While I was waiting to see if a second Speaker vote would happen in the House today, I happened across a new(er) Terminator movie on TV just starting. What the hell, I need some mindless entertainment.
SFX special effects have evolved to the point where reality and digital simulacrums cannot be distinguished. This is a good thing in sci-fi movies and reconstructions of historical events, a bad thing in political ads, and a terrible thing in the hands of some directors.
This movie has scads of SFX involving liquifying robots and fiery crashes and explosions and people performing impossible feats. In the movies, nobody stops to pee. I very quickly realized unkillable killer robots from the future aren't very scary, because no matter what you do to them they just keep coming back. Where's the drama in that?
Linda Hamilton was back as Sarah Connor, and Ahnold was back as the prototype Terminator. The "augmented" human who helps everybody in the fight against the inevitable was an actress, Mackenzie Davis, I recognized from several recent movies, including Blade Runner 2049 and The Martian and Black Mirror San Junipero. Of course she jumps back from the dead a couple dozen times so I lost interest in her pretty quickly.
The whole movie was such a hopeless mess of nonstop CGI devastation and impossible stunts that I was happy to abort to watch the news during dinner.
Isn't it funny how new technology starts out promising, gets amazing, and then gets SO OVERDONE that it ends up self-defeating?
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