Terminator Salvation

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Stan Winston and the history of animatronics and puppet work in Terminator. My point was this: analogue special effects are awesome, and it truly is a lost art.

But it would be unjust to ignore the significance of computer generated imagery in the Terminator series. Specifically, T2 is often cited as one of the landmark moments in CGI history. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, I’m sure you’ve seen the clips I’m talking about: the liquid metal guy (the T-1000) morphs and shifts and transforms in incredibly cool and altogether creepy ways.

Truth be told, some of the T-1000 effects are still impressive by today’s standards. I saw T2 after I had seen The Matrix, after I had seen Titanic, after Jurassic Park, and still I was blown away by a couple of key scenes (the one that always sticks out in my mind is the scene where the T-1000 gets shot in the face and his head splits right down the middle – in retrospect, there are so many good reasons why my parents didn’t let me see this movie…)

T2 was one of those perfect cases where the technology had caught up with what the filmmakers wanted to do, and the result was one of the coolest uses of CGI ever. Most importantly, they didn’t try to exceed what the technology was capable of (à la Matrix Reloaded), leading to a pretty seamless flick.

So, that being the case, Terminator Salvation has some pretty big shoes to fill in the special effects department. And those shoes have been made all the bigger by McG’s talk of special effects that have “never been seen in a movie before.” Such boastful words have me a little worried…

I, like many contemporary filmgoers, have become pretty jaded about the use of CGI in blockbusters. Back in the 90s, when the technology was still fresh and exciting, there was nothing I loved more than some animated monsters. But now that CGI is everywhere, it can be a little boring. When done right, it looks awesome, but if done wrong it’s disheartening. With desktop animation programs, any kid in his parents’ basement can do some pretty astounding CGI work, so if I’m shelling out twelve bucks for a movie, I want to see something that will really blow my mind. Instances of such movies in the past few years are few and far between.

So my hope for Terminator Salvation is that they haven’t gone crazy with the computers. I’ve seen some pretty cool stuff in the trailers (Marcus Wright with half a face, the Harvesters), but it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. And that’s okay. I’d rather have some limited CGI that looks good than boatloads that disappoint.

jakeb stuff that goes boom