Star Trek IV: The Voyage to the End of the Trilogy

It’s been a pretty busy few weeks here at the old blog factory, and by that I mean that I haven’t been able to put down Breath of the Wild. Anyway, life isn’t promising to slow down anytime soon so we’re going to finish out something that’s been slowly unfolding before our eyes, perhaps without us even knowing it! Over the last year plus, I’ve looked at Wrath of Khan as we took a long, honest look at what’s gone wrong with Star Trek, and we recently examined The Search for Spock during our foray into the year 1984, and all of its cinematic gems. Can’t promise we won’t end up there again, by the way. As any self-respecting Trekkie knows, those two films comprise the first two thirds of a trilogy of interconnected movies that start with Wrath of Khan, and end with The Voyage Home. It’s hard to say if this was the original intention going into Wrath of Khan, but the end result is nothing short of spectacular! So let’s look at the capstone of the trilogy, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home!

In the previous two installments of the Trek Movie Trilogy,Kirk learned that his former nemesis, Khan had escaped prison on a backwater planet through the use of mind control slugs. The Enterprise was ravaged in every way imaginable short of outright destruction, Scotty’s nephew, whom we only know is his nephew if we watch the Director’s Cut, dies, and Spock dies. That’s kind of important. Struggling with feelings of loss and grief, the crew of the good ship Enterprise return home to find out their beloved ship is going to be mothballed. Bones is going totally insane, Kirk learns from Spock’s dad that he (Kirk) is an idiot and there’s a deus ex machina ritual for returning Spock from the great beyond! Kirk steals the Enterprise, blows it up, his son dies because the blood flows like Niagara falls whenever Kirk is around, and Spock is rescued. Spock gets his soul back, and McCoy is not insane anymore. Did you get all that? It’s a lot to take in. Why don’t you watch those ones again? They’re really good. Go ahead, I can wait. Good? Good.

So much like Search for Spock, The Voyage Home picks up basically where the previous installment left off. If you just removed all of the credits and ran these movies together, they could make one giant super movie! And it would make sense! Someone do that for me. PLEASE SOMEONE MAKE THIS FOR ME! Sorry, got a little excited there. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so in keeping with that trend, we find the crew of Enterprise stranded on Vulcan looking for asylum from extradition via Spock’s pop, who kind of owes them one anyway. Spock is trying to reboot his broken Vulcan mind, and has forgotten how to laugh. The rest of the crew have decided to accept their fates, whatever those fates may be, and return to Earth to stand trial. In the meantime, a mysterious probe has come to Earth and is busting the whole planet back to the stone age. Ships and stations have no power, the atmosphere is vaporizing. It’s just a hot mess. This crisis leads the president to issue a planetary distress call, and warn off any approaching vessels, which Kirk and company receive.

Kirk is kind of fond of Earth so he decides, after some sleuthing from Spock reveals that transmissions from the probe sound vaguely like humpback whale calls, to time travel back to Earth’s past and steal some whales and bring them back to the present! ...err… the future depending on your frame of reference. Did you ever see the TOS episode Assignment: Earth? I’m not saying that it’s required viewing for this film, but it does use a plot device that the well versed will recognize immediately. The crew are going to slingshot around the sun, intentionally this time, and go back to the past, using a vehicle that was previously owned by Doc Brown. Trippy… So they do, and the sequence it pretty cool. It’s disorienting, but awesome. There’s dialog from later in the film, and vague imagery, and it’s really fun to watch.

Once the time breaking is done, our crew land their ship in Golden Gate park circa 1985, because that’s the year that the film was made. To say that the ensuing shenanigans are wacky would be a gross understatement. Where do I even begin?! Kirk needs money so he sells the 400 year old glasses that Bones gave him two movies ago! Of course, they’re only one hundred years old now, but details. Kirk and Spock take on the responsibility of finding whales. Scotty, Bones and Sulu have to find a way to make a whale tank, and Uhura and Chekov have to find a way to reenergize the ship’s dilithium crystals because apparently chemistry is different for the Klingons. I love this aspect of the movie because it reminds me of playing tabletop RPGs. Everyone in the party has a task that they need to accomplish, and combat isn’t the go to answer! That’s the best part! There is no violence in this film. In fact, a disruptor is fired once to lock a door.

Anyway, it’s pretty much a laugh a minute as our heroes out of time try to do the things. Spock gets caught swimming in a professional, and pH balanced whale tank, Kirk has to cover for him by throwing him under the bus as a junkie, of sorts. Scotty and McCoy have to bluff their way into a polymer factory, and barter for windows using technology that hasn’t been invented yet. Sulu somehow talks a guy into letting him borrow a helicopter, although the movie is kind of vague as to how he does that. Chekov gets arrested by the Navy. It’s all laughs all the time here in Time Travel Town. In the middle of everything, a hapless bystander gets sucked into the action. Her name is Gillian Taylor, and she loves whales.

She has a bumper sticker so it must be true.

Taylor literally lives for these whales that Kirk wants to abduct. I seriously get a vibe that she could do irreversible things confronted with the loss of her whales. The movie doesn’t exactly go out of its way to show her having a life outside of her work, primarily because Kirk is going to transplant her to the future at the end, but think of the implications of her staying behind. Heavy. At any rate, Kirk gains her trust and gets a tracking frequency so that he can go grab some whales, but Chekov needs to be rescued from the hospital first so Kirk, McCoy, and Taylor go do that. It’s hilarious! Then they have to go get them some whales before said whales get shot, almost immediately after being released, which in itself happened quite unexpectedly. Of course they succeed and head home because, you know, it was a voyage home. Obviously, they had to get there eventually. My only question is, what would they have called it if anyone else but Spock had been from anywhere else but Earth? Asking the deep questions.

They return home, save Earth, and then stand trial. All of the charges get dropped, except one, Kirk defied the orders of a superior, and therefore, must be punished. He gets demoted to captain, and given a new Enterprise to hop galaxies with! YAY! Taylor goes off to places unknown, and never shows up again. Everyone his saved, and happy, and that’s basically it.

This movie is a huge departure from the established formula of Star Trek films. Where previous installments, especially in this trilogy, had been about seriousness, and action, except The Motion Picture, this film was lighthearted, and character driven. It eschewed violence for humor. Kirk has no Kirk-fu scenes. None. Sorry to disappoint. Also, Kirk isn’t as much of the focus as he was in the previous films. This film really went out of its way to add at least one new thing to each character and to really show each one of them in their respective elements. The movie paces well. It moves at a good clip for a film with a lot of setup, but knows when to pause for effect. The dialog is witty, funny, but intelligent enough when it needs to be. The acting is actually top tier. You get the impression that by this point, playing these characters was like slipping into a well worn pair of trousers for these actors, and it shows. The chemistry between them is fantastic. Gillian Taylor, played by Catherine Hicks, fits right in with the rest of the cast. Her skeptical sarcasm just adds an extra layer of fun that’s like the cherry on top of an already stellar ice cream sundae. The one thing that sometimes gets mild, and joking criticism is the theme. The save the whales message can be a little heavy handed at times, but I don’t think it’s terribly distracting from everything else. Besides, Star Trek has always been about tackling the issues, and this is just the first in a long line of Trek pieces to go green.

In all, it’s a great romp! It’s a fine end to a fantastic trilogy of films that start strong and stay strong throughout. I’d call it Trek movies at their finest. Give it a watch, stay tuned for more, and happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

It's just over a week since Breath of the Wild took the world by storm, and I have spent nearly every available moment grinding through it in order to bring you wonderful readers a comprehensive, and honest review of this monumental game. In general, it's reviewed exceptionally well amongst critics, and gamers alike. I have run into the stray gamer who hasn't enjoyed the experience as much, and to each their own for sure. I'm certain my thoughts and experiences will differ from others as there are a lot of different ways that this title can be played. It should go without saying that this article may contain spoilers. I'll try to stay vague on most things, but it's inevitable.

Ok, so where do we begin? I haven't actually gotten terribly far into the main story of the game so I'll mostly stick to non-story elements since I know those That said, I didn’t want to do this review without having beaten at least one of the actual dungeons, which I did, and that will definitely factor into this review.. As far as what I do know, you play as Link, obviously. You were put into a deep stasis like sleep 100 previous to the beginning of the game because Ganon had defeated you at the end of your previous adventure. This is important because there are, like, a gajillion time lines in the Legend of Zelda franchise (there are three), and this bit of information firmly roots this game in the Fallen Hero timeline. Zelda has spent the last century trying to keep Ganon’s influence confined to Hyrule castle, but she's weakening. This is all pretty standard fare for a modern Zelda game.

There are a couple of variations in certain areas however. The Sheikah, who were roaming assassins in the last game I can remember, Ocarina of Time, have been written to have had mad technology skills that they used to protect Hyrule. They died out, and now their tech is just hanging out dormant all over the place. Actually, that's the only variation of which I am aware so moving on. The bulk of Link’s quest in this game is to unlock special towers that fill in more map, and to complete puzzles in shrines that give you currency to put towards hearts and stamina increases. The shrines serve as the grinding mechanism of the game. They're the means by which players permanently buff Link. As a person who hates the grinding aspect of RPGs, I can honestly say that I don't mind this method. The shrines have puzzles that need to be completed, and that holds my attention pretty well. We'll see how I feel after completing the first hundred or so. Also, this is a pretty big departure in implementation on Nintendo’s part. In the past, Zelda games have primarily relied on milestone leveling, or giving the player good stuff when they do something big, like beat a dungeon. Now we're straying into XP grinding territory, but like I said, it's bearable even for the more casual gamer.

There are a few elements that are new to Zelda in this game, but for the more cultured gamer, they’re pretty familiar. First off, there’s a cooking mechanic. Instead of just giving hearts after Link kills an enemy, you get to run around the immense world map collecting materials to cook different meals. I gotta say, it’s pretty fun. You can have a certain number of ingredients,and depending on which ones you’re using, you can make food that will do different things like temporarily buff your stamina, or life, or give you resistance to cold. It’s pretty fun experimenting with the different ingredients to see what they do,and being able to access them when needed really helps in particularly difficult combat situations. The other element that’s new is one that I’m not quite as crazy about, and that’s the weapon and shield degradation. You’re constantly being given weapons to have, although you can only carry a certain amount, but you need to constantly be replenishing that pool because after a few hits, most weapons break, requiring you to equip a new one. I’m fine with the idea of finding progressively stronger weapons, but I’m not a huge fan of those weapons breaking after so much use. There are a few that are bearable to own because if they break, you can take them to key areas to be repaired. Of course, the only weapon in the game that doesn’t break is the Master Sword, but from what I hear, it can be pretty tough to get. I guess the boys at Nintendo wouldn’t want to make life too easy on us.

I mentioned that I wanted to play through a dungeon before reviewing the game, and there was a good reason for that. Dungeons have played key roles in every Zelda game since day one. They’ve served as benchmark encounters where the player pits their skill and items against a, usually brutal, dungeon crawl. They’ve often included puzzles to solve, and special items to retrieve. I’m pleased to say that the spirit of the dungeons remains intact. There are still monsters to be killed, puzzles to be solved, bosses to be beaten, and special items to be had. I was impressed with how well it walked the line between difficult, but not too difficult. Some might see this as a flaw, but going up against a dungeon that you flat out can’t complete is a drag. To make up for the dungeon not being excruciatingly hard, they made the boss battle pretty difficult. It took me more attempts than I’m willing to admit to in order to finally beat the first boss, and I had to leave and stock up on some better stuff in order to do so. It was just the right amount of challenging for me. After beating it, I got not one, but two special items. I got a spell, and a weapon. I was just like, “You been hard all this time. Why take it easy on me now Zelda?” But, they were welcomed additions to my repertoire, and I’m sure they’ll make life a little easier going forward.

Now let’s talk the world on the whole. It’s huge. Here’s a size comparison for your viewing pleasure:

That’s about 116 square miles for my Yankee friends. That HUGE!. It’s by no stretch the largest game map ever developed, bt for a Legend of Zelda game, it’s enormous. And there’s a lot to be done on that map. In true Zelda fashion, there are plenty of side quests to be done, lots of areas to explore, tons of enemies to be killed, and who knows how many secrets to be found. I’ve been at the game for around 15 hours, and I’ve not yet tired of all the things that can be done, and I’ve only opened about one third of the map! Getting around a map that large could end up being an exercise in tedium, but the developers wisely included a fast travel feature. You do have to find shrines and at least enter them in order to unlock that feature for that particular location, but once you do, you just highlight it on your map, and warp away. I feel like this adds a gradual nature to the was that you open up details on the world mad that allows for there to be mystery as you go, but it also alleviates the hours it would take to huff it on foot. Of course, there is always the option to ride a horse, and you can own up to five in this game. However, you have to catch them yourself. Lol.

Let’s talk tech specs now. I mentioned last week that the Switch is a pretty different type of console attempting to marry the home console, and the portable. This decision did hurt BotW somewhat in some circles, but not much overall. What I mean is, there are a lot of gamers looking for each console generation to push the boundaries of what the technology can do by way of graphics, and load times, and what have you. As of now, the most recent step has been into 4k gaming. The Switch can’t do that. In fact, it’s not a huge leap in terms of specs over the Wii-U. That said, because of this nerfing of power, BotW relies on the same sort of cel-shading process that Windwaker used in order to render all of the cool stuff that the developers wanted to include. It still looks amazing, but only in the artsy fartsy sense of the word. If you’re looking for higher definition, and better textures, lighting, etc… then you’re going to be disappointed. But for what it is, it’s very pretty. The controls are fairly intuitive, and they’re quick to respond. My only gripe is that the Nintendo controllers mirror their buttons to the Xbox controllers and so I’m constantly getting the buttons mixed up. My fault, not theirs. Also, you don’t have to climb everywhere. Just saying. Anyway, the menus are clean, and easy to understand. The environments are laid out well, and in a way that makes cross country travel challenging. I also took the liberty of trying the game out on the portable, and it runs surprisingly well. You don’t get much battery life so it’s pretty impractical if you’re at a point where you’re doing a lot of exploration, but it’s nice that it’s possibly to take on the go.  It’s pretty good for a hybrid game.

I’ve been singing praises pretty much this whole time, but let’s not delude ourselves, BotW is by no means perfect. We mentioned the graphics already, although graphics are not the end all be all of a game’s worth. I am kind of disappointed that there are only five dungeons. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great to play through, I only wish that there were a few more to be explored. This stems from wanting a bit more story in the game. Yes it’s there, but it’s very light. I feel like for as many times as I found secret journal entries and whatnot is Assassin’s Creed, that Nintendo could have done more of that to give us a bit more. It’s not lacking much, but enough to be noticeable. Stamina based actions can be atrocious. Swimming, climbing, running, and paragliding all use the stamina bar mechanic, and of the four, you can only really do one well for any period of time, and that’s paragliding. I feel like that really should not have been tied to stamina as you’re already fighting gravity, and it’s probably not going to break the game because of that. Running is the thing you do the next best, and at that, it’s more of a sprint. That one I get. Swimming is another minor disappointment. In previous games, you just swam. There was no reason to worry about how long you could do it, you just did it. I kind of see why the developers would feel the need to limit how long you can swim, I just kind of feel like something was taken away from me. Of course, climbing is the new hot thing. You can climb basically anything. However, the climb rate is maddeningly slow, and because it’s tied to stamina, you can’t do it indefinitely. Most of the time, you can’t do it long enough to actually get where you’re trying to go. Do yourself a favor and use it sparingly.

Okay, gripes over. What’s the final verdict? This is a fun game! It has it’s flaws, but not many in my opinion. It offers challenge, and variety, for now at least, It allows you to explore this iteration of Hyrule in a way that just wasn’t possible with any of the previous games. It’s a game that’s going to keep the completionist bust for a long time. It only innovated a little bit for the Zelda franchise, but I’m willing to overlook that as the open world aspect is plenty enough for this title. I can see further releases adopting this mode, and hopefully improving on the places where BotW did lack. But at this moment, I can genuinely say that this is a good game. It brings back elements from previous installments that I think some of the older Zelda fans will appreciate, but it’s definitely trying to push the boundaries of what to expect from a Zelda game. I’d recommend it for sure, and not to sound like a shill, but if you don’t already have a Wii U, I would recommend getting it for the Switch. It just runs better for that console. Final verdict: solid B+! Give it a try if you’re able. I guarantee that you’ll be hooked! Stay tuned for next week to see what kind of shenanigans I can conjure!

Video Game Review: Nintendo Switch

So today was the big day! Yours truly braved hours of nervous waiting, awkward social situations, and some really sore feet to claim a Nintendo Switch at midnight this morning. In actuality, the company was okay, the waiting was mostly bearable, but the feet were still really sore. Anyway, what became of this excursion, and my promise to give all you wonderful readers your usual critical and mostly unbiased review? So glad you should ask! Let’s take a look shall we?

Sorry… I got a little distracted there… This is the reason we’re all here today!

Let’s run down the contents real fast just because this could be end up being a super short article otherwise. Out of the box, I got the tablet console, which really is the console, a power adapter, an HDMI cable, a dock for playing the thing on my TV, two Joy-Cons, the controllers for the console, straps for said Joy-Cons, and a mount thingy that magically transforms the Joy-Cons into something more closely resembling a traditional controller. Here’s a picture so you can get the idea:

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get into some thoughts. First off, let me echo everyone else who has been here in saying, this thing is small. Way smaller than I had anticipated for sure. Just take a look!

Let’s just all agree that the stature of this thing makes over compensating, mega-truck driving needle weiners look like Ron Jeremy by comparison. It’s cool though. Other than the needle weiners, good things usually come in small packages, and the Switch is no different. It’s just surprising at first. I wanted to do an appropriate comparison so here’s a picture of the box next to the box for the Wii because I save everything:

See what I mean about small packages? Man that’s never going to get old! Anyway, I expected to have to slog through a ton of mind numbing set up in order to get things rolling, but it really wasn’t like that at all.

The thing can be a little bossy though.

From removing all of the components to getting everything set up, it only took about half an hour. Bear in mind that it was after midnight, and I don’t actually read instructions because if it’s good enough for Columbus, then it’s good enough for me, dangit! But seriously, setup is ridiculously easy. I put the dock together first, then tackled the tablet console, which actually had a charge out of the box thankfully. It walked me through setting up date and time, profiles,calibrating Joy-Cons,, and even linking to the eShop. It was a breeze, and in comparison to the hour or so of setup and firmware updates that I had to endure with the XBox One, it was relatively painless. I did need a small update to expand my memory with a microSD card, but it took seconds to download, and was a minor inconvenience at worst.

So there are a lot of pros that I can see right out of the gate with this ‘console’. To me, it seems like Nintendo has taken all of the best aspects of the two previous console iterations, and used those ingredients to craft a fine machine. They learned from mistakes made with those previous consoles, and improved upon the platforms to bring a much more cohesive experience to the player. The idea of having the ability to take my console games on the go is something that I personally have been pining after for a number of years, mostly so I could use my chainsaw bayonette to mangle nasties in Gears of War wherever and whenever I wanted, but whatever the motivation, it’s a desire that’s definitely been present. The graphics, and the way that they’re rendered look really good for what you’re playing them on. Bear in mind that it is a tablet, not a full blown console.

Nintendo has managed to maintain that social aspect of their hardware/software relationship. While it’s not entirely unique to the video gaming world, Nintendo’s implementation of the principles is unique to say the least. My final bit is a little on the speculatory side, but with good merit, I promise. I looks like, due to certain hardware limitations that we’ll get to in a moment, Nintendo is seriously pushing to bring back retro styled games not unlike what we saw in the 8-bit, and the 16-bit era. I browsed the eShop, and two games really stuck out to me. The first is a game called Shovel Knight. It’s an 8-bit styled game that looks a lot like Castlevania only if that game didn’t take itself as seriously. The game play looks incredibly challenging, and fun, and that game looks like it would be right at home in any NES library. The second title was even more exciting than the first! Later this month, a new Blaster Master is releasing called Blaster Master Zero. Now, there have been quite a few games in the franchise over the years, but to me, none of them really managed to capture the charm of the original. The original was a side scrolling shoot ‘em up. It was a top down shooter, and it was a FPS all in one incredibly well made game. Zero looks to be returning to those glorious roots in full force, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier! Nintendo appears to be tapping into the market of aging gamers like myself who enjoy the challenge of those crusty games, and long for ‘the good old days’. It’s a bold move, and one that I hope they stick by because it really gives the Switch a super unique niche in the video gaming market.

Now just because I’m singing its praises doesn’t mean that the Switch is without its flaws. Number one on that list really goes back to the overall direction that Nintendo decided to take the console. Since they tried for a hybrid gameplay experience on the TV, and on the go, they had to work with the hardware constraints that come from developing a portable gaming device. In most aspects, they did a fantastic job. However, there’s only 32GB onboard memory. That’s teeny tiny by the standards of the day! It’s more on par with those needle wieners we were talking about earlier. However, it is almost on par with the amount of memory that you’d expect to find on a modern smartphone, and smartphones are the number one gaming platforms worldwide so I can understand the reasoning behind it. Also, Nintendo had to produce something that was affordable, and flash memory just hasn’t come quite far enough for it to be terribly affordable yet so 32GB probably seemed like a decent compromise between efficiency, and affordability. Nintendo also did have the foresight to make the memory expandable via microSD. This isn’t extremely useful yet as the larger capacity cards are nearly as expensive as the console itself right now, but prices are always dropping on such things, and by the end of the year, we may look back on this conversation and have a good laugh. And it is good to see Nintendo looking at the world with an eye to the future. My only other negative observations have to do with the dock. It feels kind of cheaply made, and flimsy. I know it’s just to give an easy connection to my TV, but it’s a far cry from the good old days of dropping an N64 five stories and then playing GoldenEye immediately after. On that same thread, the tablet feels kind of wobbly while it’s docked. This may have been preventative so as to avoid things getting broken under the heavy handed motor skills of children, but as an adult with none of those, I feel like the USB connector is going to snap each time I dock the tablet.

All in all, I gotta say that this is a phenomenal step forward for Nintendo thus far. Huge improvements have been made already in bringing a fantastic all around experience to the player and I can only hope that Nintendo maintains their forward momentum with this. Of course, with the Switch release, there was also a new Legend of Zelda released as well. I need a few days to really bite into it, but stick around for next week as we take a look at the all new Breath of the Wild, and maybe look at some of the older entries in the franchise!

Time Capsule Series: 1984: The Terminator

It’s been a brief, but interesting look at this anomalous, but wondrous year that gave us so many beloved classics, and I think that someday, we may return to this timescape for even more cinematic adventures. However, we’re going to wrap things up for the time being as next week, something very exciting is happening. Next week, the new Nintendo Switch gets released! In celebration of both that and the first Legend of Zelda game that I’ve been able to buy since 1998, we’re going to take a look at this new electronic marvel and see what it really has to offer, and what it lacks, if anything.

That said, we’re going to end our little exercise on a high note today. We’ve already looked a couple of fine films, and there are so many more that we could look at, but today, we’re going to look at the crown jewel of 1984, James Cameron’s sci-fi classic The Terminator. This is a complex, and rich narrative so let’s jump in and take a look around!

By now, hopefully, everyone knows the tale of The Terminator. In the future, 1997 to be exact, a self-aware artificial intelligence called Skynet, decimates the human race. Their victory is all but assured, but then, a resistance leader named John Connor topples their initiative and beats them at their own game. To stop this from happening, Skynet sends a Terminator agent back to the year 1984 to kill John Connor’s mom from ever even conceiving John. As a result, the future humans have to send back an agent of their own to protect Sarah. This agent is Kyle Reese, John Connor’s friend and confidante.

The Terminator arrives, and immediately everyone starts dying, and everything starts exploding. Most perplexing, is there begins to be a series of focused murders in the greater LA area, specifically, everyone named Sarah Connor starts dying. Actual Sarah figures out that whoever is perpetrating the murders is simply gong in the order that the phone book is laid out in. The police get involved,  but per movie rules, they’re pretty much useless. Luckily for Sarah, there’s Kyle. Kyle Reese is a highly experienced, well trained operative with lots of surviving Terminator attacks skills. He teaches Sarah how to fire a gun, how to build pipe bombs, and of course, how to flee if things get too hot. Say what you will, but knowing when to exercise a tactical withdrawal is at least as important as all of the other stuff.

So Sarah goes to the club, and while she’s gone, the Terminator finds her apartment and kills her roommate. It also kills the roommate’s boyfriend, but he’s a jerk so we don’t really care. COming up empty, perhaps Sarah has dodged a bullet, but the Terminator figures out where Sarah is via the answering machine. So he goes to the club, and lots of people die horribly. Sarah nearly gets killed herself, but just at the last second, Kyle swoops in and saves the day! YAY! They abscond away to hide for a while so that they can regroup.

They end up at a skeezy motel where Sarah learns how to make those aforementioned pipe bombs, and by that, I mean that she and Kyle totally do it. It’s a touching scene really as two people who’ve known each other for less than 48 hours make the gigantic decision to bump naughty bits because they’re bodies are being flooded with adrenaline and endorphins from their near death experiences. Okay, so it actually might seem out of place, but there’s actually a good reason behind this one. See, Kyle is John’s dad. Um-hm. Couldn’t make that one up in a million years. Kyle Reese travels back in time, does his best friend’s mom, and becomes his best friend’s dad. I’m gonna give you a minute to let that one sink in… Just kidding, this movie is over 30 years old! If you haven’t gotten over the shock of that little revelation, then you need to do some meditation or something!

Anyway, the Terminator is pretty ruthless in its pursuit of Sarah and Kyle, but it takes it a minute to find them after their escape. But once he does, it’s all over. There’s a chase scene, and motorcycles, and the Terminator gets run over by a semi-truck. It’s all very exciting. Anyway, The Terminator commandeers the truck and chases Sarah and Kyle, and I gotta tell you, that’s one nimble truck, but anyway, Kyle blows it up, and we think the day is saved! However, the Terminator isn’t going down that easy, and the endoskeletal portion of the machine, which looks terrifying starts chasing them from the flames of the wreckage!

They all end up in some kind of factory where there are automated robotic arms, and awesome 80s computers, and a hydraulic press of some sort. The Terminator is chasing them, and it gets them cornered, but Kyle shoves his last pipe bomb in the Terminator’s chest, and blows it up! Surely, that’s the end, yes? No! The torso of the Terminator starts clawing its way around trying to choke the life out of Sarah, who can’t run because she took some shrapnel to the leg during the Terminator explosion. So they’re each clawing around, and it’s actually kind of intense, and Sarah finds herself crawling through that hydraulic press with the Terminator in hot pursuit. So she clears the press, lowers some gate thing, and just before the Terminator is able to actually get hold of her neck, she activates the press, and squashes the crap out of the Terminator! Terminated frakker!. She actually says that! Okay, not that exactly, but something very close to that.

In the end, Sarah is driving a sweet Jeep through the desert, and she stops for gas, and stuff. She looks visibly pregnant. A little kid screws her out of four bucks for a polaroid picture, and it’s the same picture that Kyle had at the beginning! Dun, dun, DUNNNN!!!!  She talks about the coming storm, and the perils that lay ahead, and then drives off into a liter thunderstorm. It’s a very bleak ending, leaving the possibility of a sequel wide open. Indeed, we’ve gotten a lot of sequels and such from this one film. We’ll not go into them all here, but there maybe future articles springing forth from this franchise yet.

So a watching of this movie for the purposes of this article leave me just the slightest bit baffled. (Not really, but we’ll get to that in a minute.) This movie is considered a staple within the pantheon of classic film. It sets a benchmark for cerebral sci-fi action films that few ever reach, and yet, it hasn’t actually aged all that well. Hear me out before you start writing those death threats in the comments! As with any movie, it’s a product of its time so I can forgive the styles of clothing and hair that were used. That’s just what was in at the time. But in context of 2017, the special effects have dated themselves ever so slightly. Sure, they were cutting edge back in 1984, but the stop motion is kind of jerky, and even the creature effects were sometimes a little off. I know, I know, they were ambitious for their time. Okay, so we can agree that for it’s time it was cutting edge? I’ll accept that, but I don’t think any of those things are the reason that the film has endured for so long.

I think the primary reason that The Terminator has become a staple within the film classics category is because it taps into a fear that is, I think, universal to every human being, the future. No one knows for sure what’s going to happen in the future, and some fates are actually worse than death so that unknown realm can be really scary if we allow ourselves to dwell upon such things. It was definitely a product of its time in many regards, but I think the base examination going on in this movie is still relevant today. Look at the march of ‘human progress’. As we grow, we mostly do so technologically. Every year, we find new ways to turn our free will over to machines. I can literally run most of my life via my phone, and when you stop to think about all of the ways that that arrangement could go awry, it’s a pretty scary prospect. That idea of technology rebelling is not new, but I think that it becomes more and more pertinent as the days go by, and as technology creeps further and further into our daily lives. Now, I’m not saying it’s a bad arrangement, but I can definitely see how it could be unsettling to some.

The Terminator taps into both of these facets of our existence, and feeds on all of the terrifying what-ifs that exist there. That’s what makes this a great film, in my opinion. Beyond that, there is so much to love. The atmosphere in this movie is dark, and it’s legitimately scary. The look of Schwarzenegger as the Terminator is unsettling. Once the ‘friendly’ exterior is removed, it’s even more so! The scope, and the pacing of this film are a perfect storm of unease as the viewer tries to remain calm. It makes it really easy to get swept up in this movie. The acting is mostly good. There are a couple of lines here and there that make you roll your eyes just a little, but for an 80s film, it manages to keep the cheese to minimum. The ‘romantic subplot’ was definitely rushed, but had to be there so what are you supposed to do? There really wasn’t anyway that that sort of thing was going to happen organically anyway.

The score for this film really adds to the ambience. It’s dark, it’s brooding, and at times, it can be completely unnerving. My only complaint there is that Brad Fiedel made the unfortunate decision, again in my opinion, to do the entire score with synthesizers! As a professional audio engineer, I can confidently say that there are really only a couple of places in movie scores where synthesizers are okay to use. One is as a place filler before the actual orchestrations have been recorded and mixed, and two is playing second fiddle to back up said orchestrations! DANGIT! Good compositions should never be rendered in synthesizers! Do you hear me Hollywood?! NEVER! Okay, that aside, here’s the rationale behind it. Even as you watch this movie, you know there’s synth. It’s not something that can be easily overlooked, and it pulls me right out of the experience every time it takes the spotlight in a scene. I understand why that decision was made, but holy crud, was it a bad idea. Don’t get me wrong,the arrangement of notes that probably ended up on the paper are brilliant, it’s just the execution via synth really drags down that brilliance. As an example, here's the theme the way it was originally presented. And here's an orchestral arrangement. Can we all just agree that I’m right on this point, please? Nah, it’s cool if we can’t just realize that you’re all kinds of wrong.

Enough of that. The creature effects in this film actually weren’t bad. I can tell that for 1984, they worked their butts off to make everything as believable as they could. That’s no easy feat to accomplish using only practical effects. Oh, and the gore is awesome! It just makes this film. I don’t think the movie would have been received nearly as well if they had shot for a PG-13 rating. The gore in the film, while not excessive, is effective.

And finally, let me just mention briefly some of the franchise, as we will be looking at pieces, if not all of it over what I hope are years of faithful reading. Terminator 2 was a brilliant! We’ll look at that one more closely later for sure. I felt like The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the short lived TV series, was cancelled before it really had a chance to to what it was meant to do, and it was an awesome show. We’ll look at that one later too. As for the other ones, they all bring a little something to the universe, but they don’t ever really congeal in a good way. We may look at them anyway at points when I happen to be bored, and lacking any better material, but the fact that all of these sequels and spinoffs exist is just a testament to the impact that this original film had on people.

In all, an experience that I would recommend in case you haven’t actually seen it. To which I would ask, what are you still doing reading this article?! Go watch the movie! As I said earlier, we’re looking at the switch next week, and if it arrives early enough, I might give my first impressions of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Until then!