Terminator Salvation – T-HOPE Edition

Was finally able to get ahold of this classic edit after, no lie, YEARS of searching. Boy am I glad I did, because it's a shelf-replacer. The standard T4 dvd is dead. Long live the T4 fanedit.

The problems with the theatrical version of T4 are threefold:
1. We finally get the badass future war with John Connor the badass soldier that was glimpsed back in the original film. And then McG pushes John to the background and focuses more of the movie on this Marcus dude and a zit-popping Kyle Reese.
2. The logic in this movie is dumb, dumb, DUMB. It's constantly undermining the intelligence and capabilities of both the Terminators and the soldiers in favor of making everything connected in a neat little package for a theater audience.
3. It goes overboard with trying to show the cyclical nature of the connection between John and the Terminators. What everyone knows in this film just breaks the time travel of the other films because it creates paradoxes.

What this edit does:
1. Makes lots of artful trims to the Director's Cut of mostly Marcus and Kyle scenes. The result is the remaining footage is far more John's movie, which is great because Christian Bale is doing a killer job (I don't care how many lighting guys he had to tear a new one.)
2. Cuts so many small lines and small moments of stupidity. The Terminators are smart, the soldiers act quickly (except for the scene where they light up their whole secret base to chase one guy.) The Arnold cameo is trimmed down too, which I actually really liked, but in this state only the very best shots are kept and it looks phenomenal. Also rearranges scenes to make plot developments more surprising.
3. References to what Skynet knows are cut so that this film is not some future-past worm eating its own tail. John knows who Kyle Reese is, and unfortunately him trying to save the life of his own dad is a central plot point in the movie. No avoiding that. But at least most other people aren't aware of the significance of all these time travel events and the story just plays more straight. The original ending did have a certain poetry to it that built on T2, but it was also so convenient it was cringey. This is probably better.

Downsides of this edit:
The extensive added footage to the beginning is an impressive and cool way to start, but the video quality on it differs wildly. The music levels are also way off there and in the ending. The ending video quality also differs a bit, as do several deleted scenes that were added in. (Maybe it was like that in the Director's Cut, too?) The beginning in particular has a very noticeable stuttering effect as the video plays. There are also a number of noticeable hard cuts where scenes were moved or deleted, and the filter applied to the flashbacks is distracting... perhaps it was used to cover poor video quality of the original source, but it can't have looked worse than here.

Overall, despite the technical issues, the narrative restructuring and edits make this a FAR superior film to the theatrical cut. The bad news is... it's unnecessary at this point. Terminator: Dark Fate works as a direct sequel to the first two films, and it's a much better movie than even this fanedit. For me, that's the trilogy, and no need for any other Terminator films. But if you wanted to watch Salvation, then this is definitely the cut to watch!

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

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.

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.

February 11, 2011 @ 7:12 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*