Haven't seen either m3gan, but okay how do we explain Terminator 2. That was an extremely campy deconstruction of the first film no? Do we feel like James Cameron was in on the joke--feels like he set out to create these silly iconic moments and succeeded!
That's a great question- I actually think that M3GAN 2.0 is a gloss on Terminator 2. James Cameron is basically my favorite director and I think the thing that makes his films generally so successful is that he's making these highly personal films that just happen to take the form of giant scale blockbusters.
As far as why the villain-to-hero bit in T2 works so well, and fails in M3GAN 2.0 is that T2 really finds a very clever way to convert the defining relentlessness of the T-800 into a different channel. The T-800 is exactly the same in both movies, the only difference is that ones been programmed to kill Sarah Connor, and the other has been programmed to protect John Connor. In M3GAN 2.0, they vastly change M3GAN into a different kind of being.
Another element is that T2 plays a lot with reversals. Sarah Connor goes from being a victim in the first movie to a relentless warrior, the T-800 takes on the appearance of a biker, the T-1000 takes on the appearance of a cop, the developer of skynet becomes its destroyer. T2 plays a lot with the instability of identity. I watched T2 a few months ago, and the scene where Sarah fails to kill Miles Dyson made me tear up.
In contrast, M3GAN 2.0 misses these opportunities, failing to give any of the other characters much room to grow or act. They are all mostly reacting to M3GAN, without strongly defined arcs of their own.
This is a good analysis. The impression I get does seem that M3GAN 2.0 was very inspired by T2, but didn't really have the level of care that made T2 so great.
Haven't seen either m3gan, but okay how do we explain Terminator 2. That was an extremely campy deconstruction of the first film no? Do we feel like James Cameron was in on the joke--feels like he set out to create these silly iconic moments and succeeded!
That's a great question- I actually think that M3GAN 2.0 is a gloss on Terminator 2. James Cameron is basically my favorite director and I think the thing that makes his films generally so successful is that he's making these highly personal films that just happen to take the form of giant scale blockbusters.
As far as why the villain-to-hero bit in T2 works so well, and fails in M3GAN 2.0 is that T2 really finds a very clever way to convert the defining relentlessness of the T-800 into a different channel. The T-800 is exactly the same in both movies, the only difference is that ones been programmed to kill Sarah Connor, and the other has been programmed to protect John Connor. In M3GAN 2.0, they vastly change M3GAN into a different kind of being.
Another element is that T2 plays a lot with reversals. Sarah Connor goes from being a victim in the first movie to a relentless warrior, the T-800 takes on the appearance of a biker, the T-1000 takes on the appearance of a cop, the developer of skynet becomes its destroyer. T2 plays a lot with the instability of identity. I watched T2 a few months ago, and the scene where Sarah fails to kill Miles Dyson made me tear up.
In contrast, M3GAN 2.0 misses these opportunities, failing to give any of the other characters much room to grow or act. They are all mostly reacting to M3GAN, without strongly defined arcs of their own.
This is a good analysis. The impression I get does seem that M3GAN 2.0 was very inspired by T2, but didn't really have the level of care that made T2 so great.