A Terminator Fan Asks For A Merciful End To Childhood Franchise

I kind of liked "Terminator Salvation" but lets face it folks it was nowhere near as good as "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" and neither was "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines", another movie I didn't hate. I think it's time to throw in the towel. Even if "Salvation" makes money after DVD sales and international grosses are counted the series should be left alone.

We have had three Terminator projects that have failed or disappointed in the last six years. Not only did they fail comercially but they have in no way lived up to James Cameron's Terminator films creatively.

T3 was just a rehash of T2 and while T2 was admittedly a rehash of the first one, it was a great rehash so we didn't care. T3 was too silly, Arnold was too long in the tooth, T-X wasn't as good as T-1000, and the lame overly broad comedy just didn't work. Plus Nick Stahl was miscast. It all adds up to a not very satisfying sequel and it should have been the end of the franchise but noooo, there had to be a T.V show!

The "Sarah Conner Cronicles" suffered from being a lame "fugitive with robots" show and only reminded you of how awesome T2 really is and why Linda Hamilton is so great in the role of Sarah Conner. No offensive to the talented Lena Headey but she was no Linda Hamilton. I think that Terminator is a movie idea anyway, so even if the show was made by James Cameron himself and had a 10 million dollar budget for each episode, I don't think that it would have worked. The chase idea can only sustain so many hours. Hell it couldn't even sustain three, on average, two-hour movies.

I really wanted a future war movie (they should have made one in 2003 but instead we got another rehash of The Terminator) but after watching "Terminator: Salvation" I don't think that we needed one. It's a fun movie that gives you a little nostaligic kick in the pants but it's just not a very good one. You don't really care about the underdeveloped characters and the movie is really just one long action scene with some dialogue in between. Thats not exactly what I expect from my Terminator movies. I came to the conlusion a few days after I saw it that this franchise should end and should have ended in 1991 when Arnold as the T-800 gives us a thumbs up as he sinks to his doom.

When I was a wee lass my two sisters and I would watch "Terminator 2" and play out ever single scene and spout out every single line of dialogue. I swear we knew the lines better than the actors. Because I was the middle girl out of us I would play John Conner and I would love it. T2 is like a great childhood memory to me and these extra tacked on movies/shows are ruining it for me, making it less special than it really is.

I can't say this for sure but it seems like James Cameron is the Terminator franchise. It's his baby and nobody else knows it like he does, respects it like he does. To the people who own the franchise I say give it a rest. It was a limited concept and it was over in 1991. The boxoffice shows that not enough people are interested in it for you to makes gobs of money off of it anyhow. Leave it be, let it rest. Let me and most every other fan keep their good memories of this franchise. Please lets stop it before the Terminator franchise turns into a laughing stock like the Nightmare of Elm Street franchise did, like Halloween did, like Friday the 13th did. In my opinion the Terminator Franchise deserves more than to become a laughing stock. It was a scary, heartfelt, cool as hell sci fi franchise that only needed two movies. It was hardly even a franchise to begin with, so cut it out and leave it the hell alone.

For the sake of the children...

Say, Hasta la vista Baby.