Once again another new Terminator movie is coming. This time it’s going to be called Terminator: Dark Fate.
What’s that line that Kyle Reese said in the original 1984 film:
“It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop…ever, until you are dead!”
Yeah, that kind of sums up this franchise huh? They just continue making these movies.
I’m actually not surprised that they keep churning out these Terminator movies. How can Hollywood not mine a brand property they own nowadays. It should be expected. We can’t expect them to use common sense and exercise some creativity to make a new sci-fi action movie.
What I can’t figure out is how anyone can feel even mildly optimistic about yet another Terminator movie after what we’ve experienced with Salvation and Genisys. Shouldn’t we all resign ourselves that Terminator is over, nothing worthwhile can be done with it, just all agree to put this to rest and move onto something brand new. How many times do we have to go through this until Terminator fans unanimously say “Enough!”
Apparently not yet. I’m amazed that some continue to feel hope for Dark Fate and of the possibility that this will be the one to finally reignite the series to its former glory.
I am not holding my breath on that.
This time they’re skipping over all the junky sequels (like Halloween did) and are saying this is a continuation to Terminator 2: Judgement Day. You know a franchise is in dire straits when they have to ignore installments of their franchise. That’s what we call a big ‘Ooopsie, ok we admit we messed up with those others’.
Ok, so let’s go over the selling points as to why some have drummed up some encouragement for this one – or at least the stuff the studio is selling this one to us that’s meant to eclipse all mishaps that came before.
It’s being heavily promoted that James Cameron is onboard with Dark Fate – not as the director, but as producer and helping with the story – along with a bunch of other screenwriters. It’s said he’s working close with director Tim Miller for this installment.
Yeah. So? I’m not sure why anyone would mark this as a draw. I think pretty much everyone can agree all Cameron cares about is those dozen Avatar movies he’s making. I don’t believe he cares about Terminator anymore. Maybe he cares about helping out Arnold, but as for the series I don’t think it even crosses his mind. I would wager his involvement is more as a courtesy, a paycheck and his heart isn’t in this franchise anymore.
How can anyone forget how he came out proclaiming that Genisys was the true third installment to Terminator 2? Doesn’t anyone remember that? I don’t care if he later backpedaled on that statement and said he only did it to help out his pal Arnold, he sold out. How can I trust anything he says now?
So, Cameron’s involvement means very little to me.
Why do I see so many of these trailer reactions to Dark Fate with people hopping up and down at the appearance of Arnold Schwarzenegger??? Everyone is that excited to see him back in a Terminator movie? He’s in every one of these! He doesn’t turn any of them down! What is the surprise about that??? Is this really that mind-blowing that’s he’s back….again?
If you’re really anxious to see Arnold in a movie and such a big fan of his, where were all these people when The Last Stand, Maggie, Sabotage or Aftermath came out? No one bothered to go see him in those. It has to only be Terminator huh? I guess seeing him in a bad Terminator movie is better than taking a chance of seeing him in an original film.
It’s a funny thing with Arnold and the Terminator. Here’s a role that was perfectly made for recasting.
Right from the start in 1984, here’s a robot that is meant to hunt down unsuspecting humans and kill them. It’s designed as an infiltration unit to blend in, not looking suspicious until they spring into violence. Heck, the resistance has to use dogs to help sniff them out. They’re just completely unaware of who a Terminator might be.
So, why would Skynet make so many versions of this thing that look like Schwarzenegger??? Why wouldn’t they change the heads on the thing? Forget dogs to pick them out, all you would need is one picture of Arnold and you’d pick out Terminators in an instant. At least stick some mustaches on him to maybe help disguise him.
It’s such an absurd thing. Of course Arnold is a big star so they have to come up with reasons as to why the same looking robot keeps showing up in these movies.
Even in Terminator 2: Judgement Day Arnie’s appearance was a stretch. We had to accept there was an assembly line of Arnie robots spitting them out. But we all accepted – ‘Ok, they have to have Arnold come back, so we’ll believe they had another model that looked exactly like him. At least they’re changing it up a bit and he’ll be a good guy this time out’.
Now, what we’re six times into this and they’re still trying to explain why Arnold keeps coming back as this robot, who ages you see and is constantly getting reprogrammed to help out. They must have a warehouse full of Arnold models in the future that everyone is just picking through.
So Arnold is back…..whoopee.
Now we’re back to the biggest hook of Dark Fate and that’s Linda Hamilton’s return. Finally, Sarah Connor is back.
That’s the biggest thing this Terminator has to trick…oh I mean ‘sell’ audiences on to come and watch this one with promises that THIS is the Terminator movie they’ve been waiting for.
Cameron and Schwarzenegger’s credibility with Terminator flicks have long been squandered and are now meaningless, so they’re banking on the hope that Hamilton will carry this. She hasn’t participated in any embarrassing sequels to this series….yet.
Well, some are apparently falling for this. Plus, Hamilton being back can ride the wave of all the ‘strong women in film’ conversations that everyone is enjoying having lately.
I don’t hold out much hope that they’re going to do anything very interesting with Sarah Connor here. I’m predicting it will be more like the results of Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode returning in that last Halloween – a whole lot of hype and virtually no pay off.
Then there’s the new characters who….I don’t know…maybe they’ll be decent, or just knockoff and new versions of characters we’ve seen before. This one girl is a Terminator/human hybrid or something. Whatever.
I really can’t keep these timelines or what is going on with these movies straight anymore. I miss the simple ‘a robot from the future was sent back in time to kill you, now let’s run’ stories. All these complicated loopy, bells and whistle added options have done nothing to improve on that.
Of course we need a new more advanced Terminator to run away from and fight. It seems Skynet only got the clue to make Terminators look different after they made all the Arnold models and started making the ones with liquid metal.
Now there’s a new Terminator who has liquid metal and…some kind of exo-skelton too, so he can be in two places at once or something. No idea. It didn’t look too interesting to me. Then there’s the action scenes that look like the same kind of silly, weightless, bland stuff we saw in Genisys.
I’m betting we won’t see any of the brutal violence like the first film. The scene of Arnold killing a police station full of cops, shooting the poor lady who unsuspectingly tells him her name is Sarah Connor, the unsympathetic disposal of gunning down Sarah’s roommate who the Terminator thinks is Sarah.
I don’t think we’ll also see any kind of mind-blowing cutting edge special effects that made Terminator 2 the event movie of the summer of ’91. No inspired director behind the camera coming up with unique ways to incorporate these new CGI effects into his film and making the most with them. Then audiences leaving the theater talking about how amazing the scenes looked
Nah!
What I predict is we’ll see YET another attempt to keep this Terminator train chugging along. There will be healthy doses of silly over-the-top action scenes (the two planes crashing together looks….I wouldn’t have even put that in the trailer), a retread of a story that we’ve seen before, a less intimidating and more cartoonish adversary than the first two films had and a wild patched together timeline of a story with massive leaps in an attempt to make sense of it all.
If you’re one of those who are still feeling optimistic, hey more power to you. I can’t blame anyone really. When you love a franchise you want to see a worthy installment – I get it. It’s probably better to try to stay positive, ignore all the missteps and hold out judgement until you see this.
It’s just a trailer and I could just be unshakably jaded with what has become of Terminator and Dark Fate will miraculously prove me wrong.
True, that could happen. I’m not betting on that though and am sticking to my guns and thinking this will be more of the same of what we’ve gotten from this series – just uninspired, boring, silly sequels that don’t resemble anything the first two films were.
I am hoping this is good 16 years of disappointment though.
Do you think Arnold will play a human this time?
Maybe a former skynet employee?
If I had to guess he’ll play a terminator again. I think they think that’s all people want to see him play and they wouldn’t want to risk him playing a human. If he did play a human at least that would be something different and it would pique my interest a bit.
One of the possible reasons for the nostalgia train could be the fact the people who greenlight projects and producers who make them are all in their late 30s / 40s and grew up in the 70s and 80s. We see this with video games with 8 bit and 16 bit games and simple platforming games all making a huge comeback.
People crave nostalgia. They crave a time that they are familiar with or remember with rose tinted glasses. I grew up in the 80s and remember it relatively well. I recall all the cool TV shows and movies and toys we had then. Childhood days that we today desire for more simple times. Yet the decade was also incredibly boring as there was on demand anything. We had to wait for the good stuff and when it came, we loved it, because we waited for it.
The resurgence in franchises that should have be left in the past is a an attempt to rekindle that desire to find the “cool” again but in this day and age when everything is cool and always on, most kids look up to their parents, shrug their shoulders, and say “whats the big deal”.
The past is a foreign country that we can never travel to.
That was very well said!