Respecting Quality
Note: The following contains spoilers for the entire Terminator franchise. There are six Terminator movies. In the first movie, The Terminator (1984), a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) – a cyborg – is sent back from the future to kill a woman, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who’ll give birth to the saviour of humanity, John Connor, in a fight against the sentient artificial intelligence, Skynet, and the machines it commands. A resistance fighter, Reese (Michael Biehn) is sent back to protect Sarah, but inevitably she must fight for her own life. Sarah Connor’s transformation from terrified waitress to tough, hardened soldier in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) is totally believable. The…
Character Justification
When it comes to characters, something else I ask myself is this question: Is the character justified? A simpler way of putting this is do I believe the character is who the story purports them to be? I beat on the new Star Wars Trilogy last week, and will do so again, because it’s an easy target due to its shallow characters that are never meant to be more than archetypes – the humble hero, the cocky hotshot, the frightened sidekick comic relief. Can I believe that a scavenger who’s had no training of any kind whatsoever is capable of being a fantastic pilot, a great mechanic, a brilliant shot…