TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES (2003)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

The creators behind RISE OF THE MACHINES-- director Jonathan Mostow and three writers-- had the very unenviable task of following up the two Cameron movies. To be sure, Cameron himself considered working on a third movie, but no deal materialized, though he advised Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign up if he liked the script. 

Certainly there was nothing wrong in reworking the ending of TERMINATOR 2 to make room for a new storyline, since Cameron had rewritten the ending of the first TERMINATOR to make room for the sequel. My understanding is that after RISE, most iterations referenced only the Cameron movies as "canon." 

RISE takes place ten years after the events of T2, and arguably T2 casts a long shadow over RISE. The plot re-uses the basic idea of two Terminators squaring off, one seeking to kill John Connor, future savior of humanity, and the other seeking to protect him. In both movies the protecting cyborg is of the same model that sought to kill Sarah Connor in the first movie (all said cyborgs being played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), but both protectors had been re-programmed to counter an assassin sent by the intelligent computer system Skynet. RISE copies T2's idea that the killing-droid can change its shape due to being made of liquid metal (To be sure, in the first version of RISE's story, the murder-robot had a different set of powers.) This time, instead of John teaming up with his mother Sarah and the protector-cyborg, this time John (Nick Stahl) and the Schwarze-cyborg team up with Kate Brewster (Clair Danes). John, who's remained off the grid since the events of T2, is rather surprised to learn from the cyborg that Kate, a woman he only knew from high school, is his future wife. (John does have an amusing line after seeing Kate shoot down a robot attacker, saying that she reminds him of his mother.)

I think the script delivers lots of good skull-bursting violence, and some of the scenarios are as good as Cameron's best. Like the other films RISE is primarily a chase film, but it puts together a good "third act" when the Terminator reveals that Kate's father, a military man, is involved in the implementation of Skynet. Where RISE dwindles in comparison to the Cameron films is that the character interaction is not as rich. Stahl and Danes have good chemistry, but their arc isn't as strong as the reconciliation between John and his mother (who has passed away prior to the film proper). As for the third Schwarze-cyborg, "he" of course has none of the emotional bond thst the second one, destroyed at the end of T2, sustained with John. Still, Schwarzenegger still imbues the mechanical man with touches of humanity. This Terminator even possesses a touch of existential angst. He doesn't literally care about either John or Kate, but he feels that if he fails in his protective mission, his existence will become meaningless.

The FX-artists succeed reasonably well with all the tricks they give the T-X kill-droid (Kristanna Loken), but this automated assassin never becomes as iconic as the Robert Patrick version. Loken can do all the blank-faced expressions that Patrick could do, but the script didn't give her any comparable moments of quasi-humanity. Since it sounds as if the earliest script focused upon a female assassin, I wondered if this too came about as a reaction to T2. After all, T2 emphasizes how the assassin can unleash many powers to compensate for the superior size of the Schwarze-cyborg. So why couldn't a female assassin also outclass another bulky-bodied warrior, given that Patrick proved that "size did not matter?"