Terminator Salvation: The Essential Edition

July 19, 2010 @ 2:05 am

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

August 13, 2010 @ 9:42 pm

Just got done viewing this, and I must say, it is indeed a treat. I got ahold of the AVCHD version, and it’s quite something to have near BD quality on a DVD DL.

There’s really nothing here to criticize, all of the cuts were good. Leaving Marcus’s intro out of the start of the film made the big reveal later on even more epic. Leaving out the lame ass heart transplant at the end was another good cut, and makes Connor look like an even tougher SOB. My only qualms about this version are the qualms that I have with Christian Bale.. No one can fix those except Christian Bale.

I’ll give this Edit an 8.5/10

Good stuff Q2

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.

June 25, 2010 @ 3:43 am

Yes! No heart transplant! Need I say more? Pretty straightforward edits made, but in my opinion that is pretty much all this movie needed, so strong work! It will serve nicely as my master edition.

July 30, 2010 @ 6:58 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*