Rise of the Machines wiki

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Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
200px International poster
Directed by	Jonathan Mostow
Produced by	Mario Kassar Hal Lieberman Joel B. Michaels Andrew G. Vajna Colin Wilson
Written by	Screenplay: John D. Brancato Story: John D. Brancato Tedi Sarafian Characters: James Cameron Gale Anne Hurd
Narrated by	Nick Stahl
Starring	Arnold Schwarzenegger Nick Stahl Claire Danes Kristanna Loken
Music by	Marco Beltrami Themes: Brad Fiedel
Cinematography	Don Burgess
Editing by	Nicolas de Toth Neil Travis
Distributed by	United States: Warner Bros. International: Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	July 2, 2003
Running time	109 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$200,000,000
Gross revenue	Domestic: $150,371,112 Worldwide: $433,371,112[1]
Preceded by	'
Followed by	Terminator Salvation

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, commonly abbreviated as T3, is a 2003 science fiction/action film directed by Jonathan Mostow and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes and Kristanna Loken. It is the sequel to The Terminator (1984) and ' (1991). The film was released in the United States on July 2, 2003. It was released under the Warner Bros. label, as the studios that produced the first two Terminator films (Orion Pictures and Carolco Pictures) had gone out of business that point. After the failure of Skynet to kill Sarah Connor before her son is born and to kill John himself as a child, it sends back another Terminator, the T-X, in a last attempt before Judgment Day to wipe out as many Tech-Com resistance officers as possible. This includes John's future wife, but not John himself as his whereabouts are unknown to Skynet. Yet, as the story unfolds, the T-X coincidentally finds a trace of the resistance leader-to-be.

[edit] Plot

The events shown in the previous film Terminator 2, Judgment Day did not occur in 1997 as originally predicted, but John Connor (Nick Stahl), does not believe the prophesied war has been averted. He is living "off-the-grid" in Los Angeles, California with no permanent residence, credit cards, or mobile phone and is working freelance so that he cannot be tracked. Skynet sends another Terminator, the T-X (Kristanna Loken), back to July 24, 2004, Judgment Day, to kill the human resistance's future lieutenants. The T-X, dubbed the "Terminatrix" by John Connor, is armed with a full arsenal of advanced weapons from the future, avoiding the restriction of non-living tissue by carrying them internally, including the ability to remotely control most machines. As before, a reprogrammed Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), similar to the Terminators from the previous films, has been sent back in time to protect John and his future wife, Katherine Brewster (Claire Danes). This particular Terminator is revealed to have killed John in 2032 before being reprogrammed and sent back in time by John's wife. After rescuing them from an initial attack, the Terminator leads them to Sarah Connor's coffin, which her friends had filled with weapons in the event that Judgment Day was not prevented. The T-X and the police arrive, but John, Katherine, and the Terminator escape in a hearse. After the destruction of Cyberdyne Systems in T2, the U.S. Air Force has taken over the Skynet project as part of its Cyber Research Systems division, headed by Lieutenant General Robert Brewster, Kate's father. In an attempt to stop the spread of a computer supervirus, they activate Skynet, allowing it to invade all of their systems. John, Kate, and the Terminator arrive too late to stop them. The T-1 Terminators, under control of the T-X, start killing office personnel. John, believing that Judgment Day can still be stopped, asks Brewster the location of the Skynet system core. Just before General Brewster dies, he tells John and Kate to go to Crystal Peak, a base built into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As they board an airplane to leave, they are attacked by the Terminator, which was reprogrammed by the T-X to kill them, but shuts itself down to avoid killing John. When they reach Crystal Peak, they are attacked again by the T-X. They are then interrupted by the Terminator, who has rebooted itself and appears in a helicopter, announcing "I'm back". The T-X detaches its legs, which are stuck underneath the helicopter, and crawls after John and Kate. The Terminator catches hold of it and save John and Kate, telling them to leave immediately. The Terminator then detonates its last remaining hydrogen fuel cell into the T-X's mouth, iconically exclaiming "You are terminated" and destroying the T-X. John and Kate discover that the base does not house Skynet's core, but is a Cold War-era fallout shelter for government officers; General Brewster having sent his daughter and John there to protect them from the impending nuclear holocaust. It is then shown that Skynet is software in cyberspace, running on computers throughout the world, making it impossible to shut down. Skynet launches nuclear missiles, starting the war against humans. Foreshadowing John's future leadership role, confused military forces from Montana Civil Defense and amateur radio operators ask for orders, whereupon he assumes command.

[edit] Cast

• Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator: Reprising his role from the first two films. This film was Schwarzenegger's final starring role before becoming Governor of California.
• Nick Stahl as John Connor: Edward Furlong, who played John in ', reportedly was not asked to reprise his role in T3 due to a substance abuse problem. In a 2004 interview, he responded, "I don't know [what happened]. It just wasn't the time. I was going through my own thing at the point in my life - whatever, it just wasn't meant to be".^[2] Other considerations for the role included Josh Hartnett, Chris Evans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Ashton Kutcher.
• Claire Danes as Kate Brewster: In a 2005 interview on National Public Radio's Fresh Air, Danes revealed that she was cast for the role of Brewster as a last-minute replacement after actress Sophia Bush was thought too young to portray her. Danes started filming immediately and thereafter learned about her character while playing it. Danes later said this may have helped her performance, on the grounds that Kate Brewster's character was similarly thrust into a strange new reality without warning.
• Kristanna Loken as T-X
• David Andrews as Lieutenant General Robert Brewster, USAF
• Mark Famiglietti as Scott Mason: Kate Brewster's slain boyfriend was originally named Scott Petersen, but was changed in order to avoid giving the false impression that this was a type of "reverse parody" of the Scott Peterson case surrounding the murder of Laci Peterson and her unborn son Conner. In the ending credits his name is still listed as "Scott Petersen".
• Earl Boen as Dr. Peter Silberman: Reprising his role from the first two films. Boen appears for one scene, attempting to comfort Claire Danes' character after she witnesses the acts of the Terminator. Besides Schwarzenegger, Boen is the only actor to appear in all three Terminator films.
• Moira Harris as Betsy
• Chopper Bernet as Chief Engineer
• Christopher Lawford as Brewster's Aide
• Carolyn Hennesy as Rich Woman

Linda Hamilton was initially approached to reprise her role as Sarah Connor, but turned it down. Hamilton explained in the script she was given, Sarah dies halfway through and her death was glossed over.^[3] John explains in T3 that Sarah died of leukemia in the year 1997.

[edit] Production

James Cameron announced T3 many times during the 1990s, but without coming out with any finished script. During his divorce with Linda Hamilton, she asked for the Terminator franchise rights which she promptly sold to Carolco Pictures owners Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna. Tedi Serafian wrote a script, but as it would cost over $300 million, it was rejected. Serafian earned a "story" credit after screenwriters John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris used some of his ideas, like Sarah Connor being dead and the rival Terminator being female. The studios had long wanted to make a sequel to the Terminator films. However, they were unsure whether Arnold Schwarzenegger would appear in it. Schwarzenegger initially refused to star in Terminator 3 because Cameron, who created the character and helmed the first two films, would not be directing the third installment. Schwarzenegger tried to persuade Cameron to produce the third film. Cameron declined, however, as he felt that he had already finished telling the story upon the conclusion of T2. But feeling that the Terminator character was as much Schwarzenegger's as it was his own, he advised Schwarzenegger to just do the third film and ask for "nothing less than $30 million." Schwarzenegger received a salary of $29.25 million, plus 20 percent of the profits, for his role in the film.^[4] The film's final production budget was $187.3 million, making it the most expensive independently-produced film in history. Schwarzenegger had to spend $6 million of his own money to help fund production. It was a scene that he himself wanted to put in the movie, as he explains in the audio commentary. Schwarzenegger agreed to defer part of his salary in order to prevent the relocation of the set to Vancouver, British Columbia, from Los Angeles. Many pundits saw this as preparation to his campaign for California governor, in which he emphasized giving incentives to have movie productions stay in California, rather than film in less-expensive places elsewhere. In that vein, the film was markedly "cleaner" than previous Terminator films, featuring significantly less violence and swearing. The film takes several ideas from the novel ' by S. M. Stirling. The novel, published in 2001, features a female terminator, the I-950, a plot point later reused in Terminator Rewired. The idea of Judgment Day being postponed was also used in the book. It also inspires the Sergeant Candy scene with its own explanation of the Terminator's physical appearance, in the form of Austrian counter-terrorist Dieter von Rossbach. Filming began on April 12, 2002. A scene filmed during production explains why one series of Terminators all look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. A character named Chief Master Sergeant William Candy (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) explains in an Air Force promotional video he was chosen to be the model of the Terminator project. Schwarzenegger's character has a Southern accent. When Lieutenant General Brewster questions it, another scientist replies (in a Schwarzenegger voice-over), "We can fix it." It was included in early prints of the film, but was later deleted. This scene is available as a special feature on the DVD version.

[edit] Reception

Terminator 3 earned a 70% positive rating on the film critic aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.^[5] James Cameron, who created the Terminator franchise but otherwise played no role in T3, told the BBC he thought the film was "in one word: great."^[6] However, Yahoo! later reported that Cameron "wasn't happy with how it turned out".^[7] In The New York Times, A. O. Scott said the film "is essentially a B movie, content to be loud, dumb and obvious".^[8] In its box office run it failed to match its $200 million budget domestically, earning $150 million stateside. It did far better overseas and closed with a total worldwide gross of $433 million, a financial success but still falling significantly short of its predecessors' gross.^[9] The film also failed to match both its predecessors in terms of cultural significance: both The Terminator and Terminator 2 were cultural phenomena, and in two cases noted by the AFI twice in the same list (100 Years...100 Quotes for I'll be back and Hasta la vista baby as well as 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains for the T-800 in both incarnations). Furthermore Terminator 2 won 4 Academy Awards, where the sequel didn't get a single nomination.

[edit] Marketing

Several computer and video games were based on the film. An action game called Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was released by Atari for Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Game Boy Advance. The game was poorly reviewed, with a 39% average on Game Rankings for the PS2 version.^[10] A first-person shooter titled ' was released for PCs as well.^[11] A third game titled ' was released for Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube.^[12] The film's soundtrack was released by Varèse Sarabande on June 24, 2003:

1. "A Day In the Life"
2. "Hooked on Multiphonics"
3. "Blonde Behind the Wheel"
4. "JC Theme"
5. "Starting T-1"
6. "Hearse Rent a Car"
7. "T-X's Hot Tail"
8. "Graveyard Shootout"
9. "More Deep Thoughts"
10. "Dual Terminator"
11. "Kicked in the Can"
12. "Magnetic Personality"
13. "Termina-Tricks"
14. "Flying Lessons"
15. "What Do You Want on Your Tombstone?"
16. "Terminator Tangle"
17. "Radio"
18. "T3"
19. "The Terminator" (from the motion picture The Terminator, composed by Brad Fiedel)
20. "Open to Me" performed by Dilon Dixon.
21. "I Told You" performed by Mia Julia.

Songs that are not included on the soundtrack album:

• "Dat Funky Man": performed by William Randolph III and Words by Jonathan Mostow
• "Sugar" Performed by Peter Beckett and words by Jonathan Mostow.
• "Party" performed by Peter Beckett.
• "Can't Hide This" performed by Mega Jeff.
• "Macho Man" performed by Village People.
• "The Current" performed by Gavin Rossdale and Blue Man Group.^[13]

[edit] Sequels

Josh Friedman, producer of the 2008 Fox television series ', which takes place after ', stated in an interview that the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines occur in an alternate timeline from that of the TV series.^[14] The continuity of the plot of the franchise comes into question immediately in the opening scene of the film in which John Connor narrates the events that have led to his current situation. During this scene, he indicates that the Terminators failed to kill his mother before he was born, so they tried again when he was only 13. This is a continuity error between T2 and T3, since it is made evident in T2 that John is 10 years old during the events of that film. However T3 director Jonathan Mostow has stated this was a creative decision based on Edward Furlong's actual age at the time of shooting T2.^[15] A fourth film, Terminator Salvation, has been produced and is slated for a May 2009 release. Salvation was written by The Perfect Weapon's David C. Wilson. Script treatment are by John Brancato, Michael Ferris, David C. Wilson, Paul Haggis (Quantum of Solace), Shawn Ryan (TV's The Shield, The Unit) and Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight). Arnold Schwarzenegger is not expected to reprise his starring role due to his duties as Governor of California.^[16] However, Roland Kickinger, who played Schwarzenegger in biography See Arnold Run, will have a major role in the film as the prototype T-800. Christian Bale would take over the role as John Connor, Bryce Dallas Howard as Kate Brewster, and Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese. New to the series are Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright, Moon Bloodgood as Blair Williams, Common as Barnes, and Helena Bonham Carter as the film's antagonist Serena Kogen. The film is directed by McG.

[edit] References