Comparing "Star Trek" and "Terminator Salvation," "Star Trek" is a much more honest Hollywood spectacle. It's honest in the sense that it is upfront about revolving around technology. Honest not only in its composition, but in the story itself. The characters relish the future and revel in the constantly evolving technology around them. "Terminator Salvation" on the other hand, is, for lack of a better phrase, full of shit."Terminator Salvation," a cautionary, "rage against the machine" vision of the future, embraces technology at the same time that it stands against it. "We must not act like machines in this war," John Connor (played by Christian Bale) says. The film fails to take that advice, though. With his strict adherence to formula, director McG is just as cold and calculating as the destructive machines at the film's forefront. He depends completely on computer-generated effects to engage the audience. For a film about human resistance to technology, there is very little, if no, trace of a human touch to the storytelling. Maybe McG was trying to emulate Stanley Kubrick's direction of "2001: A Space Odyssey." "2001's" warning was against the enslavement of humans to machines. Therefore, the fact that Kubrick was a slave to technological aspects in the making of the film made that warning more credible. The cold, detached, machine-like quality of the film that resulted added powerful irony as well. However, I don't think McG was this clever in his direction of "Salvation."
This irony is evident in many more science-fiction films however. Many of them stand against technology while using it to illustrate that very message. However, they have an earnestness about them unlike "Terminator Salvation." They realize their own irony and comment on it (i.e. "The Matrix," "2001," etc.) "2001" comments by making the machine character, HAL a more complex and dominant character than the humans in the film. "The Matrix" comments with its notion of a "dreamworld" used by humans that mirrors the purpose of movies themselves. McG's flaw is that he does not realize the irony in his "rage against the machine" story and how it was made with the very machines it rages against. He's not honest like "Star Trek" and we need more films with that quality.
The Matrix utilized CGI to create an immersive moviegoing experience while the film's conflict is between Reality and Virtual Existence. I've found that wonderfully ironic.
ReplyDeleteTerminator had many problems, but really no more than other shitty blockbusters, such as Transformers. Bad scripts are the basic problem; their over-dependance on CGI not meshing with their messages are the least of it.
At least, I think so.
True. I'm not saying the irony is a bad thing. I agree that "The Matrix" uses it to its advantage. However, "The Matrix" and its directors actually comment on that irony whereas "Salvation" does not and therefore, "Salvation" is a less intelligent and less honest sci-fi film.
ReplyDeleteI don't quite make that clear enough here. I'll admit that I sound like I am criticizing that irony whenever it appears and making it appear that I prefer films like "Star Trek" that embrace technology in the story as well. I didn't mean to do that. So, I might tweak this entry a bit.
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