Spoilers Terminator: Dark Fate Review and Discussion

Raise a child like a machine, see what happens?

 

From an Episode the soldier. He had to credit Harlan Ellison. Lol

 

Harlan will get paid.

 

Somewhere between 75 thousand and 400 thousand.

https://www.cbr.com/terminator-harlan-ellison-credit/

 

When I found out precisely what Ellison was objecting to, I was amazed, because the sequence of events almost certainly owes more to narrative convenience than Ellison's singular genius or Cameron's half-assed remix-happy scripting to get to the "metal skeleton walking out of a fire" image he was starting from. I can tell, because the same basic element (person arrives from future in secluded location, specifically a city alley, and is immediately confronted by police and has to make a run for it) is in the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever," but not in Ellison's unaltered script, where Kirk and Spock materialize in broad daylight in the middle of a breadline while a nativist is ranting on a soapbox. Honestly, considering the extra elements in The Terminator and "City" that aren't in "Soldier" (running from the cop rather than killing him, immediately stealing clothes), D.C. Fontana probably should've been the one crying "plagiarism" (assuming she was responsible for that change, I've never seen the entire progression of drafts for "City."

Ironically, plenty of people who haven't seen "Soldier" or "Demon With a Glass Hand" have taken Ellison's complaints as authoritative and assume either or both of those episodes have an identical plot to The Terminator, with robots-versus-humans, or time-travel being attempted as an assassination tactic, which I regard as an irony suitable for a Greek myth considering Ellison was jealous to the point of loudly claiming anything remotely evocative of anything he ever did actually belonged to him. I bet it thrilled him that people credited a bunch of stuff he thought was trash to him.

 

it really was Cameron’s fault. He proudly proclaimed in an interview that he took the basic story from the two episodes from the outer limits. His misfortune was that Ellison had as big of an ego as he did so the end result wasn’t going to be good.

 

I took the liberty of finding the episode SOLDIER in daily motion. The very beginning does resemble Cameron’s look at the future especially the lasers over the barren landscape. Enjoy.

 

The second ep has been roped into the legend for many years, but Harlan himself has stated that "Demon" was never part of his formal complaint.

 

Just saw the movie earlier with my wife and nephew.

Pretty decent. Better than the last three movies. Not as many glaring plot holes as them, either.

Arnold was my favorite part of the movie. He brought a different take from his T2 version, which makes sense since it IS a different Terminator. I also liked his reasons for texting Sarah... giving her a sense of purpose. I am completely against the idea of letting AIs run around, but that is the one thing humans and AIs have in common... a need for a purpose. And him explaining drapes for a room... that was hilarious.

I recognized Grace from one of my favorite BLACK MIRROR episodes, "San Junipero". I think she did a great job with the role.

Linda Hamilton was great, too. I liked how different she was. Logical and well acted progression from then to what she became now. Though a little contrived that she didn't suffer more injury by the end simply due to age. I can let that slide because she was fun to watch.

Gabriel Luna was a good machine here. Did as good a job as Robert Patrick in T2. Interesting trick, splitting in two like that. Reminds me of that guy in HEROES that can double/triple himself.

My only issue, character wise, was Dani. I like the idea of how 'John Connor' can be anybody, but there was something about her that just didn't work with me. I think it was the casting. I just didn't believe in her character.

There were three things that I found odd.

First, the dog with Arnold. It didn't bark. It was cozy against leg. Dogs sensing terminators have been an established thing since the beginning. Within this movie, Taco barked at Rev-9. Dogs get used to their owners over time, so I guess that's what happened... but I just don't buy it.

Second, how did Carl know the locations of the terminators each time? He said that there are disturbances right before it happens, but how did he detect them? He didn't have any equipment like that at his house.

Third, if Grace got the coordinates on her belly from future Dani, this likely means Dani was trained by Sarah and Carl. So why didn't Grace know who Sarah was? I would think future Dani would have told her Sarah is an ally from the start.

All in all, a decent addition to the franchise. I'm happy to simply pretend the last 3 films never happened, and just make this the real third movie.

 

But one might argue that we've already seen that they can get along with Terminators once humans have shown that it is okay...Enrique's dog is seen to by quite happy around Uncle Bob in T2.

 

I need to apologize to Genisys and Salvation for how I talked about them because this movie was a bag of ***t on fire. 28 years after T2 and this is what they call a sequel? It's a basically another rehash with the same beats as the previous movies.
At the theater the guy sitting on my left fell asleep and choked on his tongue. The guy on my right poured a bucket of popcorn over his head, i suspect to cover his eyes. By the end I was dragged out of the cinema kicking and screaming "it's garbage! it's garbage".

Will stick to marvel movies from now on. Screw nostalgia films.

 

I think they were different types of programs, but I'd have to watch the two back to back to be able to tell what the exact differences were.

 

I wish you success. Some day, maybe, nostalgia will not drive films...maybe.

 

Can't be much difference. The terminators look exactly the same.

 

Rebranding. Gotta stay hip with the kids.

 

No they don't. The Skynet type are the ones we've seen for all the previous movies (although they used the Genisys redesign again, which seems at odds with the "ignoring all the other sequels" approach), the Legion ones were those crazy tentacle-monster things. Dunno if they were all REV-9s or if they were supposed to be earlier REVs.

 

Well, this thing is evidently a box office bomb.

So, another reboot next summer, then?

 

SkyNet was a threat assessment program that was in control of the military and the nukes. Legion was, I believe, a program in charge of cyberwarfare? I'm not sure HOW it worked, or even if it dealt with nanotechnology (which I'm thinking it did), or how that would translate into tentacled terminators, but I'm pretty sure the human race would have been better off if it was stuck fighting SkyNet, as the program and its machine warriors were significantly less advanced than Legion's.

 

Just saw it, I liked it in general, only thing naging me was that Dani didn't come off as all inspiring.. she had almost Zero charisma..
Liked all the other characters, loved Linda as her snarky asshole self, even Carls Jr.

Story idea for the next one.. ( Which there will be.. it won't die) Have the terminator succeed.. Kill of the promised leader. and then show that some one else takes the lead, that its the human spirit.. not just 1 good soldier or leader that will bring skynet, Legion ( shitty name btw) or Xbox 3000 down..
If i was some Ai in the future, with time travel, I'd make sure
A. that I get built, and send a copy/version back to make sure.. maybe a Grandfather paradox.
B. That any type of resistance is thrashed.
C. ??
D. PROFIT!
I'll give it some thought and post about that type of story Idea..

Also, in Genysis.. Jai Courtney?? Ugh.. Horrible actor..