Bits & Bytes

Like any other die hard fan of Terminator series, i went to watch Terminator Salvation yesterday. Terminator Salvation begins the story many years after the Judgement Day where the Resistance is fighting the machines. This is the future where Skynet controls the world as was told in the previous Terminator Series. John Connor is one of the resistance leaders looking out for Kyle Reese, his father, who technically is still a teenager. There is one more significant character introduced in this movie and that is of Marcus. Marcus was a criminal sentenced to death in the past with the agreement that his organs will be donated to a cancer patient. He resurfaces again in the future with a mechanical body but with a human heart. His objective is to locate Kyle Reese and John Connor and deliver them to Skynet, although he is not aware of it. He believes he is human and behaves like one. Even when his skin and muscles are blown away and all the internal clockwork is revealed. He even fights for John Connor in the climax and donates his heart to Connor to save his life. Arnie also makes a sort of comeback in a digitized form. Watch the scene where he turns his head slowly. You cannot deny that its Arnie.

The movie is a well made action movie and sadly nothing else. The underlying tone being, what makes us human? The action of Marcus, Connors and the Resistance leadership speaking in volumes. I was kinda expecting some answers to the questions the previous Terminator movies had raised. First and foremost is this - In the second Terminator movie, Arnie is sent back by Connor to protect him as a child because the Skynet sent another Terminator to kill John Connor. Why didn't the Skynet send the second Terminator back in time to the point where Sarah Connor was targeted, i.e, in the first movie? Likewise in the third movie T3 where Judgement Day happens and Arnie was sent to protect Connor. My theory is that there was a glitch in the Time Machine where it could send someone back to a certain point back in time only, say 50 years back. Or it could be that John Connor and his men were fighting to prevent the second Terminator being sent back in time and they somehow managed to mess with the time set on the machine and the said Terminator's objective were changed by Skynet accordingly before the Terminator went time travelling. An explanation would have been much better in this movie but the producers stuck to telling the story even before the time travel was possible in the movie timeline. In the first Terminator movie, Kyle Reese says the time machine was destroyed after he was sent. Nobody can come in and Nobody can go back, he says. Skynet wasn't even created at that time. And in the future, there was no way of Skynet knowing Kyle Reese went back in time unless the event happened. That brings to my second question, How did Skynet prepare a hitlist with Kyle Reese as its no: 1 target when he hasn't even travelled back in time yet? How was Marcus programmed to capture Kyle Reese and John Connor? One possible explanation can be that the Skynet got its information from the first Terminator sent back in time. After all, the future Terminators only provided the means to create the Terminators in the past.

These doubts remaining, there were some things shown in Salvation which were quite questionable. Why on earth would Skynet create motorbike killing machines which can be captured and ridden by man? Ridiculous. Why is there a touch screen control and display in Skynet? The machines can very well communicate over Shortwaves or can jack themselves up the old fashioned way. But a touch screen control seems like an invitation for some human to come and mess with the Skynet. Even if its there for Marcus, remember that he is still a machine. The reference to John Connor as some Messiah in the beginning also spoiled the fun a bit. It was so Matrix like but with a Neo who knows what needs to be done.

The movie was made loose enough to allow further sequels. The Time Travel is yet to happen. Kyle Reese is yet to fight along with John Connor. Connor is yet to give Sarah's photo to Kyle Reese. If I were to write the FINAL Terminator series, I would write the story which looks like a prequel to the first Terminator movie. In that John Connor and Kyle Reese are fighting the Skynet and its machines. Both discover a Skynet plan to terminate Connors by killing his mother in the past. They attack the Skynet base to prevent it. Both fight their way to the Time Machine but its too late. Arnie is already back in time and the whole base is gonna self-destruct in 1 minute. Connors know what is to be done and sends Kyle Reese back in time. The whole Skynet blows up as soon as Kyle Reese is gone and John Connor tries to escape but is buried in the rubble. He emerges later and walks away limping in the night. And the movie ends with the last line of the Terminator Salvation - There is no fate but what we make...