Terminator 2 (T2) is a masterclass in combining CGI with practical effect and its ending is a rare cinematic full stop.
The T-1000’s liquid metal form was revolutionary, the morphing effects were cutting-edge in 1991, yet Cameron used them sparingly and only where practical effects couldn’t work. That restraint made the CGI more impactful and has made it so they still hold up 35 years later.
The truck chase through the storm drain, the helicopter flying under an overpass, the Cyberdyne building blowing up; it was all real and you can feel that when you watch the movie. There is no way any movie studio would do that nowadays when they could just CGI giant Michael Bay explosions.
The destruction of Cyberdyne and the Terminators meant the timeline was reset. Judgment Day was averted. The T-800 lowering itself into molten steel is an iconic moment; a machine choosing self-sacrifice for humanity. It’s a perfect final note, not just for the character, but for the franchise. Bringing him back again and again weakens that sacrifice. Any sequel has to undo all of this just to exist. Which is why to this day, I have not watched a single Terminator film after T2.
Which is why to this day, I have not watched a single Terminator film after T2.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but you might be interested in knowing that some of us feel that Terminator: Dark Fate avoids the issues you mention, and works as a direct and worthy sequel to T2.
FWIW, I actually enjoyed T3 and what it did with the timeline. Not saying it’s a better movie, or it was necessary, but still I liked it well enough.
Basically, the arm and chip Dyson used to advance science merely accelerated judgement day. It was coming regardless. Destroying them just pushed judgment day back to its original date.
I kinda like that, cuz otherwise it’s a bootstrap paradox where skynet sent back the technology that was used to create skynet.
S10 E12 (The Doctor Falls) is the end of (Modern) Doctor Who. Such a perfect episode epitomising the character, and closing an arc for one of the longest villains. He even ‘dies’ at the end.
Everything since then has been badly written and purposefully disrespectful to the cannon and the audience, and has wasted so many fantastic actors.
Season one of Twin Peaks. Never should have been a season two. I’m ambivalent about Fire Walk With Me. Season 3 was a nice touch.
I only wish I ever learned who’s the mother and how he met her…
Walking Dead S07E01. I think that episode could have been a perfect ending. They dragged it a lot after.
I stopped watching after Negan was introduced.
Episode IV. That’s my hill.
NeuTrek. TNG squeeks by, but any Trek with a dysfunctional, corrupt Federation with a Black Ops team is out.
The West Wing, season 4. After Sorkin left it went to shit.
Ren & Stimpy was hit or miss, but really after the first season it fell off a cliff pretty fast.
Nobody’s ever done an adaptation of Asimov’s The Foundation Trilogy, which is too bad.
TLoTR had 3 movies; everything after has been just a shitty job of milking the success of the first 3. Which is too bad, because Cumberbuzzle was brilliant as Smaug.
So episodes 1 through 4 then stop watching?
You mean R&S? Yeah. There were maybe 4 funny ones, and the rest were crap. Space Madness, however, is IMHO one of the greatest pieces of comedy ever produced. Maybe it was just one-hit-wonder syndrome.
The Hobbit is one well crafted movie. Two if you want to hang out the story a little.
The Hobbit is not three fucking movies.
Strange New Worlds is great Trek if you haven’t seen it.
I have. It’s not bad, despite my several grievances with it. Mainly the Gorn redesign as cheap knock-offs of Xenomorphs, that Kirk could never have hand-to-handed. And I really, really dislike the whole Spock/nurse Chapel story line. T’Pring was grossly mistreated, and it makes Spock’s surprise at her behavior in Amok Time completely out of character: he knew what he did. I’m also not fond of jumping directly to musical episodes in so early; shows usually only do that when they start running out of other ideas. I had to fast-forward through most of that one. I was really unhappy about killing off… who they killed off. I would have preferred almost any other character be sacrificed if they really felt it necessary.
But all that said, there is a lot of good, and I’ll keep watching it. I think my biggest gripe is that they picked SNW to continue, over Lower Decks‽ That was bogus; LD was a far better show.
I am also a huge fan of Lower Decks. It will be missed! The crossover episode with SNW was fantastic.
Oh, that confused me so much! I restarted the episode 4 times before I realized it was a cross-over! I thought I was getting the wrobg show!
It was fantastic. One of my favorite ST episodes, and so well done.
I think that Chapel arc s brilliant and it retrospectively fixed part of the TOS that didn’t age well, by adding hidden depth to character who was nothing more than a cheep joke.
Also without it we wouldn’t get “I’m the X”, which is objectively the best thing ever.
That’s not Spock.
I don’t understand, and never will, the compulsion to hyper-sexualize the one character who was not perpetually horny.
I believe that idea behind it is that his future TOS restrain is - partially - caused by his unhealed emotional wounds that he gained during his youth.
Hmm. We don’t see much Vulcan romance in any earlier series, except for the gratuitous “sauna scene” with T’Pol in Enterprise. It’s not just Spock.
One the other hand, we have a lot of evidence that young human males are very horny… I don’t think it takes away from original Spock’s “maybe I’m suppressing more than I should” arc. It ads to it. And writing prequels is always hard, because your characters can’t evolve above certain point. The need to end low, because low is where they started TOS - their journey need to happen there. Most are basically pointless and lead nowhere. Young Sheldon can’t learn his lessons and grow because old Sheldon need to start broken.
Having secret “there is more story behind his silence and cold indifference” is a great way to have the arc and not brake the arc.
Nobody’s ever done an adaptation of Asimov’s The Foundation Trilogy, which is too bad.
Are you saying that Apple’s adaptation isn’t worthy of acknowledgment or are you not aware they’ve been producing it?
The what? Apple’s never done an adaptation. Nope. Not Apple, that’s for sure.
Honestly, though: brilliant graphics, design, and acting. The writers should all be taken out and shot, though.
I 99 cases out of 100 it’s not writers. It executives.
Season 1 of Westworld. It’s okay to have an ambiguous ending, you can leave it to viewer’s imagination. That show went downhill with every season because it was trying too hard to be smart.
Agree.
Saw S2 but the magic was just not there. Never saw anything after.
The Office when Michael left.
Terminator 3 is the last of that series in my eyes. The others - although not too shabby (excluding Salvation of course) - I regard as fan fiction.
Arrested Development - that last season just did not agree with me.
Community - things dropped off quickly when Troy left.
Season 1 of Once Upon A Time. Its OK afterwards, but an awful lot of what made the show good was wondering whether it was real or if the kids a mad fantasist. Afterwards it’s watchable but it’s different.
Psycho-Pass ended at Season 1. There are no further seasons or movies.
Misfits ended at S2E6.
The Office when Michael moved away. It was never the same after that.
I’m currently watching The Office Superfan Episodes (would recommend, if you haven’t. They add a lot of new scenes and jokes that have cracked me the hell up) and I feel like I am progressively moving the “jumped the shark” line up every time I rewatch the show.
At one point I thought it was around the time Andy got on the boat. Then around when Robert California came around. Then, when Michael left. Now I’m kinda feeling like the show has taken a significant change in tone at the point when the original corporate office is bought and cleaned out by Sabre. That’s not to say that there aren’t good episodes forward from here, but I literally feel like I’m not starting to watch the show “waiting for it to end”
spoiler
The end of the episode loops seamlessly into the pilot. When I first watched it live they played both episodes back to back without an ad break. It took me a few minutes to realize what they had done and I started crying.
It’s a perfect loop, a perfect end to Fry and Leela’s relationship, and bittersweet in its existential implications
The “new” episodes they released afterwards don’t count. I acknowledge that they exist but I do not grant them the title of canon.
I know your question is worded for movies and shows but I have one example from the world of video games that still makes me sad. Final Fantasy died shortly after X, maybe X-2. XII if you really want to stretch things. After that, they were too focused on “modernizing” gameplay. I just want something with a colorful world, quirky characters and turn-based combat that’s more about finding the right strategy for a boss than reflexes.
I guess XIV is nice in its own way but as an MMORPG I see it more as a spin-off than as a part of the main series. The VII remakes tickle some nostalgia neurons but would have been better without their real-time combat. XIII, XV and XVI were just meh. If you really want to make me happy, make a faithful remake of VIII with modern graphics, rebalanced but otherwise faithful gameplay and a few more scenes in the last act that answer a few questions that the community has been trying to answer for 25 years.
If we’re including video games im gonna say mass effect. I didn’t give 2 enough of a chance because at the end of ME1 the entire known universe bands together to defeat a single big-bad ship and it’s a fully annihilating battle where the good guys barely scrape by. Then thousands of the big-bads turn up at once and the credits roll. Its a devastating ending that really drives home the central themes.
Then in ME2 your guy(orgirl) just wakes up in hospital after the battle? No chance. I just couldn’t get past it long enough to give it a chance. I still have them and I know I should but…
Interesting take and totally understandable though that’s not quite what happens in the plot:
- The battle for the Citadel at the end of ME1 wasn’t the entire known universe banding together by far. What we see is a couple of ships that happened to be nearby because at that point, most of the universe still doesn’t believe the reapers even exist.
- After the battle, the reapers don’t show up at the Citadel but at the edge of the galaxy. They are still months to years away from eradicating the Alliance. Yes, they have a whole lot of firepower but taking down thousands of planets full of enemies who now know what’s coming takes a lot longer than an attack on a single space station where nobody was prepared for an attack.
- At the beginning of ME2, Shepard doesn’t just wake up at the hospital after the battle you saw in ME1. During a later battle/patrol (?), the Normandy gets ambushed and completely destroyed. Shepard dies and their corpse drifts through space. Cerberus (who were only briefly mentioned in a side quest in ME1) manage to retieve the body and use an experimental technology to bring them back to life (it’s implied that they basically built a Shepard-shaped cyborg who has access to at least some of ME1 Shepard’s memories). The goal is to have a well-respected figurehead who can assemble a squad to take down some critical Reaper infrastructure.
Last episode of The Simpsons Season 9
new season has been goood
In my own opinion, it’s Disney good.
Early Simpsons was slightly edgy, not in a shock factor way, but in a way where it could explore mature themes without any tonal whiplash, while still being entertaining for kids and adults.
As Fox deteriorated, so did the Simpsons, presumably from bad producing and low funding. Pretty much as soon as the Disney acquisition happened, quality began to climb again, and people have been saying it’s good for a few years.
But I can’t shake the feeling that the real feeling isn’t that it’s good, just that it isn’t bad anymore. It’s as inoffensive and bland as many Disney IPs, but doesn’t carry the true badness of Fox. I don’t trust that Disney is able to give it the ingredients for it to be great again.
It did get disney cutsified the last season, but the last few episodes have been making GTA SA PS2 gangsta references (and surprisingly not cringe!) and has been doing the joke layering that the Conan O’Brien era was famous for.
It’s not just setup -> punchline any more, the last few episodes have been doing setup -> small punchline -> setup -> bigger punchline -> setup for later punchline all in the same scene.
And they’re not screw-the-audience jokes or random references (though there are some), it’s all in-universe humour. Check out the last episode, it was genuinely well-written and laugh-out-loud funny
- die hard ended at 3
- highlander ended at 4 (and there is no 2)
