10 Reasons You’re Wrong About Terminator Salvation
5. The Story Makes As Much Sense As Any Other Blockbuster
To paraphrase Stephen King, once youve spent a few years going to see blockbusters, you realise that if you start over-analysing the narrative, youre done for. Narratives are the peg on which action sequences, usually pretty contrived themselves, are hung from. They exist to set up the next slam-bang confrontation and work on the viewers emotions, not logic.
Terminator Salvations plot is a variation on Total Recall - a covert operative, with no knowledge of his mission, is sent to flush out the leader of the resistance, which he does while being pursued by Terminators that are also unaware of his true purpose, leading to a succession of chase scenes where everything explodes in impressive fireballs. During the final showdown, the villain outlines their diabolical master plan to our hero, who then fights off a henchman before destroying the facility and escaping to safety.
An earlier draft reportedly focused more on Marcus Wright and Kyle Reese, with John Connor making a brief appearance towards the end, but was changed the moment Christian Bale came aboard. Seizing the Connor role, his part was bulked up and led to much griping that he was muddying an already complicated story, but his character is, after all, supposed to be a post-apocalyptic messiah, and keeping him off-screen for most of the picture just doesnt cut it.
You can fault the narrative if you wish, but how many people came out of Rise Of The Machines, thinking, That film was too complicated?