do you think Arnold the T800 have retired in future Terminator franchise?

[Anonym]

This series has been around for more than 30 years. It is undeniable that Arnold has become the embodiment of a legend. But just like a person, a franchise will have its birth, growth, prosperity, decline and death————Now, the Terminator series is obviously declining, and old Arnold has come back too many times.

I have to mention Genisys here, it's not a good movie, but I would give it a pretty higher rating if our old T800 heroically sacrificed himself in the last battle (in the true from of a T-800 terminator!) against the final and most powerful and advanced enemy at the end of the movie.Or Connor the T3000, changed his position at the last moment and saved the old T800 due to his last remnant of humanity, which is also a kind of sublimation, but this is not clearly stated in the movie.

do you think old Arnold the T800 should retire and let the new generation continue the worldview and the story of the assassin robot from the future? or just let it go and until its end?

 

[Anonym]

Imagine this scenario:
In the final battle, the fire burns away the T800's living-skin, revealing his mechanical true form. Then, this old, outdated and severely damaged robot begins to use the last of his power to fight the T3000, a Terminator that is far more powerful than him, and after losing half of his body and an arm, he finally dies together with his final enemy.

From then on, the story of old Arnold pattern terminators ended, and the new Terminators began to use a new appearance design, because old Arnold's appearance had been widely circulated in the past era, making such terminators the most famous wanted criminal in the world and unable to act secretly.

 

[MGibster]

The Terminator was a surprise hit and Terminator 2 was expected to be a blockbuster and they're both fantastic movies. None of the other Terminator movies have been very good. I think maybe the whole Terminator franchise has run its course and we should move on to other things.

 

[Kaodi]

The problem with time travel movies is that your time travel reasoning has to be tight and I do not think Terminator's ever was?

 

[SableWyvern]

The Terminator was a surprise hit and Terminator 2 was expected to be a blockbuster and they're both fantastic movies. None of the other Terminator movies have been very good. I think maybe the whole Terminator franchise has run its course and we should move on to other things.

For a long, long time, all I really wanted was a movie that focused on the Resistance, and gave us more of what we saw in the flashbacks (forwards?) in the original movie.

I was not at all happy when I got what I wanted.

The first two movies are excellent. I don't really remember the third, other than the ending, which I felt was solid and well done. The rest has been trash, as far as I'm concerned.

TLDR: I pretty much agree.

Edit: I forgot about the Sarah Connor Chronicles. The series was excellent, and every bit as good as the best the franchise has to offer.

 

[GreyLord]

I actually didn't mind Genisys or whatever that one was called.

Terminator movies I actually really liked...

Terminator
Terminator 2

Ones that I enjoyed, though I wouldn't say I thought they were great...

Terminator 3
Terminator Genisys

Ones that were absolute trash and I struggled to get through them and even today I'm not sure I remember everything about them they were so bad....

Terminator Salvation
Terminator Dark Fate.

I really don't understand why people liked Dark Fate. Salvation just...didn't seem to go along with what the other movies had said was supposed to happen previously. John Was not really the leader of the resistance and was more like...just sort of there...

It was kind of a dark movie and somewhat boring. It didn't have the flashy battles I thought it might have either, and even the heroes were somewhat stupid.

Genisys didn't make a ton of sense either and had a disconnect for me (perhaps it was because I was so bored in Salvation that I missed something), but at least it was somewhat entertaining to me and I could at least follow along with the plot a lot easier. I know people hated that John Conner turned bad in that (which also creates or should create some weird paradoxes...but hey...whatever), but it had Emilia Clarke so I can forgive it of that one.

However, if the entire Sarah Conner suddenly has a pet Terminator out of nowhere for no reason and I really don't understand how that happened with John turning evil...turned people off and they hated that...I can't understand why anyone would have even considered Dark Fate as good. It was worse than Genisys in every category (and took the absurdity to an even greater extreme than those before...plus had some disconnects just as large if not larger from the entire history of 1 and 2 than even Genisys...it's like the one who should have known how it all connected had a brain fart and forget 75% of what they produced and directed in Terminator 1 and 2)!!!

Plus, I got bored in Dark Fate as well and had a hard time finishing that movie. I probably have forgotten most of the last third of that movie it bored me to death so much.

Terminator shows/movies I should watch

Terminator the Sarah Conner Chronicles.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The problem with time travel movies is that your time travel reasoning has to be tight and I do not think Terminator's ever was?

Really? Because I can think of a whole bunch of very successful time travel movies with very dodgy reasoning: Back to the Future, Star Trek IV, Avengers: Endgame...

 

[Cergorach]

I don't know how dead the Terminator franchise is exactly when Netflix is doing an animated series: Terminator Zero

The thing with the Terminator series is that it keeps coming back... Kinda funny for a time travel IP!

I like T2 even more then T1, the other movies I didn't hate, but were forgettable for me. I don't want to say that the T1&T2 movies were 'good' though, but I found them enjoyable. I also enjoyed the Terminator TV series 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles', a shame that one was cancelled, also no Arnold in there.

I think there is room in the Terminator franchise for movies/tv series without Arnold. But Arnold T-800 is iconic imho and an occasional return would be appreciated. We have the technology to do that without actually Arnold being present, as long as he and the IP owner can come to terms on his appearance/voice being used that way, I would be absolutely fine with that appearance in movies/series/games.

I suspect that we'll see many more Terminator movies, tv series, animations, games, comics, etc. Because the premise is compelling and era appropriate with AI, automatization, robotics, etc. While the original two movies were very 80s, the original movie now being 40 years old, I suspect that this might need a refresh for the new generations. That's also why many old fans of the franchise keep being negative about most modern stuff that gets released for the IP, it doesn't fit that 40 year old narrative. But for many younger people that didn't grow up during the 80s that 'setting' is totally unrelatable.

And while there are tons of movies/tv series about the 80s that are very successful, they tend to make the 80s a feature, with the Terminator franchise that just isn't the case. It just uses 80s 'sensibilities' and that is imho something else entirely...

 

[Zardnaar]

Gonna try out new Netflix show. Deep down inside there's that 13 year old that fell in love with T2.

I liked T3 warts and all and the TV show SCC was really good. The rest meh.

If i was doing new Terminator stuff I would use different characters or do future war with Skynet being blown up but before John wins Skynet downloads into a new body or makes all the robots free willed. That happens at the start of the movie.

Arnie isn't required tbh.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Terminator started off with a very simple story. But to tell more stories it got increasingly complicated, till it collapsed under it's own worldbuilding.

Oversimplistic conclusion: Sequels bad, stand-alone movies good.