Search - Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series on DVD

A Zippy Prequel with Animated Style

ONENEO | Buffalo, NY | 12/13/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Machinima, for those unaware (a group that included myself until a few moments ago) is the process of using a video game engine to produce cinematic visuals. Somehow this apparently red-hot trend has managed to completely elude me until my on-a-whim purchase of Terminator Salvation The Machinima Series on DVD; it was recommended at the time of purchase of the Terminator Salvation DVD so I figured what the hey...

Broken down into six individual episodes, Salvation the Machinima spans a single DVD packaged within a standard clamshell case and comes in at a runtime of 74 minutes. Extras include a Making Of featurette and a profile segment on lead character Blair Williams.

Though unrated, the picture consists of standard-fair science fiction action, violence and occasional blood splatter (all animated of course).

The story goes something like this: Two years before the events of the Terminator Salvation motion picture (2016), Resistance member Blair Williams finds herself a survivor of the events of Judgment Day, basically running ground missions when not piloting a fighter plane. Her most recent assignment has her tracking down a "ghost"; a presumed machine responsible for the Resistance having temporarily lost communications. To her surprise her target is in fact a fellow human survivor who, through hacking, discovered an inherent flaw in the machines' short-range communicators that allows for disturbance when his algorithm is activated.

Though her orders are to eliminate the target, Blair finds herself in a situation of disobeying for the greater good of humanity.

The plot's pretty interesting and does a solid job in painting some colorful back-story to one of the primary characters of Salvation. A nice tough was the inclusion of the vocal talent of Moon Bloodgood, who happens to play Blair in the film as well. She nails the role with the requisite monotone narration required of all of the Terminator's leading ladies. Chalk it up to accurate scripting, but at times the opening narration of each episode could very nearly be coming from Linda Hamilton herself.

The prose is quite action-laden throughout with no shortage of gunfights, hot pursuits, and big explosions. Like in the film, the T-600 is the primary assassin choice of the machines while Aerostats and Hunter Killers (HKs) fill the post-apocalyptic skies.

As solid a story in summation, the pacing is a bit erratic with some episodes chalk full of action while others drag on with seemingly little plot progression. In all the prose manages to succeed but it would have been nice to have the option of playing the episodes in one continuous 74-minute feature as the episode breaks have the annoying habit of popping up just as the going gets good.

Visually the film is a bit of a mixed bag. The background textures are impressively detailed and some of the mood/ lighting looks as though it could have been lifted and transplanted right from the Salvation film. However, the character models are a bit stiff and cobbily animated throughout. Mouth flap detail is at times downright painful and even the enemy robots look a bit too, um, robotic. However, such things are to be expected when using an engine that was designed to produce video game visuals in filmmaking I suppose. The positive spin on this is that visuals rendered in a fully 3-D gaming environment provide directors with the ability to literally decide which "camera angle" works best for each and every single shot. Once all of the virtual pieces are set into place, viewing a given scene from every conceivable angle becomes a reality. As such, the direction is nice and tight, with well-framed shots and some unique perspectives.

In all, Terminator Salvation The Machinima Series is an interesting little prequel that ties pretty neatly into the film much in the way the Animatrix was integral to the Matrix trilogy. Of particular interest was the concept that the machine weakness discovered by the Resistance in the beginning of Salvation's origins can be traced back to Machinima's plot. Additionally the bonus material included acts as a nice perk to DVD holdouts who forgone downloading the episode clips from iTunes, Amazon, X-Box Live or to their Sony Playstation."

An interesting take on the character of Blair.

Grant B. | Delaware | 10/11/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a truly intriguing look at Blair Williams. We get to see her in much more of a leadership role in this series than we did in Terminator Salvation. If you liked the character in novels and/or the movie, you'll like this series quite a bit."

In many ways...

T. Coleman | 11/15/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Far, far better than that limp fourth movie since the story is far more concise. Yes, the graphics of that game is truly lacking of which this was taken from but again, it's the story that grabs you in the end. In my opinion, this should be enjoyed for the story itself. It told a tale of people trying to survive the aftermath of "Judgment Day" and since it was only an hour long at most video, tying in the Connor tread would of made it even better.

On its own, the action choreography was excellent with a climax of a train chase worthy of any live action flick. The main protagonist showed more cunning in this video then she ever did in the movie. You sorta got a retard there in the movie if you compared that character in this video!

Sadly, the producers didn't go the distances and combine the six chapters to make a complete package. They just slapped all six chapters into the disc and threw it out. Something close to 4~5 minutes in total was wasted in recaps of the previous episode. Watching the making of, I saw that some extra movements not in the game had to be put into it so I wondered why didn't they try to make the the faces just a little bit more animated?

I would of rated it a solid four stars, but for the mistakes mentioned in the last paragraph I had to knock off a star. I recommend a purchase since its one of the best out of the Terminator series in these last few years."

Pre movie movie

Marcus Smith | St. Louis. MO USA | 01/10/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Terminator Salvation - The Machinima Series... taking place about 2 years before the movie. I enjoyed the premise of following the missions of Blair Williams, encountering several Terminators and one `survivor'... determining whether he is
friend or foe. It's mainly cut scenes from the game put together and modified....
divided into 6 episodes. A full CGI movie would have been better. Still, seeing Moon Bloodgood is worth the whole DVD."