Watching Terminator Salvation over the weekend confirmed one thing for me: technology is out to destroy us all. Technology has been on my shit list ever since my iPhone broke, even though that wasn’t really technology’s fault – it was more like concrete’s fault – but I just don’t think that concrete is out to destroy us all so I’m putting the blame on technology.

And then my RSS feeds got all messed up, which again, probably wasn’t technology’s fault as much as it was user error, but if technology were smarter and more helpful, it would have made it way more difficult for me to break my own website.

Anyway, my friends Natasha and Farnsworth had been eager to see Terminator Salvation, so in preparation, they rented Terminators 1 through 3 as a refresher course. They made it through 1 and 2 before we saw the new one on Saturday.

I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, so I’ll just tell you that Christian Bale shout-whispers through the whole thing, and a bunch of stuff blows up. And in the future, even when robots don’t have skin, for some reason they still wear pirate bandanas on their heads.

Afterwards, my friends and I spent at least an hour discussing all the film’s gaping plot holes over beers and deep fried macaroni and cheese, until we got bored and started searching for YouTube clips of fruit bats giving birth.

[Fun Fact: bats give birth hanging upside down.]

Then on Sunday, we all went to Natasha’s parents’ house for a Memorial Day tequila party. The weather was nice, so we gorged ourselves on delicious food and sipped expensive mescal on the back patio while Nat’s parents tried in vain to get some music piped into the back yard. Somehow, it was all tied to their TV in the basement, which no one but Nat’s little sister, Baby G, knew how to control and she hadn’t arrived yet.

Once the temperature started to drop, the party moved its way into the kitchen. Natasha and I were in charge of the Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville brand frozen margarita machine, but somehow got away with only having to make one pitcher of them before we retreated to the sweet solitude of the basement with surround sound, leather sofas and a 4,000 inch flat screen TV.

Not wanting to try to figure out their new-fangled cable TV, we opted to just watch Terminator 3, since the DVD player seemed to be working. Of the three complex remote controls on the coffee table, we had narrowed the choices down to two of them – one seemed to control the channels, and the other seemed to control NASA. Neither of them, however, controlled the volume, so I had to do what our forefathers before us did and get up off the leather recliner to adjust the volume. It was abominable and I hope to god I never have to suffer through that hardship again.

Everything was working fine until we would get to an explosion scene – which was every five to seven minutes – because then the volume would spike up about three times louder than the dialogue had just been. So we were forced to either strain to listen to the dialogue and hear the explosions at a normal level, or hear the dialogue at a decent level and be blasted out of our seats when another robot would show up. After the third time of getting up out of the comfort of my recliner to adjust the volume, I yelled at Nat, “Can’t you figure out one of those stupid remotes? One of them has to control the volume!”

“I’m trying! Look – I’m turning up the volume on this one as loud as it will get, and it’s not doing a thing.”

And that’s when we heard a barely intelligible, yet blood-curdling scream coming from upstairs, then some stomping, and then Baby G’s voice, screeching at the top of her lungs, “NAAAAAAAT!!! TURN IT DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWNNNNNNN!!!!!”

Baby G came storming down the stairs, snatched the remote out of Natasha’s hand and frantically pressed a bunch of buttons before throwing the remote back on the couch.

“Sheesh. What’s your problem?”

“Jesus Christ! You guys just turned the music up outside to like 10,000 decibels! Everyone in the whole neighborhood could hear it!”

Apparently, through our random combinations of button-pushing, we had inadvertently discovered how to pipe the music to the back patio, and had been blasting the entire subdivision with an ear-splitting rendition of Oye Como Va. A few car alarms were triggered in the process.

Baby G stomped back upstairs while we all burst into laughter.

The good thing about watching Terminator 3 is that it makes Terminator Salvation seem like Citizen Kane. The plot holes that seemed cavernous just the night before became entirely plausible compared to the painful dialogue and retched acting of its predecessor. I cannot ever recall shouting at the TV screen as much as I did that night.

“Oooh… look at me! I’m a T-X! Look at how I tilt my head when I’m about to kill you!”

“I’M SO F*CKING SURE! Yeah – now is REALLY a good time to stop and thank the robot, when another robot is about to grab your leg and that wall is about to come crashing down on you. Good call, moron.”

“How is this dumbass the leader of the resistance?!?”

“RIGHT! Like Claire Danes the veterinarian can be thrown headfirst across an airplane hangar into a giant tool box and then just get up and fly the plane. AAAARRRRGGGH! I CAN’T TAKE IT! THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE OF SHIT!”

So yeah, that’s the good thing about watching Terminator 3. But the best thing about watching Terminator 3 is when you get to play Santana, really, really loudly. Because if that doesn’t prove that the machines are out to destroy us all, then I don’t know what does.

Filed under: General on May 27th, 2009