I’m finding that there are some movies that I like more upon a second viewing. It could be that once expectations are set aside (either upheld or smashed upon the first viewing) that it’s easier to accept a movie a bit more… forgivingly. While I certainly still don’t love Terminator Salvation (click link for my initial review), I’ll have to admit I found myself enjoying it more the second time around.
Terminator Salvation is released on DVD and Blu-ray this week, and I’ll be giving you the specs and a review of the Blu-ray director’s cut version right here.
The film wasn’t the huge hit the studio was hoping for in the U.S., bringing in only $125MM. However it did much better overseas, bringing it’s worldwide total to a respectable $371MM. As far as reviews go, it earned a 32% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with the average review being 5/10 stars (I gave it 3/5). In our informal poll over at our Terminator Salvation contest, most people are giving it 3 or 4 out of 5 stars.
The movie suffered from lack of any real depth to the characters, little focus on John Connor (miscast with Christian Bale IMHO), and a story line that concentrated on Marcus Wright, who while being about the best thing in the movie, felt really out of place in the fabric of the entire mythos.
The best thing about the movie are the action set pieces, and on Blu-ray with a home theater set up they deliver. The picture quality is (pretty much as usual) excellent, showing uber-detail. The disc makes ample use of surround sound and the subwoofer in particular (always a good thing as far as I’m concerned).
One thing to be aware of in the Director’s Cut version of the film is that it does NOT have the 30-40 minutes of additional footage that McG said it would have when he talked about it earlier this year – the extended version is only about three minutes longer (and yes, it includes the topless scene with Moon Bloodgood). I don’t know what happened to all that extra footage since this is supposed to be the Director’s Cut of the movie. The topless scene is (as far as I could remember) the only brand new scene in the movie – the rest of the three minutes are just extensions of existing scenes in the movie with a bit more language and violence.
Oh, and if you want to watch the Director’s Cut and you don’t have a DVD player, you’re out of luck: That version is only available on Blu-ray. The DVD version is quite sparse – I don’t believe it even has any special features at all, but here are the specs on the Blu-ray [Update on the DVD version - apparently Target stores are offering a Director's Cut/SE version of the film on DVD. This is odd because it's not available at Amazon.com nor at Warner Bros' official store]:
Disc 1
Theatrical Version of Film (114 min., rated PG-13)
WB Maximum Movie Mode: Director McG hosts while you watch the movie:
- Picture-in-Picture
- Storyboard comparisons
- Terminator mythology timeline
Also:
- Re-Forging the Future: See how the filmmakers reinvented the franchise
- The Moto-Terminator: Discover the unique relationship between the filmmakers and Ducati
Disc 2
- Director’s Cut of Film (117 min., rated R)
- BD-Live
- Media Center
Featured Content:
- “Resist or Be Terminated” Video Archive
- Terminator Salvation Official Movie Prequel Digital Comic Issue #1
- My Commentary
- Live Community Screening
Disc 3
- Digital Copy of Theatrical Version
One thing that bugged me a bit was the lack of any top level menu, and I think this isn’t specific to this disc – I really wish that some standard for Blu-ray was established when it comes to the menu system. On DVDs there’s ALWAYS a top level menu and usually you can just hit the MENU button to skip all the trailers they put up front. On this (and some other Blu-rays) you have to skip each opening trailer individually to get to the movie, and here it went straight INTO the movie instead of bringing up a menu with the usual settings, chapter selection, etc. You can access it but it’s with the sub-menu pop-up option.
The “Re-forging the Future” and “Moto-Terminator” featurettes are interesting (the moto-terminator one more if you’re into visual effects and concept design). My major takeaway from these featurettes was that they left me feeling kind of bad for the people behind the production. Even on films that aren’t very good most of the time the folks working on them are so very passionate and excited about the movie they’re working on, that I feel sorry for them when the film doesn’t turn out to be as great as they had hoped after putting all that hard work into it. There is also BD-Live content available, but since my player is not connected to the internet I wasn’t able to access that.
On the theatrical version there’s what they call “Maximum Movie Mode” or MMM. Instead of just an audio commentary, you get picture in picture video segments where McG breaks into the film to give more insight into the film and his approach to the project. There are also galleries, a Terminator timeline and other video segments that you can access while viewing the film. MMM on this film is a VERY cool feature and is one of the benefits of Blu-ray over DVD. It’s much more informative and interactive than a director’s commentary, and it includes a description of the alternate ending that McG wanted to do in which John Connor becomes a Terminator at the end of the film.
For more details on the Blu-ray head over to the official Terminator Salvation site.
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There were a lot of new details introduced into T:S which, I think, took away from John Connor’s story. I liked that we were given a look at how the other side took control as well as the sentimental nods to the other films. But, one thing that didn’t work for this film was the rating. To ‘terminate’ to an age group is a bit contradictory to the heart of the franchise. PG-13 worked fine for the most recent Die Hard, but for movies like Terminator and Rambo, it’s just not fair to strip it down to those ratings.
As for Bale, I think he suffered the same defeat that he experienced in The Dark Knight. The other characters were given more to do than he was. Of course, from a differing point of view, the movie was called Terminator – not John Connor. I took it that the ‘salvation’ in the title referred to Marcus Wright’s story of being chosen as the first Terminator-hybrid and how he was granted freedom to not be something he didn’t wish to be.
Well that friggin’ sucks that I don’t have a blue ray… boo!
Still will not see this movie even with the whopping 3 extra minutes. I will stick with Terminator and Terminator 2 the rest are garbage.
Yeah, I had a look at the DVD in the shops last week and nope, no special features, just the movie, only the Blu-Ray gets the special features. I wasn’t really that bothered about buying it anyway, but that is kind of annoying, I don’t like it when people make that same comparison between DVD’s superiority over VHS and Blu-Rays superiority over DVD’s, and that’s exactly what studios are doing when they pull stuff like this.
I find this new trend of not putting all the extras on the DVD to be very very annoying. I’m going to have to buy a blu ray player just so I get some decent extras on Inglorious Basterds?!?!
Its really unfair to all of us who have DVD. WHich is pretty much everyone!
3 Minutes??? 3 BLOODY MINUTES?? Hey, I for one don’t mind seeing Moon Bloodgood’s goods, but come on, that’s not going to be enough to make it a better movie.
I just watched it on DVD(I’m poor and can not afford all that Blue ray, 5.1 surround bollocks!)I thought it was a pretty good film, it was ten times better than the 3rd film(utter crap)and lets face it,it’s never gonna top “T2 Judgement Day” is iT? That’s still after all these years, the Best!
Unbelievable. That has to be the worst deal I’ve ever seen for DVD owners from a “blockmunster” movie like this, and even the Blu-ray extras look fairly pathetic. You’d have thought the studio would be milking it like a weeping dairy farmer and McG would be trying to claw back some of his shredded credibility any way he could. Would this have anything to do with the ownership dispute? Wouldn’t poke this with a stick.
McG does it again.
I wouldn’t mind them having DVD’s with no extras if they would only charge $9-10 for it. Most of the time I don’t watch extras anyway, except deleted scenes.
Gotta say I was REALLY surprised that all they’re doing (at least now) on the DVD side is a plain, vanilla movie-only version. That’s almost unprecedented for a movie like this.
And with this Blu-ray being a “Director’s Cut” I’m doubting we’ll ever get to see the 30-40 minutes of footage that McG was talking about…
Vic
Good review. I’m still intent on getting this, but will most likely wait and get it for Christmas….unless I win the contest here(Hint, Hint).
That’s curious as at Amazon.ca, Futureshop.ca, and Bestbuy.ca they have this listed
http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFSM2172056&catid=20412
A two disc directors cut dvd edition, although its to be released tomorrow (Dec 1st).
@Whoaly…
Looks like that 2nd disc is a digital copy….
I just had another look in store on my way home and noticed another version of the DVD, this was a 2 disc version with SOME special features, but again, no directors cut (it also had a crappy novelty Terminator head as the case).
@M-cat
As much as I dislike the McG, directors rarely have much input in how the DVD’s come and what goes on them. I remember when “Children of Men” first came out on DVD as a pure vanilla disc, Anfonso Curón had to lobby the studio to not only release a fully laden DVD with a whole bunch of extras, but also allow people to trade in their vanilla discs for the new ones.
What is up with the Digital Copy that is included with nearly every new release (or re-release)? It is SUCH a waste of a disc! If you want a digital copy of the film, there should be a special code that comes with the Blu-Ray or DVD that would allow you to download the digital copy from the studio’s website. I hate having to pay extra for a feature that I never use.
I agree with Andy, not only is it generally useless, but also usually comes with DRM, which is always nice.
Really, To those of you who must watch movies on your iPod or iPhones or iToaster or whatever, there are some fairly painless ways of doing that without DRM (or illegal downloading) if you’re willing to be a little more involved and patient.
Its a sad day when one of the most heralded action film franchises in modern history gets a directors cut offering 3 minutes of boobs.
What a colossal failure in movie making. Everyone involved with this film should be ashamed of this pile of crap.
This “unrated cut” dvd is a poor excuse of a dvd release and clearly shows no love for the few remaining fans that are interested in this travesty. I can only guess that the additional footage would have proven even more embarrassing,,,
“What a colossal failure in movie making. Everyone involved with this film should be ashamed of this pile of crap.”
I said that very same thing when I first watched Terminator 3.
I haven’t been able to locate a Special Edition, Director’s Cut or otherwise version on DVD available in the U.S.
Vic
@ Andy S
Yea it probably is lol. My point was that it seems for some reason Canada is getting the “directors cut” on dvd. I also agree with you and all of the other fellows here that digital copies are useless. I’ve only ever used one on a Harry Potter film and only to see what it did. I’ve got about 5 films with the digital film extra that I haven’t yet used.. I guess it allows the studios to label releases as being THREE discs full of special features when the third disc only includes a digital release lol
This movie was so disappointing… Christian Bale was an emotionless Bruce Wayne if thats actually possible. I think Sam Worthington was the star of this one as does most other critics. I wouldn’t waste my money on this. The action setpieces were sweet tho.
Idk if you guys looked around too hard, but Target has an exclusive edition of the DVD that has the Director’s Cut. Soooo you should get that. Doesn’t matter to me, Blu-Ray is the way to go.
@Charles O
Do you have a link? I just checked Target.com and it’s not there. As a matter of fact I went to the official Warner Bros. site and THEY don’t list a Director’s Cut/SE version of the DVD.
Vic
Hey Vic,
Check the weekly target add online;
http://weeklyad.target.com/target/default.aspx?action=entryflash&ref=nav_weeklyad
Looks like a directors cut.
Werd!
@El Diablo
Yeah, certainly looks like the same directors cut found on the Blu-Ray (although you gotta love how it’s very deceptively worded, “Only at Target, receive an exclusive 2 Disc Special Edition, that includes an R-Rated Director’s Cut with 30 additional minutes of bonus content.” on first glance it sounds like there’s 30 minutes of extra footage added in to the Directors Cut, whereas actually it’s really just 30 minutes of bonus content, which could be anything from trailers to crappy featurettes), so it looks like people wanting it on DVD can buy it at Target.
Here in the UK we have this http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=204;5;-1;-1;2&sku=766587 although the DVD extras are nothing to write home about (I once wrote home about the features on the “Lord of the Rings” DVD’s… my parents were confused and ultimately threw the letter out).
IDK…..Moongood is a bloody Goddess, maybe that’s all I need. LMAO 790 ! You crack me up!
were there alternate endings on the Blu Ray Disc?
Were they better?
@Gary
No alternate endings, sorry.
Vic