Terminator Salvation: The Essential Edition

I'm a huge Terminator fan, and Arnold's fan in general, but out of the six movies we have gotten so far, only the first two remain the only ones I watch again and again. The sequels were progressively worst, with the exception of Salvation where they tried to do something different, with a good cast and a competent director, but they kind of lost it in the narrative part.

The only reason I gave a shot to this edit is because I found an excellent edit of Terminator 3 called The Coming Storm, which salvaged that train wreck of a movie that was the original, but, the only way I would consider watching that in future terminator marathons is if I found a good edit for Salvation and that I did!

Q2 made a very good job with this edit technical wise and on the narrative part. The movie now makes more sense, it's more streamlined and far more enjoyable. The cuts were seamless, both visually and audio, with the exception of the new flashbacks. Especially the first of one, it felt kind of out of place and abrupt. I liked the idea though!

Another thing that really through me out of the moment, because I was 100% sure that it would have been removed, was at the beginning when we briefly see the corpse of Marcus. I mean, this betrays that he is not human from the very get go, so why leave it there? And you could go a step further and trim down the scene where Connor sees the information about the new terminators. That way, the actual reveal that Marcus is hybrid would be revealed at the middle of the film where the mine magnetizes to his leg.

Other than those issues I mentioned, I most definitely recommend this edit to anyone who kind of liked the original, but thought it could be much better with some editing magic and I assure you it will be your new go-to version! It will be for me!

Thank you Q2 for all your hard work and thanks to anyone who read my review!

Conceptually speaking I really like the idea of a Terminator movie taking place fully in the apocalyptic future rather than showing portions of said future and than spending the rest of the runtime in the past not that I had a problem with said narrative setups in the previous three films though I found the difference in narrative structure to be a nice and refreshing change of scene and pace, that’s not to say I didn’t have problems with this movie oooh I definitely had problems with it though Q2 has definitely fixed some of the issues in this edit.

The first of these resolved issues being the replacing of the theatrical and extended cuts version of Sarah Connors recording where the one from the original Terminator now plays strengthening both nostalgic value and continuity with both Marcus character arc and reveal of his origin being strengthened thanks to the erasure of certain scenes that only existed to undermine the revelation of what he turned out to be later on and since the whole desert heart surgery scene is no longer present this effectively leaves him alive as a new member of the resistance able to fully earn his second chance.

The small subtle music cues scattered throughout helped to give certain scenes and character interactions more meaning and the explosive titlecard graphic was very creative and suited the theme of the edit though I do think the transition to the first war scene was a bit on the erupt side, speaking of things a little on the erupt side I will forever be baffled by the studios insistence on the use of shaky cam, not just for this film but for most action orientated films in general and quite frankly shaky cam just doesn’t work for me it neither makes action scenes compelling nor does it increase the tension in any meaningful way.

As such well the action in this film and of course the edit is pretty solid for the most part the presence of the ever erupting and erratic shaky cam makes said scenes hard to sit through and I wish something had been done to either remove the camera shake or reduce the amount of visual shakiness though I know the ability to do so depends on ones software and NLE so it’s not the fault of Q2 as such I blame the studio and whoever conceived the idea of shaky cam in cinema, another technical aspect I wish had been smoothed over is the lightning in some scenes as there way to dark making it quite hard to see what was going on.

I often had to squint my eyes in some scenes just to see the full picture with an example of one of these scenes being where Connor and his soldier are in the valley of death and I get that dark lighting can make for a dramatic, atmospheric and at times impactful scene but it shouldn’t be dark to the point of near eyestrain though speaking of stuff relating to Connor I wish the scenes involving the higher ups ordering Connor about were axed as it doesn’t really make much sense why he’s taking orders despite previous films foretelling him as this great leader of the resistance (though the trimming and removal of the majority of the whole air strike sub thread was a good call as it’s presence only drew attention to the executive commanders rather poor levels of insight and intelligence.

Not only that but said scenes made things feel far to robotic and less human when the whole idea of the war is that through human perseverance the resistance will succeed, that and the sub threads removal makes said resistance easier to root for with the removal of the part where the machines identify Kyle Reese as Kyle Reese being a smart choice as it not only fixes a plothole at least partially but makes Skynet come of as far more competent than they were in the theatrical and extended cuts saying that though I do think the part of the scene with Marcus that shows which cell Kyle Reece is in should have been taken out.

Another scene that should have been taken out or at least trimmed or cut around was the one where Connor claimed that Marcus tried to kill his mother and tried to kill Kyle Reese as that raises questions as to how he knows Marcus is of the same model as the previous Terminator model in Terminator 1 or if he’s even the same model as the one in T1 and how the timeline placement and continuity in regards to these events even works in short it causes a bit of a headache though maybe I am overthinking it and there is a logical explanation to his statement.

This last point isn’t a criticism though it would have been cool if some of the interior and night scenes had that same blue tint as in Terminator 2 Judgement Day otherwise I would definitely say that this is a step up from the theatrical and extended versions of this time looping entry in the Terminator franchise.

A stripped-down and well-told take on Salvation, this edit makes what was previously a pointless epilogue/prologue to the franchise into an indispensable interlude between the first two films. It's entirely possible to watch this as the future prior to John's having encountered the good T-800 and the T-1000 as a child, and the film works perfectly, without spoiling any of the first-act plot twists in T2.

The pacing, action and motivations are all repaired and streamlined here, with character motivations and choices much clearer. My only quibbles are that now it's less clear why the machines pick out Kyle from the rabble of humans and why John is able to survive such a seemingly mortal blow at the end without the "heart transplant" section, but neither of those are major problems and a moment of head-scratching is still a worthwhile trade-off for the countless improvements. The chance to see the John Conner of the future as a struggling but good-hearted leader rather than a generic warrior god/saviour has no longer been squandered, thanks to Q2's skillful editing.

Although I never really disliked this movie as so many others did, it was still not as good as it could have been. Q2 has turned it into a vastly superior film to the original, the editing is perfect and the pacing is much improved and at no point was I bored like a few times in the original. The new intro set the tone perfectly for the rest of the film and the new conclusion also works better then the original. So thanks Q2 for improving this movie and turning it into how a Terminator should be and a worthy inclusion into the series.

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