Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

[davey77]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

the thing that turned me off scc was one simple fact:

americans cannot conceptualise tv series. or not recently anyway.

take some of the biggest american series of recent years. they all start off witrh a pre destined end in sight... then they drag it out over too many years.

im thinking:

sarah connor - at some point judgment day and the future war HAS to happen... or it isnt terminator. by season 5 or 6 we'd have all just been waiting for it to happen.

smallville - by the end of the shows run clark had fought all of his major villians (inc doomsday, the one that kills superman!!!) and has not only met lois lane but is good friends with her, and lex luthor is gone. so what was left for him to do once he ACTUALLY became superman? nothing.

prison break - guy gets arrested to break his brother out of prison... they suceed. story is over. so er, lets do it again a few more times and then wonder why people go off it cos its gotten repetitive.

lost - umpteen people crash land on an island... after a while theyre either gonna die of starvation or be rescued. though actually, its making us money so lets invent some really spurious time travel conspiracy bull**** and introduce an endless supply of survivors (who conviniently havent appeard yet - how big IS this island???) to get 6 more series out of it and end it with a dallas ending.

life on mars - british life on mars ran for two seasons on purpose. even though it was wildly popular they ended it at the shows natural end and made a sequel for those who wanted more. how long did the american one go on for? is he in a coma? is he back in time? do we even give a **** by this point?

i urge the american networks to stop basing their shows at the beginning or in the middle of an established story, or in a stituation with a closed ending. because all it does is paint you into a corner where you cant do anything major withough messing with the established story you begun with. and it means people arte waiting for a payoff that takes years to deliver.

and this 'but its a what if' (smallville) or "an alternate universe" (scc) is just so the shows makers can be excused if they mess with anything canon.

the longest running sci fi show of all time is dr who. why? because it can go on forever. it doesnt have a pre destined end.

american shows in the 90s didnt have this problem. star treks, buffy x files etc.

 

[Apollo]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

:lol You do realize that you lost all credibility by including that show right?! :lol

american shows in the 90s didnt have this problem. x files etc.

 

[davey77]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

haha yeah. i retract life on mars, did realise it was only one series. my mistake.

i also just looked up the end of the american life on mars. completley missed the point. havent laughed so hard in years.

for any fans, watch the british one. much better ending.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

I do agree with you. American shows just don't seem to have any sense of direction. It starts out strong, then... goes off on tangents that are to a degree rather pointless and takes forever to get back to the point.

Doing anything Terminator prior to the last few years of the future war is about as insane as saying that there were cars in medieval times. Terminators were the newest just before Reese was sent back... so have them show up all over the place before that... well... just cheapens their danger. Heck, you could flick one away with your index finger. Have them show up earlier in the war is stupid too. The series is called Terminator, sure... but there's a limited time span where they actually make sense to use. Just before the end of the war. The resistance had won, when Reese was sent back. No two ways about it. Changing the nuclear war and the future war... and you will risk that victory and whatever came after that, for something that may be far, far worse.

Find a reason to do the series and stick to it.

 

[Solo4114]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

I cannot recommend the U.K. Life on Mars highly enough. It's simply brilliant and perfect and VERY satisfying. It doesn't tie up literally everything (although I hear the sequel -- unavailable in the U.S. -- does), but it nails down the important stuff.

The U.S. one, apparently, takes wild liberties with it. When I JUST started watching the show, I took a far more sci-fi view of it and came up with something equally wacky, but a lot less personal. The U.K. version is just better.

Now, if I could only find inexpensive copies of The Sweeney lying around stateside...



That said, there is a problem with U.S. shows in that they are not created as contained stories with a beginning, middle, and end. Rather, they are created as ongoing stories, but much of the time, that ongoing story is sold to the public as there being some "mystery" to solve, when the truth is that the creators have only a very general sense of where things will go, and sort of fumble around to get there, leading to mixed results.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

Yeah, you get huge build-ups to something extraordinary, but when it comes to show... the creators really don't have it in them to deliver what they've built up to, so you often get a dissatisfying meh sensation from these shows that makes you reluctant to want to get involved with new shows, because you just know they won't be able to deliver or really go anywhere but round and round in circles.

 

[Solo4114]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

Exactly why I prefer mini-series. Essentially, that's what Life on Mars was. In the U.S., they'd call it a mini-series. Ongoing series tend to meander here after a while, except for VERY rigidly plotted ones, which are often treated as poorly developed in terms of character. I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is that they really ARE making it up as they go along. The entire series isn't written up front, nor is the overarching outline. The more "new" and "unplanned" variables you introduce as you go along, the more opportunity you create to step on your own toes down the road. Which leads fans to say stuff like "Wait, but in season 4, what the hell was up with Steve getting those headaches? Was that part of his programming by The Cabal? 'Cause you never touched on that again after those few episodes. And how come he initially acted surprised when he met Suzanne, but then, like, three years later you did that flashback episode that showed he knew her from training? WTF?"

 

[robstyle]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

Everything has already happened to some distant future... we are just racing to catch up deluding ourselves regarding having free will.

Exactly and to the point, exactly what I am saying. The past can be altered but the future, or as it would be, the present, can not be altered, just postponed. There is a brick wall that must be met since time travel INTO the future cant not be done as the future "present" is still unfolding. Buck Rogers was just lazy and he slept through it all.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

Exactly and to the point, exactly what I am saying. The past can be altered but the future, or as it would be, the present, can not be altered, just postponed. There is a brick wall that must be met since time travel INTO the future cant not be done as the future "present" is still unfolding. Buck Rogers was just lazy and he slept through it all.

No, that is not what I'm saying. There is no changing. No change or postponing possible. Everything happens like in a movie. You can watch it, rewind, but it always stays the same. The events always occur that exact same way at that exact same timestamp. No turning left the next time you watch the movie... he always turns right.

 

[robstyle]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

but then explain Terminator to me since your theory makes everything an even worse train wreck.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

Before Reese went back in time, Sarah Connor had been running from the Terminator, saved by Reese, got knocked up, smashed the metal mo-fo into junk, hid before the war before John was born, his father having died before the war and had that snapshot taken that Reese was given by John in the future to make him want to volunteer to go back in time to save Sarah - so in essence... John is a manipulating mo-fo.

What's there not to get? Exactly as it happened and will always happen. So simple, straightforward and easy and no train wreck at all. Introducing the option of changes and postponing things adds the train wreck of contradiction and continuity.

Consider time as a book. You'd be pissed if later in the book something was retconned or out of continuity with something you read earlier. Whenever you read the book, it is always the same from finish to end. Badly written books lack continuity and add contradictions - same as the later Terminator movies and series.

 

[robstyle]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

Now your going by only one film negating the others? This is my issue with the horrid tv series.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

Yes, to me there is only one. The rest doesn't measure up.

 

[davey77]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

Yes, to me there is only one. The rest doesn't measure up.

except judgment day. to me that is the best terminator film, because it was just terminator 1 but on a blockbuster budget.

it compliments and expalnds, rather than retconning alreadt established events.

by 3 it got ****, posponing the war, the inevitability etc. they were clearly out of ideas.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

except judgment day. to me that is the best terminator film, because it was just terminator 1 but on a blockbuster budget.

it compliments and expalnds, rather than retconning alreadt established events.

by 3 it got ****, posponing the war, the inevitability etc. they were clearly out of ideas.

Why didn't Reese warn Sarah about all that then? Clearly he would have been told about it from John before being sent back. Reads as rather stupid, unless John knew he would survive it and nothing would be changed, so why down both Reese's and Sarah's spirits with things going to happen a few years later...

The more these things get thought through... the more John Connor comes off as a real a-hole towards Reese. Withholding information, lying, manipulating him to go back in time for the sole reason to become his father.

T2 makes John Connor a ***** in the future.

 

[YenChih Lin]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

There's a theory, that this John Connor you see in T2 is another John (the original) from another man than Reese (the guy who spoke the mssage on the answering machine). And that Reese was the father of John Connor 2, who was shaped into John Connor, that the future know.

What I liked about TSCC is the episode with military school, where John gets official training. I always wondered, how John from T2 was general, if wasn't in the military. And T3… don't get me started.

Say what you want, I liked TSCC ad you not. Haters gonna hate.

 

[davey77]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

Say what you want, I liked TSCC ad you not. Haters gonna hate.

i think hate may be a strong word. no one on here appears to HATE scc... it reads more of dissapointment than utter dislike.

i think the beauty of a franchise is that you as a view can pick and choose what to take note of. back to life on mars, in britain they made a sequel. however, even though im a massive fan of life on mars (i even did a 3000 word study on it at college) i chose not to watch the sequel, because for me that was enough. it wasnt because i hated the idea of a sequel, or anything negative. i was just happy to leave it there.

i might watch it some day, but i dont feel ive lost anything by not seeing it.

i guess what im saying is if youre a huge fan of the james cameron era terminator, you can just choose to ignore t3, salvation and scc. i can find terminator 3 and salvation entertaining, but for me its like watching a tribute band. good fun, but not the real thing.

for me t1 and judgment day are the core. no ones gonna make me watch scc, so its not a problem. i was merely stating that i didnt think it was a good idea, and am unsurprised it failed like it did.

while were on the subject of picking and choosing what to accept and what to ignore froma franchise, am i the only person who refuses to watch anything other than the theatrical cuts of star wars ot?

 

[robstyle]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

I hate SCC, nothing good to salvage from it. Was an utter craptastic waste of time. Id rather slowly pull my own hangnails with iodine lube than watch another minute of that series. Its not deserving of the "Terminator" name, not even T3, not even a T3 ******* child from the cleaning woman's sisters aunts uncles nieces nephew. Kill it with fire. At any moment, in SCC, it was highly possible Carrot Top could turn a corner and be a Terminator. BUT, he would still be Carrot Top. Thats how I feel about it, in a nice way.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

while were on the subject of picking and choosing what to accept and what to ignore froma franchise, am i the only person who refuses to watch anything other than the theatrical cuts of star wars ot?

No, you are not. But there are loads of other threads about that subject.

 

[cayman shen]

Re: Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, paiiinful

So...there are several other Terminator threads out there, and it seems like the one over-arching theme is that some people like one part of the franchise, some people like another, but as a whole the thing no longer makes any damn sense at all?

Like most time travel stories, when you get down to it...there's just no ducking the paradoxes/logical inconsistencies/etc.

I mean, couldn't the machines just send a pile of killer robots back in time to like 10,000 BC and nuke the **** out of the club weilding Neanderthals who would one day spawn John Connor? But then of course, humans would never have built Skynet, unless those robots stayed in 10,000BC and built it, since they'd know what to do I guess...or couldn't they just go back and quietly kill Sarah as a baby? Nuke the hospital? Or her parents? Grandparents? Nuke their whole damn towns? Once you establish the time travel assassination concept, unless there's some reason they can't travel back beyond a set point (which would be an illogical plot device), then the concept no longer works.

Sorry, getting a bit off topic, but as much as I love all thing Terminator, I've just had to shrug and accept that large chunks of it has got more holes than Sonny Corleone at a toll booth.