Before I type anything (besides the words I just typed {and those too}) I must preface this post by coming clean about one thing: I am under the influence.  Of a cold.  A nasty sore throat I woke up with yesterday that sprouted fangs and a nasty thrashing tail overnight to become this terrible mind-clouding fog that makes me forget where I put my purse and gives me reason to believe I may have driven home with the emergency brake on the whole way.

That being said, this post runs the risk of not making any sense.  This is a shame since my cold has convinced me that I am particularly profound today and that this post could change lives.  Or save lives.  Or has nine lives.  It’s definitely one of those three.

The subject of this post is that which I wrote of in my last post: the new Terminator movie.  Wes and I decided to see it yesterday and I exited the movie theatre with mixed feelings.  Something was bothering me but I couldn’t quite put my birthday cake-encrusted finger on it.

I blame my cold for obscuring my thoughts on the matter.  In an effort to discern what was fashing me so much about the movie, I turned to my favorite source for all things movie review: Pajiba.  If you’ve never visited this site, I highly recommend you do so the next time you’re waffling about whether you want to see a movie.  Yes, the reviews are scathing, but they’re also incisive and helpful without being hoity-toity-I’m-better-than-you-because-I-went-to-film-school-for-one-semester-until-I-dropped-out-to-work-at-Blockbuster-and-scowl-at-people.

The Terminator review really said anything I could have said, only better because that guy sounds really smart and stuff.  I’ll attempt to ad to what he said, but I do so in good conscience only by telling you that his review is much, much better.

Essentially, I left the theatre feeling a bit let down.  On its own, taken as a simple action flick, it does its job.  The action scenes are bone-rattling and completely enthralling, there are subtle dashes of call-back humor to brighten the mood, and the story moves along at just the right pace.

***There could potentially be spoilers henceforth, but not really.  They’re not really spoilers but they toe the line.  You have been notified.***

As a story, though?  No dice.  I don’t really think the movie accomplished much.  It’s basically the same as the others, wherein the heroes of the story continue the war against the machines and the movie ends with them winning a battle against the machines but reminding us that they haven’t won the war.

The problem is, at the fourth movie into the story, it would be kind of neat if there were some glimmer of hope.  But there’s not.  There’s just one battle won and the bleak likelihood that they will continue to make as many Terminator movies as they can until people like me stop paying to see them.

I guess my fear is that there’s no end in sight for this story.  I want these movies to be leading up to something, but I fear we’ll wind up with some crazed half-baked mish-mash of crap like with what happened in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

We’ll see.  Word on the street is that they’re already making the next one.  I can only hope that Terminator: Salvation offers no resolution because the screenwriters are building up to a nice fat climax in the next one.  I’m tired of winning battles.  After twenty-odd years I’d really like to know the end of the war is in sight, y’know?