Showing posts with label Terminator 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terminator 2. Show all posts

Friday 22 September 2023

Seamless Branching



Seamless Branching of 
The Theatrical Version
Special Edition Version and 
Extended Special Edition Version




“That’s the movie’s main plot, but let’s observe here that one of T2’s subplots actually echoes Cameron’s Schwarzenegger dilemma and creates a kind of weird metacinematic irony. 

Whereas T1 had argued for a certain kind of metaphysical passivity (i.e., Fate is unavoidable, and Skynet’s attempts to alter History serve only to bring it about), Terminator 2’s metaphysics are more active

In T2, The Connors take a page from Skynet’s book and try to head off the foreordained nuclear holocaust, first by trying to Kill Skynet’s inventor and then by destroying Cyberdyne’s labs and the first Terminator’s CPU (though why John Connor spends half the movie carrying the deadly CPU chip around in his pocket instead of just throwing it under the first available steamroller remains unclear and irksome). 

The Point here is that the protagonists’ attempts to revise The “Script” of History in T2 parallel The Director’s having to muck around with T2’s own script in order to get Schwarzenegger to be in the movie. 

Multivalent ironies like this — which require that film audiences know all kinds of behind-the-scenes stuff from watching Entertainment Tonight and reading (umm) certain magazines — are not commercial PostModernism at its finest.” 

— David Foster Wallace

Sunday 7 February 2021

The Last Days of The American Empire





“So there, we have figured out, go back to bed America, your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed America, Your Government is in Control, again. Here, here’s American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up! Go back to bed America, here’s American Gladiators. Here’s 56 channels of it. Watch these pituitary retards bang their fuckin skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. 

Here you go America, you are free, to do as we tell you, you are free, to do as we tell you.”

“Oh good. Honey, I heard on the news that they’ve figured out that the gun, what happened is, is that there was an echo and Kennedy was, er, asking Jackie what it was, and that that’s why his head flew u… Honey what time’s Gladiators on? Are we missing it? I’m so glad we’re free, Honey.”

This happen just a few weeks ago. All these articles in the paper. “Is Gladiators too violent? And what are we doing watching it? Is it really good for us to watch? Is it too violent?” 

NO! Fuck it! Give these guys chain saws! Let them fuck each other up good. It’s not violent enough. Let these fuckin’ morons kill each other in that God Damn pit! Give them chain saws an… I want to see a fuckin railway spike go through their eyeballs.How about this? give everyone in the audience a pistol. “There you fuckers, bchh bchh, See who comes out alive, bchh.”

You know, I’m tired of this false fuckin sanctimonious morality about life. “Ain’t life keen, haha. Let’s pat ourselves on the back.” Fuck you! They want to kill each other, I’m filming it.

You know. I had a great idea for the movies. No-one wants to fucking hear it, I don’t know why. I was watching Terminator 2 and I’m thinking to myself, these are the most amazing stunts I have ever seen. A hundred million dollars it cost to make this film. How are they ever gonna top these stunts in a movie again? There’s no way.
Unless…
they start using terminally ill people…
[laughter]
Hear me out…
…as stuntmen in pictures.
Okay not the most popular idea ever, but I prefaced it with that. What you know, some of will probably think that’s cruel, don’t you?
“Ooh cruel, terminally ill stuntpeople Bill. How cruel.”
You know what I think what cruel is? Leaving your loved ones to die in some sterile hospital room surrounded by strangers. Fuck that! Put ’em in the movies!
Whaaat? Do you want your grandmother dying like a little bird in some hospital room? Her translucent skin so thin you can see her last heartbeat work its way down her blue veins?
Or do you want her to meet Chuck Norris?
Why be so selfish as to deprive her of that thrill?
“Tom how come you dressed my grandmother up as a mugger?”
“Shut up and get off the set. Action! Push her towards Chuck.”
Whurf. [Bill does a flying karate kick]
“Wow he kicked her head right off her body! Did you see that? Did you see my grammie? She’s out of her misery. I just saw the greatest fucking movie of my life. Cool!”
Okay not the most popular idea ever. All I’m saying is people are dying every day, and movies are getting more and more boring.
[Webs fingers together]
“I am the weaver.”
I don’t know.
“Is American Gladiators too violent? Ooh I don’t know.”

Watch the fucking news man, it’s frightening. What could be worse. You watch the news these days you know, it’s unbelievable. You think you you just walk out your door, you’re immediately going to be raped by some crack-addicted, Aids-infected, pit-bull, you know. Horrible news stories, you know.
“Honey, I’m gonna check the mail…
“Rrrrar, rrrrar, rrrrar, rrrrar, rrrrar!”
[mimes being attacked by a pitbull]
“Whaddya we stay inside tonight baby? Let the pizza delivery guy deal with that shit out there. Hello, pizza delivery, could you send another car over please. I know that’s your third one, that last guy almost made it. I can almost reach the pizza with the broom handle.
How come those pit bulls are eating your driver but they’re not touching that fucking pizza? What do they know that we don’t know, hellooo?”
Pretty soon we’re all gonna be locked inside our homes with no-one on the street but pizza delivery guys and armoured cars with turrets shooting pizzas through the mail-slots of our front doors. Every house will glow with American Gladiators beamed in.

“We are free – keep repeating, we are free.”

The news is just apocalyptic. Didn’t you think with the Cold War being over, things should have gotten better. How many of y’all were as stupid as I was in believing that?

Wow it’s over – 40 years of threat of nuclear weapons – it’s over, cool, cool… WRONG!

Now 12 different countries have nuclear weapons – it just got 12 times as bad, Fuck You! Life is Harder now. Work Hard – oops jobs are scarce, FUCK YOU, ha ha ha!

By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing… kill yourself.
No, no, no it’s just a little thought. I’m just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they’ll take root – I don’t know. You try, you do what you can.
Kill yourself.
Seriously though, if you are, do.
Aaah, no really, there’s no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan’s little helpers.
Okay – kill yourself – seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you’re going, “there’s going to be a joke coming,” there’s no fucking joke coming.
You are Satan’s spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It’s the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.
Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, “he’s doing a joke… there’s no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend – I don’t care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi… Whatever, you know what I mean.
I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too,
“Oh, you know what Bill’s doing, he’s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market, he’s very smart.”
Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags!
“Ooh, you know what Bill’s doing now, he’s going for the righteous indignation dollar. That’s a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We’ve done research – huge market. He’s doing a good thing.”
Godammit, I’m not doing that, you scum-bags!
Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!
“Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill’s very bright to do that.”
God, I’m just caught in a fucking web.
“Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market – look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar…”
How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don’t you?”
“What didya do today honey?”
“Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight.” [snores]”Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know,” [snores] “Yeah, you know the mums will love it.” [snores]
Sleep like fucking children, don’t ya, this is your world isn’t it?

But you know I saw this movie this year called last year called er, Basic Instinct. Okay now. Bill’s quick capsule review:
Piece-of-Shit.
Okay now. Yeah, yeah, end of story by the way. Don’t get caught up in that fevered hype phoney fucking debate about that Piece-of-Shit movie.
“Is it too sexist, and what about the movies, are they becoming too dddddddd.”
You’re, you’re just confused, you don’t get, you’ve forgotten how to judge correctly. Take a deep breath huuh, look at it again.
“Oh it’s a Piece-of-Shit!”
Exactly, that’s all it is. Satan squatted, let out a loaf, they put a fucking title on it, put it on a marquee, Satan’s shit, piece of shit, walk away.
“But is it too, what about the lesbian connot.. ddddd.”
You’re, you’re getting really baffled here. Piece-of-Shit! Now walk away. That’s all it is, it’s nothing more! Free yourself folks, if you see it, Piece-of-Shit, say it and walk away. You’re right! You’re right! Not those fuckers who want to tell you how to think! You’re fucking right!
Sorry wrong meeting again.
I keep getting my days mixed up. tomorrow, it’s the meeting at the docks. Tonight it’s comedy entertainment with young Bill.