Terminator Salvation: The T4 Cut

I really, really, really wanted to enjoy myself with this edit, to experience the magic of T1 & T2 all over again, or the magic of watching Uncanny Antman's sublime version of T3.

And Agent9 did a great job of hosing away tons of crap—needless scenes, useless dialogue. The addition of classic terminator tunes also improved the tone of the film, though the volume was a bit high in some places.

Unhappily, the theatrical version has so many issues that it would be difficult to hose them all away. It's like the movie has a core crap holding chamber, ginormous and sealed and possibly impervious to fanediting. A monstrous terminator appears silently out of nowhere to snatch resistance fighters in the desert, apparently in the mere service of a surprise moment and a cartoony action sequence (which made me yearn for the brilliance and natural flow of action in the first three terminator films); John Connor throws caution to the wind and mentions the names of his mother and father to a machine he suspects is a terminator, for the sake of dumb exposition (but without Connor's indiscretion, the whole rescue-Kyle-Reese plot cannot be set in motion); terminator worms are swimming not far from Connor's base, even though such machines should have alerted their heavier-duty brethren long before the movie started; resistance air bases are out in the open where any aerial survey could find them. And why aren't terminators continually syncing their data with the network, i.e., why isn't any contact with a terminator shortly followed by a wave of killing machines coming down on a human's ass? Is it wise to detonate nuclear devices while hovering in a helicopter over prime mushroom cloud territory? And how much of this silliness could be removed without disrupting storytelling coherence?

I applaud Agent9 for doing a tremendous job salvaging what he could from a serious mess of a movie. Terminator Salvation gave me a headache; The T4 Cut was very watchable. I'd rank the theatrical release a 2/10 on the enjoyjoy scale and Agent9's version considerably higher, which has me very much looking forward to his future fanediting projects, especially if they're based on better substrate.

Enjoyjoy: 7.5 pelvic aerothrusts, rounded up.

Warning: I watched this edit in 640p. Please take that into account when reading this review.

There are three problems with the initial release of Terminator Salvation. One: the far from airtight (even for a Terminator movie) story that took itself far too seriously. Two: Sam Worthington. Three: despite some awesome Skynet monstrosities and a surprisingly great depiction of the T-800 it just didn't feel like a Terminator movie, despite heavy handed and misguided attempts to do just that.

Agent9 ended up taking these issues and wiping them out.

A/V Quality: 10
-Video Editing: 10
The cuts were numerous and welcome. That goofy "musta heard the music" gag is gone, as is a lot of Worthington's introduction, which was only a plus and almost made Marcus an interesting character despite Worthington's mighty effort in dullness. Oh, and Star isn't a walking Deus Ex Machina anymore. That deserves nothing but praise.

The color correction was probably my favorite thing in this movie and really added to a much needed bleak atmosphere. When I first saw the green filter I immediately thought, "Now this is a Terminator movie."

-Audio Editing
The reinsertion of the original music was one of Agent9's best decisions for this cut and injected some emotional depth better than around half the actors in this movie. Hearing Sarah Connor's actual line from T2 was a nice touch. The removal of some silly lines was seamless. I couldn't find any inconsistency at all.

Narrative: 8
The pacing has been greatly improved now, but certain decisions are still baffling (through no fault of your own, Agent9). For example, Skynet's system not immediately shutting down Marcus after he came back and, you know, the idea of sending him in the first place. Sadly these were both pivotal things that were impossible to fix without deleted scenes that, from what I know, simply don't exist.
Was this edit still better than its source, though? Oh God yes.

Enjoyment: 9

The quality of this originally bland as all hell film has skyrocketed. Where at first it was pretty much on par with Terminator 3, it's now about twelve steps above it. If I ever feel the need for a Terminator marathon, my DVD copy of Salvation will continue to collect dust. This is my go-to copy from now on.

Just Awesome... Had to check it out after all the talk, and this edit really makes Salvation a much better, easier to watch film.
The opening, the lame Marcus storyline, Star having everything people needed - All gone.
The color correction is fantastic and really makes the movie look so much better.
I agree with everyone on the plotline of John Connor vs (1) T-800, but like you guys said its out of Agent 9's control, and he did a great job here, so I can't rate him on something he had no control over.
This Edit truly makes the film so much better.... Thx.
Highly Recommended.

Amazing Edit! The color correction alone is a reason to see this one. It looks like the James Cameron movies, with the blue nighttime gradient and greenish tints thorough the film. Kyle Reese storyline is altered, and the action is cut at a real nice pace. Overall, I highly recommend this one.

A much better experience than the original film. It cuts out all the stupid, unnecessary stuff and strengths the film as a whole despite it's fundamental flaws. Marcus' back story is strengthened by actually keeping his identity a mystery from the start and leaving the viewer in suspense as to who he is and why he was created. Unfortunately, there isn't really enough source material to fully support all of the new ideas expressed here, but it's still highly watchable and understandable. This is a huge step towards what the movie should have been from the beginning.