I've always been a defender of Salvation. It's not a great movie by any means, but it's by far the best Terminator sequel after Judgement Day. It's the only movie in the series to actually break up the formula. You gotta give it credit for that.

I'm the kinda guy who liked Salvation and was especially excited to see it in theatres. A Terminator movie years after T3? Christian Bale? The actual post-apocalypse?! Sounded pretty darn exciting at the time, lemme tell ya. And I still feel this is the only one of the new sequels I truly enjoy.

What it got right: Trying to do something different for a change. Direction. Acting. Action. Special FX including a good blend of practical and CGI. Introduction of new Terminator types, not just different infiltrators. What it got wrong: The script.

When I'm "Watching The Series" im only watching the first two and this one

You'll never EVER come close to the greatness of the first two films, but this one came the closest

All I wanted in the film was to see the human resistance fighting against Skynet without the time traveling. And the film is good once you watch the director's cut

Never got over the whole fiasco where Marcus is told in the end that he's secretly controlled by Skynet, but it also gave him enough free will to rip out the chip he's being controlled by. It's like the ending of Robocop if it were written by an idiot.

Sam Worthington really does have to scream a lot doesn’t he? “The numbers, Mason. What do they mean?”

“We can win this war….cause I’m Batman!” 😋🤣

I personally liked Salvation, I liked the early war stages of judgment day with Skynet still somewhat using conventional weaponry and early Terminator designs.

Even though it looked cool it bugged me when John Connor jumped out of the helicopter into the freezing ocean at night to enter the sub but he had NO scuba gear or LIGHT or WETSUIT OR ANYTHING.

Terminator Salvation holds a lot of potential actually. I really wished it could be expanded.

Does anyone else think he should take a look at the game Terminator: Resistance? It's not perfect by any means, but it feels like the Terminator 3 that we should have gotten with call-backs and homages to the first two films that don't feel too forced, as well as an ending that ties T1 and T2 together in a complete circle.

Salvation was a step in the right direction. They should have learned from it and improved on things with more films set in the Future War, while trying to finally close the loop. Anything else could have been spin offs following other people targeted by Skynet or other resistance groups dealing with new/experimental models of terminators, but at least the main timeline could finally be put to rest.

Sam Worthington screams in all his movies 😂😂😂😂

In addition to Salvation being an earlier part of the war, I also thought that by delaying judgememt day that also weakend skynet and the resistance had more of an advantage and that's why they can come out during the day and not everything is destroyed yet

I've gotta say, I absolutely love the practical FX for the T-600s. From the construction of the things, the way they're modelled and painted, down to the puppeteering and the way they're shot, it's really fantastic stuff in my book. For me, that was the highlight of this movie.

Terminator 4 is the best post T2 sequel and vastly underrated.

the only direction that this franchise can go into is a movie like this, about the future. They haven't even scratched the surface on what they could do with The Terminator future war. It's to bad we'll never know.

I completely agree. Didn't realize why I didn't feel the futuristic background was working for me until you pointed out how they're not the first movies' future. Then you reminded me it isn't YET. Thanks. They tried, that's fair to say. And I agree with your changes, especially still including Michael Ironside. You always keep your Michael Ironside's scenes. That's a must.

It IS the best sequel after T2. It stands on it's own, adds to the lore without re-writing the continuity. I thought they did a decent job portraying some of the future events leading to Reese's arrival in 1984. It was dark, gritty, and captured a really great tone and style without going overboard or retconning anything.

Just a little fanon moment, I like to believe that Star in this movie is the female soldier that gets vaporized in Kyle's flashback in The Terminator when they throw bombs at the HK Tank.

I actually like the idea of human-robot hybrid. Imagine if when a Terminator started acting human or hybrids the other terminator would try to talk robot, but switch to human because they don't understand anymore. And robots talking to each other just sounds like electronic noises.

One thing that was a great throw back was Marcus teaching Kyle how to tie the sling around the shotgun to Kyle.

8:03 - That Arnold voice was absolutely hilarious 😂

What Terminator Salvation got right imo was that “it was not boring!”

The best part of this movie was Bale's rant on set.

If I were a movie production company... I would give you all the money to make your vision of the best Predator and Terminator films with the team you would want. Everything you have to say to make those franchises make sense and stay true to what they are gets me excited for something I know will never happen. Love the vids!

I never saw the trailers, so i got to enjoy the movie without it being spoiled!

That cat footage was freaky as Hell.

Sometimes I feel like this is the only channel that feels the exact same way about these movies that I do.

One thing to mention is that the Terminators in this movie look and sound HEAVY , you can tell that they can absolutely crush your skull with one hand, so hats off the the special effects team and the sound design team.

The more they attempt to reboot/retcon the "series", Salvation becomes more of a classic.

There was another ending planned where Marcus with John's face suddenly turns full Terminator, grabs a gun and kills all the Resistance members in the tent, Kyle Reese and Kate included

The late-but-still-great Anton Yelchin was PERFECT as the young Reese. You can tell he really studied Michael Biehn. And the makeup artists did a great job making him look like Mike. But still, lasers! I want lasers! It's been proven already that intermediate-caliber small arms don't do jack squat against a hyper-alloy combat chassis. If yer gonna use bullets, you need the anti-material kind like .50 BMG. Heck, even 40mm grenades don't always do the job! So rockets, bombs, and directed-energy weapons are the way to go. If not lasers, then phased plasma, which uses a laser beam to guide a bolt of ionized plasma (which is basically lightning). So, yeah, it's kind of a lot like the lightning gun from Quake, maybe combined with the tau cannon from Half-Life. Or maybe even the gluon gun! Oh, and positively charged lightning is hotter than negatively charged lightning, so a "positron collider" (or "proton pack") could also be viable. Something like those ion guns from The Matrix: Revolutions.

*I always liked Marcus Wright. I never watched any of the trailers so I had a deep connection and I was shocked to see the twist*

I recommend u play Terminator Resistance to see how Terminator Salvation shud had played out :D They even play the technoir song (Burn in the 3rd degree) right before the Terminator attacked the Resistance hideout. Also they went into detail about the T-800 model r actually different from the infiltrator version, as well as the change from ammo cartridge to the red plasma then purple more powerful plasma. It is a great lore add on to the Terminator series.

Want to know a good plot twist. Skynet is actually trying to save humanity. The whole ending humanity and war was to get humans to see themselves as a single group working together. Removing all borders and perceived differences. The ending would be Skynet making a secret piece with John Conner and the hole time travel thing was to force a ending/scenario that saves both humanity and the AI.

"OH, GOOD FOR YOU"

I thought Sam Worthington was famous for his screaming considering he does it in damn near every movie he's ever been in.

Without seeing this yet, I just want to say that I enjoyed this film on its own perfectly fine, but not really as a Terminator film.

HEY HEY I like Marcus Wright’s screams.

*The entire rubber mask in the Marcus and Reese vs 600 showdown was seen in the unreleased McG cut. It's such a shame we may never ever be able to see it.*

Just needed one more film to have that perfect terminator movie. Edit: this is on tonight on tnt.

I liked the T-800 fight at the end. It was just intense seeing it back in its horror roots. Blow it up? Nope. Cover in molten metal? Ahh a warm blanket. Fight with other terminator? Would have worked better if it wasn't part human. You could really feel the desperation from Connor and I just loved how it one shot Marcus using that advanced understanding of human anatomy.

Finally figured out what your intro is a reference to...Danger 5!

Remember, from T1, that Reese talked about how we were starting to win. So the laser guns, which were more effective then live rounds, would make more sense toward the end of the war. That is why the terminators had been sent back in time too. It wasnt that Skynet was winning and also sent back the Terminators through time, it was, rather, that Skynet was winning and was getting desperate, so, they sent back Terminators to hopefully eliminate the threat to them completely.

So happy you made this. You share many of my own sentiments. Well done. If I were to add one thing, I wish that instead of the Marcus twist, it was leading into the development and implementation of time travel.

I've always considered the first movies' vision of the future as the most accurate. Forget the giant walking mecca with a very vulnerable joints. Forget sophisticated terminator skeletons being used as infantry and instead as elite infiltration units. Probably the most unrealistic thing to me of all was why the air wasn't constantly filled with bioweapons.

Great review of a movie I really enjoy (not as much as T1 and T2 obvs). Not gonna lie, I completely missed the homages to Kyle's Future War flashbacks from T1 - that's going to completely change how I watch this movie.

When CorderyFX talks about horror films or the Terminator franchise, it's ALWAYS gold! 😁👍

Star Wars literally repeats quotes on all of their movies, like "I've got a bad feeling about this" *But when Terminator does it, people lose their mind???*

Hmm, I guess Skynet *could* know who Reese was/is based on the police records. I always felt they shouldn't know anything about him at this point in the timeline given that no terminators survived long enough to tell them. The likelihood of these records surviving the nuclear war seems small and how would they know what to look for if they didn't even know they were going to send terminators back through time, yet? I dunno...seems like it should have been explained or the story rewritten with them not knowing who Reese is. John Conner's knowledge of the future should be mankind's greatest weapon against them. Oh, and yeah, the Marcus character shouldn't exist in the story.

All I can really say, as more of a casual terminator viewer, is that I enjoyed Salvation a lot. And, as you said, wanted to see more of it.

I think the "come with me if you want to live" line, while overused, does work in T2 and Salvation. In T2 it's used as a short hand to Sarah Connor to establish that the Terminator is indeed there to protect them. And in Salvation it is a line spoken by Kyle Reese, and it's a good shorthand to establish that this kid is in fact Kyle Reese for those in the crowd who haven't realized it yet without being patronizing.

Just watched this movie again today, nice timing on this video

Say what you want about the ending, but that one shot where the T-800 emerges from the lava like Connor's angel of death with the breaking lava falling off of it like a hooded cloak is the best shot in the whole franchise

This movie by far had the most potential after T2. Loved seeing the A-10 thunderbolt laying lead in the opening scene, but I hated the harvester later on. Really hope one day we can get a full reset of all the lore and just give us something more akin to the James Cameron T1 future war, with the synth soundtrack and all the lasers.

I need a MK evaluation. When possibly. Glad you’re back!

I know the original battles were 80's schlock. BUT DAMNIT I WANT THAT! I want the lazer lights and red bandanas and junkyard landscape.

I still believe that terminator salvation is the best since t2 because they add more story and they don’t use the terminator plot (unlike the squeals)

The Director's Cut is Really Good. I recommend it.

Terminator trailers spoiling major plot points and twists is a series tradition.

Love the video. I think some of the 'changes' made to this future were meant to reflect the idea that due to time travel, things were slowly being literally retconned. The idea, the worry that despite all of her best efforts, that the future that Sarah was training John for didn't exactly line-up with what Future John was facing. Because of the stalled Judgement Day, SkyNet had gotten a slight upgrade. PLUS I think some of the weird robot designs were meant to bridge with what was shown in T3. SkyNet was slowly outmoding/discontinuing certain models and designs.

I feel like this movie was almost the prototype for Terminator Resistance. Now *that's* the best thing post T2.

I was going to write this huge list of what's wrong with the Terminator, and what I liked about it. But you nailed my biggest issues. I'm the guy who hated Terminators throwing people around after T2. You're right, once you see it...you can't unsee it. I am vocal more about Salvation because it was closest to greatness. Genisys and Dark fate were never going to be great. I feel like Kenobi yelling, "You were supposed to be the chosen one!" This is the movie I would have pitched (minus the stupid Marcus Wright character). It hurts to see it turn out like this. What kills me, is they show the labor camps, and John is barely in there. Imagine John saying: "Those labor camps, worst 20 minutes of my life!". What a waste. You're right, saving those people should have been the finale. It should have been very difficult to do. A Terminator hybrid could have worked because we've already seen it in other mediums. In Terminator 2029 they get ahold of a Terminar tech in a suit. In the Terminator comics we got a human/Terminator hybrid that was supposed to get past the dogs. But the human part of him took control and rebelled against the robot half. He was in a constant struggle fighting off an insistent machine that would never quit. That was written so much better than this. But it shouldn't have been written here. Save that for the sequels. Not looking like Cameron's future war because it's 10 years earlier. I disagree with. People went to this movie to see because of Cameron's future war, so having some resemblance would at least in some scenes would have helped this movie. The reality is, this wasn't done to make the movie better, or show us something different. It was for budgetary reasons. It was just cheaper. I think it's important for sequels to follow the universes' rules set up by previous movies. Otherwise it becomes a jumbled mess. This felt far too different than the world we saw. But it's a minor quibble. Overall, it bugs me. This was a chance to do what Aliens did with Alien. Take the movie in another direction. The first was a horror movie, the second an action movie. Make this a war movie. Take the D-Day scene in saving private Ryan. Replace Nazis with Terminators. What makes that scene great, is it felt like real people fighting. The soldier crying out for his mother. The man horrified at seeing his intestines outside his body and trying to put them back in. It showed the absolute horror of war. It humanized them. The horrors faced made the victory feel like a real achievement. That's what I was hoping for.

"The numbers, Mason, what do they mean?" Good Ol black ops 1

Nice job on this one mate. Decent review (even if not intended as a review) but hits all the points I’ve always felt as well - good to not be alone. My son just got to the point to watch T2 and despite some foibles I’ll probs be putting this one in as the 3!

MY TERMINATOR TIMELINE... The Terminator Judgement Day Sarah Connor Chronicles Battle Across Time Salvation Excellent video as always dude 👌👍

I actually thought Salvation’s use of “I’ll be back” was the best since T1. Felt really natural, made sense in context, got me pumped for the third act of the movie. Glad to see this flick getting *some* love. It’s not great and still has a lot of problems, but it’s my favorite of ANY Terminator movie after T2.

Cheers bro. I was looking forward to this

Same way I feel about the throwing crap in late Terminator films. The first 2 films made it clear you were DEAD if the T-800 or T-1000 ever got their hands on you *one* time. . . 💀

2029 is coming. I'd love to see a sequel to this around then. An older John Connor leading the resistance to victory. But the story is Kyles. He's the main character. And we're made to absolutely feel sorry for him. To watch him suffer, to hope and dream, and to eventually volunteer. The movie ends with John Connor crying or some shit because he just sent his father to his death. Just a good, gut wrenching, personal story. Showing us what it was really like for Kyle.

Im going to rewatch the terminator movies to watch this video. Ill be back Edit: I am back to watch the video

Great video! It covers many of the things I enjoyed about the film and didn't in equal measure. I could have done without the Marcus Wright character entirely, though, and would have loved if the story had been focused on John, his struggle for survival, and how he begins to cobble together the resistance. I did think it was smart touch that the early resistance fighters (surviving military) were skeptical of John and his knowledge of future events/technologies and that there is division in the ranks in terms of who unwaveringly follows and trusts him, and who would need convincing over time. The biggest plot hole for me was always with regards to Kyle Reese. There was never indication given in T1 or T2 that Skynet had any knowledge of Connor's father, and in fact, that very secret was what gave John an advantage as a target. Reese himself wasn't even in the know that he was John's father, and how would John have even had the ability or opportunity to explain that to him? In T2 when the T-1000 travels back, kills the cop, takes the form of an officer, acquires the officer's car and then does a search of John in the computer records, on the screen it indicates natural mother- Connor, Sarah and natural father: unknown. The fact that in the future, before John is even the resistance leader, Skynet has a hit list with both John and Kyle at the top made no sense to me. It was never explained how Skynet would even have had that information, and if it did, John would have had to hide his father from Skynet for years before they discovered the Time Displacement Equipment and explain: "just so you know-you're my father". That simple detail and lack of explanation made most of the movie fall apart for me, and bothered me as much as the timeline inconsistencies that came about in every sequel that appeared following T2. It felt like a plot contrivance-just like Judgement Day only being "postponed" by the destruction of Cyberdyne in T2 without much explanation of how and why it still came to be. The main thing I liked about Salvation was that it attempted to do something new. Instead of handing Terminator fans another time travel movie with yet ANOTHER more advanced model of Terminator battling yet ANOTHER version of Arnold's T-800, it actually attempted to tell a story set in the future war. At times the ashen aesthetic of the nuclear post apocalyptic wasteland really worked and added grit, and some of the early clunky models of the endos and some of the HK's looked great. Hollywood unfortunately, as always, dumbed the whole thing down though, and just produced a blockbuster without soul. No real stakes, no real emotion, no truly compelling story. Just a bunch of repeated one liners, cool looking robots and explosions. I just wish someone as ambitious as Cameron, who had a true passion for this story and its canon, set out to make a riveting trilogy chronicling the future war as harrowing as it should have been. It should have told John's story in depth: his forming of the resistance, the battle between man and machine, John's eventual meeting and conflicted relationship with his young father who he must both watch over and train during the war and then send back in time to die to ensure his own survival. Also, the story should have come full circle, with the Resistance smashing Skynet's defence grid, winning the war, and finding the time equipment-setting up the doomed war for humanity's survival in the past-a tragic time loop. They could have thrown in all the cool robots and explosions in there that they wanted as long as the story was a riveting and human one, and the characters mattered. After T2 I wished the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show (which had great potential and strong themes/characters) had continued in lieu of all the movie sequels being made, but it seems the franchise's "Dark Fate" had already been sealed as early as T3.

Great take. Presented very well. 🤙🏽

When this came out, friends always moaned about how Salvation didn't match the "Future War" setting. I always have to explain that John sends Kyle back in 2029 while Salvation is set in 2018... that's 11 years prior to events. Salvation 2 and 3 would have simply filled out that story and ended with John sending back Kyle to make it full circle.

The Salvation sequels were probably gonna be named "The Last Terminator" and "The Rise of Connor"...

The first video I saw of yours was the nun review a few years ago. I was on my way to Australia and your “OMG bois, it’s the nun” line had me in stitches at the airport. Now here’s the funny thing, a few days later in OZ I was chilling on a beach with me boys and I kid you not I saw an actual nun walking along the beach and I said out loud “OMG boys, it’s a nun!” They all looked at me confused as if to say “Err yeah? And?” And then like a weirdo I just bust out laughing to myself! So just wanted to say thank you for all the fantastic content and congratulations on hitting 100k subs!!

the "what it got wrong" part had a better music in the background. music in the first part was like really melancholic.lol

I have to disagree with you about removing the "this is not the future my mother warned me about" plot point. Without that new twist, you're implying to the audience that John is already on the path of victory and they've basically already won. The layer of unpredictability is actually needed to leave some doubt in the audience's mind (mirroring John's confusion) as well as adding intrigue to a story we're otherwise already familiar with after hearing about it from the other films. Now that doesn't mean I agree with the decision to make a Terminator/Human hybrid the protagonist of the movie, but they were on the right track by adding a new twist and giving John a fakeout death. Other than that, you're right on the money as always. Great vid

Salvation is what I call one of those 80% movies... 80% of the ideas and execution are good, it's that 20% that always murders these efforts. Still, I'd rather watch this than most of the other pieces of shit sequels in this franchise.

Amazing stuff good work

You do great work mate.

The Terminator movie we never got to see. Terminator: "I am programmed to go to the past and keep the Terminator franchise from being a total waste of time."

The First Terminator in my opinion is still the best and scarier because is in the time when there are no Cellphones, no Social Media, there are only public Phone Booths, so imagine you have a Terminator coming after you and trying to kill you and if you try going to law enforcement, the media, family, family members, friends, they would all think you are crazy and that maybe you are the one killing all those civilians and you are making up that is a Robot Cyber from the Future.

Holy fuck, that would have been an AMAZING SEQUEL. Great take on that, Cordery

ok...the " he is a good looking boy" joke was brilliant, i give you that😅😅😅😅

Personally, considering there is SO MUCH they COULD show us, it honestly would better if they ditch the films, cause they have failed at this point, especially with "Inclusive Political Crap Fate", A Terminator Salvation ERA should be made, but in Tv Show format. With that, they can keep the original story-line and they can build up John's story in that era with as large a cast as they want. We can see what the first Terminator series looked like, we can see how long before Skynet starts developing Infiltration units, we can see if they ever used T-1000 and later models on the battlefield, we can see if the War against The Machines is actually winnable (The "final assault" that Kyle mentions could easily be an assumption, he doesn't really know), and we would get to see the Laser Guns. The Past has been milked to death. I think everyone by now is sick of the past. I certainly am...

I hope Christian Bale has another breakdown on the set of Thor: Love and Thunder.

I found this video randomly and just started watching it. didn't really have much of an interest in it but that sound skit at 13:42, that broke me and my brother.

Knocked it out of the park once again Cordy 👌

Damn! you hit the nail on the head at the end. I would have much preferred the death camp movie! great job!

True - I totally bought that youngster as young Kyle Reese. The look and behaviour. Very good.

Best review of this movie I saw. And I thought the T-600 at the first encounter with a rubber face was such a mandela-like thing :D Thanks, now I know that I'm not crazy.

Sam Worthington screaming!... I'll never forget that now lol. Almost like the Wilhelm scream haha

This is one of my favorite Terminator films because every Terminator film has the formula of terminator sent to past to kill so-and-so and we have to send a good guy to save so-and-so; this breaks that mold and I love it for that.

I love the robot talking. That is an awesome idea!

They way you said F*ck You and 8:22 had me on the ground laughing my ass off 😂

I appreciate the video man. You weren't one of those people who made a video and defends it just because you like it. You made a lot of good points and honestly making me wanna pop in the movie and give it another watch just to appreciate it again. I do like this movie as well. It's something different and a lot of good actors. You don't need another movie about a good guy and a bad guy going back in time to kill someone. The last good terminator movie in my opinion 👌👌