The
Terminator franchise may be one of the most nonsensical franchises in film history given they’ve gone back (in) time and time again to try and make a successful sequel to the first two films that have always been regarded as some of the best action filmmaking of all time. People seem to be making a big deal out of
Terminator: Dark Fate in that this latest attempt to capitalize on the IP that is Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s bread and butter by saying James Cameron is finally returning to the franchise, but I seem to clearly remember Cameron
endorsing Terminator: Genisys four years ago. In regards to that exaggerated attempt at redirecting the franchise altogether I actually enjoyed it more than most. I know we had
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines which isn’t as bad as people say as well as
Terminator: Salvation which is as bad as people, and then there’s
Genisys which just seemed doomed from the get-go. With
Dark Fate, Cameron brought on
Deadpool director Tim Miller to try and finally make the definitive sequel to
Terminator 2: Judgment Day by pulling the same stunt as last year’s
Halloween and wiping clean the slate of everything that came after that second film. All of this taken into consideration it seems there is no real reason to have any hope or optimism for this latest re-boot, but the presence of Linda Hamilton does count for a lot. Hamilton, who hasn't been involved in a
Terminator property since
Judgment Day, is back as Sarah Connor in what more or less looks like a re-hash of the first film with a little bit of action and certain character designs from the second film thrown in for good measure. That said, one has to imagine Hamilton liked something about the script as she’s obviously turned down pretty good pay days before when the screenplay clearly wasn’t up to par. And while some of this looks to be treading familiar ground for the sake of satisfying the core fan base I have enough faith in Miller and the writing team that includes Charles Eglee (who created the Cameron-produced TV series
Dark Angel), Josh Friedman (who created the TV series
The Sarah Connor Chronicles), David Goyer (
Man of Steel), and Justin Rhodes (
Grassroots) to be optimistic enough this could turn out to be what everyone has hoped every
Terminator film would be since
Judgment Day. Only time will tell, but in the meantime I’ll keep trying to convince people
Genisys isn’t as bad as they think it is.
Terminator: Dark Fate also stars Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, Diego Boneta, and opens on November 1st, 2019.
