It's just a movie

Rating: 3/10 (1 July 2003)

Uhgg. Where do I start? I watched T3 last night. Now, I'm a HUGE fan of the first two. They are amazing films that still hold up after multiple viewings. In, fact, last weekend I watched The Terminator and T2 in preparation for my viewing of T3. Perhaps director Jonathan Mostow should have watched them before he began filming, because he apparantly has never seen them.
I absolutely refuse to acknowledge T3 as part of the storyline. T3 is bad. I mean, Highlander 2 bad. Not only was the storyline bad, but so was the filmmaking. This mess was just a bunch of action scenes very loosely strung together by a thin story. What made the first two movies so good? The Action? No. The Effects? No. Certainly the action and effects did give those films another level of enjoyment, but what made them good was the story. T3 seems to think if you have action and special effects, you don't need a story. Well, without a story, you have garbage.
SPOILERS WITHIN T3 is full of unexplained scenes. In fact, some scenes actually jump to different geographical locations without ever explaining how the characters got there. (For example- John, Kate, The Terminator and The TX all show up in a high security military installation without ever explaining how they got there.) The characters seem to randomly show up whenever it's time to have an action scene. Hey, who needs a plot. We've got stuff to blow up!
There are severe inconsistencies from the other two films. Taking what we know, the first Terminator takes place in 1984. John Conner's voice over dialogue at the beginning of T3 specifically states that he was 13 during the events of T2. Now, assuming John was born in '84, or '85, that would place T2 in the year 1997, obviously before August, because, as we know, that's when Judgement Day is. In T3, Sarah Conner's gravesite places her year of death in 1997. John explains that she died from leukiemia, exactly three years after she was diagnosed. Since she was diagnosed after the events of T2, well, then, her death should have been around the year 2000. Apparantly, the writers can't count.
The Terminator from T3 has specific traits that the Terminator from T2 developed (example-finding car keys in the visor) how is that possible if he's a different terminator?
T1 and T2 both follow a very specific time travel philosphy. T3 completely ignores the rules of time travel that were layed out in the first two films. T3 complety screws up the time line.
The music flat out sucks. The music in the first two films were very important components. Brad Fiedel's music is absent from T3, and the music they did use is awful.
T3 just doesn't fit. It's not consistant with the other two. The look is different, the music is different, and the story is different. It just doesn't belong.
I know what you're saying. "It's just a movie". You're right. T3 is "just" a movie- and that's exactly what's wrong with it. T1 and T2 weren't just movies. They were something more. And if you're going to continue something of that magnitude, you'd better do a good job. Jonathan Mostow has failed. All he succeeded in doing is making another shallow Hollywood action movie. Jonathan Mostow, you should be ashamed of yourself.
(James Cameron, if you're reading this, you have my permission to kick him right in the shins. Your creation has been disrespected and ruined, and I am sad.)
My advice, skip this movie altogether and watch the first two again.