Chiasmus cult cinema trailers - "Terminator 3. Rise of the Machines" (2003). *These will be ongoing posts, courtesy of the A.Glass DVD collection. As I offer via Chiasmus Cult trailers, my summarized overviews*

The ultimate question for movie sequels is; Can they work? And this question for the movie industry is specific to "Terminator 3.  Rise of the Machines" (2003), when James Cameron, the writer and director of the original Terminator movies attempted to close off the franchise, after "The Terminator" (1984) and "Terminator 2.  Judgement Day" (1991), even though both movies made Cameron and his wife/producer at the time Anna Hurd, and a plethora of production companies, including the main backers Tristar Pictures and Carolco Pictures, over $598 million at the box office.  But, despite Cameron's sentiment and Hurd's, to no longer have sequels as a focus for the Terminator storyline, although open to the idea, the bankruptcy of Carolco Pictures halted any continuation at that point in time, of the Terminator timeline.  Carolco, with its 1970s doomsday esque science fiction and World War Two movies, and a very impressive 1980s and 1990s action blockbuster backlog, including Terminator 2, ceased to exist as a film production company in 1995, when Canal Plus outbidded 20th Century Fox for the Carolco film backlog for $58 million.   Back and forth, between Cameron, Hurd and the main star, of course Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was asking for $30 million to return as the Terminator once more (as a 3rd installment was always on the cards), with Cameron reluctantly returning as a director for Terminator 3, the Rights to own "Terminator 3", in a convoluted legal outcome, ended up being bided and successfully acquired by former Carolco main players, Andrew Vajna and Mario Kassar.  Which in turn knocked out Cameron and Hurd, as the original director/screenwriter and producer.

Thus, 12 years later in 2002, production began in California, after Arnold Schwarzenegger did not want the movie to be filmed in Vancouver, Canada, and took a pay cut to ensure that it remained true to its backstory roots of Los Angeles,  with a relatively lightweight director Jonathan Mostow, with only a handful of movies under his belt, directing and foot-through-the-door screenwriter Tedi Sarafian, who initially wanted the 'female' Terminator, portrayed with a certain degree of humor by B-grade actress Kristanna Loken, to be like a cloaked style "Predator", which could turn invisible, with the idea dropped, and the female Predator playing the role of  pychosexual robotic serial killer.  Watch for the scene where she licks a discarded bloody bandage, which the main character, "John Connor", played by Nick Stahl, drops when the 'female' Terminator narrows down on "Kate Brewster", after going on a killing spree of teenages (future lieutenants in the human resistance against the machines), as the story goes, and this is spoiler of a now a 23 year old movie,will be Connor's wife and 2nd in charge of the human resistance against the machines.

"Terminator 3.  Rise of the Machines", does not attend to top James Cameron's very successful "Terminator 2. Judgement Day", in fact Sarafian's script and  Mostow's direction in a polished way, achieves a kind of B-grade stylization to Terminator 3, even though costs exceeded over $180 million in pre and post production, when it was released in 2003, the movie made over $450 billion worldwide.  Making it one the biggest movies of 2003.  And, it fits, somewhat, into the Terminator timeline, but stands alone more as a cult classic, beyond its lack of continuity.   The action is non stop, over the top, with one of the best car chase sequences ever filmed, as the Loken's Terminator controls several police cars, ambulance and firetruck to chase John Connor and a forcefully kidnapped Kate Brewster, for her own good of course, through the streets of L.A.  With Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator, reprogrammed from a future Kate Brewster (spoiler: a future John Connor was dead), to save them both, following behind on an 'borrowed' police motorcycle.  Also note the end 'comical' fight between Schwarzenegger's Terminator, and the more advanced and ruthless Loken's Terminator, set in a toilet area of "Skynet for Cyber Research Systems", where "General Brewster" (Kate Brewster's father) works and is killed by the female Terminator.  With judgment day already in full swing, as a global virus, the backstory of the movie, is wreaking havoc, as a prelude to, yes, you guessed it, the inevitable destruction of the majority of the human race by then machines, with our own nukes.

One of my favourite scenes in the movie is the very ending, when a wounded John Connor and Kate Brewster make it, minus the Schwarzenegger Terminator and Loken's 'female' Terminator, in a self sacrificing way, he (Schwarzenegger Terminator) blows himself up and the female Terminator, to an old disused fallout bunker under a fictional "Crystal Peak" mountain in the Sierra Nevada desert, with all its 1980s decor charm, and analogue computer systems.  Look for the wall mosaic of a 'Reagan' era Star Wars system shooting a laser at an incoming missile.  A touch of irony (and warning?), that nuke systems of today are still all analogue based, not digital, and not AI!  Are we still safe?

To answer the original question, does this sequel work?  Yes, it does.

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(A.Glass 2025)

All CHIAMUS Cult Cinema trailers/commentary to date: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/search/label/Chiasmus%20cult%20cinema