The Trailer Park: Red Flag in Play

The past couple weeks have brought us some new movie trailers that got viewers giddy with excitement, but the small glimpses into these upcoming features also raise a few concerns.

‘Terminator Genisys’

I must admit that I’m mostly excited to see another ‘Terminator’ flick, especially with Arnold Schwarzenegger reprising his star-making role as the titular killing machine from the future. I also kinda dig the movie’s title, because it’s a play on words that not only refers to the beginning of the story, but is also a computer systems acronym and feels like something Skynet related.

However, the preview has quite a bit going on that makes me a tad wary and hesitant. I understand that after the third installment, the franchise storyline has set a different course, and the idea of this being a blend of both remake and new sequel is intriguing. Yet at the same time, from what we see in the trailer, the main plot is not set in the 1970s or 1980s as it logically should. How and why is the T-1000 involved in all this? How old is Sarah Connor supposed to be? And why does Arnie appear significantly older than his clone when obviously they’re both the same model of cyborg?

‘Jurassic World’

As much as I love the fact that we’re getting another entry in the ‘Jurassic Park’ franchise, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for satisfying installment, I’m nevertheless a little skeptical and very mildly worried. To begin with, the concept of finally seeing a fully-functioning theme park, as opposed to only being teased about it in the previous three movies, is very exciting. Images of patrons running for their lives while dinosaurs take over the park have me in eager anticipation for the action and suspense.

On the flip side, the idea of scientists playing God when they create a brand new dinosaur breed leaves me wondering why the hell anyone would do that. Are wild, unpredictable giants not enough to get audiences gripping their armrests with eyes bulging out their sockets? Also, like ‘Jurassic Park III’, Steven Spielberg will not be directing, which is something of a disappointment.

Finally, something about seeing Chris Pratt running with Velociraptors really looks corny. Anyone remember Shia LaBeouf swinging with monkeys? Let’s not repeat that.

‘Vice’

At first, I thought that this was a movie adaptation of the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ videogame series. The trailer does make it appear that way, except with a twist that the city is actually a theme park resort where people are allowed to satisfy their most violent desires. I was intrigued by that possibility until, suddenly, the real plot is revealed.

As action-packed as it looks, the whole thing feels like a mishmash mess that suspiciously borrows from the likes of ‘Blade Runner’, ‘A.I.’, ‘I, Robot’ and some splashes of ‘Total Recall’, along with another Bruce Willis-starring feature, the horribly dull ‘Surrogates’. With a mid-January release date, the movie is likely to disappear from memory very quickly.

For more of the latest movie trailers, check out our trailers page.

11 comments

  1. David Staschke

    I believe there was an interview with Arnold a few months ago wherein he explained why one of the terminators looks significantly older. He said something about how the organic material that surrounds the endoskeleton ages and deteriorates just like normal human flesh, skin, hair, etc.

  2. Terminator Genisys could very well wind up being awful, but I kind of like the idea that it revisits and messes around with the events and continuity of the earlier films. Yeah, it’s just doing basically the same thing J.J. Abrams did with Star Trek, but at least this franchise has always been about time travel and paradoxes. If done right, it could be fun.

    I was with the Jurassic World trailer when Chris Pratt delivered the hilarious “Probably not a good idea” line, but the movie looks like a pointless retread of the original. When I first heard the title ‘Jurassic World’, I assumed that the movie would be about dinosaurs getting loose, wreaking havoc, and taking back the planet. I didn’t realize it was just Sea World with dinosaurs.

    • NJScorpio

      Hmm, I like the idea of a Jurassic Park movie with a setup similar to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Start off with most of the world’s population just struggling to stay off extinction. Instead of having just a core group of apes, there’d be patches of dinosaur populations.

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