I WON'T Be Back.

Discussion in 'Media Central' started by Tuckerfan, May 17, 2023.

  1. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    Arnie calls it quits on the Terminator franchise.
    I can see them making a Terminator movie without Arnie working, but I don't think that it is likely.
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  2. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" had no Arnie. and it was all kinds of awesome. :shrug:
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  3. StarMan

    StarMan Fresh Meat

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    I admire Arnold's integrity signing off from playing a cybernetic killing machine in his mid-70s after 4 lackluster sequels & diminishing Box Office returns.
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  4. Tererune

    Tererune Troll princess and Magical Girl

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    now for that commando sequel we have all been waiting for.
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  5. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

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    Genesys and Dark Fate both had good moments, but were ultimately pretty weak. Arnold's right: someone needs a fresh idea for the franchise.
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  6. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    It was also a TV series, not a movie. I specifically said movie.
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  7. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    A story is a story.
    :bailey:
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  8. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    And some work better as a TV series than a movie. Other’s work better as movies. And some don’t work as either.
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  9. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    :sigh: :brood:

    T1 and T2 are the Terminator concept working well in theaters.
    SCC is the Terminator concept working well on TV.
    It works well on both.
    SCC was only killed by a writer's strike, not for lack of Arnie.

    That's generally; now specifically.
    T4, despite it getting the most pooped on by fans next to T5, made the third most at the box office after T2 and T3.
    T4 only had naked CG Arnold for like, 5 seconds.
    Now, imagine if T4 had SCC quality writing.

    Arnie-less Terminator can be done, and it can make a buck.

    Box-Office Mojo for Termie franchise-
    https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchise/fr3175583493/
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  10. Jenee

    Jenee Driver 8

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    Which one had the John Connor terminator? The only reason I went was because it was supposed to be good. “Supposed to be” as in, historically, Terminator movies had been good. It wasn’t bad because Arnie wasn’t in it. It was bad because they made John Connor a terminator.
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  11. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    That was 5.
    T5 is 17 year old me getting too clever, and going "and more time travel!! And more time travel!! And more!! How many layers can I stack!!?? I'm a genius!! :polarslam2:".
    Except 17 year old me had friends around to go "yeah, you can keep track of it, but for everyone else, this is a fucking mess :dendroica:".
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  12. Tuckerfan

    Tuckerfan BMF

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    :sigh: Trek has worked well both on the big and little screens. We also both agree that some of the concepts explored in them work better in one format than they do another. Take some of the multi-parters from the various TV series. Are they good? Sure. Would all of them work just as a single movie that you went and saw in a theater? No. Some would, others, it'd be, "What's the point?" Unless you change something about the story you don't gain anything by putting it on a larger screen. Or take "Inner Light." A one-shot episode that most people love. How do you turn that into a 2-hour movie for the big screen? What do we gain by doing so? I'm not saying that it'd be impossible to extend the story, after all, the original was probably about 45-minutes when you took out the commercials, and there's almost certainly things that had to be cut to fit into that time frame that could be put back in. But an hour's worth of material more? I don't see it, not without altering a huge chunk of the story. It could be better, it could be worse, but it wouldn't be the same story.

    If you watch something on TV, you have one set of expectations for it. If you watch things in the theater, you have a different expectation for it. Those expectations are changing and blurring, it's true. But they're still there. And they're also there when it comes to franchises like Trek or Terminator. And right now, people associate the Terminator movies (as opposed to the universe), largely with the Governator. They also expect those movies to suck.

    So, the first thing that you're going to have to do is to convince people that the next Terminator is going to be good, regardless of if Arnie's in it or not. That's going to be a hard hook for them to bait to get me to believe it. Then what do you do with the basic concept? Do you do a full-reboot? Wiping out the other movies as ever having happened in the universe? ALA Abrams Trek. Or do you do some kind of soft-reboot, where you round off the edges of some of the films but keep a bunch of it, like they did with some of the Hulk reboots?

    Who's your Terminator? A big T-800 model? A T-1000? A Terminatrix? Or do we do something like Jaws where we never really see the Terminator until the end of the film. A two-hour running time limits your options and what you can do with them.

    The concept of a lot of this stuff can work on either the large or the small screen, but not the particular stories. There's no way you could chop the first few seasons of Game of Thrones into a movie and have it work. There's just too much stuff in there.

    How do you take the premise of Galaxy Quest and turn it into a series? You can keep aspects of it, but other things are going to have to change. Like, what happens to all the advanced technology that the crew hands over to the Earth when they crash into the con? Do we now have warp drive? What does the rest of the galaxy think of us? Are the Thermians actually giant dicks and we've handed the cosmos over to super-advanced Pakleds? If you explore those as a series, you can really get into some of the interesting details of those things. If you do it as a movie, you can't.

    So, is it possible for them to do a new, and interesting twist on the Terminator franchise? Yes. Is it likely? No.
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  13. RickDeckard

    RickDeckard Socialist

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    Is 'leave it the fuck alone' a fresh idea?
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  14. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    The hard work of how to write it has been done by the comic books.
    There's literally a library of non-Arnie stories to play with there.

    But if it's about "how do you sucker the rubes into coming to watch it?" I guess you could stunt cast the everloving fuck out of the Terminator, and/or John Connor, and/or Sarah Connor.

    SCC is retroactive stunt casting of Sarah now that Lena Headey is famous for Cersei.

    Just cast some cool people that everyone already loves from something else; have it be a good-old-fashioned T-800 vs our heroes story, and you're set to go.

    If you want a special twist, don't upgrade the Terminator for the squillionth time; play with the venue.
    Do one in Russia!
    Skynet gets WW3 going by making the US lob its nukes at Russia so they lob theirs back.
    Let's see Russia's side of it.
    Last edited: May 20, 2023
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  15. Uncle Albert

    Uncle Albert Part beard. Part machine.

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    The cancelation of Sarah Connor Chronicles was a fucking travesty. Yes, the kid playing John was a whiny douchebag, but so were all the other iterations.

    Shirley Manson. :wub:

    "Ef aye were you, ayed watch hew aye was calling a betch."
    Last edited: May 20, 2023
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  16. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

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    I would say that's the only good alternative to a fresh idea.
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  17. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    They keep showing bots and pieces of the future war, just do a show or movie based around that.
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  18. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    Helena Bonham Carter was Skynet in T4; bring her back, and give her the powers of AI today.
    Writing scripts, faking photos, etc.
    Have her manipulate America and Russia into killing each other with those powers.
    That'd be some timely spooky shit.
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  19. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    Aaron Paul = John Connor
    Rosario Dawson = Good Terminator
    Pedro Pascal = Good future hacker trying to kill Skynet with virii
    Helena Bonham Carter = Skynet
    Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (The Mountain) = bad Terminator

    *Dusts off hands proudly*
    :D
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  20. Jenee

    Jenee Driver 8

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    I didn’t like the way Dawson and Pascal played off each other. Not sure if it was the writing, or the chemistry between the two but … I didn’t get a sense of … belief in their interaction.
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  21. Uncle Albert

    Uncle Albert Part beard. Part machine.

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    No! Enough with the weaselly little douchebags playing John Connor. If you can't stand next to Michael Beihn without looking like his fluffer, you are not right for the role. Edward Furlong does not grow up to be Christian Bale, and neither does fucking Jessie Pinkman.
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  22. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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  23. matthunter

    matthunter Ice Bear

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    Arnie isn't out of the action hero stuff though - he's got a new Netflix series coming out that could basically be a sequel to True Lies (this time he finds out his daughter got into the spy game and no-one told HIM until he has to come out of retirement to help her with a mission).
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