Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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If this guy is humanity’s last hope, I will submit to our machine overlords right now.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is about as unnecessary a sequel as can be imagined. However, franchises must continue to create content, and The Terminator series is no exception–apparently. The film takes everything that its predecessor crafted, and ignores or destroys it–getting a number of facts wrong in the process. It’s no wonder that Skynet was able to take over.

First Impressions

The Terminator returns again and this time he’s working to save an older John Connor from a female killer robot, and perhaps itself as well. Explosions, gunplay, Arnold, and some new characters join the franchise in the third installment in which John Connor must somehow avoid the Rise of the Machines.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

Approximately ten years after the events of Terminator 2, John Connor’s (Nick Stahl) voice over informs the audience that Judgment Day was averted. John works odd jobs and lives off the grid, just to be safe. He falls off his motorcycle one night while avoiding a deer on the road. He then breaks into a nearby animal hospital to get some medicine. In Beverly Hills, a female time traveler (Kristanna Loken) appears naked and takes the clothes and car from a nearby woman. She is a T-X model terminator and uses a cell phone to get access to a list of students in an online school database, marking her targets.

Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) shops for a wedding registry with her fiance Scott (Mark Famiglietti) when she receives a call from her father, an Air Force General, who apologizes he cannot make their plans this weekend due to a cyber-issue at the base he works at. In the desert, another time traveler appears. It is the T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) terminator model. He heads, naked, to a nearby bar where it’s ladies night. He takes the leather motorcycle gear from the gay stripper on stage. Meanwhile, the T-X is driving around Los Angeles murdering teenagers associated with her download.

In the middle of the night Kate arrives at the animal hospital where she works, for an emergency where she discovers John. She steals his (paintball) gun and locks him in a kennel. She recognizes him, having attended junior high with him. The T-X shows up at the clinic, not for John, but because it’s coming to kill Kate. The T-101 drives a car into the building knocking the T-X out, but she quickly is back up. A chase into Los Angeles ensues with the T-101 grabbing John and Kate in the Vet truck, and being followed by the T-X in a mobile crane.

After eluding the T-X and driving into the desert, John explains to Kate who this big guy is. The T-101 takes them to a cemetery where he rips open Sarah Connor’s crypt (John’s mom) and finds it filled with weapons and ammo, just as she asked for in her will. The SWAT team shows up looking for Kate, who had called 911 previously. The morphed T-X also shows up looking like Scott, who she has killed. The protagonists escape in a hearse and eventually steal an RV. The T-101 reveals that Judgment Day is inevitable, and it will occur today at 6:15pm when Skynet goes online and becomes self-aware.

Kate demands the Terminator take them to see her father, as he may be the one who is able to prevent World War III. The T-101 reveals that it was Kate, John’s future wife, who sent him back to protect them. At the Air Force Base, General Brewster (David Andrews) is told to activate Skynet in order to burn out a very nasty computer virus that is spreading to all civilian and military systems. He does, but then everyone is immediately kicked out of their computers as Skynet begins to take over.

Brester is shot by the T-X, masquerading as Kate, just as the real Kate shows up. The T-101 fights with the T-X in the bathrooms, but is beaten when she knocks his head off (rock ‘em sock ‘em Terminators). The T-X then reprograms the T-101 to seek out John and Kate. The two young people have followed her father’s instructions to get to Crystal Peak, where the Skynet core is located. They plan to blow it up. But when they arrive, they realize it is actually a safe bunker to ride out the destruction. John reminds the reprogrammed T-101 who he is and he reverts to being a good guy, using a fuel cell to blow up his remains and the last bit of the T-X. John and Kate begin answering calls on the radio from other stations around the country as the missiles are launched and Judgment Day is at hand.

“Judgment Day is inevitable.” – The Terminator

History in the Making

For people that have already seen Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, they may be wondering why this film is being covered on Sci-Fi Saturdays. It’s neither iconic, nor genre-defining–at least not in the positive sense. In fact, that’s precisely the reason it’s being covered. Because just due to the title of the film or the previous state of a franchise, it’s impossible to predict how any future installment will affect viewers’ opinions of the film. The third entry in the Terminator franchise sets expectations early with the subtitle, Rise of the Machines. Arguably the second film should have been called Rise of the Machines, and this film should have been titled Judgment Day, but that’s the least problematic issue to take with this film.

Released 12 years after the immensely successful and popular Terminator 2: Judgment Day,  one might wonder why it took so long for this film to get made. In part, the bankruptcy of Carolco Pictures in 1995 was a contributing factor, as they owned the rights to the Terminator character and subsequent films. The purchase of these rights dragged on until the end of the decade as previous director James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and 20th Century Fox decided whether they wanted to make another film or not. Eventually, after the release of Cameron’s Titanic, he decided that he had said all he wanted to say about the franchise, and counseled Schwarzenegger to ask for a lot of money and make the film if he wanted to. A script was finally written around 2000/2001 which was used to shop for distribution rights and a director. Jonathan Mostow was hired to direct and brought along two college friends of his, John Brancato and Michael Ferris to write. They had previously written the Sandra Bullock cyber-thriller The Net, and would go on to write Catwoman and Terminator Salvation (the 4th Terminator film). They appeared to be determined to make the film they wanted to make, regardless of creating a film that meshed cohesively as the third part of a franchise.

Genre-fication

Between The Terminator and its sequel, there are a few things that audiences expect from a film of this type. Primarily it’s a deadly cyborg time traveling from the future, back to our present to stalk and kill the main protagonists. Along the way there’s action, mayhem, some chases, perhaps some humor and a little bit of philosophy about the human race. It’s a pretty basic formula derived from the first film and expanded greatly for the second. Terminator 3 makes an attempt to follow this formula, but often does so too closely to the originals, so much so that the film feels like a poor remake.

In fact, T3 attempts to copy the pacing and sequence of T2 in an ungodly cloning attempt worthy of Arnold’s film The 6th Day. All films start with Arnold and a second character coming back in time, naked, appearing in a glowing bubble. Terminator 2 tried to attempt a fake out with Robert Patrick’s character to make the audience believe he was the new hero character coming to protect the Connors; before the marketing of the film ruined that surprise. Here Arnold and a female character appear through the use of time travel. Arnold then enters a bar to get a copy of his leather outfit from T2, while the female T-X hunts a list of other characters and murders them–taken straight from T1 and Arnold’s hunt for Sarah Connor. There’s a first act chase with a number of vehicles, adding in a crane which does most of the damage. The heroes stop at a gas station (actually the same location that was used for both the previous films), then break into a mausoleum getting attacked by a SWAT team, which is entirely different from breaking into a tech corporation and getting attacked by a SWAT team. A gratuitous cameo from Earl Boen as Dr. Silberman was placed in the middle of the film for comedic effect, and for no other logical reason. Then the finale pits the two terminators against one another in a military bunker instead of an industrial warehouse or steel mill, with Arnold’s character sacrificing himself (itself?) so that John and his future wife can survive.

One might presume that the aping of the sequences from the previous Terminator films is due to a strong love for the franchise and the respect of its characters. That would be incorrect. Rise of the Machines seems to willfully ignore the continuity setup from the previous films. The biggest issue appears to be the change from T2 and its “the future is not set” logic, to having Judgment Day only postponed and inevitable. This is probably less an issue with the filmmakers and more a studio dictate in order to continue this insanely popular franchise. But the film has a number of little issues that will bother fans of the original films. Things like John Connor was ten in Terminator 2, and not 13 as this film supposes. That changes and makes impossible a number of follow-up pieces of dialog and backstory for John and Kate. John is also a different character from his more cocky and self assured character in T2. Now he’s whiney and shows little to no skills in leadership. There are dozens of other examples, along with lots of just bad filmmaking examples that can be found at the often humorous Downfall of Terminator website.

Societal Commentary

The film opens with the following lines, regurgitated from Terminator 2, “the future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.” John recites these words that his mother drilled into his head, and then the next 90 minutes of film proceed to ignore them. The series returns to the predestined world from the original Terminator. In that film, time was a closed loop. Kyle Reese was sent from the future to the past in order to protect Sarah Connor from being murdered by a killer robot. On his trip, he happened to impregnate Sarah, which would lead to the birth of John Connor, the man that sent Kyle back in time in the first place. Everything in that film was predetermined. But with T2, Cameron showed that the future might not be completely set. The heroes were able to destroy all evidence of the future machines and apparently prevent Judgment Day. Rise of the Machines undoes that moment and makes Judgment Day an inevitable event. As other time travel films would say, it’s a fixed point in time, a nexus event, that can be delayed but never prevented.

Meanwhile, the 20 year old John Connor is choosing to run from his destiny. This man who will grow up to be the leader of the resistance is having difficulty believing that Judgment Day has really been averted. He takes caution to stay off the grid and lives on the streets–in the one town where Terminators may still look for him, Los Angeles. This is a change from the 10-year old John we saw in T2. That kid was a jerk, sure, but he relished the time with his mother, learning how to become a bad-ass resistance fighter. Here, without his mother around, John has no ambition, no goals, and no future. It’s a sad and sometimes confusing character arc, since the film definitely shows Nick Stahl as an older John Connor pumping up the troops. Apparently time will create the character that is needed whether John wants it to or not.

The Science in The Fiction

By this point each Terminator film has introduced a new and more advanced hunter robot. The first film introduced the T-800, a robotic skeleton with a flesh covering around it–in order for it to time travel. Terminator 2 introduced the T-1000, a mimetic polyalloy, which was a liquid metal robot that could take on the appearance of anything or anyone it touched. It was very difficult to destroy. Rise of the Machines creates the first female-presenting Terminator which also appears to be based off the T-1000. According to the dialogue in the film, the “T-X is polymimetic,” so it has that same ability as its predecessor, and it’s also remarked to being “an anti-Terminator Terminator.” The advancements are not that great though. It is unable to terminate the Terminator throughout the film, given many chances. It also has an internal skeleton system, unlike its predecessor, which makes its transformations less viable than anything the T-1000 could do. Skynet gets serious negative reviews for the latest model.

In the timeline of the franchise, even though the Future War is about 25 years away, the humans of the present have already created their first robotic overlords. The military base where General Brewster works has a number of clunky T-1 models that look like a scaled up version of 1980s Omnibot 2000 toy. There’s also a small, drone sized HK-Aerial vehicle, which would be scaled up to reign fire on the humans in the Future War of 2029. Obviously between the events of T2 and T3, people have been busy updating the hardware and software that Skynet would use to take over. People always seem to do such a great job of destroying their lives.

The Final Frontier

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines would be the last Terminator film–to use numbers in its title. From here, the trend became to use unnumbered titles, with a distinctive subtitle to characterize the film. Terminator Salvation (2009), Terminator Genisys (2015), and Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) would follow for better or worse.

The film does very little for the franchise, except for creating a joke out of Arnold’s beloved antihero. A number of moments create laughs at the expense of the Terminator and make him less cool than anything seen before. It starts with the character reaching for a pair of sunglasses inside the leather jacket he stole, and pulling out a pair of Elton John-looking starred glasses, and ends with him telling a convenience store clerk to “talk to the hand.” It really is surprising that more films were created after this point. As this film seems to prove, the Terminator franchise doesn’t have much else to say about fate, humanity, and cyber-awareness. It’s more concerned with creating copycats of the previous films with so much action, and meta-humor that audiences can’t discern a Terminator film from any other in a long line of action clones.

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