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Terminator: What happened?

Disagree. Whether you like it is a separate issue, but Sarah Connor was a central character in Genisys.
Huh. you're right. I really have blocked most of that movie out of my memory. And given that Emilia Clarke was totally completely and utterly forgettable in the role, forgive me for forgetting.
 
Huh. you're right. I really have blocked most of that movie out of my memory. And given that Emilia Clarke was totally completely and utterly forgettable in the role, forgive me for forgetting.
No worries. It's not like it was a transformational cultural experience.

I tend to treat the sequels to The Terminator as I do fast food. Occasionally enjoyable in the moment, don't want a steady diet. The first one is great, though (best film Cameron's made, to me--well aware most people differ on that point). The rest? They scratch my "killer robot/cyborg from the future" itch when I get one. Otherwise...meh.
 
I think everyone on this thread has summed it up. The premise of this franchise was fairly limited to what happens in the first movie - killer robot goes back in time to change the future, and they've been chasing their tails ever since largely.

I could argue that the amazing technical prowess of T2, the excellent ending of 3, the fact that the war was explored more in Salvation or the timeline shenanigans of Genysis were attempts to expand things, but they really didn't in the main. Only T2 and parts of 3 holds up for me these days. I found Salvation to be utterly forgettable and Genysis to be a mess with miscast actors. I haven't seen Dark Fate yet (will get it on blu ray for Xmas to complete my collection).

Much like the alien franchise, I regard the original as a sci-fi horror classic, and it's sequel as a sci-fi action masterpiece. The rest are watchable to varying degrees, with 3 the best of them IMO but 6 films in and the franchise hasn't really expanded into much has it?
 
I've seen and own the first three and S1 of TSCC, though I haven't actually opened the latter (I did catch it in broadcast though). I was watching S2 of TSCC but I think they started bumping it around in the schedule and I lost track of it and IIRC things started getting weird.

I can see myself maybe picking up S2 at some point, but I have no interest in the other films.
 
The most interesting character in "Dark Fate" was the one given the least time: Carl the Terminator.

Every other time traveling cyborg has been following programming: either "Terminate this person" or "Protect this person". Since "Carl" had already accomplished his mission, he effectively had free will. And while his infiltration subroutines had something to do with his subsequent actions, they didn't cause him to discover his humanity. He did that on his own.
 
The point of the series was keeping Sarah and John Connor alive so he could lead the human race in the future. This story was both told and wrapped up in the first two movies. The third was a remake of the second with a reversed ending. Salvation was an uninteresting attempt to show us The Future War, and there was no point whatsoever to either Geneysis and Dark Fate, both of which completely neutered John Connor. It should have stayed a two movie series.
 
It should have stayed a two movie series.

That is the essence of it. End it with T2. War doesn't happen, John and Sarah live happily ever after.

Sadly, has ANY franchise ever ended that way, right on time? Terminator, Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, so many others. Perfection has degenerated into pain.
 
i didnt know about the Sarah Connor Chronicles,... thank you thread!
 
The show aired 2008-09, and it was cancelled just before Salvation came out. TSCC ignored T3 and the upcoming T4 to be an alternate continuation of T2. To be about Sarah Connor, it had to. 31 episodes. Have fun!
 
The last movie was god awful because it took the entire story and made it meaningless. All the other movies were for nothing. But in fairness, the franchise did go downhill starting with T3, which gave us the "can't win, don't try" message.

I think another poster said it best--the stories were perfectly wrapped up at the end of the second movie. Maybe had Cameron continued with the third one, it would have been much better, but he didn't, and when he finally got back to the franchise, all he accomplished was to end the speculation that Cameron could make it better.
 
In the 90s comic book series there was a moonbase that Skynet left alone.

After 20 years, Astronauts had to come back to Earth for Supplies.

They had invisibility suits and terminator killing rifles.

Neat little story.
 
But in fairness, the franchise did go downhill starting with T3, which gave us the "can't win, don't try" message.
They succeeded in changing the future in T2, and the future was changed again by the T-X and the T-850 in T3. The message was that the war was inevitable, not that winning was hopeless. The whole point of Skynet sending Terminators back in time is BECAUSE humanity won the war.
 
They succeeded in changing the future in T2, and the future was changed again by the T-X and the T-850 in T3. The message was that the war was inevitable, not that winning was hopeless. The whole point of Skynet sending Terminators back in time is BECAUSE humanity won the war.

Which is great, but there are only so many ways to tell that story.
 
Well, after the first 2, any future machine intelligence would figure out that sending something back just advertises your existence, and puts a target on your "head" before Skynet would be "Born"
So go the Grandfather Paradox like John Conner, Send a copy of Skynet back, fully formed, and take over the system, and nuke the world.
 
The only way I could see them continuing was with some kind of "Multiple Timelines" thing where another future was made with some kind of war with people from THAT future coming back and not even knowing who the Connors are because they aren't important to the future they came from.

But that would be taking things too far from the original premise.
 
Haven't seen the last movie yet...
My friend, choose to live instead.

Part of the problem is that movies are considerably different to what they were in the 80's, especially action and comedy movies. Nowadays it's almost like they have to have a big action/comedy sequence every 5-10 minutes.
I think some movies like Marvel definitely can't be done on a small budget and the boat has sailed with the F&F franchise and it's growing over the top action. But considering how much of a failure the last Terminator movie was I think it's ok to take it back to basics and do a smaller budget movie. Look at how successful the Invisible Man movie was. Made for just $7 million and made $134 million world wide (it might have made more if not for covid as it hadn't been released everywhere yet).
I watched Tenet last week. That movie did not need to be made for $200 million. The concept could have easily worked on a far smaller budget.

BTW Sarah Conner Chronicles was damn awesome. Make a sequel to that!
 
On the premise that we eventually get a Terminator 7, how can it be new and fresh?

#1 Sequel to Salvation, Part 5 to the first four movies.
#2 Sequel to Genisys, continue the time travel reboot.
#3 Sequel to Dark Fate which I would watch, but probably no one else. lol
#4 Movie sequel to TSCC.
#5 Start over. Do a movie set in the future, Terminators rule the world, the last of humanity in internment camps, ready for the dlaughter, hopeless. In comes John Connor rescuing everyone, including Kyle Reese. Start here, then skip to the end of the war for the rest of the movie. The film ends with Skynet sending back two Terminators. One to kill John's mother before he is born. A liquid Terminator to kill John as a boy in case the first Terminator fails. Kyle Reese is sent back to protect Sarah. A deactivated Terminator is reprogrammed and sent back to sent to protect John as a boy. Charges are placed, the time machine blown apart. The soldiers ask what happens now. John stares off into the distance as the screen fades to black, "There is no fate but what we make." Terminator music marches on.

I say start over with a prequel, but updated for a modern audience. This can lead into a remake of the original film, or something different.
 
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