Terminator Salvation (2009): A better film than Terminator 3

With three Terminator movies talking about the future, it was about time for the future to finally show up

I was excited to see Terminator: Salvation (2009) when it came out in theaters.

However, when I’d finished watching the movie, I remember feeling disappointed, but I wasn’t sure why.

Watching it again all these years later, I have a better grasp of the movie’s problems. It’s still a good film, certainly better than Terminator 3. While Terminator Salvation has its fair share of plot holes, most of them are relatively minor, with one exception. However, after revisiting it I found it to have aged well. My original dejected attitude seems to have been a little unjustified.

When considering where this franchise ends up, I’d say James Cameron should’ve kept the series going in this direction. But now to the story.

The movie begins with a death row inmate named Marcus being visited by a woman named Serena. She heads a project for a company called Cyberdyne and she wants Marcus to donate his body to science. He says he’ll do so if she gives him a kiss. Serena agrees, and Marcus is then executed.

Enter John Connor

Fast forward into the future—all the way to 2018—and we’re introduced to John Connor. He is now leading a team into a giant hole to recover something. The team enters the pit and finds a bunch of human prisoners as well as plans for the “new” T-800, the first Terminator.

The leader of John’s team is aggravated by John’s reaction to this new information, so he sends John back up to the top of the pit. John climbs out of the giant hole and sees that the soldiers around the edge of the pit are dead. He spots something flying through the air. Assuming that this object is the robot who killed his men, he climbs into a helicopter and chases after the ship. But due to a giant explosion inside the pit, the helicopter crashes.

The T-600

If this wasn’t bad enough, as John climbs out to the wreckage, he has to fight a now-outdated version of the Terminator, the T-600. John kills the robot and asks for help. Then he requests to see Command. At first, Command refuses to see him, but John forces the situation and gets his meeting.

In case it isn’t already apparent, John is not the leader of the Resistance. The movie never makes his exact role clear. But from the hints the writers provide, it appears that he is a high-ranking officer and Command doesn’t really care for him. However, Command must humor him because the people believe the story surrounding his mother, Sarah Connor. In other words, John knows things, so the people follow his lead.

I liked this detail and it makes sense, given the setup in the third film. From John’s position inside the fallout shelter, Crystal Peak, he could’ve told the military what was happening and what was going to happen, which gave the army a distinct advantage. The army would be forced to listen to him. But that doesn’t mean they’d have to like him. The idea of a modern “prophet” might not sit well with the brass. So, it seems John has been given a position that is more honorary than anything else. While he has his own group of resistance fighters, his influence over the leadership is limited. This wasn’t the situation I had imagined for our hero, but it makes sense.

During his meeting with Command, John wants to know what his fallen men found while they were underground. I didn’t feel that the movie did a very good job communicating that John’s team was sending information to Command while inside the pit, but the idea is made plain during the meeting.

Command tells John two things: Skynet has put out another kill list—Kyle Reese is the first name on that list and John is the second—and John’s men found a signal. This signal essentially turns the machines off. If it could be broadcast to Skynet itself, the Resistance could shut down all the robots and win the war. John offers to field test this signal and leaves Resistance’s leadership, which is located in a submarine. I thought that this venue was a nice touch. It makes sense for humans to use something like a submarine to avoid detection in a world ruled by robots.

I must compliment the movie for world-building. It is amazing. The filmmakers needed to hit a difficult target. They had to add new visual elements and narratives to show this post-apocalyptic world in detail while at the same time including the details shown in the previous three films. This was no easy task, and the filmmakers pulled it off. Whoever was in charge of the world-building deserved a raise.

After John has his meeting, Marcus crawls out of the pit where the Resistance fighters were killed. This scene gives the viewer the first two plot holes. They’re minor but annoying. Number one: How was he not destroyed in the explosion? Number two: What exactly woke him up? One can make inferences about his return to consciousness by the movie’s end, but it would’ve been better to explain how he survived.

When Marcus reaches the top of the pit, he screams. I’m not sure why he does this. His cries of vague anguish seem to be just for effect, but they weren’t very effective.

Anyway, for the next few scenes, the movie cuts back and forth between John and Marcus’s perspectives. John tests the signal, while Marcus wanders around trying to figure out what’s going on. One of the first people Marcus encounters is a young Kyle Reese, who saves him from a T-600.

For those who are not aware, Kyle Reese is John Connor’s father. It’s odd to think that Kyle is so much younger than John at this time, but it’s intriguing. One of the odd effects of this twist is that by the end of the movie the viewer briefly sees John become something of a mentor, if not an outright father figure, for Kyle. This was implied in the first Terminator film, but seeing the dynamic is another matter. However, Kyle’s appearance does create a problem, and I plan to talk about that, starting next time.