Terminator: Salvation Remains a Frustrating Sequel 15 Years Later

comingsoon.net:

How do you follow up a classic like James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day? Well, you don’t even try and instead make Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which continues John Connor’s story, so the studio can produce more sequels. T3 essentially served as the movie required to get to the movie the studio wanted to make — Terminator: Salvation.

Now, why they didn’t just set the third chapter in the future war in the first place remains a mystery. Amirite Terminator: Resistance fans?

No matter, following the disappointing but admittedly effective T3, Terminator: Salvation blasted its way into theaters under the pretense that it would expand the story only teased in Cameron’s first two pictures. Finally, we would see the terrifying future war revolving around mankind’s efforts against Skynet and the machines. Finally, we would see John Connor as the leader he was always meant to be. Finally, we would know how a ragtag military of bruised and battered soldiers overthrew a seemingly unstoppable army of deadly laser-packing cyborgs. 

Cameron teased as much with his Terminator 3D attraction at Universal Studios:

Alas, as directed by McG, Terminator: Resistance checked none of those boxes. Instead, audiences were given a gloomy, gritty, post-apocalyptic action adventure likely pitched as “Transformers meets Mad Max,” featuring a significantly different look and feel to Cameron’s films. Rather than witnessing a high-tech war packed with purple-tinted lasers, hunter-killers, and slickly designed metal baddies, we watched characters like John Connor (Christian Bale) and Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) zip around on motorcycles, jets, and helicopters, evading clunky steampunk machines in the middle of an unremarkable desert. Desaturated earthy tones replace Cameron’s steely blue palette ripped straight from Children of Men. Action scenes lack the grit and grime seen in the first two Terminators. Characters freely move about this “dangerous” world, and   many of them, like