Terminator 3 Featurette Showcases The T1-9 Robots

By Rudie Obias | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

While we’re patiently awaiting Terminator 5 in 2015, why not take a look back at when the film series started to go on the decline? Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is not a bad action movie. If it were called anything but a Terminator movie, it would be halfway decent, and it looks like a masterpiece when compared to McG’s Terminator Salvation. Yuck! Let’s hope Terminator 5 will at least be better than that one. When it came time to create some realistic new machines for the third Terminator movie, the filmmakers could have gone the CGI route. Instead, director Jonathan Mostow opted to get some help from the legendary Stan Winston.

The Stan Winston School YouTube channel is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to know how skilled technicians bring monsters and robots to life in movies. It’s updated on a regular basis and features some of the best in science fiction film-making. In the video above, the special effects wizards on Terminator 3 assemble the T1-9 robots used in the film. They look like they are straight out of a RoboCop movie, as if they were close cousins to ED-209.

The T1-9 robots were remote controlled with sophisticated working hydraulics and a weapons system with pair of Gatling guns, and they were dual-mounted on tank treads. While the film itself wasn’t the best, these machines are still impressive. It’s just a shame that Terminator 3 wasn’t a better movie.

If you remember, T3 was released in 2003, 12 years after the release of Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991. The general rule of thumb when it comes to sequels is, if you have to wait more than five years between films, it’s most likely going to be a bad and half-hearted effort. Thank goodness for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, otherwise we wouldn’t have anything good to talk about with the Terminator franchise after T2.

Stan Winston was a genius when it came to special effects and creature & monster design. He was responsible for the special effects in some of the most iconic science fiction movies of all time, including Jurassic Park (the Velociraptors), Aliens (the Queen), Predator, Avatar, and, of course, the Terminator franchise. Before he died in 2008, Stan Winston established the Stan Winston School of Character Arts, so more students can learn how to bring the impossible to the big screen.

As for Terminator 5, the fifth film in the Terminator franchise will be the start of a new film trilogy from Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures. There were rumors that Terminator 5 would be a prequel that would take place in the 1940s. Supposedly, the film would follow Sarah Connor’s parents as a new Terminator is sent from the future to kill them, so neither Sarah nor her son John would be born.

The Connors’ only protection, according to this rumor, is a Good Samaritan played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who would somewhat be playing the Kyle Reese role from the original Terminator film. Apparently, the machines are so impressed (ya know, it’s so hard to impress a machine these days) that they model the new Terminators after his likeness.

If this turns out to be the actual plot for Terminator 5, then Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is looking more and more like a masterpiece.