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I wonder if Arnold listed saving the world as one of his accomplishments when he was running for governor? Politics exists at an odd intersection under the shade of reality and the sunlight of fiction. It's ironic that the governor elect of California should have a new DVD that proves he nothing but a machine. Many people accused him of the same thing in real life. If Arnold fails as governor, we always have the Terminator trilogy to fall back on to remind us of the good old days.

T3 has a number of quirky and clever plot twists that enhances the film making it something more than just a remake of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. That's a good thing as, if not for the clever twists in the screenplay and the way director Jonathan Mostow (U571) turns our expectations of the film on its head, it would be a by-the-numbers franchise extension designed only to garner money. Terminator 3 is really about the cruelty of time. It's about recapturing the past and changing it to thrive in our post-ironic world.

With the success of James Cameron's two previous Terminator films and with Arnold's career on a downswing, Arnold wisely chose to revisit the past and help reinvent himself once again by playing the most popular role he's been identified with outside of elect of California. While Arnold is once again cast as the "hero" of the film, it's a hero without conscience and a dark past. The script allows for the hero to redeem himself and discover the little voice inside our head that tells us right from wrong. As Terminator 3 opens we catch up with the savior of humanity John O'Conner. O'Conner (Nick Stahl) has become an itinerant construction worker with no permanent address. The future he was prepared for by his mother (Linda Hamilton who is sadly missed) hasn't come to pass. That's good news in a sense as the whole purpose of the battle in T2 was to prevent the destruction of mankind. Ironically by changing the future she and John and robbed him of his purpose. So he ends up wandering from job to job with his motorcycle his most important possession and no place to call home.

When the Terminator (Arnold) arrives, he's coming to a world that, on the surface, doesn't really need him. Judgment Day has been avoided with the destruction of Skynet. Unknown to O'Conner, though, is the fact that the military has continued the work begun at Skynet. They've developed much more technology based on the original computer chip that was destroyed in the second film. To make sure that the future does come to pass as it was supposed to, Skynet sends back yet another Terminator model. This one is in the form of a woman (Kristana Loken). While the shapeshifting T-1000 from T2 was formidable, this newer model is just as merciless with the advantage of molding itself into a single, deadly weapon. Its mission is simple; to eliminate all those children that O'Conner will recruit to become his Lieutenants and advisors. If this new Terminator can't eliminate O'Conner, it will cripple his resistance efforts in the past.

John Stahl and Claire Danes are both up to the task as the reluctant heroes of the film. Kristana Loken turns in a believable performance as the TX model. While she lacks the acting chops of Robert Patrick from T2, she still manages to make a strong impression. Arnold appears ageless. Perhaps he's got a portrait hidden in his closet at home somewhere. Once again his role doesn't demand much range. His performance is professional and memorable. The sequence where the T2 has two conflicting programs fighting it out for control of his body was unfairly attacked by many critics. Arnold communicates the conflict very well given the limited range of the character.

T3 has one of a very nice transfer that isn't quite as crisp or sharp as some of the best I've seen. While it's flawed, it still looks pretty good in the widescreen edition (there's a separate full screen edition also available which I haven't seen). I didn't detect any of the interlacing issues that have come up recently with a number of other discs (most notably Monty Python's The Meaning of Life where it was so bad that any time you watched the film in progressive mode the movement of any character became a series of blurs). The digital artifacts (i.e. compression problems, edge enhancement, etc.) were minimal to nonexistent.

The sound uses the full range of the 5.1 Dolby Digital set up. I did notice a tendency for the music to be a bit brittle and compressed at times but, on the whole, the sound is very good. Again, T3 benefits from what we've learned about transferring films to DVD. Commentary: There are two audio commentaries with director Jonathan Mostow with the stars of the film and a solo commentary from Mostow as well. Mostow's commentary is of the most interest for film fans. Arnold also provides some interesting tid bits as well but, on the whole, Mostow's observations on the making of the film are the most insightful.

Peaking under the hood of this monster we find a number of interesting extras that are comparable to the second edition of T2: Judgment Day. The first disc includes the movie so the extras are kept to a minimum here; they include trailers for the film and the video game as well as the commentaries. The most interesting extra is T3: Visual Effects Lab where you can build your own sequences from the film. It's an improvement over some of the previous attempts at creating an editing lab. It doesn't compare to an editing computer program but it's a bit of fun you can enjoy without having to pop the disc into your DVD-ROM. There are also a number of storyboards although there isn't any storyboard to film comparison sequences comparable to Ghostbusters or other blockbuster DVDs. Most gag reels are literally that full of silly screw ups that aren't all that memorable; the T3 gag reels actually have some truly funny moments. The Skynet Database of Weapons is also one of the better extras. Also included is a section with Personnel Dossiers. Both are useful for fans of T3 that haven't seen either T2 or the original Terminator in a while (or those that have never seen either one and, yes, there are a few).

The HBO First Look Making-of Documentary is the standard HBO promotional stuff. It does provide a couple of peaks behind the scenes but nothing substantial. There's also a deleted scene and it's pretty obvious why it was deleted; it didn't move forward the action or provide much more than a character moment.

T3 has a very nice transfer that lacks some of the crispness of some of the best DVD transfers. While Mostow doesn't have quite the visual flair as James Cameron, he's more than up to the task of filling Cameron's shoes with an inventive science fiction action film. The extras, although not as comprehensive as those provided for either The Terminator or T2, are informative.

I suspect that a boxed set is in the offing and we'll see a more deluxe edition of this film when it is released. One other point is that this is one of the few Warner films released to DVD that isn't in those horrible snap cases. It's a step forward in the right direction and probably was done because this is a 2-disc set. I doubt that Warner will be abandoning the snap case packaging for all their films.