Mark Davidson. The Writer.

“You’re all just over analyzing sht writing.”

– Quote from IMDB message boards.

What do you get when you take the director of Charlies Angel’s and the writer of Catwoman?

But of course!  You would get

TERMINATOR: SALVATION (aka Terminator 4)

It was really really bad.

There were some cool things. Sound. Set design. SFX. But geez. Spend a few bucks on the story. Just a few bucks.

I was having a discussion the other day about action movies. Specifically, about how action movies (IMHO) should be first defined by their set-pieces, with budget in mind, working to get the best bang for your buck.  In fact, I would also argue that story is 2nd in an action movie, behind the action set pieces. But it’s a very close 2nd. TRANSFORMERS 2 had the same sort of issue — play to set pieces, screw the story.

After seeing T4, I wonder if they approached set pieces BEFORE story.

There’s this one scene when our hero (Christian Bale doing his Batman whisper / shout voice) jumps from the inside of this hovercraft thing and plunges into the ocean hundreds of feet below. Oh — not just any ocean. An ocean with enormous waves.

Next scene:  he’s sitting in a submarine. A FREAKING SUBMARINE! I just… at that point… I just thought: they’re not even trying. Seriously. I guarantee the writers were sitting around and going — “how are we gonna explain that?” and someone else, maybe (hopefully) a Producer said “Screw it! We don’t need to explain EVERYTHING!” and that’s true. You don’t. But when your lack of explanation causes an audience to detach, you just screwed up. Seriously. Remember when Indiana Jones somehow hitchhiked on a Nazi U-Boat for thousands of miles? Same thing.

Shortly thereafter, you find that two people are at the top of SkyNet’s “list” (why supercomputer SkyNet would have a kill list like a cheap mafia movie, I don’t know…) Somehow, our protagonists have gotten a copy of this list, and it starts the timer for the “race against the clock” part of the movie, where Conner tries to find Reese in one of those “Huh? Wtf?” sort of time-travel mindf*cks.

Then, get this, SPOILERS! SkyNet captures Kyle Reese! BAM! Movie over! The end! Right…? It’s the end. Capture Reese, Conner never exists, etc. etc.

With Resse in hand, SkyNet and its merry band of Terminators CRUSH Reese’s skull, thus ending mankind’s only hope for a savior.

Or not.

Seems the SkyNet, after POSITIVELY IDENTIFYING KYLE REESE, the man at the VERY TOP of the SkyNet hit list, with machine gun toting terminators surrounding him, decide to… put him in jail.  That’s right. They put him in jail. ZOMG was that lame!

So, just like with Transformers 2, you have to wonder if story really matters?  Both T4 and Transformers 2 made a gazillion dollars. Good for them. But, seriously, people are pissed. All the way from the nerds to the occasional viewer. Their pissed.

Are you pissed?

M A R K

P.S. – long side-note.

The time travel hook is trite. We’ve all seen it. Rife with conundrums. But yet this years Star Trek reboot, warts and all, pulled it off. Why? I think it’s because the characters were so engaging you were more apt to put off plot criticisms. Just a thought.