T1 and T2 in a blender

Rating: 6/10 (5 October 2008)

As with the years that passed between the first and second films, the speculation as to whether or not a third film was going to happen at all was very high. We all heard the conflicting statements of both Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron. Finally Cameron said he would do it if 20th Century Fox would release it. Obviously that didn't happen and Arnold changed his mind after saying No. The story of T3 is mediocre to average at best and I'll tell you why. To begin with, a lot of necessary exposition is missing. The writers essentially left out a major plot point with the former Cyberdyne Systems and Miles Dyson. Having a situation where Dyson designs Skynet's hardware and Brewster designs the software would have tied T3 a lot more strongly to the franchise. Another thing is what happens to Sarah Connor. This character has basically been the pennacle of the Terminator mythos. If the reigns have to pass from Sarah to John that's fine. But it would have worked better that we see her killed trying to escape after Skynet comes online. Lastly the concept of The Terminatrix. Now just to be clear, I don't mind a woman being a Terminator. What I do have a problem with is the writers splitting hairs trying to differentiate the T-X from the T-1000. Now we could all see the difference between Arnold and the T-1000. But if the best they can do is showing the T-X endo during a copy, then that won't cut it. There are ways to come up with new concepts on something established. Maybe that's where Cameron could have worked some magic. The only two things that worked for me were Arnold's description of what will happen in the future in terms of the war, and the ending surprised me though. It set up the fourth film pretty well. The missing elements Cameron's nightmarish vision and storytelling smoothness are what crippled this film. Not bad, but could have been better.