Terminator 4 (Prequel) is different but good.

Rating: 8/10 (2 December 2009)

OK, I didn't watch the Theatrical cut I just finished the Director's cut so my comments are only to that cut of the film. I have to say I really don't understand some of the negative comments about this being cliché and all the other remarks about this film. First off the Terminator franchise invented many of these clichés you speak of. I mean for god's sakes the franchise is 25 years old. Secondly let us not forget the first three Terminator's were essentially a sci-fi story about people getting chased by an unstoppable foe. There were sub-plots but there really wasn't time to flesh out the characters in any of them. So don't glorify the past movies too much. With that being said I think Salavation had to be different than any of the previous incarnations. It is after all the prequel if you think about it. The world these characters inhabited is the post-apocalyptic post-altered timeline world were machines are in control. It was dramatically different and it had to be. That I think is what made it a good movie it didn't rely on the tired story line it had to reinvent the world and pay homage to the old franchise. I love that this movie showed the first prototype for Cyberdyne's Cybernetic organism. Arnold's version couldn't have been the first. Someone at some point had to invent an original version that wasn't some time traveling copy of the 1984 Terminator. I liked the symmetry of how John Connor fate was still not believed by some even in the post-apocalyptic world, much like his mother was not believed before. Yes, there were a few plot holes here or there but most were related to the continuity mistakes that are always brought up in each film. (All the films had mistakes). However overall this movie reinvented the 'origins' of how all this time traveling came to be and how it has created consortium of paradoxes. I'd like to see a next film that delves into those paradoxes head on.