Terminator Dark Fate Review (no spoilers)

[BookBarbarian]

Did you watch the TV show?

A big problem the have had is they keep doing over the top Terminators even though as you said T1 and T2 were supposed to be Skynets last gasp.

I loved the show. They really nailed a John Conner that was transitioning from a young victim to someone that could be the leader of the revolution.

 

[DammitVictor]

Geneysis and Dark Fate were both forgettable sensory-overload explosion-fests that seemed to be trying HARD to cash in on the Terminator name, but that's it. Killing off John Connor in BOTH films was a huge mistake.

If you count the hastily-rewritten ending from Salvation, that's the last three movies and three in a row.

I doubt that's a coincidence, but it makes me wonder what the motivation is.

 

[wingsandsword]

If you count the hastily-rewritten ending from Salvation, that's the last three movies and three in a row.

I doubt that's a coincidence, but it makes me wonder what the motivation is.

Given that the reason for the hasty rewrite to the end of Salvation was that test audiences hated seeing Connor die, you'd think they would have taken that as a hint to not do it in future films.

Yet they still pulled that same plot device in the next two films, both of which did poorly.

I'm almost wondering if it's that modern trend in filmmaking to deconstruct everything, make everything dark and grim, and kill treasured characters.

 

[MarkB]

Technically they killed off John Connor in Rise of the Machines, too. The reason why the T-800 in that movie isn't programmed to obey John is because it was reprogrammed by his girlfriend, after it had successfully killed future John.

 

[wingsandsword]

Technically they killed off John Connor in Rise of the Machines, too. The reason why the T-800 in that movie isn't programmed to obey John is because it was reprogrammed by his girlfriend, after it had successfully killed future John.

Yeah, but it wasn't on screen, so it didn't really impact the audience the same way.

I recall that the novelization of Terminator 3 said that he was lying about that, he was supposedly programmed to lie and say that Connor was killed. I don't remember why, but even the author of the novelization didn't like it and tried to retcon that away.

 

[Zardnaar]

The killing John Connor thing is basically every hack writer thinking they can do better and make Terminator their own. It's the same as old TSR writers doing realms shaking events.

Only way I would kill Connor is in the future ear right at the end where they win or resolve the war in another way. Even then it's debatable.

If the franchise isn't dead and buried they need to go to lower budget character based stories away from John Connor. Maybe a future war setting up T1 and T2.

Reading the wiki there's some interesting sounding comics and novels.