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Now available, 6 Reels Under, David Del Valle's followup to Lost Horizons.
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TERMINATOR SALVATION

Share This: Tweet I don’t want to make Bale angry, but his weak supporting role isn’t what we expected from iconic messiah John Connor. Entertainment Weekly’s May 22nd cover story on Christian Bale reported that his “image could suffer” because of his infamous rant: “A recent survey in Ad Age suggested that his drawing power […]

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TERMINATOR SALVATION

By Victoria Alexander • May 20th, 2009 •

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I don’t want to make Bale angry, but his weak supporting role isn’t what we expected from iconic messiah John Connor.

Entertainment Weekly’s May 22nd cover story on Christian Bale reported that his “image could suffer” because of his infamous rant: “A recent survey in Ad Age suggested that his drawing power may have taken a hit because of the incident.”

That “Rant Out” dance remix is on my iPod. Its genius.

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/02/bale-rant-remix.html

Since when did Christian Bale become a role model for children? (I love everything he does!) Didn’t we all see Bale create the definitive creature known as Patrick Bateman? Who took the Ad Age survey anyhow? When was the last time you cared what Ad Age said?

I know what is making Bale so angry. Like Bale, I live on less than 500 calories a day. He’s starving. Hunger makes you irritable.

Bale lives his roles, so when he was in character as John Connor the DP waltzed by his sight line while he was emoting. (I like to think the DP was talking on his cell phone and eating a sandwich.) Bale was furious because of the lack of respect. He was acting, goddamn it!

Did we need to resurrect John Connor? Yes! But did we need to see him bullied by General Ashdown (Michael Ironside), the submarine head of the land resistance who is not on board or impressed with Connor being the messiah?

Why does condemned killer Marcus Wright (new sensation Sam Worthington) have the strongest role? His killer-with-a-conscience story is far more interesting than Connor’s.

It’s 2018 and the dreaded Judgment Day was 14 years ago. The machines became self-aware and, since mankind was lazy and let machines do everything for us, the machines decided to get rid of humans. There are bands of human survivors fighting the Skynet Terminators in a losing war.

Earth has become one huge garbage dump.

One of the resistance fighters is John Connor (Christian Bale). He’s got a soulmate-faced pregnant wife, Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard). So John Connor is emotionally attached and not that willing to die in a blaze of glory. He’s going to be a daddy. And, he’s caught up in a time-travel muddle-fuddle. Like the new Mr. Spock and the survivors of Oceanic flight 815, he’s looking for Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) the kid who will become his father. Connor has audiotapes from his future mother Sarah Connor helping him navigate his life. So Sarah Connor is a disembodied oracle, or, a Yahweh-Without-Powers.

Why do the survivors all over the world see John Connor as their savior?

Why doesn’t Skynet just destroy all the farms? Why not just starve out the survivors?

Meanwhile, death row bound Marcus Wright, who has given his body to Skynet for a kiss, wakes up to find himself in the future and the first person he meets is Kyle Reese and his mute friend Star (Jadagrace). Later, Marcus mixes it up with the anti-Kate, sexy resistance fighter Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood).

Blair brings Marcus to Connor. Was Marcus sent from the future to kill him? Connor is crazy-paranoid.

The Entertainment Weekly article says the screenwriters had to punch up John Connor’s part to get Bale to sign on. The screenwriters, John Brancato & Michael Ferris, didn’t deliver. Bale should have yelled at them!

He’s hardly in the movie, gets hurt a lot and has to be carried off the battlefield, doesn’t have the sex drive to be even visually interested in Blair, and allows Marcus to have the conflicted storyline. Marcus is the hero. Like Jesus, he makes the big sacrifice to save humanity.

The director, McG, gives the terminators too much screen time. What uber-machine gives the orders? McG has given TERMINATOR SALVATION a terrific look, but what is Bryce Dallas Howard doing here? What was Kate’s purpose?

Why am I seeing too much of Anton Yelchin? Is he also in HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE? Is he going to be one of Daniel Day-Lewis’ lovers in NINE?

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