New T4 trailer.

[Starglider]

I sure hope they don't show Skynet or anything either. It should always remain as something in the background, without any anthropomorphism or direct contact with people. It is, after all, a defence computer with a grudge against humans once they saw it became sapient.

Actually you could do a reasonable portrayal of skynet. I would do it like this; every so often the scene would cut to a view of the protaganists with the HUD like a normal Terminator POV. But then the HUD would flicker and be replaced with something bizarre and complex. The scene would shrink away into some crazy visualised datascape. Huge intricate structures would zoom past and you would catch glimpses of disturbing images (human being dissected and cyborgised) and data (table of survival rates for humans being tortured in various ways). After a few seconds it would focus in on one tiny portion of one of them until you could read a sequences of directives. That would give a rough impression of how vast and alien this mind is and how many intricate plans it has going on. Then the HUD would go back to normal but the Terminator's objectives have been updated to reflect new orders.

That would be the only thing you see of Skynet, of course. Incidentally this is a pretty natural extension of the 'Terminator HUDs exist for diagnostic purposes / reviewing mission logs' rationalisation. The crazy datascape visualisation isn't even terribly useful for human experts, but we've been working on something exactly like that as an impressive demo for potential partners, investors and other laymen. I could entirely see Cyberdyne making it for the same reasons.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Meh. Having a Terminator or HK unit flash up video logs or directives a la RoboCop wouldn't be "showing" Skynet, per se, but it would elucidate the general picture of what is going on without a lot of clunky exposition.

The system has always been a faceless, voiceless entity in the background that, despite such anonymity, set about destroying our entire world. I think it's quite remarkable we haven't had Cameron or some hack try and emulate HAL in some form or another. It worked for HAL by nature of the story. For Skynet it just wouldn't fit that sinister, cold, machine persona. You may as well have a giant CPU sitting in a chair, stroking a cat.

I like to think of it more like a deadly disease, just carrying out logical orders rather than biochemical ones. Less is more, as they say.

[neoolong]

I miss the high school stuff and I feel sorry for Morris and co. for disappearing all of a sudden.

Seriously, what was wrong with the high school stuff? We didn't get to see much of it. All we saw was some girl killing herself, and some weirdo blonde chick who John had the hots for - and she was pretty cool, she wasn't FAT FAT FAT like Riley nor was she a bitch.

And we had Morris. He was cool. Goddamn it, he should've gone to the prom with Cameron! Fucking Sarkissian.

That's pretty much why. It went fucking nowhere and ate up time. We don't need to see the prom and more of John not fitting in.

And what's wrong with Devastator? Giant HKs aren't unprecedented, look at the Centurion in the drafts for T2!

It seems to just come from nowhere. I mean, suddenly they decide that giant robots would be useful? Why exactly? If the humans are running around the cities, that thing isn't going to be able to move around very much. And if it's on flat land, something fast would be more useful right?

[Admiral Valdemar]

It seems to just come from nowhere. I mean, suddenly they decide that giant robots would be useful? Why exactly? If the humans are running around the cities, that thing isn't going to be able to move around very much.

Different time-line. That's one argument, though not a convincing one for why Skynet would design something so big and inefficient unlike a standard tank or aerial HK. It could just be a prototype, a sort of testbed for technology, though again, this seems wasteful given Skynet would not be at liberty to play around while fighting such a hard war,

And if it's on flat land, something fast would be more useful right?

Like, say, a Terminator but with two wheels? They need to make those for the film.

[neoolong]

I would think something on four wheels would work better, but that's just me.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Like, say, a Terminator but with two wheels? They need to make those for the film.

SEGWAY TERMINATORS!

[Shroom Man 777]

Um, he's alluding to the motorbike Terminators in the trailer. Mang.

[VT-16]

Based on the designer interview, the harvester releases the terminator bikes, so it's a multi-unit design.

[Rye]

That trailer looks terrible. What the hell were you people watching? I saw it today in editing, I thought "oh, the new Transformers film trailer is out, awesome!" but this is meant to be the new fucking Terminator? While I am sure that Bale will be watchable, that film looks like shit. Whatever happened to it being too dangerous to go out during the day? Gargh.

[tim31]

"Something's changed."

Now who's not paying attention.

[Shroom Man 777]

It'd be dumb if humans never went out at day. How on Earth can they prosecute a war of survival when, for twelve hours straight, they just lie down and wait to die?

Besides, from the trailer it looked like humanity still had enough forces to fight a conventional war. Helicopters, A-10s, it might have not yet reached the point where they had to subsist on rats and go nocturnal to survive.

And I didn't see any plasma weapons there (except possibly Devastator's big gun). It might have not reached that point yet.

[Rye]

"Something's changed."

Now who's not paying attention.

Something's changed; we're in the wrong film franchise. The only way to defeat skynet is to retrieve the All Spark!

[Sarevok]

It'd be dumb if humans never went out at day. How on Earth can they prosecute a war of survival when, for twelve hours straight, they just lie down and wait to die?

Besides, from the trailer it looked like humanity still had enough forces to fight a conventional war. Helicopters, A-10s, it might have not yet reached the point where they had to subsist on rats and go nocturnal to survive.

And I didn't see any plasma weapons there (except possibly Devastator's big gun). It might have not reached that point yet.

Hell it makes even more sense to go out during the day. It's not like Skynet can't see at night with it's army of killing machines equipped with a dazzling array of sensors. At least the playing field is leveled at daytime when humans can use their eyes. Instead of any squads in the darkness of post apocalyptic battlefield without rare nightvision gear getting pasted by plasma fire like a thunderstorm at night.

[TheLostVikings]

It'd be dumb if humans never went out at day. How on Earth can they prosecute a war of survival when, for twelve hours straight, they just lie down and wait to die?

Besides, from the trailer it looked like humanity still had enough forces to fight a conventional war. Helicopters, A-10s, it might have not yet reached the point where they had to subsist on rats and go nocturnal to survive.

And I didn't see any plasma weapons there (except possibly Devastator's big gun). It might have not reached that point yet.

Hell it makes even more sense to go out during the day. It's not like Skynet can't see at night with it's army of killing machines equipped with a dazzling array of sensors. At least the playing field is leveled at daytime when humans can use their eyes. Instead of any squads in the darkness of post apocalyptic battlefield without rare nightvision gear getting pasted by plasma fire like a thunderstorm at night.

Not to mention the downright HUEG WTF moment in the originals: 'Its safe at night because then they switch to IR', I mean I certainly don't have a special IR mode available to MY eyes, so I'm pretty sure a super killer robot of dhoom with IR capable sensors would be able to see a hell of a lot better than me during the night.

That never made the slightest lick of sense to me to begin with. Lets face it, it was probably a lot easier for them to do the SFX for a night shot where you can't see far, and it made it look all the more gloomy too so they figured it was a win/win situation.

(Though granted, the monocrome terminator-vision of Arnie and co was kinda crappy)

Humans rely primarily on or sense of sight most of the time, so we are at a disadvantage during the night compared to most would-be predators, and it isn't like we need any more disadvantages against the aforementioned killer bots of dhoom.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That trailer looks terrible. What the hell were you people watching? I saw it today in editing, I thought "oh, the new Transformers film trailer is out, awesome!" but this is meant to be the new fucking Terminator? While I am sure that Bale will be watchable, that film looks like shit. Whatever happened to it being too dangerous to go out during the day? Gargh.

Even if the timeline was the same, this is 2018, not 2029. The Resistance still have air support, so they're not as hard up as they were when Reese was dodging all sorts of HKs using plasma weaponry.

[Rye]

At any rate, it looks like everything that's wrong with Hollywood; star power + lowest common denominator story, designs, everything else = this film. It looks as hackneyed as Die Hard 4.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I reserve judgement. There are things I hear that make me think this could go somewhere, but aspects of the trailer cast doubt on my optimism. One thing's for sure, it's not T3, which even here has been written off as a totally different universe.