Terminator Salvation: The Essential Edition

Having really enjoyed Terminator Salvation I didn’t really have many problems – the only thing I mind is the heart transplantation which I now have seen two versions

T-Hope’s letting the T-800 freeze and cut to the helicopter
and Q2′s stabbing connor but letting him survive anyway

I must say I can’t decide which works better but I lean towards the second since the terminator slowly breaking free is a great suspense scene

All the edits are solid and especially the dream sequence with Serena is handled very well with echoes and ghosted-images.

Technically this edit is pretty flawless, video and audio are great, no hard cuts or jumps

Storywise there is still one problem: Kyle Reese is number 1 on skynet’s list, they don’t identify him, i assume he just gets taken by chance by one of those grappling arms, but when marcus goes into the data of Skynet they have clearly identified him as Kyle Reese – maybe cutting the line about Kyle Reese being on the list might have done the trick

On the other hand I always saw the Terminator universe as a “multiple worlds” universe, so every timetravel creates a new timeline. So to me T4 made sense in the way that John Connor believes there is only one timeline and he needs Kyle Reese whereas Syknet knows that killing Kyle Reese won’t erase John Connor in this timeline, so they bait him thinking he needs to save his future to ultimately kill him

Two things I missed:

1) The speech Connor gives about being human, I liked the angle. I liked that Connor in this movie starts off like a Terminator, having almost lost his humanity until he realizes that sometimes being human is doing things that cannot be rationally explained – i think it’s a great message and one of the bright spots of T4 which while not terrifically great like T1 and T2 was still a fun movie for me – that being said it still works so the faneditor did a good job regardless of my complaints

2) Marcus’s mission: again I think it was a nice twist that the perfect infiltration unit doesn’t even know for itself that it is an infiltration unit. The hints that Marcus was there to get John Connor are gone, but the story-thematic doesn’t change. From all that’s said and done it is still implied that Marcus was constructed to lure John Connor into a trap.
And even if the intention is to remove this completely then marcus turns out to be just an experiment that happened to stumble into the story so I think I go with the original explanation

So while this is a great polish that will probably be ok for many people who disliked T4 it still won’t replace my original dvd (although it came close) – maybe merging the fantastic opening of T-Hope’s Terminator Salvation with this and reinserting the speech of connor will be the thing I was looking for

Anyway a very good edit that I don’t regret watching

8/10

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.

Quality - Good. A little soft for my liking, but perfectly fine.

Visual editing - pretty much flawless, except that the fades on the flashback to the prison cell felt unnatural to me (might be a true black thing?).

Audio editing - excellent for the most part. Although, once again, the flash back to the prison didn't really work for me. Narratively, it was fine. But it was the only part of the editing that just felt off - plus, the audio on Sarah's tape was a bit too quiet and difficult to hear. A direct comparison to the audio from the other tape scene shows a relatively big difference.

Narrative - good. An improvement? Not so sure. Q2 fixes some problems, but creates others. The removing of the rain scene robbed Marcus and the girl of development, and made both the attack seem abrupt and the "I'm cold" scene feel rushed. The removal of her willingness to offer antibiotics also just felt off to me and robbed the scene of a conclusion (she shoots him in the leg, but we don't see him exit?)

I was pleased to see that the twist that Marcus is a Terminator delayed, but it also felt that as a result the reveal of how he came to be what he is was less clear. Its a case of picking the lesser of 2 evils, unfortunately.

Enjoyment - Good. I enjoyed it. I recognise Terminator Salvation as a flawed film, but I've never thought it as bad as many people seem to. It's by no means a work of art, but it's competently made, has decent effects, good action sequences, a reasonable story (granted, with holes) and a good twist. I think both this cut and the original have thier strengths and weaknesses.

Terminator Genysis - now THAT'S a bad film.