Terminator: Dark Fate **Spoilers from post 983**

Church on Tuesday

Dades wrote: »

Olivia Munn's character was essentially a man. Spoke and acted like one. They just picked a hot woman to play the part.

Tomboy?

Autecher

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I'm not expecting much to be honest. It's got too much of Genisys' BS in there for my liking.

I had hoped that Cameron might have come up with something special or daring but instead we're just getting yet another Terminator-themed blockbuster. Maybe Salvation wasn't that bad in hindsight...

James Cameron only cares about Avatar now, everything he does in his career is for that. The more he lends his name to and promotes movies like this and Alita the more money he gets for Avatar 2 & 3. Let's not forget he said this about Genisys
“I had no idea what to expect sitting down. I wasn’t involved with the making of the film. I’m in a dark theater. Movie starts. And I start to see things I recognize, done with, you know, contemporary technology and all that, but things I recognize like okay, this is pretty cool.
It’s being very respectful of the first two films. And then all of a sudden it just swerves into completely new teritory and now I’m going on a journey. I’m just, I’m just a fanboy at that point. You know. The back of my mind I’m thinking, all right this is pretty good, it better not screw this up. (laughs). And I’m having this dialouge with myself throughout the film. (still laughing). You know, I’m thinking “Okay, that’s pretty good. Yeah all right. That’s good. Well they really captured the sense of Reese and Sarah and wow this all makes a lot of sense.” So I actually really enjoyed it.”
“Can I be objective? Can I guarantee that you’ll enjoy it? No. I just know that I enjoyed the film. You know, but I strongly suspect that everybody will. If you like the Terminator films… whether your my age and you saw them in the movie theater, or whether you saw them on DVD or cable later and it’s just part of your childhood maybe, you’re going to love this movie.”

A few months later he said in an interview that he doesn't like any of the post T2 Terminator movies. He was so effusive about Genisys because it benefited him to be.

FAILSAFE 00

Looks like Jim is more involved than I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyymxk56sAQ

branie2

How many more will there be?!

Church on Tuesday

branie2 wrote: »

How many more will there be?!

If this makes money then another 2 apparently

Kermit.de.frog

Same was said about "Genisys".


That, of course, did not make more money because it was sh!t.


Cameron dirtied his bib by applauding it. I wonder how much they had to pay him.

pixelburp

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Same was said about "Genisys".

That, of course, did not make more money because it was sh!t.

Cameron dirtied his bib by applauding it. I wonder how much they had to pay him.

Genisys was a solid flop until it hit the Asian market (with China being the biggest according to BoxOfficeMojo), which managed to drag the film into some category of "success". Success enough to warrant this sixth movie, bankrolled by... a Chinese company (Tencent). Not sure if the IP itself is now owned by Tencent too, I do recall it going on the market after Genisys' run.

CatFromHue

I was watching a discussion on Colider, a youtube film discussion channel, about this and they had a guy who'd seen scenes of the film that were shown at some comicon event. He said the scenes shown were actually pretty good and the trailer didn't reflect what he saw at all.

So there's still some hope it's not going to be terrible.

Bacchus

sugarman wrote: »

Sure I still went to see T3 knowing itd be poor ..and Salvation ...and Genysis ...and more than likely Dark Fate.

Fool me once, shame on you... etc. :pac:

T3 was only ok, but the Terminator series at that point was only T1 and T2 so it had 'street cred' and was going to draw in fans. Salvation looked like the movie a lot of fans were asking for, and IMO wasn't a bad entry. Genysis was the real low point though and it looked it from the terrible trailers. That should have been the end of the franchise. Dark Fate doesn't look much better. The one and only draw here is Sarah Connor but this could just be a handy paycheck for Hamilton, and may have no reflection on the actual quality of the movie (which from the trailer looks to be in Genysis territory). I don't see them getting anywhere close to the glory days of the original or T2.

Kermit.de.frog

Salvation also broke the golden rule from T1 as per Kyle Reese - that humans live underground or hidden and only fight the machines at night.

Also the colour palette used through the film let it down as well. Rather than vibrant and sharp it was all pale brown and greys which I thought didn't suit.

Tony EH

Every film after the first one broke its rules.

Bacchus

Branchranch wrote: »

Being very generous there, T3 was atrocious, that scene with the stripper sun glasses alone was unforgivable and just proved that the movie was a caricature of the franchise.

Probably a bit generous alright. It sure did have some cringe scenes in it but it held up the "chase" formula of the first two quite well, the T-X was a good evolution of the terminator, and it had some good action (the crane/truck scene sticks in my mind). Also, it handled showing Judgement Day quite well with the initial rise of the machines, and that downbeat ending.

Effects

Bacchus wrote: »

T-X was a good evolution of the terminator, and it had some good action.

Yeah, they way she could remote control any vehicle was genius.

Effects

Branchranch wrote: »

Being very generous there, T3 was atrocious, that scene with the stripper sun glasses alone was unforgivable and just proved that the movie was a caricature of the franchise.

I think you are being too harsh.

I actually really liked that segment of T3

Walter Bishop

Branchranch wrote: »

Being very generous there, T3 was atrocious, that scene with the stripper sun glasses alone was unforgivable and just proved that the movie was a caricature of the franchise.

Good chase scene with the crane though, Silberman's cameo , and good ending.

Suffers badly in comparison to the first two of course.

pixelburp

T3 had a weird thread of humour throughout, no question, but the stripper glasses get way blown out of proportion; it was a 5 second gag & they get thrown away immediately, it's not like Arnie spent the rest of the film wearing them.

Dades

That clip makes me want to watch T3 again. I remember it being fun.

It wasn't T2, but very few movies in any franchise are at that level.

Corvo

Tony EH wrote: »

Every film after the first one broke its rules.

This is very much correct, and I class T2 as one of my favourite movies of all time. But T1 was how a Terminator should be made, an almost horror like theme.

batgoat

Dades wrote: »

That clip makes me want to watch T3 again. I remember it being fun.

It wasn't T2, but very few movies in any franchise are at that level.

Weirdly bleak end if I recall correctly.

pixelburp

batgoat wrote: »

Weirdly bleak end if I recall correctly.

Yup, arguably saves the movie really;

John & Clare Dane's character make it to Skynet's "core", only to discover it's an old government fallout shelter, the plan all along to get them both to a safe bunker; that Judgement Day was inevitable & all they could ever do was survive it. The film fades out with John Connor speaking to panicky troops on an old ham-radio while the bombs fall...

batgoat

pixelburp wrote: »

Yup, arguably saves the movie really;

John & Clare Dane's character make it to Skynet's "core", only to discover it's an old government fallout shelter, the plan all along to get them both to a safe bunker; that Judgement Day was inevitable & all they could ever do was survive it. The film fades out with John Connor speaking to panicky troops on an old ham-radio while the bombs fall...

Also they had a pretty talented cast that were wasted.

johnny_ultimate

Terminator, fairly uniquely even among over-long running series, is ill-equipped to handle a franchise. The first two films are basically time-travel infused chase films, and that's no bad thing because they're great. But the lore is all shallow as **** - merely simple, no-nonsense context for the main action of the Connors getting chased by machines. Similarly, T2 arguably upped-the-ante as far it could go - a *bigger, badder* enemy, with the (box office friendly) twist of Arnie being a good guy. Arguably the only way to replicate these things is to just remake or reboot the thing, and we all know how that goes. And there's also the Arnie problem - for most viewers, you can't separate the series from its breakout star, and the desperate attempts to shove him back into the story (even though he's in his 70s) are tragically flawed. Of course, lacking directors as capable as Cameron at his peak is another glaring issue... one could go on.

Placed in the pantheon of Hollywood franchises, the series seems uniquely doomed to fail over and over again. They're trying to shove more story into something that excelled thanks to its simplicity. Terminator 3 showed the limits of retreading the same ground; Salvation showed the stupidity of trying to build a film around the future setting (never intended to be anything more than a prologue); and I haven't seen the other one because **** that.

Maybe, against the odds, Dark Fate will be good - I'm not ruling that out, because strange things can happen. But I'm pretty convinced no Terminator film, at least one within the current Hollywood system, could ever capture the simple, straightforward pleasures of the original two films. We've seen the concept stretched as far as it can go - which isn't very far at all (again, no bad thing given how good those first two films are) - and then we've seen it taken beyond that point. Further Terminator films are innately redundant. Personally, I'd urge fans to just let it go and dismiss these sequels as the cashgrabs they are. On the off chance that one of them turns out to be legitimately good, against all the odds, then that'll become obvious once it is released. Otherwise: let it go

yourdeadwright

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Terminator, fairly uniquely even among over-long running series, is ill-equipped to handle a franchise. The first two films are basically time-travel infused chase films, and that's no bad thing because they're great. But the lore is all shallow as **** - merely simple, no-nonsense context for the main action of the Connors getting chased by machines. Similarly, T2 arguably upped-the-ante as far it could go - a *bigger, badder* enemy, with the (box office friendly) twist of Arnie being a good guy. Arguably the only way to replicate these things is to just remake or reboot the thing, and we all know how that goes. And there's also the Arnie problem - for most viewers, you can't separate the series from its breakout star, and the desperate attempts to shove him back into the story (even though he's in his 70s) are tragically flawed. Of course, lacking directors as capable as Cameron at his peak is another glaring issue... one could go on.

Placed in the pantheon of Hollywood franchises, the series seems uniquely doomed to fail over and over again. They're trying to shove more story into something that excelled thanks to its simplicity. Terminator 3 showed the limits of retreading the same ground; Salvation showed the stupidity of trying to build a film around the future setting (never intended to be anything more than a prologue); and I haven't seen the other one because **** that.

Maybe, against the odds, Dark Fate will be good - I'm not ruling that out, because strange things can happen. But I'm pretty convinced no Terminator film, at least one within the current Hollywood system, could ever capture the simple, straightforward pleasures of the original two films. We've seen the concept stretched as far as it can go - which isn't very far at all (again, no bad thing given how good those first two films are) - and then we've seen it taken beyond that point. Further Terminator films are innately redundant. Personally, I'd urge fans to just let it go and dismiss these sequels as the cashgrabs they are. On the off chance that one of them turns out to be legitimately good, against all the odds, then that'll become obvious once it is released. Otherwise: let it go

Your 100% correct impossible to recreate the first two, The more you know about the terminator's the worse the movies become,

Predator suffered a similar fate,

The whole thing that made Predator so good was not knowing what it was or why it was there,

Whole thing that made it brilliant only worked for one movie ,

check_six

Does the Terminator machine have to 'upgrade' in every movie? I kind of liked the early wonky looking versions with plastic skin from Salvation. I'm not sure about the carbon/shapeshifting fella from the trailer. I really did not like the John Connor Bot from Genisys.

Tazzimus

check_six wrote: »

Does the Terminator machine have to 'upgrade' in every movie? I kind of liked the early wonky looking versions with plastic skin from Salvation. I'm not sure about the carbon/shapeshifting fella from the trailer. I really did not like the John Connor Bot from Genisys.

They're infiltration units, so it makes sense for them to become more advanced, to allow for easier integration with humans so it can kill them.

pixelburp

yourdeadwright wrote: »

Your 100% correct impossible to recreate the first two, The more you know about the terminator's the worse the movies become,

Predator suffered a similar fate,

The whole thing that made Predator so good was not knowing what it was or why it was there,

Whole thing that made it brilliant only worked for one movie ,

There's also the curse of success and scale: Terminator, Alien, Predator etc. were all guerrilla successes, the originals made for a relative pittance and/or without excessive studio interference. In many cases they got away with approaches or tones because of that hands-off approach; but of course because they were box office gold, the studio takes notice, invests more money and as such casts a more ... procedural eye on the production. More money means less risks, means all the spark goes out of the production.

I'm saying it right now: unless this thing reviews spectacularly well, or I get a free ticket, I'm staying well clear. This franchise should have died two films ago yet it limps along on a Chinese audience and the moribund theory that every IP must be dredged up for nostalgic kicks.

silverharp

sometimes they just need to get the basics right, the bad terminator looks like a librarian , and the good terminator is very current year.


On the other hand you will never forget this guy

El Duda

That's the P.E teacher from The Faculty!! :eek:

Church on Tuesday

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Terminator, fairly uniquely even among over-long running series, is ill-equipped to handle a franchise. The first two films are basically time-travel infused chase films, and that's no bad thing because they're great. But the lore is all shallow as **** - merely simple, no-nonsense context for the main action of the Connors getting chased by machines. Similarly, T2 arguably upped-the-ante as far it could go - a *bigger, badder* enemy, with the (box office friendly) twist of Arnie being a good guy. Arguably the only way to replicate these things is to just remake or reboot the thing, and we all know how that goes. And there's also the Arnie problem - for most viewers, you can't separate the series from its breakout star, and the desperate attempts to shove him back into the story (even though he's in his 70s) are tragically flawed. Of course, lacking directors as capable as Cameron at his peak is another glaring issue... one could go on.

Placed in the pantheon of Hollywood franchises, the series seems uniquely doomed to fail over and over again. They're trying to shove more story into something that excelled thanks to its simplicity. Terminator 3 showed the limits of retreading the same ground; Salvation showed the stupidity of trying to build a film around the future setting (never intended to be anything more than a prologue); and I haven't seen the other one because **** that.

Maybe, against the odds, Dark Fate will be good - I'm not ruling that out, because strange things can happen. But I'm pretty convinced no Terminator film, at least one within the current Hollywood system, could ever capture the simple, straightforward pleasures of the original two films. We've seen the concept stretched as far as it can go - which isn't very far at all (again, no bad thing given how good those first two films are) - and then we've seen it taken beyond that point. Further Terminator films are innately redundant. Personally, I'd urge fans to just let it go and dismiss these sequels as the cashgrabs they are. On the off chance that one of them turns out to be legitimately good, against all the odds, then that'll become obvious once it is released. Otherwise: let it go

And yet that's what most fans now want to see. The Going Back In Time shtick is getting beyond tiresome now because, basically, we've seen it all before.

Salvation missed a beat with it's depiction of a future war (set almost entirely in the daytime which is a joke) but really that's where the future of the franchise now rests; it's time to stop shoehorning Arnie in for the recent Chinese market fandom nostalgia trips and start telling that particular story because it would be utterly compelling to my mind.