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!

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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Going into this edit i wasn't expecting much considering how badly i was dissapointed with the theatrical version.So i'm glad i gave Q2's version a chance and from the first scene to the last scene i noticed that the movie had a faster pace and the story no longer revolved around marcus and his self discovery.It was now focused on john connor and how he was becoming a bigger threat to skynet and the new ways skynet was coming up with to stop him.
The story is not perfect by any means but that is the screenwriters and directors fault not Q2.
Overall Q2 delivers a thrill ride of a movie which would now fit perfectly in any terminator fans collection.