h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: 'Terminator Genisys' - the Film - A87928465
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

Sometimes being back isn't a good thing...
I can't believe I've been writing about these films since 2015.

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Well done - the flavour of this Entry is great!

Superb introduction!

The verb tenses must have been a challenge in the Plot section!

What does it mean in Footnote 2 'actors playing characters'?

"Schwarzenegger's Terminator is listed in the credits as 'Guardian' ... presumably because 'Pops' is just silly." -

"a mobile app that can run out of battery at you." -

The Filming section is heavy going... Seems repetitive, somehow, eg
"Though the film is set in San Francisco, comparatively little filming took place there, with the exception of the exterior of Cyberdyne's headquarters. Most filming the cast took place in New Orleans instead. Some of the sets used in the film, such as the Time Displacement Device set, were filmed in hangers that NASA had constructed in New Orleans for the Space Shuttle construction programme. The Time Displacement Devices were clearly inspired by the original design for Terminator 2: Judgement Day that did not make it to screen in that film but instead appeared in Contact (1997). "

could maybe be tightened up to something like:
"Though the film is set in San Francisco, comparatively little filming took place there, with the exception of the exterior of Cyberdyne's headquarters. The Time Displacement Device (footnote The Time Displacement Devices were clearly inspired by the original design for Terminator 2: Judgement Day that did not make it to screen in that film but instead appeared in Contact (1997). ) scene was filmed in hangars that NASA had constructed in New Orleans for the Space Shuttle programme. The Golden Gate Bridge scenes were filmed on a 500-foot long reconstruction in Louisiana..."

67 is mentioned twice, but it fits best where Arnold has been 'youthened' () and mentions of 'body' and 'double' could perhaps be streamlined, too.

Excellent paragraph about the pile of Things

It is mentioned twice that they wisely ignored the plot of the previous two films - it fits best in the Review section as one of the Positives

There existed films that had grossed $100 million in China before?

If you could put Sequel as a separate section, it could go after the Merchandising section so that the Entry can end with the superb sentence: "The moral seems to be to just concentrate on making one good film rather than count your Terminator trilogies before they have time-travelled back from the future and tried to kill you."

Thanks for your comments there, changes have been made.

China is rapidly overtaking the US as 's largest film market – but on its own terms. It limits the number of non-Chinese films shown to a small number, typically 34 films a year. And there are very strict and often bizarre censorship laws, some of which seem to be made up on the spur of the moment. So you might expect China to ban films that show Chinese characters in a poor light and it probably isn't a surprise that homosexuality is banned along with films containing excessive violence, sex, nudity, affairs outside marriage and so on. However any film with Brad Pitt in is banned – because he was in 'Seven Years in Tibet'. And of course anything 'Winnie-the-Pooh' related is entirely out of the question.
But it is a key market and if you can get your film allowed to be one of the few released there you can make a lot of money. This is why 'Iron Man 3' completely changed the character of 'The Mandarin' and filmed a whole pointless subplot involving Chinese characters that was only shown in China, just to ensure that it was one of the approved films.

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I saw a bit of Pops Genisys the other night

Emilia Clarke did a good job indeed but the plot was weird - Pops fell into the metallic soup so everyone thought he was a goner, and then he reappeared as if by magic later on!

Thanks for the tweaks - the ending is now superb indeed

Ah, that is interesting about the film market in China - that certainly made a difference to this film, enabling it to break even rather than losing $60 million...

I've seen Iron Man 1 and 2 as they were on TV a while ago, but I missed Iron Man 3 - I will have to look out for that

Ah yes – the metallic soup. It wasn't particularly clear but I assume that like 'Terminator 3's' T-X Pop's original endoskeleton is coated with a liquid-metal exterior, allowing Pops a limited ability to change shape and appearance in order to impersonate others, provided that the target is roughly the same size as his endoskeleton. (I suspect people roughly the same size and shape as Arnold Schwarzenegger are in short supply…)

Ooh, I like that – I'll add it to the entry.

The Chinese film market is a bit of a two-edged sword. It is a gamble whether your film is allowed to be shown there as they are very strict on what can and can't be shown. Even if you were a US studio making the most pro-China film ever that would tick all the right boxes to be shown in China, if there existed, say, a maniacal US President who talks about Chinese 'trade wars', chances are one of the first things the Chinese government might do would be to ban all US films from being shown.

One worry is that as China has both quite a different culture to the West and vast amounts of money, potentially film financers might start making films more compatible with the Chinese market and comply with Chinese censorship. This could be a terrible backwards step for issues of sexuality and gender (but could potentially mean there would be fewer pointlessly gratuitous sex scenes in US films). On the other hand it might be a way to gradually introduce other perspectives into China, so even if there is a short-term reduction in diversity, there much be a greater long term benefit.

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"This could be a terrible backwards step for issues of sexuality and gender (but could potentially mean there would be fewer pointlessly gratuitous sex scenes in US films)" - I agree... a two-edged sword indeed...

Just giving this a thorough readthrough as the Terminator makes an appearance in my new Entry A87939526

"Skynet then began a programme to eliminate and enslave the survivors" - the programme was to use them as slaves before killing them?

"Connor sends Reese back in time to stop the Terminator from succeeding in its mission, only for Connor to be attacked at the moment that Kyle travels back in time." - what is the relevance of the attack, here?

"After Kyle, Sarah and Pops defeat two Terminators sent after them, a T-800 model that is identical to Pops as well as a shape-changing liquid metal T-1000 model. After defeating the Terminators, Pops uses the T-800's CPU chip in order to complete a time machine called the Time Displacement Device" --> "After Kyle, Sarah and Pops defeat two Terminators sent after them - a T-800 model that is identical to Pops as well as a shape-changing liquid metal T-1000 model - Pops uses the T-800's CPU chip in order to complete a time machine called the Time Displacement Device" ?

Does Pops wait until 2017 or does something else happen to enable him to meet John Connor T-3000?

"no actor had previously appeared in a Terminator film." - "none of these actors had previously appeared in a Terminator film" ?

Is JK Simmons from the USA, or from Canada?

"one of the principle heroes" - principal

"It is apparent that the makers of Terminator Genisys wrote detailed notes" - did they actually write detailed notes, or did it just seem like that?

"flying Hunter-Killers" - I don't think these are defined in this Entry

Aha! Thank you for mentioning about the ending being confusing!

" A making of titled Terminator Genisys: Resetting the Future " - " A 'making of' book titled Terminator Genisys: Resetting the Future" ?

"return to James Cameron" - returned?

"Inside, disappointingly the book is not about Terminator 2: Judgement Day at all, merely Terminator Genisys instead." - excellent point Would that be strengthened if the sentence just said: "Inside, disappointingly, the book is not about Terminator 2: Judgement Day at all." ?

Great Entry - you definitely have the knack of reviewing films you didn't particularly enjoy

The programme was to use them as slaves before killing them?
I've changed it to 'and/or' as some characters are enslaved and some are killed. Presumably based on whether Skynet believes the individual humans are a viable source of slave labour in a convenient location, or if they are a main character that will need to survive.

I've reworded the paragraph about Connor's attack. I also changed several of the Kyles to 'Reese' to be a bit more consistant.

I've added a footnote about Hunter-Killers.

'Return' / 'returned' – ah yes, when I first wrote this*, 2019 was in the future… The rights have indeed returned to Cameron and he wasted no time in producing a new Terminator film. One that presumably ignores this (and previous sequels) completely.

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* The Word file, that is. The h2g2 entry dates from January 2019 but the Word file dates back to 2018.

Excellent changes, especially the ones clarifying the plot (as far as possible given the nature of the plot)

Just one more tiny thing: "It is apparent that the makers of Terminator Genisys wrote detailed notes" - I like the mention of the detailed notes, but I read "it is apparent" as saying that they intentionally did do that and the audience can tell they did... In the online dictionary I see that 'apparent' means 'obvious' but also 'apparent lack of concern' means that someone may have had a lack of concern, but not necessarily... I thus now vaguely see what you mean, but wonder if you could make it clearer...

Howzat?

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Excellent! Congratulations!