Once again I weigh in a little late… this time on Terminator Salvation.

There has been a lot of criticism of this fourth edition of the Terminator franchise, and I have to say that most of it is probably far. However that having been said, I still think that the movie works and sets up a really interesting “second” trilogy.

It was pretty amusing in the lead up to the movie coming out, as McG and the other people involved in the project tried to put it in a box that would make it appealing to the most broad group of people… it was called everything from a “re-boot” to the start of a “prequel trilogy.”

I don’t think this qualifies as a prequel… right now the franchise is in a place where John Connor isn’t quite the mythical leader that he’s going to be, but he’s there. It’s kind of like seeing Patton when he was a Lieutenant. Sure all of that as to happen in order for the events of the first movie to happen, but this is still in the future so I have a hard time calling it a prequel. If this is the first part of a new trilogy… which is the plan… I think it’s helpful to think of it playing out this way: Terminator Salvation is the story of John Connor and Kyle Reese meeting, T5 will be about Connor becoming the leader of the resistance, and T6 will be about Connor sending Reese back in time to protect Sarah Connor and be his father.

If you look at it that way, the first act of the three movie arc, then I think that it’s a good action movie that fits pretty well into the Terminator mythology that we all know and love. If you were looking for anything more than that you’ll be disapointed, but at the end of the day if you were expecting anything more than that from a Terminator movie I think you’ve been romanticizing the franchise a bit too much.

The story revolves around Kyle Reese, Marcus Wright and John Connor… aside from that, the other characters don’t really have a whole lot to do. That’s a little discouraging, but being the optimistic lad that I am, I’m assuming that they went through the trouble of introducing them (or in the case of Kate, bringing her back from T3) because they will play a larger roll in the next two movies.

Bottom line, if you’re a Terminator fan you’ll like the movie as one step in the journey to winning the war against Skynet and sending Kyle Reese back in time. Don’t be discourage by the fact that it’s just one chapter in the story, yet… if you just like action movies, there are enough explosions and yelling that you’ll probably be pretty happy with it. On the other hand if you’re looking something more than that, well you should probably just go see Star Trek again (Because at this point everyone has seen Star Trek at least once, am I right people?).

As of Wednesday Star Trek has passed Monsters vs. Aliens to be the top domestic grossing movie of 2009. Star Trek brought in $1.8M yesterday, bringing its total up to $194.8M domestically. It’s global total now stands at $286.8M. Despite this massive amount of success, I’ve still had to endure two people… today… talking about how geeky I am for liking this particular movie so much. So he’s why you should wade through the sea of pointy-eared Trek fans and go see it.

If you take a look to the right you’ll see a couple of clips… one from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and the other from Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. If you take away the warp core, pointy-eared first officer, and genetically engineered former 21st century dictator, you have pretty much the same scene.

Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek to networks as a “wagon train to the stars,” but after the disaster that was Star Trek: The Motion Picture,they had to turn that concept into a movie that was actually worth watching, director Nicolas Meyer decided to make things a lot more nautical by the time they got to Star Trek II… and they’ve been following the same formula ever since. Some times with more success than others. So stop thinking of Star Trek as Kirk fighting a guy in a rubber lizard suit and instead think of it as two old ships of the line slugging it out.

Of course if you’re not a history geek either, that might not seem like your cup of tea either.

Reviews of Star Trek were pretty universally positive, so it’s not like I’m going on much of a limb in telling you to go see. Actually I’d be going out on more of a limb telling you to see Terminator Salvation… which I will, when I get around to writing about that later this weekend.

As for the story itself, my colleague Curt Holman pointed out in his review that with all of the action in the edition of Star Trek there isn’t much room for the optimism of the original Trek. But it’s worth pointing out that we’re well past the Cold War these days, so putting a Russian on the bridge… which was supposed to be Roddenberry’s way of showing that we would all get along one day… doesn’t quite have the impact that it did back in the 1960’s. However, the opening scene see the USS Kelvin commanded by Captain Robau… while they don’t say anything about the ethnicity of the character, Faran Tahir the actor who played him comes from Pakistani and Indian origins.

You could make the argument that in the age of the War on Terror (Sorry, “Overseas Contingency Operation”), putting Robau in the captains chair in a critical scene is the 2009 equivalent of adding Chekov to the crew. On a side note, Captain Robau should have his own movie… some might say his own TV series.

I’m sure that there’s more than one person at CBS looking at all of the moola that the movie is bringing in and they are suddenly remembering that they hold the TV rights to Star Trek… they should avoid the temptation. One of the reasons that Star Trek became stagnant in my opinion is that they became obsessed with both the science of the show and the canon… almost entirely because they had to come up with an interesting script every week. They were so focused on making everything work from a science and canon perspective that they forgot to make the characters interesting.

I saw the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and I can give you a review in one sentence: It Klaatu Barada Sucked. Unfortunately it will probably be number one at the box office.

To me it seemed less a coherent story than a collection of scenes. Everything in the movie, the characters, the events, they all seemed completely disjointed. In the original version Klaatu brought a warning, keep your nukes to yourselves or we’ll have to do something about you. Here Klaatu just seemed to be a vigilante for Mother Earth. We’ve been destroying the planet, so now he’s going to destroy us.

There are plot holes a plenty in this one, and Gort is a CGI shaddow of his former self. Aside from the title, there is little to nothing worthwhile about it.

Some advice for movie-makers in the future: taking really good science fiction (the original movie) and adding some really bad science fiction (human-caused global warming) is just not a good formula.