Terminator 3 (4½ Stars)

I've watched the first three Terminator films back to back this month. It's a good way to start the year. Admittedly, the third film doesn't quite live up to the first two, but it has a lot in its favour. The car chase is one of the best car chases ever filmed, superbly over the top. The subtle in-jokes get funnier every time I watch the film. Added to that, it's the first time a Terminator has looked sexy. I know I'm being shallow and judging only by outer appearances. Underneath she's the same as all the other Terminators, but you have to admit that she does look good on the outside.

Having said that, the Terminator T-X -- that's the model number -- does seem to have been programmed to have female traits. It doesn't just march around like a man in a woman's body, it's slinky and sexy.

Today I noticed something strange for the first time. I have the film on Blu-ray. It's a widescreen presentation, 1920 x 790 pixels. Today I found a full screen version of the film online, 960 x 720, presumably ripped from a television broadcast. Please compare the high definition version of an identical scene (above) with the low definition version (below).

The widescreen picture is sharper, of course, but it looks like a cropped version of the full screen picture. I wish I had the whole film in full screen format in Blu-ray resolution. It's not just in this opening scene where it looks like censorship. I checked a few scenes later in the film, and the whole of the widescreen version is cropped, meaning that film details have been omitted. That's just wrong.

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