To start off, I liked this movie. It was different and better than what I expected. The ending was surprising and lends itself well to another sequel. (But I wonder if Arnold will still be able to play the Terminator?) Speaking of Arnold, he looked as if he didn't age a bit. From the HBO short, they said he worked out like crazy for it.
The way the character time-lines are interwoven is a nicety, plus a certain Juliet is in there too! I think she's matured a lot since her TV days. As the title suggests, this film gives a good glimpse to how Skynet formed and became self-aware.
There's an interesting line about how the internet becomes the machine — software without a localized hardware base that can be shutdown. While this is true to a certain extent, the internet that we have is still quite susceptible to massive outage by shutting down certain strategic nodes across the world. The interesting thing here is that by setting off a chain of nuclear explosions in major world cities would probably take out most of the internet due to the electromagnetic energy generated in the explosions. (Remember the EMP device in Ocean's Eleven and what the bomb tech character said about nuclear bombs?) That however, would not lend itself well to the successful “rise of the machines”.
Note: Ocean's Eleven was not very accurate in that the EMP would have destroyed the electronic devices instead of just knocking the power out.
Seen On: July 4th
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