New 'Terminator' series: You'll be back
January 11, 2008
BY DOUG ELFMAN delfman@ suntimes.com
History professors will tell you there's no such thing as a perfect offense or defense. You can invent the knife if you want, but it'll be beaten by the sword, which will be stopped by the shield, which will be broken by the cannonball.
That's the bloody nature of evolution. There can be no calming victory between warring factions, only chaos, death and the progression of battle machines. I guarantee if the United States builds "Star Wars," someone else will invent a response.
The new "Terminator" series, debuting Sunday, plays into this reality of the endless war. Robots of the future keep time-traveling to the present to try to stop human nemeses. Every time humans have won in the films, the machines have responded to win.
"The Sarah Connor Chronicles" starts in 1999, when Sarah believes she's beaten the machines. Yet her son John -- the future leader of the resistance -- goes to a high school class to find another evil Terminator machine gunning at him.
From there, Sarah (Lena Headey) and John (Thomas Dekker) try to survive exciting action sequences and wound-licking scenes. They're joined by a new good Terminator, sent by John of the future to save them.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is too busy terminating California to be involved in "Sarah Connor." He also seems to be too old and too male.
The new good Terminator is played by Summer Glau, one of the best young actresses in the sci-fi field. (She was River in "Serenity" and "Firefly.") Glau is sleight, but her Terminator arms toss baddies downward through floors.
I try not to write phrases that seem tailored for TV ads, but it's unavoidable here: "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" begins as an intense, thoughtful, exciting, fun spectacle. The first episode will kick your ass.
Or, I should say, it will kick your ass if you're a sucker for "Terminator" flicks and provocative action films, as I am. The first two episodes are cool and smartly written, directed and acted. There's also a depth to those war theories I was mentioning.
See, the "Terminator" series chronicles the speedy evolution of humans and a species of machines. In literary terms, this is man vs. man, man vs. machine, man vs. himself and man vs. nature.
Now it's less "man" than woman. Sarah and the new good Terminator make male figures wilt, while John is the weak link, sort of, since he hasn't embraced his fate as a future leader.
Two men who count big are Josh Friedman, a "Terminator" fan writing and producing, and lead director David Nutter. For the taut music score, they found Bear McCreary, who does "Battlestar Gallactica's" excellent beat.
McCreary is skilled, though my one complaint is I miss the metallic "ding-ding" sound from the films. But whatever.
Not that it matters for this review, but I imagine this will be hit. It starts with a jolt. The emotional heart is hope, perseverance and the crappy things people must do to survive, protect and evolve.
It's a macrocosm of the human condition. Sarah says in voiceover narration, "The death of a child is no less than a holocaust. In the case of my son, these words are literally true."
So they go on the run, a child of the future (a reluctant savior), a parent (a mother of the year) and a Terminator girl who throws big men through walls and rips bullets out of her shoulder without blinking. What isn't awesome about that?
BY DOUG ELFMAN delfman@ suntimes.com
History professors will tell you there's no such thing as a perfect offense or defense. You can invent the knife if you want, but it'll be beaten by the sword, which will be stopped by the shield, which will be broken by the cannonball.
That's the bloody nature of evolution. There can be no calming victory between warring factions, only chaos, death and the progression of battle machines. I guarantee if the United States builds "Star Wars," someone else will invent a response.
The new "Terminator" series, debuting Sunday, plays into this reality of the endless war. Robots of the future keep time-traveling to the present to try to stop human nemeses. Every time humans have won in the films, the machines have responded to win.
"The Sarah Connor Chronicles" starts in 1999, when Sarah believes she's beaten the machines. Yet her son John -- the future leader of the resistance -- goes to a high school class to find another evil Terminator machine gunning at him.
From there, Sarah (Lena Headey) and John (Thomas Dekker) try to survive exciting action sequences and wound-licking scenes. They're joined by a new good Terminator, sent by John of the future to save them.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is too busy terminating California to be involved in "Sarah Connor." He also seems to be too old and too male.
The new good Terminator is played by Summer Glau, one of the best young actresses in the sci-fi field. (She was River in "Serenity" and "Firefly.") Glau is sleight, but her Terminator arms toss baddies downward through floors.
I try not to write phrases that seem tailored for TV ads, but it's unavoidable here: "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" begins as an intense, thoughtful, exciting, fun spectacle. The first episode will kick your ass.
Or, I should say, it will kick your ass if you're a sucker for "Terminator" flicks and provocative action films, as I am. The first two episodes are cool and smartly written, directed and acted. There's also a depth to those war theories I was mentioning.
See, the "Terminator" series chronicles the speedy evolution of humans and a species of machines. In literary terms, this is man vs. man, man vs. machine, man vs. himself and man vs. nature.
Now it's less "man" than woman. Sarah and the new good Terminator make male figures wilt, while John is the weak link, sort of, since he hasn't embraced his fate as a future leader.
Two men who count big are Josh Friedman, a "Terminator" fan writing and producing, and lead director David Nutter. For the taut music score, they found Bear McCreary, who does "Battlestar Gallactica's" excellent beat.
McCreary is skilled, though my one complaint is I miss the metallic "ding-ding" sound from the films. But whatever.
Not that it matters for this review, but I imagine this will be hit. It starts with a jolt. The emotional heart is hope, perseverance and the crappy things people must do to survive, protect and evolve.
It's a macrocosm of the human condition. Sarah says in voiceover narration, "The death of a child is no less than a holocaust. In the case of my son, these words are literally true."
So they go on the run, a child of the future (a reluctant savior), a parent (a mother of the year) and a Terminator girl who throws big men through walls and rips bullets out of her shoulder without blinking. What isn't awesome about that?
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