VINCENT
                       So if you’re quitting the life,
                       what’ll you do?

                                  JULES
                       That’s what I’ve been sitting here
                       contemplating.  First, I’m gonna
                       deliver this case to Marsellus.
                       Then, basically, I’m gonna walk the
                       earth.

                                  VINCENT
                       What do you mean, walk the earth?

                                  JULES
                       You know, like Caine in “KUNG FU.”
                       Just walk from town to town, meet
                       people, get in adventures.

                                  VINCENT
                       How long do you intend to walk the
                       earth?

                                  JULES
                       Until God puts me where he want me
                       to be.

                                  VINCENT
                       What if he never does?

                                  JULES
                       If it takes forever, I’ll wait
                       forever.

                                  VINCENT
                       So you decided to be a bum?

                                  JULES
                       I’ll just be Jules, Vincent — no
                       more, no less.

But I’ve gotten lost in the disappointment that is the total corruption of the childhood, light-saber dream. When Terminator 2 came out I was in high-school, I remember it being the first time I had ever been blown away by special effects in a film. The demented metal-man was so far ahead of its time it made the movie fantastic. And I think it’s still an enjoyable film; I watched it last weekend as a matter of fact. But this new one… God, what a waste of celluloid. In fact, the special effects in the new one don’t seem as good as the old one. How does that work? I think the whole movie was designed to see how many abnormal vehicles they could drive around at top speeds and smash the bejesus out of. Let’s see, you’ve got a huge boom truck, a firetruck, an ambulance, a hearse (which becomes a convertible), a veterinary pickup truck with a kennel in the back, a big Camper R/V, a cessna, a few military helicopters of varying sizes, and the regular amount of cop cars and police motorcycles. I’m sure John Woo was on the edge of his seat. I guarantee there was a checklist to make sure they smashed up more strange, large vehicles than the first two movies combined.

I guess it also irritates me that this movie totally undermines the last one. T2 was, you know, “No fate but what we make” and all that junk; they change the course of the future by choosing to fight the past. In this new one, they start along the same track, but then realize that there’s nothing they can do, the future is inevitable, and the world is going to blow up whatever they do, boo-hoo (sorry, if you didn’t know that the whole movie was pointless).

In this way, we see that Terminator 1 & 2 reflect the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Locke and the rest of the gang, who believe that human free-will establishes the course of our future, especially with the help of time-machines and cybernetic, Austrian assassins. Whereas Terminator 3 takes a tire-smoking U-turn over into the works of Epicurus, Kant, Hobbes, Mill and Calvin in the determinist tree-house club, who believe that no matter what you do, and no matter how many times you send an obsolete, gubernatorial killing machine back in time against ever-improving, technologically-superior cyborgs, you’re still pretty much screwed. Which kind of makes you wonder, “Why bother?”

You see?That’s how you get kids to pay attention in philosophy class.

Yeah, and I would have had slightly more respect for this movie if they hadn’t called the crazy, hot new terminator chick, “The Terminatrix.” Poor form.

But I’m serious about the homosexual tension in this film. I lose count of the number of scenes that take place in the shower room. Everyone has to take their shirt off quite a bit, because presumably those air-force uniforms really chafe your skin. Here are a bunch of finely toned young men, living and showering together, and flying half-billion dollar phallic symbols through the air at incredible speeds, penetrating the sound barrier, if you will. Because, after all, they have a need… a need for speed. Then you have such choice, smolderingly intense dialogue as:

“You’re still dangerous… but you can be my wingman any day.”
“No… you can be mine.”
(Intense, steely glares dissolve into a loving brotherly embrace.)

Pitcher? Catcher? it’s the ole dilemma.

Another thing that struck me this time around (since, thanks to TBS and crew, we have all seen this film at least a dozen times) is that I realized that I have no idea what the co-pilot does in an F-16. From what I can tell, they just kind of look around and yell a lot. “There he goes!” “He’s right behind us!” (accompanied by much rubber-necking and swiveling in the seat). I would think it gets kind of annoying. You’re busy trying to defy physics and your dude is in the back yelling at you: “Get back in their Maverick!” “What are you doing Maverick?” “They’ve got a lock on us Maverick!” It’s like having your mom as a back seat driver or something. “Maverick you slow this jet down this minute. Did you indicate that G-force turn? Is there a speed limit up here? Can you turn down the radio, I can’t hear a thing over that guitar anthem.”

And has anyone ever noticed that this movie has exactly the same plot as “Days of Thunder?” that Tom did a few years later. Seriously, exactly the same thing except with cars instead of jets. It’s your basic – hero comes in, kicks some ass, endures a tragedy, is humiliated by steely competitor almost as good as him, loses his edge, is spurred back into action by another event, endures similar tragedy again but comes through it stronger than ever, and then wins the day – story. I think this plot line should be called the Achilles-Patroclus paradigm, since it was developed by Homer in The Iliad (and there was just as much sexual tension then too). Same story, just with less inexplicable confrontations with hostile Russians.

But luckily for Tom, he met Nicole Kidman in “Days of Thunder” and, after taking some time to hang out with his autistic older brother, moved with her to Ireland and became an illegal boxer, and then moved to America to race across the frontier and die a few times. Which was fine, because he’s actually undead ever since he took the profits from his bar “Cocktails and Dreams” to fund a time machine to travel back and become a vampire. On his return, he tried another stint in the military, but he didn’t last long because he couldn’t handle the truth. So, he tried his hand at a number of careeers: sports agent, secret agent, futuristic pre-crime fighter, samurai, crazy cab-driver plaguing grey-haired assassin….

As for Goose, he did survive that crash. He lost his memory, washed ashore and dedicated his life to becoming an ER doctor in Chicago. The only thing he lost was his hair. And then he dies.

If you are a woman: Make yourself ugly.

If you are a man: Play a character who is handicapped in someway or another.

In this way, we can assume the absolute be all and end all Oscar winner, would be an ugly, transvestite, prostitute murderer with a reverse-nose job, who grew up an autistic, child-prodigy pianist, over pressured by parental forces, and is now obsessive compulsive, blind and says “Who-Ahh!” all the time.

Instead of “Without a Paddle” I think they should have gone with “Shit Creek.”

So yeah, go see this movie, two thumbs up.