Terminator Salvation: The Essential Edition
 a TRUE FANEDIT by Q2 This is a simplified take on McG’s Terminator Salvation. Irrelevant, useless and unbelievable subplots have been removed in order to create movie that now focuses on the war effort itself. member ratings: |
Loading ...
|
Â
INTENTION:
When Terminator Salvation was announced I was nervous. The main reason for this nervousness was McG. I didn’t think he was a competent enough of a director to pull it off. Then the third preview was released. Even though gave away a major plot point it still looked like it might be a good film, and my hope was boosted.
After I saw Terminator Salvation I was disappointed. They added so much crap to try and fool the audience into believing it was a smart film it completely bogged it down. The entire opening with Marcus in prison completely ruined his reveal later in the film. Skynet capturing and bringing Reese to their main base to bring Connor to them was stupid. (Why didn’t Skynet just kill Reese?). The setup of Marcus having a heart so he could give it to Connor at the end was dumb. (I don’t buy for a minute they could do open heart surgery in the middle of the desert decades after a nuclear war.)
I figured removing many of these elements might improve the film. Thus, Terminator Salvation: The Essential Edition was made. Now the film is more about the actual war.
CUTLIST:
- cut opening scene in the prison
- cut the POV of the missile before the strike
- cut an early encounter between John Connor and a terminator popping out of the water
- replaced Sarah Connor’s cassette audio with her recording from the first Terminator film
- cut scene with Marcus and Blair in the rain
- cut the machines identifying Kyle Reese
- cut much of Marcus having a heart
- cut final scene in desert
- change end credit music
- cut a lot of bits of dialog and shots throughout
Disclaimer: You must own the original movie before acquiring any FanEdited movie. We here at FanEdit.org respect the company’s copyrights, and don’t want to infringe on any company’s rights. Thank you, FE!
Maybe downloadable from Fanedit.info (enter and download at your own risk and responsibility)
| FANEDITFORUM LINK | IMAGES / COVER ART | TECH INFO | VIDEOS / TRAILER |
http://fanedit.org/feed/http://fanedit.org/comments/feed/
Yes! No heart transplant! Need I say more? Pretty straightforward edits made, but in my opinion that is pretty much all this movie needed, so strong work! It will serve nicely as my master edition.
Review by geminigod — June 25, 2010 @ 3:43 am
A good polished version, overall not too different from the original, but those changes were needed and nicely done IMO.
This can easily please people who don’t need too radical changes.
And HD quality fanedits by Q2 are a treat!
Review by TMBTM — July 31, 2010 @ 11:12 am
Just got done viewing this, and I must say, it is indeed a treat. I got ahold of the AVCHD version, and it’s quite something to have near BD quality on a DVD DL.
There’s really nothing here to criticize, all of the cuts were good. Leaving Marcus’s intro out of the start of the film made the big reveal later on even more epic. Leaving out the lame ass heart transplant at the end was another good cut, and makes Connor look like an even tougher SOB. My only qualms about this version are the qualms that I have with Christian Bale.. No one can fix those except Christian Bale.
I’ll give this Edit an 8.5/10
Good stuff Q2
Review by dark4181 — August 13, 2010 @ 9:42 pm
A very fine treatment of a movie that was WAY over the top. This edit toned down the more shallowly dramatic elements to make for an easier viewing experience.
One technical problem that I found was that pressing chapter advance brought me back to the main menu. This was true both after I burned the disk (using Ashampoo) and when I just tried playing it (using KMPlayer). Has anyone else has this issue?
In any event, a job cleanly and stylishly well-done!
Review by rishrush — August 14, 2010 @ 1:26 pm
@rishrush. It seems everyone has this problem, as the DVD version lacks chapter stops.
This edit was, technically speaking, perfect. No hard audio cuts, no flash frames, audio levels were even throughout, video was absolutely beautiful for a DVD5, hell, even for a DVD period.
As for the edit, great as well. One comment, though. First was the cutting of the scenes before John goes out to scope out Skynet. While it worked, we’re left with the small issue that the Resistance cells suddenly just refuse to attack. Why was this? Cutting the scene was fine as far as pacing, but left a gap in the story. Where is Connor going? Do his men know he’s putting himself on the line? Why isn’t the Resistance attacking?
At any rate, a minor quibble. Well done. So very well done. Video was great, audio was great. Edits were seamless. This is definitely worthy of its fanedit of the month title.
9/10
Review by Aztek463 — August 25, 2010 @ 4:21 am
I find Terminator Salvation to be an odd movie – not nearly as bad as many of the reviews I’ve read, but not as good as it could have been. I find it to be a entertaining movie for the most part, providing a neat view of the post-Judgment Day world we’ve only seen hinted at.
Q2’s edit is not a terribly radical cut, but I find it works very well in removing some the stuff that didn’t work, mainly the Marcus introduction and the heart transplant. I also like spots where the machines now fail to recognize Kyle, especially in the Skynet Processing line.
I did have a few minor quibbles with the edits.
-When Marcus/Kyle/Star are fleeing the flying machine in their jeep, there’s a shot of Kyle clearly speaking but his dialogue is cut
-As others have noted, I found the transition to the attempted rape of Blair came to fast.
-Although the machines no longer recognize Kyle out in the field, when Marcus accesses the Skynet computer to find Kyle, his name is there clear as day.
As I said, these are minor quibbles only. It’s still a much better version to watch.
Tech is fantastic, per usual with a Q2 release. Video is very good on the DVD-5 and the AVCHD looks fantastic. Audio is consistently well done as well. The only issue I have with the tech is the lack of chapter stops – it would be nice to get some on future Q2 edits.
I will be watching this one again in the future.
Review by TV's Frink — August 28, 2010 @ 10:44 pm
Oops, forgot a score – 8/10.
Review by TV's Frink — August 28, 2010 @ 10:44 pm
This edit does accomplish the need to remove the most unnecessary and distracting plot points (opening flashback sequence and heart transplant), but I can’t help but think it still needs more work. I have a hard time with the scene where skynet poses as the doctor’s image before Marcus to explain the whole purpose of his existence. To me skynet should be faceless unemotional computer making computational decisions to remove humans not reasoning with one its’ creations just because he has a human element to him. I think we understand that Marcus was created by skynet as mole once he’s captured. This edit is very close to being perfect and I very much enjoyed the recut beginning as well as many of the other minor cuts throughout. Althought this cut is technically very well done it could still use some creative work to enhance the plot for entertainment value I’m afraid. 8/10 rating
Review by juk — October 13, 2010 @ 3:21 am
Sorry, no. While the beginning of the movie now is excellent, most of the other changes don’t work so well for me. The edit does not go far enough to get around the problems in it, and those parts that are removed or changed cause some pacing or plot problems themselves.
The cancelled attack on Skynet – not good, where did that come from?
When Kyle doesn’t talk during the car chase it feels off with the music, should be more intense (and we see him talk).
Abrupt rape scene, no build up between Marcus and Blair.
And lots of stuff is left unchanged. I get that this is an essential edition (fix only just what is needed). I don’t get why some things get to stay and other things were taken out. It feels like the editing has no focus…
Technical side is good. Having watched 3 Salvation edits now I prefer T-Hopes version, but I’m still not happy. Can anyone save this movie for me? Guess I should try myself…
I think this fails to make the movie any better than the original, sorry. Can’t get more than 5/10.
Review by spelledaren — November 3, 2010 @ 4:16 pm
Having really enjoyed Terminator Salvation I didn’t really have many problems – the only thing I mind is the heart transplantation which I now have seen two versions
T-Hope’s letting the T-800 freeze and cut to the helicopter
and Q2’s stabbing connor but letting him survive anyway
I must say I can’t decide which works better but I lean towards the second since the terminator slowly breaking free is a great suspense scene
All the edits are solid and especially the dream sequence with Serena is handled very well with echoes and ghosted-images.
Technically this edit is pretty flawless, video and audio are great, no hard cuts or jumps
Storywise there is still one problem: Kyle Reese is number 1 on skynet’s list, they don’t identify him, i assume he just gets taken by chance by one of those grappling arms, but when marcus goes into the data of Skynet they have clearly identified him as Kyle Reese – maybe cutting the line about Kyle Reese being on the list might have done the trick
On the other hand I always saw the Terminator universe as a “multiple worlds” universe, so every timetravel creates a new timeline. So to me T4 made sense in the way that John Connor believes there is only one timeline and he needs Kyle Reese whereas Syknet knows that killing Kyle Reese won’t erase John Connor in this timeline, so they bait him thinking he needs to save his future to ultimately kill him
Two things I missed:
1) The speech Connor gives about being human, I liked the angle. I liked that Connor in this movie starts off like a Terminator, having almost lost his humanity until he realizes that sometimes being human is doing things that cannot be rationally explained – i think it’s a great message and one of the bright spots of T4 which while not terrifically great like T1 and T2 was still a fun movie for me – that being said it still works so the faneditor did a good job regardless of my complaints
2) Marcus’s mission: again I think it was a nice twist that the perfect infiltration unit doesn’t even know for itself that it is an infiltration unit. The hints that Marcus was there to get John Connor are gone, but the story-thematic doesn’t change. From all that’s said and done it is still implied that Marcus was constructed to lure John Connor into a trap.
And even if the intention is to remove this completely then marcus turns out to be just an experiment that happened to stumble into the story so I think I go with the original explanation
So while this is a great polish that will probably be ok for many people who disliked T4 it still won’t replace my original dvd (although it came close) – maybe merging the fantastic opening of T-Hope’s Terminator Salvation with this and reinserting the speech of connor will be the thing I was looking for
Anyway a very good edit that I don’t regret watching
8/10
Review by Sunarep — June 15, 2011 @ 4:26 pm
Just finished watching this edit & I have to say it’s a big improvement over the original. I applaud Q2 & as of now it is my master version of Terminator Salvation.
There were two stand out problems with the edit in my mind.
#1. There was a problem with the video in the Marcus flashback prison sequence where I had a green line appear & disappear on the right side of the screen. Could be a burn problem IDK.
#2. I really liked the way Q2 tweaked the story but as TV’s Frink mentioned above the scene where Marcus finds the cell where Kyle is held is the big stand out problem since skynet hasn’t identified him yet so he shouldn’t be in the database. If there was a way to cut the whole let me know what cell kyle is in part it would be better but I realize the problem of John just stumbling across kyle by chance. Not sure how this could be resolved.
So because of this story problem I have to give this edit a score of 8 & it is a part of my Terminator film collection.
Review by MAUL — September 18, 2011 @ 10:05 pm