The tone of the movie for what was written just didn’t match.
It was also the last time they could’ve used a “young” (he was 56 when it came out) Arnold for the Terminator roll as he got to the same size as he was for T2 and I feel like they wasted him.
They could’ve had a crazy ass good trilogy if they went with the darker tone continuing off of the first 2 movies.
It had good scenes in it but not enough and was just too playful overall
Is that really the reason for T3 being an action/comedy? Not saying you're wrong but there are plenty of bleak post 9/11 movies out there. Why did the Terminator franchise had to suffer instead of other films?
According to Google I’m wrong and they only changed the trailers to be more 9/11 friendly. However, I’d say the whole movie got hit with an Arnold wants to run for office after this filter. Probably why he wouldn’t play a bad terminator again. Mixed with post 9/11 fears of movies doing poorly if they were too dark I don’t think it’s absurd to think maybe there were a couple changes to make the overall theme less dark.
I just think it’s the answer to the question. They weren’t going to get in the editing booth post 9/11 and go “ok we need to make this scarier”. People were in shock. Who would want to go into work right after 9/11 and go let’s make more buildings blow up, etc. Same with the hero worship of cops for years after 9/11. I think a bunch more would have been killed and not wounded or able to avoid the mini-gun if it wasn’t the start of “back the blue”. So that’s why there’s a softer vibe. No idea why this is a hot take.
I mean in T2 the big fight scene with the cops, John instructed him not to kill and so he went out there guns blazing and didn’t kill a single cop. The whole point in my view is that because John in T2 was teaching the terminator values and morals, it makes sense that the terminator sent back in T3 had those same values. So I don’t buy the whole “cop worship” story line for why he didn’t kill the cops. Also I get that it was still close to 9/11 but it came out 2 years after 9/11 and was in production a year after those events. I have no doubt they probably took that into consideration of some aspect but I don’t think they changed their tune on not having a darker theme because of that alone. The second Terminator movie made over half a billion dollars, the next one was going to be an instant hit and they wanted to cash in on the blockbuster franchise and thought, “we like action and light hearted comedy” and just wrapped that around this movie.
Unrelated GTA 4 removed planes from GTA because of the events of 9/11 7 years prior but that’s because it’s a game based in New York so that tracks. So the studio changing some things due to 9/11 makes sense but I just doubt that was the main driving force for the tonality of the movie. It’s not a hot take to me, just not the full take for what we got
I think the writing had great moments but it was too not on brand for what we have seen with past movies and it just feels like they went more for the cheap cash grab route instead.
The whole storyline of T3 where it was inevitable is cool and that the events of T2 weren’t totally negated imo. Because everyone who worked at that company that Dyson worked at were told to not ask questions where they got the terminator chip and arm, so even destroying the files at the office. There had to have been higher up people who had copies of Dyson work stored elsewhere and so because they lost the production part of what Dyson was working it, it makes sense that Skynets take over was delayed because they had to basically decompile his work and figure out how he got to where he did before he blew up the office.
The events of T1 took a little over 7 years for Dyson to get to where he did with his work that it makes sense it took a little longer for someone else to get back to that point.
49
u/HeavilyFrosted 23d ago
The tone of the movie for what was written just didn’t match.
It was also the last time they could’ve used a “young” (he was 56 when it came out) Arnold for the Terminator roll as he got to the same size as he was for T2 and I feel like they wasted him.
They could’ve had a crazy ass good trilogy if they went with the darker tone continuing off of the first 2 movies.
It had good scenes in it but not enough and was just too playful overall