Terminator: The Terminator second thoughts

Don't really feel like doing this right now, but I'll be back.

 So tempted to just leave that as the whole review. Stupid personal standards.

So yeah. NOT THE EYES. Thank you. Practical effects plus really uncomfortable areas of the body add up to just a shudderingly horrible time for poor Jeremy. I got the sense that they were delegating budget heavily to explosions and fire and chases and less to their close-in effects, but even though I could look and see where things were getting manipulated to achieve the effect, that never made it any less effect... ive. I need a bigger vocabulary if I'm going to keep doing this.

I think by now we all got the gist that metal skeletons are awesome and scary and like popping up to the sounds of terrifying evil music that seems like it's being churned out by a factory. Made of evil. What I really want to talk about is Sarah Connor. Obligatory joke at Rachel's expense because I didn't spell anything wrong this time. :D

She's so perfectly normal and average. Never in the movie does she conjure some hidden skill or reveal connections to powerful rescue-y type people. She's not a vision of beauty - she's got very tired eyes and a puffed-up hockey hairstyle and - outside of the obvious Fun Time For 12-Year Olds - is never put into a situation where she's a sex symbol. She's an ordinary woman with a blah love life, a cruddy job, in a city where punks play with telescopes because I don't even know why. I'm sure the actress is celebrity supermodel attractive outside the film, but I feel like my not being attracted to her is sort of the point - movies shouldn't gussy up every leading lady for a guy to pay attention to them. Sarah Connor's the most riveting character in the film who wasn't actually riveted, and not once until my inner 12-year old was given an awkward how d'you do did I even contextualize her in the role of a romantic lead. I feel like for me, Reese was her love interest rather than vice versa, which is a novel dynamic in my experience and I'm looking forward to seeing how movies have progressed more on that front. Sarah grits up because she's told she has the capacity to and why it'll matter, over the course of about three days or so. That's all. She's not reduced to being the mother of the future; she's the parent of the future. Reese talks about how her real value isn't who she gives birth to, but how she raises him, what she teaches him. She's humanity's real savior because she's going to be the fons et origo of the skillset and foreknowledge that we need to survive the doomcopters and 101s.

So I like that. Things turned around on the creepy men front. Mind you it took a dead time traveler and a murderous hell droid to do it but I say whatever oar rows the boat. So yeah, Terminator scared the wits out of me from time to time, but...

I'll be back. ;)