A Good Movie, yet A Flawed Story

Rating: 6/10 (5 April 2005)

When I first heard of Terminator 3, I must say that I was surprised. Didn't the second one sum everything up nicely? I went to see the film with a large amount of doubt and misgivings. However, I was surprised. The acting was pretty decent (except for Claire Danes, ugh) and Nick Stahl does a decent job of portraying John Connor. The Terminatrix is sleek and powerful, and the creativity behind this machine is very well thought out.
However, there is a major hole in this story.
One of the beginning lines is this: John Connor says that "when I was 13, another Terminator was sent to kill me as a teenager. I was protected by a Terminator." However this cannot be true because of the simple fact that in T1, it begins in May 1984 (dialogue between Reese and the cop says so) so therefore Sarah could not have given birth to John until 1985. In fact in T2, when Robert Patricks liquid terminator character looks John up in the police computer, it says John birthday is 2/10/85. So, when John was 13 that would make the year 1998. Wait just a minute though. Judgement Day, according to Arnold's character, occurs on August 27, 1997. Whoa, talk about not thinking through the entire story before you write it! Holy snap! Also, in T3, Sarah Connor dies in 1997. Believable, only except for the fact that John says in T3 that Sarah battled Leukeimia for 3 years after the doc gave her 6 months to live. So, if the T3 storyline is true, Sarah died when John was 16! In 2001! But she couldn't have died then because in T2 Judgement day was supposed to happen August 27, 1997. Yes, I know they stopped it and all that, but apparently, the writers in T3 had that happen in 1998. So apparently the writers could have done a lot better job. In fact, another thing is John is supposed to be 23 in this movie. That would make the year 2008. So if John was born in 1985 (according to information given in T1 and T2) that would make the information (age-wise) accurate. So why the heck couldn't they make everything else accurate? Let's just hope that for T4 (which is in production) that they think the script through a little bit better, and try to keep it true to the story that James Cameron developed. Let's face it, his was a lot better.
The SFX were incredible, especially the high speed chase scene about half an hour in. The story (except for the flaws mentioned above) was touching and remarkably well done. I loved the ending scene, where you see the nuclear warheads falling at various locations around the world. Overall this was not a terrible movie. I don't think it held up to the first two, but it is a good continuation.
My Rating: **1/2 out of ****