Terminator/Terminator 2

I just watched these two movies back to back, so I might as well muse on the direction of the Terminator series through it's two greatest entries.

The Terminator, like Alien, introduced us to a excellent sci-fi idea, which also becomes part action movie, and part horror movie. Terminator, unlike Alien, never really had any slow parts, and only suffered due to some dated visuals.

Ah 1991, when 8-bit was king.

Terminator 2 again mirrors the Alien series, Aliens, by changing up the genre a bit. Terminator already had action elements in it, so it wasn't quite the same with Alien. Whereas Alien was horror, and Aliens was action, Terminator was sci-fi/horror/action and Terminator 2 was sci-fi/comedy/action.

We all know "I'll be back" from the first movie, which was spoken with every bit of seriousness. However, we also all know "Hasta La Vista Baby" from the second one, which was part of the Terminator's new 'tude. So.... comedy? Does that destroy the movie? In a sense. There are parts, like at the end when the T-1000 is dead that Arnold spews lines like "I need a vacation" seemingly dropping out of character for a moment, but these moments are sparse enough that the great action drowns out the noise.

Underneath all this there is a message of hope for the human race, words not often uttered from Sarah Connor's mouth, so mighty praise indeed, which serves as the driving underlying message of this movie. The T-800 basically becomes the closest thing to a father figure that John Connor ever has, so he is raised partially by humans and partially by machines, which is what makes him such a formidable foe to Skynet in the future.

Speaking of which, a major beef I had with this movie that I never noticed before. Did you know John Connor is 10 in this movie? 10! Come on, that's like 4th grade. They should have had him at least be 13. That also makes Sarah Connor 29 in this movie, and only 19 in the original Terminator.... again, come on. She was 24 when she did the role, and that's about the age I think her character should be. Makes a lot more sense than a 19 year old running around doing this stuff. Edward Furlong was 14 when he did T2, so again they should have made it his age. The other reason this hurts stretching into the future is that John Connor meets his dad Kyle at the age of 45. So, in Terminator Salvation, you expect me to believe Christian Bale is a 45 year old man? Again, 35, more believable. So simple people.

Terminator: 4 out of 5 stars.

Terminator 2: 5 out of 5 stars. Simply one of the best movies ever made, period.