All of the wows and the uh-ohs of the Terminator Salvation trailer.

I am, and forever will be, a shameless fanboy dork when it comes to the first two Terminator movies. They signify much of what’s great about movie-making, representing a confident and dynamic blend of story, character, action, special effects, drama – truly all of the stuff that makes movies so transporting. And it’s easy to tolerate T3 with its handful-o-watchable scenes and solid effects, and to try and not get frustrated by its overly jokey tone, frequently silly Schwarzenegger performance, and story revelations that essentially take what’s come before and rather distressingly upchuck all over it.

So I haven’t been looking forward to Terminator Salvation under the unassured hand of a third-rate crapteur like McG. The franchise has been slowly whittled away from greatness, first with the departures of Cameron and Linda Hamilton, and now without the defining Austrian face of Cyberdyne Systems’ finest product, so one has to wonder just how true of a Terminator movie we can expect to get.

But now that I’ve seen the full trailer, I can honestly say I’m excited to find out. It’s a great looking clip that makes the movie look pretty terrific and – most importantly – displays little of the stylistic awfulness of McG’s Charlie’s Angels movies. Maybe the cold medicine I took today has doped me into feeling uncharacteristically optimistic when it comes to needless sequels, but this trailer includes quite a few “wows” and lots of Terminatory fun.

Mostly. There are a handful of worrisome oddities – some definite “uh-ohs” – that I’d like to point out, with the help of our old friend the (enlargeable) screengrab. Let’s take a look:

Smart move here. I don’t know if this shot occurs in the beginning of the movie or not, but it’s an excellent way to open the trailer. It’s an extremely familiar, Terminator-looking shot: desolation and emptiness, a lone vehicle, a suggestion of something hiding and waiting. It’s a tension-builder. Quite good.

Here’s a guy – I wouldn’t know actor Sam Worthington if he came up and mugged me but I’m guessing this is him – who says “What day is it, what year?” Of course, this is a nice throwback to Reese’s dialogue in the ‘84 original, and again it’s a good way to set up this trailer. I like the feeling it gives this clip, but at the same time this is where I worry a little that the movie will become a Where’s Waldo of Terminator references. Will someone say “I’ll be back”? Will frigging Dr. Silberman, so awkwardly shoehorned into T3, make an equally uninspired appearance here?

Okay, more worries. Did Connor just kill a Terminator with a single shot to the head? Really? We see the glowing eyes go out, so I have to assume that’s the point here. But I seem to remember that these things are rather tough to kill, so I feel a bit dismayed that they’d show one getting dispatched so casually. And there’s something distressingly familiar about the Bay-esque swirling camera move up the body of John Badass Terminator-Killing-With-a-Single-Bullet Connor. Anyone want to bet me that this is the shot that introduces his character in the movie?

Still, if anyone can pull off this character, Bale can. I know a lot of sites are mocking his overuse of the gravelly Bat-voice, but I’m a huge fan of his work and I’ll give him quite a bit of room here. I’m kind of amused by the thought that if Terminator Salvation ends up good, it’ll be credited more to Bale than it will McG. Without Arnold, the film really needs a strong anchoring presence.

Great pair of shots of the red-eyed Terminator. Shot composition is really terrific and this thing looks pretty nasty. I find myself wondering why it looks like an undisguised cyborg (seen later in the trailer in close-up) needs to have recognizable ear appendages, but I’m feeling giddy so I’ll let that go.

At the trailer’s 1:01 spot, a kid asks “Who are you?” Two seconds later, Bale answers “JOHN CONNOR!” in one of the trailer’s definite uh-oh moments. It’s one of those awful trailer bits where someone feels the need to tell us everything as if we’re morons, but if this stays in the movie it’ll feel just as dopey there.

It’s surprising to me that the movie’s plot as represented in this trailer is still pretty elusive. It’s all a bit confusing and hard to tell anyone in this trailer apart aside from John (kind of like Alien3, yikes). The lack of plot spoilers is a good thing, but the lack of coherence could also suggest that the movie won’t make any sense.

Again, a pair of decent references to the earlier movies here. Naked Terminator feet, bigass gun, serious harm and damage to ensue. A great Terminator-type shot.

And at the 1:35 mark, a motorcycle jumps a ridiculously long and physics-defying distance. Hello, Charlie’s Angels director! Couldn’t you have stayed away a bit longer?

After this moment, the familiar Brad Fiedel Terminator music begins. Happy again.

And then at the end of the trailer there’s this big fella, which many websites are comparing to the look of Michael Bay’s Transformers. What I like much better about this mega-Terminator, though, is that its look and design actually seem to have form and function to them. It’s lean and mean. It’s got recognizable joints, claws for grabbing, massive gun where its head should be. Why would it need a head? There’s none of Bay’s crazy bits and pieces spinning around and jagged edges for no discernible reason. This big bastard seems to move and act like a machine with a mission. It recoils when that massive canon discharges, like physics demands that it should. It resembles Bay’s monstrosities only in the way that it’s a great big walking robot; other than that, this thing is much more menacing, true to its environment – and seems to serve a purpose to the movie’s story – which alone sets it aside from anything Bay has created.

Of course, it also seems to be shooting at something 50 feet tall when we’ve seen previously that this is in the middle of a desert, so…this could also be a tremendously silly piece of nonsense.

And that sums up the excellence and frustration of this trailer. It’s well-shot, tremendously edited. It absolutely makes me want to see the movie. There’s just enough found here to raise my eyebrows with worry that McG is well-equipped to wrap this movie up in a fantastic-looking package, but maybe not as qualified to make sure there’s something valuable inside once you’ve opened it.

Well, you’ve been more than patient wandering through my commentary. If you haven’t seen it already, here’s the Terminator Salvation trailer, via the good people at Collider: