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[Yukaphile]

No, it goes from horror to pure remake. It breaks the clever plot and intelligence of the first one and retcons everything. Now maybe you're fine with retcons like that, and indeed, it depends on the person, and I myself have retcons I'm okay with in other works, but in this instance, I can't accept these retcons. The T-800 was Skynet's last hope, it's a stable time loop, Sarah wants to try to do to Skynet what it's trying to do for itself against the humans, but gives it up at the end. I always have a problem trading something that's high-concept and intelligent and well-executed for something more simplistic and action-oriented. It's why I have such huge problems with Star Trek these days.

Sarah Connor had already hit her peak in T1. From helpless damsel in the ordinary world who sucks at her job to the mother of the future, as she calls it, willing to fight, as the climax shows. Sure, it shows her being horrified at how far she's gone, but then... it's pretty much pointless because this film wasn't even supposed to happen. The T-800 was Skynet's last hope, and they sent Reese through and blew the whole place. And yes, showing the creator of Skynet is great, and if they'd actually made a movie showing how the war came about, it would have been nice, but as is, for this movie, it just doesn't work. Maybe you like it because it flips things on its head, given that it has the humans pull on Skynet what it had tried to do to us, but that's breaking the original conceit of the first story to such an insane degree, the franchise never recovered. T2 directly inspired what would come in later installments, the greater focus on action and not clever plots or characters, and more and more confusing time travel. Plus Arnold is back as the protector Terminator, why? If they were going to send another Terminator back in time as a protector, why not put in a new actor past Arnold's star power? It once again breaks the rules of the original film and makes it stupider in the process, that Terminators were designed to infiltrate the human centers of congregation and eliminate them, and why would a super-intelligent, super-efficient supercomputer like Skynet make models that look the same? In all the ways that count, T2 is dumber than T1. So if it's not going to be as flawlessly intelligent as T1 is, or build off the story in a way that's not a retread, why not fully embrace the stupid action nature like T3 does? At least that showed off the rise of Skynet.

What you accuse T3 of is _exactly_ what T2 is. The depths of character you see in T2 are an _illusion._ Hell, the film can't even keep its own continuity consistent, timeline wise, in that it's supposedly 1995 from the police records, Judgment Day comes in 1997, yet the Terminator says it's three years from now, wha? I would contend T3 certainly had a lot of the same depth T2 did, in the themes of coping with what's to come, destiny, and much more I could name.

Here is precisely how T2 is a remake. It begins with a future war flashback, leading into the summation of the events we are about to see. Picks up in the present, where the Terminator arrives, once again played by Arnold, to steal clothes. Then show off a seemingly normal human arriving and accessing modern records. Cut to normal life, with John Connor this time rather than Sarah, there is eventually a meeting between the two future agents, which leads to a car chase, and during these sequence of events the T-800 even rips off that same line Reese had said, "Come with me if you want to live." During Sarah's time in the mental institution, there is nightmares about the future, much like Reese had had, leading to more flashbacks, in this case the nuclear bomb holocaust. The heroes go on the run, much like Sarah and Reese had in T1, before Sarah decides to rip off the first movie and try and take out Cyberdyne - an idea she had largely seemed to have abandoned by the end. Police shootout between the T-800 again (only this time it's a bit later in the film, when they had come back from going on the run rather than before it), the enemy Terminator hijacks a vehicle and even cites the same phrase Arnold had in the first movie, "Get out," leading to yet another car chase, ends in a factory, huge scramble through the facility, that ends with the enemy Terminator destroyed. It's amazing you can't see how much T2 is derivative of the first film to the point anything new it adds is pretty much shallow in terms of the scope of the franchise - and you yourself even admitted that it moved from horror to "sci-fi action," hence it got dumber in the process. All I see here is a complete and utter repeat of T1, without any of the intelligence, more action shoved down our throats, and any minor new world-building and fleshing out pales next to the obvious reason they went this way, to show off special effects and turn people's brains off with lots of gunshots and explosions. Those were only the means to serve the story in T1. Here, they are the driving force for this retread. It's the problem you get with an aging movie franchise where the first movie was so good, it stuck into people's minds and seeped into popular consciousness long after it was over, in that those in charge don't want to stray too far outside the norm lest they alienate new and older viewers. It's a pure corporate mindset, bank on what is safe, knowable, and ultimately gets worse with each passing addition.

And? Action means nothing if the story and characters don't hold up. It's the issues I take with TFA. It's a literal ripoff of ANH built on the ashes of Legends simply to make money. T2 is the same for T1. So again, how is anybody surprised by T3? It certainly seemed to studios that this is what audiences wanted, similarly to how people responded so positively to the over-the-top camp in Batman Forever, and so they delivered, leading to Batman & Robin. Same thing applies here. People gushed so hard over T2, to the point many people claimed it was better than the original _(REALLY!),_ so what do you expect those in charge were going to do? They remade T1 with T2, and so the logical move was to remake T2 with T3. And it's so bland because it's a big profit-driven corporation making it, but T2 is hardly much more impressive in that regard. I'd argue James Cameron borrows his ideas from other writers, but for T2, he shouldn't have tried to cash in on T1 by simply repackaging it for the big screen, but looking to other writers to expand the story. Yeah, computers don't work that way, sure. I'll agree to that. BUT THEN TIME TRAVEL DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! If time travel is real, it's going to follow two forms. What those in the learned scientific community commonly refer to as the predestination paradox, where you can travel through time, but can't change it, or time travel which spawns off many different universes for every changed action you take in the past. People like to pretend that T2 changes T1 from the former to the latter, but I don't see that at ALL. If it's a parallel universe, then how the hell did the events of effect preceding cause leading directly to effect again preceding cause and leading into effect again in a never-ending cycle break so that it becomes parallel worlds? Reese had flat-out said the T-800 was Skynet's last hope, and he was there, he saw it all! If Skynet had sent through a T-1000, the Tech-Com teams would have known it, and by extension so would Reese, and he could've warned Sarah. There would be no reason to hide it from him. Hell, John by that logic would have tried to tell his father the precise sequence of events, to get him to stop Skynet, and survive, so a parallel world would exist where John knew his father, and so on. You see? The time travel mechanics for the first movie are very simple, elegant, and beyond questioning. You could go mad trying to think up how the new retconned time travel works in T2, make excuses for it, and that's not what Terminator should be about! Hell, T2 is _directly_ responsible for stealing from T1 to the point the time travel is _all_ the franchise is about now, when it was really originally just a single last desperate gamble by a mad AI. Yes, I blame James Cameron and T2 for the problems plaguing the franchise today, from transitioning from its seamless and intelligent roots to something that is much dumber. Because T2 is flashier in that respect doesn't make that any less the case. It was the first sequel, and it set up this trend that we would see in T3, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Genisys, and arguably what we're going to see in Dark Fate. I don't have faith in Cameron on this issue, sorry. For me, the story of The Terminator ended in 1984.

[Yukaphile]

The sexual harassment in this episode made me very uncomfortable. From Miz Liz to Debbie to later on that female police officer abusing her power and molesting Hank against his will... I mean, I make no secret to being a Feminist. I do think the sexual harassment and rape against women is off the chats and needs to be dealt with, and we need to be realistic about the power dynamics of the gender roles in play, and that it's our own fathers and brothers and sons and cousins. With that said, though... this must include men and treat them the same as no different from women, or else what is the point of trying to work more towards an egalitarian future? And I will call out sexual harassment wherever I see it. Women can abuse men, plain and simple. Let's not pretend it doesn't happen, even if it's sadly still disproportionately men hurting women. Gotta challenge those old-fashioned notes of gender roles and the patriarchy, because it hurts men and women.

[Yukaphile]

In the novel, Bail tried to bluff his way through, claiming he had a meeting with the Jedi Council, but the clones weren't fools, and retorted that the Council was not in session. Also, Shaak Ti had felt the ripples caused by Anakin's turn to the dark side, and he was an effective force for getting them to drop their defenses so the clones could move in.

[Yukaphile]

All you prequel haters, _this_ is the inevitable end result of your stupid attacks against that trilogy. You didn't want something new, you wanted the _exact same damned story_ to be told over and over again, as proven with the 1997 Special Edition, so that by the time Disney came to take over the franchise, they thought they had the winning formula: They would just remake A New Hope, and then pilfer a bunch of infinitely superior Legends materials to make the various spin-offs, and then, with the second entry in the new "sequel" trilogy, they would pull a surprise twist on par with the reveal in Empire Strikes Back that Vader was Luke's father, except given the legitimate criticisms that Force Awakens had played it _too_ safe, they would make sure the _WHOLE FUCKING MOVIE_ was nothing but surprise twists and subversions on par with learning the Dark Lord of the Sith was the long-cherished father figure to the hero of the journey. Congratulations. You caused this with your endless whining, your baseless accusations like how the prequels were racist (which is ignorant on so many levels considering that Lucas _married a black woman!),_ and your thoroughly despicable treatment of Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best. Wonderful. Live it up. This is your mess, and we are ALL suffering for it.

[Yukaphile]

LUCAS DID NOT CARE ABOUT LEGENDS. He was more invested in his six movies and The Clone Wars TV show than those books and games and comics. That said, he always tried to have it both ways, by throwing Legends easter eggs into Clone Wars as well as his own movies, and yet sticking the course, despite the growing contradictions. I could easily seeing him trying that with the sequels, if he had stuck to them. He would not have openly retconned them like Disney's Lucasfilm did even though the contradictions would just get worse and worse. And in lots of ways, I miss that. But don't pretend he was some great Legends champion. He wasn't invested in those, and he didn't deny the power they had over the fans, which is where he is superior to Lucasfilm today. But he didn't care. Those six movies and even The Clone Wars were his babies. Legends were just his kids' friends. View it like that.

[Darth Wedgius]

Well, that's not good news. They've learned how to do replies in existing threads.

[TGLS]

Well, that's not good news. They've learned how to do replies in existing threads.

Don't worry about it (too much), the users get deleted and the posts disappear.

[Darth Wedgius]

Well, that's not good news. They've learned how to do replies in existing threads.

Don't worry about it (too much), the users get deleted and the posts disappear.

It gives the mods a bigger surface to have to scrub for spam. Though I suppose if the spam responses remain limited to just a few per thread then they might be inconsequential for any practical means.

[MissKittyFantastico]

To be fair, there's a non-zero chance that same spam has been made on a youtube comments section, which'd make it technically on-topic here.

[Darth Wedgius]

To be fair, there's a non-zero chance that same spam has been made on a youtube comments section, which'd make it technically on-topic here.

I can't say it's impossible.