Terminator (film franchise)

There's always Avatar to fall back on!

That and James Cameron may have simply peaked as a creative.

It sounds like there was a lot of difficulties behind the scenes between Cameron and Miller, the one thing confirmed was that Cameron actually wanted Legion to be on the defensive rather than another Robot Apocalypse. I don't think John Conners death would have been seen as bad if the movie didn't shove in a female replacement with a "look how much better she is" vibe. The main thing I enjoyed from the movie was the aesthetics (the action felt more brutal than everything since T3) and how Carl brings in a new aspect of the T-800 other than just reprogrammed to be a good guy now.

That explains a lot of things. John Connor dying would be much of a problem if Legion isn't an exact copy of Skynet. I like the idea that Skynet only succeeds in killing John because it no longer exists in the future for John to be necessary. But that only works efficiently if the next threat isn't Skynet with a different name (otherwise it's just Genisys).

It's the same problem that plagued the Sequel Trilogy and by this point, people are catching on to the fact that nostalgia is masking the serious storytelling problems.

Was Terminator even capable of sustaining even a sequel, let alone a franchise?

Clearly, it did for Judgement Day. But Judgement Day was the peak of Terminator and thus it's impossible to recapture the magic.

You know the more I hear about it, the more I think that the happy ending that was cut from the 2nd movie may have been a better ending then the one we got. Like sure it wouldn't have been as impactful but given everything that has happened to the series maybe it wouldn't have been that bad.

It's pretty ironic that Dark Fate, made by filmmakers who have strong track records behind them, including the creator of the first two films, ends up disappointing, while Resistance, made by a developer best known for creating extremely poor licensed games, ends up making the true love letter to the series, isn't it?

Really I'm hoping the franchise goes back to television at this point. The serial format allowed the Sarah Conner Chronicals to do something new with this otherwise exstreemly formulaic franchise.

Clearly, what Terminator needs is a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

"That dastardly Skynet has come up with another wicked plan to get that Connor boy! How will Sarah, John, their friendly Arniebot, and their wacky talking monkey sidekick Bubbles thwart Skynet's evil plans this time?!"

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 28th 2020 at 11:15:05 AM

No no no, that’s how you did things in the 80’s. Nowadays you get an anime spinoff with lots of blood squibs.

I dont know about that,Alita Battle angel was pretty good

Edited by DeanCole on Mar 28th 2020 at 12:36:46 PM

The last two feature films Cameron directed were Avatar and Titanic, he did some documentaries in between for his own amusement. It seems that he's just become comfortable being a producer, so it's hard to say he's peaked when he's semi-retired.

The franchise is limited when the focus is on the Terminator Twosome plot, which has had diminishing returns for a while now. They have had much more success when they explore the Robot War, as the glimpses of that were tantilizing and original at the time. Salvation didn't get the best reviews at the time but has somewhat been Vindicated by History for that reason.

Edited by KJMackley on Mar 28th 2020 at 1:02:28 AM

Now I'm picturing Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner but it's a Terminator and John Connor.

I blame Terminator 3 for this. It was such a retread of Judgement day that it codified a whole lot of things into being formulaic.

I wonder if it's even possible for a Sarah Conner Chronicles revival at this point, or if they got a TV series they'd have to reboot the franchise again.

I'm actually surprised by how successful Sarah Conner Chronicles was,for a spin off show

"That dastardly Skynet has come up with another wicked plan to get that Connor boy! How will Sarah, John, their friendly Arniebot, and their wacky talking monkey sidekick Bubbles thwart Skynet's evil plans this time?!"

Talking Cartoon Bubbles: "Sir, if I might interject, that sounds positively ridiculous."

Sarah: "Shut up Talking Cartoon Bubbles!"

Well, it did stuff besides the Terminator Twosome, like branching timelines and additional factions. And the format gave it time to explore other stuff, like what happens when you have increasingly unpredictable Terminators blending into society for long term missions.

The problems that killed the show were some happenstance and shitty writing, rather than anything inherently unmanageable with the premise. Getting the first season slashed by the 2007 writing strike was huge, as not every show has Breaking Bad caliber writers to right the ship; and the soapy teen drama they tried to interject was obviously a nonstarter. Then in season two they let the plot meander, and we wound up with several episodes worth of nonsensical Dream Episode crap that didn't go anywhere and could have been compressed into a 15 minute B-Plot for one episode. They made a lot of mistakes and it is not surprising the ratings dropped enough to cancel it, but it was a matter of execution rather than premise.

Terminator: Salvation was the best Terminator sequel after T2?

That's, uh. That's a hot take, to be sure.

Yeah, I fail to see the good in a sequel where literally nothing of consequence happens to any character we care about.

Dark Fate has its problems, but I still think it's easily the best entry since 2, and it took me only moments to come to that conclusion after seeing it.

Edited by Prowler on Mar 29th 2020 at 12:11:14 PM

I guess I enjoyed it without giving a hoot about what it made. I'd still rank Dark Fate over Genisys, Salvation, and 3.

Actually becoming a resilient fighter and wanting the Terminator dead - Sarah did this too, but it was between films.

...he got more hits on the Rev-9, and probably took more for the team than anybody other than Grace. It's also kicking ass against a more advanced machine from an alternate timeline that's several decades newer and fancier than itself.

Also, that slide it did down the dam was probably the most badass scene in the film.

Edited by Soble on Mar 30th 2020 at 9:15:35 AM

Honestly the weirdest scene in Dark Fate was the reveal of future soldier Dani.

Like Natalia Reyes is such a small & young looking woman I kept thinking she was a child throughout the whole movie. So when future Dani showed up I couldn't help but think of her as just a teenager cosplaying as a soldier. Didn't help that she looked weirdly clean despite the whole apocalypse scenario which made the entire scene even more oddly hilarious.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 30th 2020 at 9:26:48 AM

I thought Rise of the Machines was okay at the time, but looking back on it there is a stark rise of jokes and sight gags. The bathroom fight in particular was praised as a brilliantly chaotic and destructive battle between two killer machines, but it's hard to overlook how almost every move spawns a joke (head spins around, grabbed by the crotch, dunking in the toilet bowl).

Dark Fate avoids a lot of that kind of humor, and I liked it in large part because it emphasizes the lethality of Terminators. There is no such thing as a protracted fight with one if you're a normal human, all you can do is distract it and run. Every work between 2 and Dark Fate has a lot of the hero being grabbed and tossed around for a bit, giving them a chance to retaliate. In the Cameron movies they don't toss you around, they get their hands on you they will rip your head off because they don't enjoy the hunt. John being killed in the opening scene is how a terminator operates.

Don't see it. Come the third act, the terminators always toy with the target.

They are only unstoppable killing machines when the heroes are on the run or when engaging non main characters.

The Honest Trailer actually mentions that, whenever the Rev-9 gets near a named character it either dramatically hesitates or shoves them despite being all stab-happy with the fodder.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 31st 2020 at 2:37:49 AM