Terminator ... Goes On

Memorial Day ... always a good day to take in a movie. Today I went to see "Terminator Salvation". In the (seemingly) never ending saga of Skynet and Terminators and John Connor, it's a pretty good action movie that puts interesting pieces of the story of the future together. Don't hesitate to see it, but it will often not make sense to you unless you've seen at least the first two Terminator movies. And even where it does come through, it will be all the better for seeing the first shows. For example, in one scene John Connor says "I'll be back" ... with different inflection than Schwarzenegger, of course, but it did elicit a few knowing chuckles from the audience. And the first appearance of the T-800 (Schwarzenegger style) Terminator is impressive (but, no, it's not actually Arnold). There is one confusion point here as, in the original (1984) movie, the Terminator was described by Kyle Reese as "Cyberdyne Systems Model 101". I can only guess that the model (T-800) in this latest movie is just a very advanced version of the Model 101 (because it looks like the same unit, i.e. Arnold). So maybe they didn't have one available to send back (to 1984) to kill Sarah Connor in the original movie. Note that the next model shown (in Terminator 2), was a T-1000, so the T-800 appellation *does* make some sense ... but it's still a puzzle and, maybe, an error in the latest film.

It's also a good movie to wait for the DVD/BD to arrive on store shelves, especially if you're complementing your existing set of movies at home ... but, either way, it's a good show, if long on action and short on character development. Of course, the characters were largely developed in the 80's and 90's. As a completely separate aside, I recommend against buying anything to eat or drink at the theater, since they are just mind-bogglingly high in price. Even a small soda at the local first-run theater here in Cedar Rapids is $3.75 at a size of about 8 ounces. Decent eats (still just junk food, remember) and a drink at a movie cost more than a meal at a good restaurant ... that's just wrong.