Terminator Salvation vs. Night at the Museum 2: Inanimate Objects

My Integral Review:

Terminator Salvation (or T4.0) is a case study in how most of the current Hollywood Studio system of telling a story 'by Committe', through Executive and Star order, is disproportionately unhealthy and un-integral. (Not including Pixar, who seems to know how create collectively, with an exquisite sense of singular-ish vision). 

Apparently the director MCG (who seems completely out of his game in this genre of sci-fi post-apoclapytcica) had to change the entire script to focus on the Messianic Christian Bale's John Connor - who can clearly deliver what a good script might ask of him - but falls back on the gruff voice of Bat Man when nothing else in the story can give him any weight as a character.  The original intention of the screenwriters Jon Brancato and Michael Ferris (who also wrote the wonderful David Fincher film "THE GAME") was to keep John Connor an un seen mysterious presence giving commands of inspiration to the collective human resistance over the sub-acousitc airwaves, while focusing on Kyle Reece, as played by the charmingly fun (but a little too cutesy), Anton Yelchin, who is the younger version of the character Michael Biehn played in the original Terminator film, and who must, eventually, be sent back in time by John Connor to have unprotected sex with his mother Sarah Connor, while protecting her from Arnold Shwarzanegger, and be the father he is meant to be. In the right hands it could have been so much fun to retell this tale, but all the potentially juicy relationships fall flat.

Some of the truck/motor cycle chases are cool, admittedly, as are some of the ideas (as ideas) presented in the film, but all in all, a total failure to ignite the imagination that this franchise needs to continue, which was already sucked dry on the last non-Cameron (Jim, the original Creator) outing, Terminator 3 (also awful, but at least had an exciting -if not inevitable- apocalytpic ending).

The new character Marcus Wright (played by Sam Worthington) could be a cool addition to the pantheon of the Terminator universe, particularly his symbolic duality of conscious and unconscious awareness, feeling and thought, singular/collective, etc... but the filmed story action is just too hodge podge to take us with him on his journey. Bale was originally approached to play this character, and one can only imagine a more focused and meaningful story would be told had he been inspired to do so. One can wonder where his ego is at to want to play the messiah in yet another symbolic form.

Linda Hamilton returns as Sarah Connor in the form of audio tapes she left her son - instructions from the Divine mother, which ring more truthful and insightful than anything else in the film. Unfortunately the only other feminine representative worth mentioning is the character Blair, played by the aptly named Moon Bloodgood, who is beautiful and sexy and strong and can kick ass and has all the things one would like to encounter on a post apocolpytic date, but it seems like she's playing in a different movie all together. Bryce Dallas Howard gives a long dull blue eyed red hair stare as Nurse Brewster. There's even little black girl named Star runs around with frizzed out afro hair, waiting to be rescued from the machinations of embarrassment. I'd rather listen to two hours of Ms. Hamilton's satsang than watch this metal on metal scraping my skull again.

It's no wonder it was beaten out at the box office by Night at the Museum - another film opening this memorial day weekend - about stiff museum statues that animate to life as living historical characters whenever the sun goes down. Watching this awful Ben Stiller film, which is so blatantly aimed at the demographic of children with lower levels of intelligence, at least it gave me a world in which realized how much I love museums and the seemingly infinite landscapes they paint in the mind while walking through. The actual filmmaking is pedestrian and not exciting at all - the story beats are pathetic and the humor is played by actors, such as post-suicide Owen Wilson, with admirable gusto. But it's clear that even Mr. Wilson, also a great writer in his own right, cannot hide the deeply seeded interior disappointment of the words being uttered. 

However, the actress Amy Adams presents the feminine in it's finest form, as Amelia Earheart, always ready for adventure and excitement that the movie never satisfies. It's a shame an actress and a character with such effortless radiance doesn't get her own film to be the subject/object of. Oddly enough, for a kids movie, there's more than a few sexy ass shots of her sexy flight pants. Perhaps it's because Ben Stiller's make up looks slightly corpse like, but their completely unbelievable romance is sold 200% by Ms. Adams performance. I can count the few laughs that actually spontaneously erupted from my gut - two were at the very end - one by Mr. Wilson (as his nipple sized human rubs against Ms. Adam's breasts) and the other by the special effect Tyrannosaurus Rex bone structure creature who scares the living crap out of the jaded post modern teens that are scoffing at his fossilization in motion as if he's just a bad special effect (which, of course he is!)

'Night' ends on a positive note, showing the museum characters working as tour-guide-actors during the new late shift at the museum. This scene alone did inspire enough simple wonder and awe to satisfy my interior as the end credits rolled. I heard the families behind me walking out laughing, sharing, saying "good clean fun".  But this film shows no ambition in telling it's story to the demographic it's aimed at. 

It sickens me as an artist that this is what mainstream audiences will stomach from the corporate menu of mass consumption, but luckily my zen gut doesn't hold onto these opinions very long.

Most people just want those few feelings of levity and joy in their body and I can't blame them. 

But the fact that these stories live on as franchises with sequels and re-imaginings carried along by the collective through time - makes me think of religions and their councils of storytellers and how they judged what words and images feelings should be evoked.

Storytelling has a structure for a reason: the sway and polarity of emotion through the perspective and attention of the human mind. Do we owe it to ourselves - here on the so called 'leading edge' of evolution - to persist in pushing the forms we project-reflect-ingest at 24 frames per second? Sometimes I think yes we must it is our duty. Other times I know re-inventing the wheel is just not necessary. As an Artist there is high tide to change form and there is low tide. There is a time to radically push into what isn't and there is a time to radically embrace what is. 

Film in the post-modern era is a collective form that oftentimes works best as a singular-ish vision. Any validation that the collective (the many writers, executives, and decision making voices) has a better vision (in regards to the final objects that flash on the screen) is just not in these flagpole franchise projects that are released Memorial Day Weekend. Batman's recent success was so much about Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan's (not including the technical craftmanship, which is undoubtedly a collective of multi-talented crew members and artists. I'm speaking of primarily interior decision making process in the script and story structure form of what dictates the) vision being captured on screen. Ironically the younger Nolan's hands were all over but uncredited in the Terminator debacle. Who knows who else was brought in by the studio (Warner Brothers) to stitch together the patchwork.

As for the exterior collective, the audience of pop culture, will Night of the Museum 2 illicit a few 'remember when the space monkey slapped the bush monkey?' laugh exchanges between friends and family?  Or even better yet, remind them to live their lives making their own history? Perhaps.

Terminator Salvation will indeed spark internet fan forums to debate what would have made a better story than the one sold to us - which will surely cause the imagination of viewers to engage in their own creative thinking, spurring, better yet, the possibility that maybe when the nonfictional Technium does arise in the future, it/they would rather be nice to us than engage in scenarios resembling anything close to what is presented in MCG's Judgement Day.