other by Sarah Connor. Uh wielding a rocket launcher, temporarily disabling both parts of Rev9, uh, which was nice because who ever thought to use a rocket launcher against a Terminator in any of these movies? Grace and Danny steal Sarah's card. That's a fine how do you do? But her stopped from Grace's metabolic crash from her augmentations, which becomes a bit of a like minor plot point kind of thing in the movie. Happens a couple times. Alright, so they get medicine from a pharmacy, and they're caught by Sarah, who is no slouch in finding shit, uh, who takes them to a motel room. She reveals that she's been getting messages since John's death that pinpoint the arrivals of new Terminators so she could destroy them before they do anything. Each message was signed for John. Grace reveals that in her timeline, though, John North Skynet ever existed. Instead, a new AI, Legion, was created for cyber warfare by who else? The government and the military. Uh but nuked humanity when humanity said, uh, you kind of trouble, you're gonna be a bit of a threat. We don't like you. And so Legion nuked us and created a machine army to eliminate survivors, who, of course, were taking that shit line down and formed a resistance. Danny is essentially the new John Connor in this timeline. Sarah figures out that the messages were coming from Laredo, Texas, and the group avoids Rev 9 and the authorities to cross the border from Mexico and find out who's been sending the messages. It's revealed to be the T-800 Arnold edition that killed John. With its mission complete and inability to self-terminate, as he mentioned in Terminator 2, uh Arnie is basically waiting for his battery to run out because he's got nothing else to do. He can't do anything to himself. He became self-aware, developed a conscience, and decided to integrate into society, taking the name Carl and marrying a single mother to protect and care for. He also runs a drapery business. I'm not even kidding. The Terminator now does interior decorating. Wanting to redeem himself for killing John, he would send Sarah time displacement coordinates to give her purpose because she knows she's out there killing Terminators to make sure that the past and the future stay safe. He agrees to help them battle Rev 9 and gives them access to his armory that nobody really noticed because it's Texas. That's a real line in the movie. It's funny as hell. And it's so very true. Sarah reluctantly agrees to join forces for Danny's sake. Carl evacuates his adopted family to safety and they prepare to fight the Rev 9. They get an EMP, which they know will stop him, from Sarah's military contact, but of course Rev 9 destroys it, forcing them to escape in the C-130, which of course he follows, fights, and subdues Carl. The others are like, ah, fuck this shit, and they parachute out, landing in a hydroelectric dam. The Terminators follow close behind, without parachutes. They don't need snow stinking parachutes. Carl and Grace drag Rev 9 into a turbine, causing a massive explosion that disables all three of them through EMP. Gabriel's uh or Rev 9, because I'm gonna start thinking of Mr. Cotter, Rev 9's endoskeleton incapacitates Sarah, so it's down to that thing and Danny. Grace is mortally wounded, and when is the protector not mortally wounded towards the end of these movies? Uh tells her to use her power core, hmm, those power cores, to destroy Rev 9. Carl restrains Rev 9 long enough for Danny to detonate the power core, destroying both Rev 9 and Carl. At the end, Sarah and Danny see a young Grace playing at a park, and they become determined to prepare for the oncoming war. Which was supposed to be in sequels, but this movie didn't do well, so no sequels. What is it with trying to make Terminator trilogies? Quality over quantity, guys. I mean you can do one story and we're fine and dandy. Yeah, the second set of films was a pure mixed bag, but you can't blame them for trying. They spawned a couple of games. You know, there was an arcade game for salvation, which is pretty cool, actually. Um, and there's even a two-season Fox series that is just too confusing to get into. It was called the Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Sarah Connor was actually played by uh a lady that played Circe in Game of Thrones. So it's weird that Game of Thrones people were the two other Sarah Connors. That's crazy. Yeah, but that series was just too oddball and confusing to get into. I tried. That's probably a story for another time. Well, that's it for another unforgettable luncheon. I hope a good time was had by all. And you know what I realized while writing this? This is my 50th episode. That's a milestone. Oh good for you! Thank you, Mr. Bale. Don't forget to check the links to the socials and the Steamed Hams merchatorium all in the description of this episode. I'm your pal Steamed Hams. Join me next time when the topic will be something nerdy.