@DeusExMach: That's why the machines in the Matrix did a much better job. They just decided to have swarms and swarms of killer robotic cephalopods. Inside their operating system however, things got a little corny.

Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine

@iamnotafish: That's how it always was, even in the very first movie. Don't people remember the huge HK Taks roving along just shooting everything that moves? The entire franchise was littered with big bots.

Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine

@stereobot: Well to be fair, there is no rating set yet. McG has said if it ends up being R it will be R though, there isn't supposedly pressure to make it PG-13.

tande04

Does anyone see the connection between this and the new RED camera's?

beekerstudios

Creativity never was Skynet's strong suit. From a purely logical standpoint, it kind of makes sense that in the early days of the war after judgment day, Skynet would just be refitting existing technology, while learning what does and does not work. That's how you go from Cy-Kill up there to the T-1000. Eventually, the Bi-pedal mech idea gets scrapped for tread-driven HK's.

DeusExMach

I kinda like them ... even if they're huge and imposing. Initially the Terminators were meant to infiltrate, but now they're just saying "screw this, DIE HUMANS!" and beating us into a pulp until Christian Batman saves us.

iamnotafish

McG is simply the director. If you want to blame someone for developing a movie around merchandising (rather than the other way around), then blame Halycon.

I think McG will put out a good product given what he has to work with.

But I agree the mototerminator is just a bit much, however I like the harvester and of course the T-600.

But if suckage is what you are all concerned about, just wait until you see the role of "Hybrids" in this movie.. they definitely don't belong in the Terminator Universe..

It doesn't matter anymore, the franchise was ruined with T3. T4 Salvation will be so far detached that its not even necessary to have seen T1 and T2 to see this movie, which is convenient considering those two films were "R" rated and this will be PG-13, you know, to appeal to the kids who are going to buy the toys...

stereobot

Terminators would be better of if they were nanosize. Anyone read Michael Crichton's Prey?

Obviously that wouldn't allow for spectacular action but also the human race would be extinct within weeks, making these awful overpriced CG crapmovies unnecessary.

Anyway these robots were supposed to be intelligent. Sizing up doesn't seem like a smart decision.

Herman

it's like the producers took the look and feel of the Matrix, Transformers, and a John Romero zombies movie into a blender and said "push the button, Frank."

And that's a bad thing... how exactly?

Serolf Divad

@Jason:

Actually, in the original flicks, even the human-sized Terminators did not mix with human beings on the battle field. They were just bare skeletal robots with big laser rifles. They would only send like maybe one or 2 to infiltrate the human enclaves, but when it came to the full frontal battle, there was no need to play the subterfuge.

As for these bots, I'm actually curious to see how the motobots work in this movie. I saw a brief clip with them zipping around, but they look pretty useless and vulnerable compared to the other bots. I would've loved to see something like the HK Tank, but like a giant spider, or an aerial harvester of some sort.

But goddamn, McG? Ugh, I'm afraid I'll have to see this because I want to know how this crap ends and Christian Bale is a good actor, but....fuuuck. McG. :'(

Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine

@Ibelieveinsandwitches: <3

Bitstuff

@geiko: @geiko:

geez are you always being such an ass? Why don't you piss off and go bother some other kids? My orginal comment was on topic while you just had to offend someone. Idiot.

Zeuxis

@Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine: It's the lack of an edit button, I tell ya. As soon as I reread my comment I said "I hope Kaiser doesn't show up to this thread and read it cause he'll point out it's stupidity." Sure enough, here we are twenty minutes later.

geiko

"push the button, Frank."

UH-OH! We've got movie sign!

Ibelieveinsandwitches

@Saboth:

Exactly! What roads?!

I'm with you. A virus is the best way to terminate a lot of humans with little energy expense. A virus is the ultimate nanomachine.

Jason

@Saboth: While I agree about the bikes, there's not going to be much in the movie if we take the purely extremely logical approach, since it would mean a quick death for everyone. It would be like that Mike Tyson fight all over again.

Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine

@geiko: So I suppose we'll just call it Motorcross, Jetmotor, and so forth :P

Mototerminator sounds cooler

Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine

@Zeuxis:

I agree, this is going to suck as a movie. Yet another thriller filled more effects then content. Unless they have some good writers, they should just make a comic book and call it quits.

Skiphex

@Zeuxis: Yes, precisely. I'm glad you understood today's lesson. Same time again tomorrow?

geiko

@geiko:

Then what was the point of your stupid comment? Ignorance is bliss.

Zeuxis

@Zeuxis: How convenient, it's also my third language.

geiko

OK, so terminators where humanoid so as to be able to mingle with humans nearly undetected.

How does a humanoid form the size of a building achieve that? It's RETARDED!

Shouldn't the "Harvesters" look like a building or a tree or a hill?

Don't even get me started on the motorcycle anachronisms.

McG is terminating Terminator.

Jason

You would think in the future, Skynet would have figured out that a swarm of airborne nanite robots that destroy people from the inside would be more efficient than building motorcycles. Honestly...motorcycles have trouble navigating 3 inch potholes, what are they going to do on the roads of the future, littered with bones and wreckage?

Saboth

@geiko:

English is my 3rd language, sorry mr. perfect, Im very sadden by your ignorance...

Zeuxis

@Zeuxis: I'm very saddened by your grammar. What can we do?

geiko

This is what the Borg should have looked like. :P

DigitalSciGuy

I think you mean "motorminator" and "autorminator."

You're welcome!

geiko

Is this what happened when we released too many silver nano particles into the environment?

Eauboy

damn, I hope this will not end up in the movie, I am soo looking forward to it, but the whole mecha and bike stuff is plain bull***t and IMO doesn't fit the orginal terminator universe. I be happy to see same stuff I saw in T1 during flashbacks, just with a good story, no frikkin transformers chasing John Connor...

I'm very sadden by those concepts :(

Zeuxis

Hmm, did John Romero make some zombie movies in-between Quake and Daikatana? :) Psst - I think you mean George Romero! :)

dazman76

@undefined:@Zeuxis:

I agree - this just doesn't fit the Terminator universe. Moto-terminator? You've got to be kidding me.

Adisharr

I don't @beekerstudios: I don't think the RED's are 15 times the size of a human.

That would make them pretty hard to handle.

Herman

@Jason: It transforms into Burj Dubai.
In fact, all of Dubai is being built by Skynet. Just wait until all these "skyscrapers" are finished...

borgseawolf

@Saboth: You realize that the humans in the movie need to stand a chance against the Skynet?

borgseawolf

@tande04:

I'm not really sure what a "high end art flick" is, but I do know that T1-3 were at least entertaining and really cool at the time. I think if your going to progress a series that in all respects is fairly decent, don't mess it up with half-ass attempt to squeeze out some corny action figures.

Skiphex

@Jason: Well The Road was supposed to be an influence.

Regardless, from a movie stand point lets weigh the two. Bikes gives us a chance to have a car chase which is an action movie staple, or nano virus where everyone dies in the first five minutes and we've got 1 hr 55 min to kill.

tande04

@Skiphex: Come on. Did you think that T1-3 were some kind of high end art flick?
They were popcorn flicks, this is a popcorn flick. You're comparing apples to apples and coming out with orange juice.

tande04

@DeusExMach: Treaded/wheeled vehicles have problems when the height of the obstacle is taller than half the wheel/track size. A humanoid or otherwise legged machine (Terminator centaurs or bug-like machines would do well) are much better at weeding through a haystack of wreckage to get at the soft humans inside).
Giant mecha, as cool as it seems, is a big no-no. When you try and replace tanks with mecha, you introduce a big weakness: Legs with joints that are more easily disabled. Tanks can just pile on more armor and redundancy. Human-sized terminators are fine, since they are numerous enough to be expendable.

Turkina

You can see them all in action here:
[io9.com]

tande04

@DeusExMach: Can anyone name another surface vehicle that's capable of moving as fast and with as much manueverability as a motorcycle? Even the flying HKs never seemed that quick, so automating and arming big sportbike-like chassis seems to make sense in terms of a fast attack bot.

Jeb_Hoge

@Rabid Penguin: Built in navigation is a no-brainer.

"Approaching left turn... Turn left, DOOTdoot!"

ripfire

Think about it. There are probably a lot of smaller, more human-sized terminators. They can use vehicles in order to move from one place to another faster - enter mototerminator. Not only does it get good gas mileage, come equipped with XM satellite radio and Onstar, but also has a four star crash rating and the lowest cost of ownership in it's class... it also kills people mercilessly.

Rabid Penguin

The only mecha that's bothering me with this movie is the hype machine.

ripfire

it's like the producers took the look and feel of the Matrix, Transformers, and a John Romero zombies movie into a blender

Could be worse. They might have used Robot Monster, High School Musical 3, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Then again, that might actually be a good movie.

Monty

@Serolf Divad: Becuse this is Terminator not transformers/matrix etc. It doesn't make sense to have spidery anime looking tentacle robots when the cool ass endoskelatons from the original movies would look much better and make a lot more sense in lieu of what we know from the first two movies.

And because this whole thing reeks of a bunch of suits sitting in a room trying to figure out what sells these days as oppossed to what makes the most sense in the context of the franchise and in the sake of continuity.

Hooray4Zoidberg

@Skiphex: I don't know if that is the intent. I look at moto-terminators and say "Oh there is going to be a car chase" not, "oh that's going to be an action figure".

If it ends up being an R rated film I don't think you'll see a lot of kid based merchandising.

tande04

Seriously, consistency arguments. The tech of the Terminator universe has always changed with every movie, with only a hand full of highly identifiable hold-overs. As for borrowing from other movies and storylines, that too has been a staple of the Terminator franchise. I'm not knocking the franchise, I'm just calling like it is.

I myself am kinda excited for a full on mechtastic Terminator movie.

darthuv

Countdown to OCC building a "terminator bike" just like these, in 3....2....1....

But can Mikey ride it?

Wolf

Turbo Driver

Slight aside but I'm surprised that you and io9 still have these up. Most of the movie sites were told to pull them. Guess gawker flies under the radar for now.

tande04

Wait, we're concerned about believability? Didn't we have a liquid terminator that could reform after being shattered into a thousand pieces in T2? From a believability standpoint, this series jumped that mechanic shark a long time ago. I thought T3 was more "realist" in that it actually featured an actual robot.

And if Skynet really wanted to totally wipe us out (something the Matrix obviously did not want to do) they would do it with biological weapons. They certainly wouldn't do it by smashing everthing. They need infrastructure as much as we do.

Brodka

@Hooray4Zoidberg:
"As you can see from this handy wall chart I had printed at Kinkos, the more 'badassness' we add to a film, the higher the potential profit margin is."

"Well this film could use at least 84 kilograms more 'badassness'. Add some motorcycles."

"Motorcycles... Yes. The fiercest killers in the automobile kingdom. I like it!"

SomeAudioGuy

@Monty: lol That reminds me it's almost time for me to dust off my copy of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
And after a year that saw aliens with Indy and a lackluster Clone Wars, isn't it about time for George to release the Star Wars Holiday Special on DVD?

darthuv

@Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine: Hello, Mototerminator!

Killjoy

@Jason:

The terminators only came near the end of the war, not in the beginning. The terminators were a new breed of machine built to infiltrate.

spec24

@Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine: IF they bike are used for hit and run, speed and let terminators ride on them they are certainly weak but also powerfull fast and it can takes 2 terminators on it

TBM-Fan

@Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine: Maybe the two terminators and the bike will combine to make Voltronterminator.

Rabid Penguin

@TBM-Fan: I swear if I see two Terminators straddling a bikebot, I will chuckle, and then walk out.

Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine

@tande04: If it is R rated that may be true.

Skiphex

For a second, I thought I was looking at shots from The Matrix. Glad to know that this is TOTALLY different.

BigRocket

@Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine: Not to mention it's what the concept art has printed on it...

Ben Zvan

@iamnotafish:

Technically this movie takes place before the battles that you see in T1 and T2. Hence the T600 being hulky and not in line with the smaller more suitable T800.

serpicowasright

There's a serious lack of shiny chrome surfaces here. I always thought Skynet just had a severe case of electronic OCD. It must have spent much of its day obsessively polishing its killbots to get that see-your-face-in-your-killer-shine.... The rest of the day was devoted to destroying those filthy, dirty humans.

GenericWhiteGuy

@Ibelieveinsandwitches:
Cambot, give me rocket no. 9!!!!

agentUrge

@Jeb_Hoge: Big problem. Bike must be facing target to fire guns, it seems. Everything else has a turret or torso to increase firing arc.

Turkina

@ripfire: I see what you did there...

ViolenceMan

it does not make sense for the ultimate AI to come up with the things shown in the above pics, I had thought that the T-1000 was the optimal final design until the TX came out. then it made sense that the TX was the "optimal" design. why take it any further. plus the TX did not require the bulky old tech actuators as shown in the funny thing above. I have a feeling the movie is going to be pretty lame, Instead of re-inventing what Americans think the ultimate death machine should be, they should have focussed more on the sotry/plot and used what worked in the past. we'll see how it goes. Dcook

MargueriteProtesilaus

@ripfire: The typical whiney prejudiced geek fanboy backlash is all that's bothering me...

takeshi

@darthuv: C'mon. You know anything that wasn't in the first movie isn't allowed in any sequels. That means all actors have to have bad 80's haircuts.

takeshi

@Jason: You must have slept through the original movie. There were plenty of large machines and not just the human impersonating terminators.

takeshi