Terminator Salvation – T-HOPE Edition

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Overall rating
 
7.9
Audio/Video Quality
 
7.8(4)
Audio Editing
 
7.7(3)
Visual Editing
 
7.7(3)
Narrative
 
8.7(3)
Enjoyment
 
7.7(9)
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(Updated: September 05, 2012)
Enjoyment
 
9.0
July 23, 2010 @ 5:54 am

I hadn't watched an edit of this since I had D/L'd the Spence version and was excited to watch this one.

I agree with T-Hope's own comments, this (i.e. the original movie) is mediocre at best and I don't think it can really improved that much.

Before my review starts, I really liked that T-Hope created new scenes for his edit. A bold choice and I applaud him for it. And I don't wish to diminish his efforts in anyway.

The edit definitely moves along at a much more coherent and fast pace; it's quick to get to the heart of the plot.

I liked the freshly created intro and the new opening credits, although I did find the JJ Abrams-like camera shake during the nuclear detonation a little much. I liked the quick cameos from Dyson and Silberman good tie in back to the franchise. There is one shot during the new opening that seemed a little low quality. The shot down the cell block (?) during John's opening speech.

I definitely liked the re-sequencing of the original film's scenes. Opening with the raid on the underground Skynet facility worked for me.

For me, the first 4 to 5 minutes of the edit had a weird and very noticeable stutter or skip to the motion. I noticed this when I watched it on my desktop and as a DVD. Maybe I got a bad D/L from RapidShare. Please let me know if you do not notice this when you watch it.

At 29:00 minutes into the edit, we get a flashback to Marcus and Dr. Kogan's jail scene (originally at the beginning of the movie). T-Hope uses an odd looking filter/effect for this scene. I'm not certain what it is called, but it was odd and I don't think it works. Too grainy and fresco like. I like the actual placement of the scene, how it is edited together etc. just not the weird effect. I get it, the editor is trying to show us that it is a memory/flashback.

Eliminating the parts where Skynet knows about Kyle Reese is a great choice. I like this edit because it re-focuses the plot back to what it should really have been: John Connors vs. Skynet. It’s this that really makes this edit stand out from the rest. Excellent!

I was a little disappointed to see the Arnie reveal scene cut down, I liked this part of the original movie, it's the one scene in the movie that really tied this movie back to the first two. But I definitely liked the reduced escape scenes and final fight scenes, the originals of both of these dragged on too long.

Technically, a great edit. No major hard edits/cuts/audio issues. There is one sort of hard transition that happens after marcus dies (at approx 1:39:00) – the scene fades from Marcus and Kyle looking at each other, to a quick all white fade to John Connor on a strecher flying away – the audio is a little hard. I don’t recall this being the case in the original.

Other than that, this edit is seamless edit. Good job!

The video quality is fine, no different than the source DVD. I would have liked to see an HD source used to make the video quality better/sharper.

Overall, I liked and agreed with the cuts made to this edit, the new opening and the re-sequenced scenes. There wasn't a single moment in this edit that made me go "Huh?"

I have only watched my store bought DVD of this movie, Spence's edit and now this edit. Of the three, this edit is the best, bar none. This will the version I go to when I want to watch this movie.
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(Updated: August 13, 2022)
Overall rating
 
8.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
8.0
Visual Editing
 
8.0
Narrative
 
7.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
A good edit if you want ideas on how Terminator Salvation could have been resequenced to make something that made more sense.
I enjoyed the use of the prison scenes being repurposed as flashbacks for Marcus. The ending gave me a lot of new ideas on how to integrate Marcus' ending in a way that was far better than the original.
The video quality is what you should expect from DVD, I think I have been spolied with HD over the years, but give it a try, it will definitely flips some switches.

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(Updated: September 05, 2012)
Overall rating
 
8.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
7.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
July 31, 2010 @ 1:49 am

Terminator Salvation – T-HOPE Edition

Admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the original cut of T4. However, because of this, it’s easier to judge this edit without constantly thinking “this was cut, that’s gone, wtf that’s new” and so on. So let’s cut right down to it.

From a story standpoint, the edit is sound. Even knowing in the back of my mind that Marcus was a Terminator, his reveal was “shocking,” if you catch my drift. Also, the new intro. Ace. Absolutely awesome. (out of curiosity, did you use any shots from the movie “The Road”? Thought I spotted some. Anyhow). The intro really helped to set the mood. The only minor niggle I had with the story is why Blair suddenly decided to help Marcus. The scene with them after the attack helped to build their relationship, and without it, something just feels…off somehow.

I watched this on my laptop, so I have a feeling that video issues are going to be more apparent than on a DVD/TV. So take the next section with a humongo grain of salt…

Video was decent. The quality was consistent throughout, with a few exceptions: I noticed some interlacing during the intro. I don’t remember where exactly, but it wasn’t too distracting at that point, so it wasn’t too big of a deal. There was a shot in the first bit before the bomb goes off of a blonde woman in an office where the quality was noticably lower. Same thing with the shots of the bombs going off that was taken from Battlestar Galactica. I didn’t notice any other issues until the end…when Connor is being carried out of the Skynet facility at the end, the picture lookeda bit blurry, and the framing seemed off, almost as if the picture had been zoomed in on. Also, there was some interlacing on the final shots in the helicopter before Connor set off the fireworks show. And then…the strangest thing happened…the picture was amazingly sharp and clear during the helicopter finale and to the end. I was…confused. Finally, the final shot of Kyle at the end looks a bit stretched out.

Audio was great. Even on a stereo setup with my laptop speakers, I could still hear some directional sound effects and the like. Good show. I only noticed (read: remember) one hard audio cut, where the fire scene with Blair and Marcus was cut.

Now, for the edit: I didn’t notice anything (aside from the fire scene and the T-600 attacking Connor at the start), so all was good. However, there was a minor inconsistency in the edit: T-HOPE states that he cut the T-600 popping up behind John because, and I quote, “If a Terminator pops up behind you, you should be dead as its mechanical hand should already been ripping out your heart.” A very sound point…but shouldn’t that same point apply to the Terminator that pops out of the water during the opening base raid? Food for thought. Also, the fadeout to Marcus’s nightmare was…eh. Not sure how I felt about it. The filter on the dream was questionable as well. However, the second nightmare sequence during his “reveal” was probably my favorite sequence in the entire edit.

Overall, a very solid effort. The video stuff I mentioned earlier is really holding me from giving a higher rating. Perhaps it will look nicer once burned to a disc and played on a different system. However, editing is mostly sound, story was solid for the most part, and audio was close to perfect. THIS is what T4 should have been (or a very close approximation) the first time around.

Enjoyment: 9/10
Video: 6/10
Audio: 8.5/10
Overall: 7/10
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Overall rating
 
7.2
Audio/Video Quality
 
7.0
Audio Editing
 
6.0
Visual Editing
 
7.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
First of all: the opening sequence is fantastic, I watched this edit over the course of two days, always 30 minutes and before i would continue with the film i would watch the opening sequence to get the terminator vibe. T-Hope deliberately inserts very disturbing pictures into this sequence which makes the viewer uncomfortable and wouldn’t pass for a big budget mainstream movie since it would make us think about the horrifying consequences of a nuclear war instead of just looking at explosions tearing down the planet.

The good:
Said opening montage cannot be mentioned often enough. This is the first t4 fanedit i finished until the end and most of this probably lies because the opening created such a great terminator vibe

Removing Skynet’s knowledge of Kyle Reese gets rid of a lot of plot problems as well – at first I thought it doesn’t really make sense that skynet takes reese into a single cell, but from the edit this could either mean: reese was taken into the cell just by chance for possible experiments or skynet knew from marcus that connor was interested in reese and took him as bait but wasn’t aware of reese’s importance
reordering the discussion with serena also does the trick of making it less obvious that marcus is a robot
removing some cheese sequences like connor jumping into the water and terminator throwing around is also a big plus

the bad:
There are a some real glaring audio and video problems as well as transitions that don’t really work:

The shot of Silberman while being a great reference to the other movies is of bad video quality
As the previous reviewer already noted there is an awkward filter when we get marcus’ flashback which distracts and just looks fake, furthermore it wasn’t really necessary because the light itself indicates that this is a flashback and the video doesn’t require further filters

the opening sequence with connor has a hard cut where the t600 attack originally was

the altered audio where a guy says that connor is the nr1 target (originally it was kyle reese) is a good idea but the change is way too obvious and doesn’t sound well

at the end there are a lot of scenes with interlacing which shouldn’t be in any edit

there are also a lot of transitions that don’t work, but i can’t list them from my memory

the cut after kyle reese finds the photo is way too abrupt and we barely have time to realize what it’s about…probably because the original footage is not that much to work with

the cutting of the heart transplant works wonders, the only manko is the slight quality loss that is a result of zooming in to cut out marcus

overall this fanedit suffers from a lot of problems audio and video wise that i didn’t expect from a faneditor like T-Hope and it’s a real pity because the opening works just too damn well – I’d appreciate a redone version with the fixed errors so that i can finally put this edit into my shelf as the official T4

7/10 (6 for the edit but 1 big plus for the opening)
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(Updated: September 05, 2012)
Enjoyment
 
7.0
October 18, 2010 @ 10:40 pm

This one has been on my CURIOUSITY LIST for a while now…

I really enjoy the whole TERMINATOR Franchise. I absolutely LOVE the now cancelled TV series (shame on you FOX). I haven’t really not enjoyed any of the previous movies. The first two are brillant. T3, while a bit too heavy on the humor, greatly entertained me in a otherwise dismal summer of blockbuster blunders. And I even like T4. Yes, even as a casual fan I noticed the continuity issues, but as a WAR MOVIE, I think it worked pretty well.

So when I read T-Hope’s thread and intention for this movie, I was very excited.
And now after watching, I am pleased to say I was not disappointed.

From a narrative restructuring point of view, this edit is excellent.
All cuts and reorganizing of scenes completely work and improve the overall story.
The new opening was very clever and I was impressed.
The editing of Marcus into a supporting character works well.
The handling of Kyle also works and makes more sense now.
So, again from the storyline perspective, exceptionally well done.

On the technical side, there a few minor issues, all which have been brought up by previous reviewers.
I too found the audio a bit quiet, but nothing distracting or significant. I just turned up the volume and
ate my popcorn!

A few cuts are very hard and noticebale. Also, many of transitions could use another pass to smooth them out.

But despite this, I still found this movie very enjoyable.
I would give this edit a solid 7/10.

Thanks for the fun T-Hope!!!
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