THAT would have been awesome--the movie ending of the year, no doubt.

DrVenkman,

I completely agree with you that Terminator Salvation does indeed suck. It was for me perhaps the biggest cinematic disappointment since the Star Wars prequels. This movie confirms that the Terminator franchise is dead. Unfortunately, it took the recycled T3, a consistently awful TV series, and now this absolute summer flop to convince me of that. I might otherwise have been spared the disappointment.

Want to see some awesome Terminator action, catching good glimpses of the primitive-yet-brutal T-600 series? Well screw you, Terminator fan! Instead, you're in for about half a scene of that. The rest of the Terminator action is going to be the metal endoskeletons that we've seen for years walking and crawling around. Oh yeah, I also hope you like the stupid water terminator Matrix rip-offs, because there's plenty of that.

Want to see some credible, yet terrifying future war scenes, with humans struggling to keep their heads above ground, avoiding Skynet's killing machines, the likes of which we've gotten excited over in the earlier three installments? Well screw you again, Terminator fan! You'll get that in the first five minutes or so, but the rest is going to be shot in wide open, well-lit hangars that look like something out of the Iraq war.

Want to be frightened by Skynet, the super-intelligent computer system that launches a reign of terror on the human race? Want to leave wondering how the meager resistance can possibly ever overcome this digital menace? Well screw you, Terminator fan! Better get used to this Skynet, whose defense systems are apparently so poor that John Connor can just prance around Skynet central, and where the resistance, who could hardly touch ground at a communication facility in the first scene, can apparently land a crapload of helicopters and hang out for about ten minutes, while the human prisoners just simply run out. And for everyone who realizes how stupid the old plot device is where the bad guy thinks he's won and so spills all the details of his diabolical plot to the protagonist—well you're just going to have to shut up and get used to a Skynet who apparently thinks that this is one hell of a strategic move.

Time would fail to also point out the countless stupid scenes—John Connor jumping into the middle of the ocean, Marcus Wright's little "secret" being a surprise, the gaping plot holes, the poor character development, the poor editing from scene to scene, the CGI Arnold, the stupid beginning, the stupid ending, etc., etc., etc. When the most the people who sat around me can say is, "Well, I suppose it wasn't awful," the answer suddenly becomes apparent: This is a Terminator movie, it should have been AWESOME. My recommendation to anyone who hasn't seen is yet is to watch the four minute trailer and the eleven or so short clips available online, because it really doesn't get any better than that.