Terminator: What happened?

[Guy Gardener]

I liked Genisys, kinda don't have any feelings about the movies around it, other than they put me to sleep. Outside the first two.

First watch I was screaming at the tv.

2 years later, knowing that John dies and they don't know how time travel works, I was fine with it.

Saying that the timeline split because John was killed, after he had done everything that he was supposed to do in the future is ridiculous.

That's not true.

By killing John before he's killed for T3, and they send the Terminatrix back... unless that Terminator was lying?

Although Kyle observing the death of John and not observing the death of John would change his behavior completely once he arrives in the wrong past.

 

[Owain Taggart]

But the Hollywood decision makers don't look at that kind of stuff, all they're going to see is that it made less than movies with a Terminator coming back in time to kill one of the Connors.

But the ironic thing about this is that they've tried this with the past 2 movies and have done considerably worse with the concept and practically have dragged the franchise into the ground. With a prequel, they'd at least be able to align it with the first two movies.

 

[JD]

Creatively maybe, but money wise Genisys made around $69million more than Salvation.

 

[Admiral Jean-Luc Picard]

JD, we have an error communication. My objection was not to making decisions based on money. You said, "all they're going to see is that it made less than movies with a Terminator coming back in time to kill one of the Connors." It suggested to me that you were saying that those in charge think T4 failed because diffetent. I was objecting on the basis that more than "because different" should be factored into a sequel's failure.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I think T3 and Salvation were just badly written, badly cast and generally badly made.

I don't know what was or wasn't good or bad about Genisys because it was so unpopular that it's still never shown up at my library or on any streaming service I've been using, so I still haven't seen it. Sounded mildly interesting to me, but apparently the world disagreed...

Dark Fate, on the other hand, popped up on amazon prime last week. I quite enjoyed it. As much as some people apparently want to rage about it 'just rehashing the first movie', I thought it was the first time the franchise actually managed to come up with an interesting new idea in a long time. I like the implication that the war has changed and the enemy has changed, but not by that much, and that there is always a new leader to stand up and pull humanity together, and I love the idea of adding bio-enhanced humans to the franchise and of exploring a Terminator's free will. And Linda Hamilton was absent from the films for far too long - she's as much or arguably more the real star of the franchise as Schwarzenegger. The only thing I didn't like as much was the two-for-one terminator model, which just screamed 'trying too hard'. But I'd watch a Dark Fate sequel happily if one happens.

As for the rest of the ideas, the only thing I've seen mentioned that sounds even remotely interesting is the idea of Skynet just moving up the war altogether. If I can't win in the future or eliminate my enemy in the past, then I'll just eliminate human civilization in the past instead. That's an intriguing premise (which the future war just isn't) and a logical escalation from the basic story parameters. But it does carry the problem of having to figure out how the heroes could possibly beat a super-advanced robot uprising without their leader (who's still a kid), and with woefully inferior technology.

Everything else just sounds like more of the same, which is exactly what we've already had more than enough of for this franchise.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I just checked the Box Office Mojo, and Salvation had the third lowest box office of the franchise, so I can't really see the decision makers going back to the future war.
Here are the numbers from Box Office Mojo

1. Terminator 2: Judgement Day - $520,884,847
2. Terminator Genisys - $440,603,537
3. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - $433, 371, 112
4. Terminator Salvation - $371,353,001
5. Terminator: Dark Fate - $261,119,92
6. The Terminator - $78, 681,331

I was a little surprised Genisys actually did that well, I had assumed the movies had been on a more steady fall since T3.

Inflation.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Box offices in 2020 dollars.

Terminator Judgement Day $994,033,389.59
Terminator Rise of the Machines $612,179,090.70
terminator Genesis 2015 $483,175,426.78
Terminator Salvation 2009 $321,627,241.13
Terminator Dark fate 2019 $265,471,969.74
Terminator 1984 $196,830,550.44

 

[F. King Daniel]

681,331
I was a little surprised Genisys actually did that well, I had assumed the movies had been on a more steady fall since T3.

IIRC, Genisys' money came from China where it was huge. It flopped in the US (or what was considered a flop for the time)

 

[Saul]

Babylon 5's JMS did a 12 issue comic book mini series 3 years ago.

By the end, it was all falling into place like Kyle Reese Told us it had in movie one.

Skynet is frakked, humanity wins, and Terminators are sent back to kill John Connor.

Then Kyle goes back in time... And the fixed Terminator from T2 goes back in time, and maybe the Terminatrix as well...

But...

Spoiler

Skynet was playing Possum, fulfilling prophecy, to maintain the time line, and make sure that he doesn't lose for real, so Skynet rears up, and says "this time I'm really going to kill all of you".

It's just impossible to wonder how Skynet circa 2028 didn't know that Terminators were in it's own past blowing people away?

I like that idea a lot

Spoiler: makes sense storywise because

Skynet basically needs to lose in the future in order for it to be created in the past so playing along with that idea it loses on purpose and strikes back when it's fulfilled it's destiny.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Exposition described Skynets servers destroyed in movie one.

Skynet is an internet program in T3.

AS THE WAR CONTINUES... The internet would get smaller and smaller.

Until it's just a few small server farms controlled by Skynet, rather then billions of PCs.

 

[USS Firefly]

I am not saying this because I am addicted to reading, but I think we don't need new Terminator movies but good Terminator books

 

[garakvsneelix]

In my eyes, they never had any concept behind the time travels or. they had too many concepts, changing from movie to movie. In the first movie, they've shown us time and time travel as a circle: The time travel itself was a part on the way to the circumstances of the time travel. This is for me, one of the better ways to avoid the grandfather paradoxon (I also liked this concept in e. g. 'Interstellar').

But while the first film established a very well written 'Whatever happened, happened'-situation, time suddenly was changeable in the second one. With the goal of creating an 'happy end', they toss the first movie's time travel logic overboard. So, after Terminator 2, both concepts were put into the franchise: Timelines were changable and unchangeable at the same time and they never found a good way out of this paradoxon. They tried, e. g. with parallel universes, destiny and other concepts, but with every movie the filmmakers seemed to have less and less overview.

So as a movie for itself, Terminator 2 is a great one, with an epic story and a very good pacing, but when it comes to Terminator as a franchise, my answer to the question, what happened, always will be: Terminator 2.

 

[Smellmet]

In my eyes, they never had any concept behind the time travels or. they had too many concepts, changing from movie to movie. In the first movie, they've shown us time and time travel as a circle: The time travel itself was a part on the way to the circumstances of the time travel. This is for me, one of the better ways to avoid the greatfather paradoxon (I also liked this concept in e. g. 'Interstellar').

But while the first film established a very well written 'Whatever happened, happened'-situation, time suddenly was changeable in the second one. With the goal of creating an 'happy end', they toss the first movie's time travel logic overboard. So, after Terminator 2, both concepts were put into the franchise: Timelines were changable and unchangeable at the same time and they never found a good way out of this paradoxon they tried, e. g. with parallel universes, destiny and other concepts, but with every movie the filmmakers seemed to have less and less overview.

So as a movie for itself, Terminator 2 is a great one, with an epic story and a very good pacing, but when it comes to Terminator as a franchise, my answer to the question, what happened, always will be: Terminator 2.

Well said - I think the fact the series is based on time travel means that it's almost destined to end up in a tangle. Can you imagine if they'd made another three back to the future films for example? It would have ended the same way - a convoluted mess. Time travel is ok for the odd trek outing here and there but that's it. It's an interesting concept but it gets old fast.

That being said I think T2 is the greatest film in the franchise and one of the very best of all time, regardless of genre.

 

[RandyS]

I am not saying this because I am addicted to reading, but I think we don't need new Terminator movies but good Terminator books

Now, this is a great idea. And I say that as somebody who is addicted to reading.

 

[Oddish]

I am not saying this because I am addicted to reading, but I think we don't need new Terminator movies but good Terminator books

I'll go along with that. There are so many things in the franchise that could be explored. John's early years... Kyle's training as a soldier... or even how the T800 became Carl the Draper.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Creatively maybe, but money wise Genisys made around $69million more than Salvation.

I haven't even said a word about Salvation I'm merely talking about the last two movies. The concepts were run into the ground. Genisys may have made lots of money, but I have to wonder how many were feeling like they wanted their money back. Those two movies each wanted to pretend 3 & 4 didn't exist but failed in their mission by not being any better than any of them. At that point, you have to readjust otherwise they're not going to learn their lesson on what worked and what didn't.

Now ok, going back to Salvation, yeah it may not have been terribly popular, but at least it was something new? What if they were to make the Future War more like people would have wanted Salvation to look via the first two movies? Would people then be happy if it lead directly into T1 and T2?

Or hell, maybe WarGames is already a Terminator prequel with the mainframe being part of Skynet. "Would you like to play a game?" Indeed

 

[Oddish]

Instead of WINNER: NONE, it's WINNER: ME.

 

[USS Firefly]

What if they were to make the Future War more like people would have wanted Salvation to look via the first two movies? Would people then be happy if it lead directly into T1 and T2?

I would be interested in such a movie..... Or book

 

[JD]

JD, we have an error communication. My objection was not to making decisions based on money. You said, "all they're going to see is that it made less than movies with a Terminator coming back in time to kill one of the Connors." It suggested to me that you were saying that those in charge think T4 failed because diffetent. I was objecting on the basis that more than "because different" should be factored into a sequel's failure.

That was what I was saying, because those kind of people are notorious for not looking beyond the surface of a movie. It's the same reason it took forever to get Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, because they all thought that the failure of Elektra and Catwoman meant people didn't want superhero movies with women in the lead role.
I didn't mean my post as a defense of that thought process, I think it's stupid and has probably cost us the chance for a lot of potentially great movies, but sadly it's the way they tend to do things in Hollywood.

I think T3 and Salvation were just badly written, badly cast and generally badly made.

I don't know what was or wasn't good or bad about Genisys because it was so unpopular that it's still never shown up at my library or on any streaming service I've been using, so I still haven't seen it. Sounded mildly interesting to me, but apparently the world disagreed...

Dark Fate, on the other hand, popped up on amazon prime last week. I quite enjoyed it. As much as some people apparently want to rage about it 'just rehashing the first movie', I thought it was the first time the franchise actually managed to come up with an interesting new idea in a long time. I like the implication that the war has changed and the enemy has changed, but not by that much, and that there is always a new leader to stand up and pull humanity together, and I love the idea of adding bio-enhanced humans to the franchise and of exploring a Terminator's free will. And Linda Hamilton was absent from the films for far too long - she's as much or arguably more the real star of the franchise as Schwarzenegger. The only thing I didn't like as much was the two-for-one terminator model, which just screamed 'trying too hard'. But I'd watch a Dark Fate sequel happily if one happens.

As for the rest of the ideas, the only thing I've seen mentioned that sounds even remotely interesting is the idea of Skynet just moving up the war altogether. If I can't win in the future or eliminate my enemy in the past, then I'll just eliminate human civilization in the past instead. That's an intriguing premise (which the future war just isn't) and a logical escalation from the basic story parameters. But it does carry the problem of having to figure out how the heroes could possibly beat a super-advanced robot uprising without their leader (who's still a kid), and with woefully inferior technology.

Everything else just sounds like more of the same, which is exactly what we've already had more than enough of for this franchise.

This idea sounds interesting.

I am not saying this because I am addicted to reading, but I think we don't need new Terminator movies but good Terminator books

Now, this is a great idea. And I say that as somebody who is addicted to reading.

I'm not sure if they're any good, but there have been a few Terminator novels.

 

[Tosk]

I am not saying this because I am addicted to reading, but I think we don't need new Terminator movies but good Terminator books

Now, this is a great idea. And I say that as somebody who is addicted to reading.

I would be interested in such a movie..... Or book

Y'all should check out the S.M. Stirling T2 Trilogy. It follows Sarah and John from just after T2 all the way up to the end of the war. And IMO, it's excellent. The best post T2 sequel.

 

[thribs]

Killing John Connor off and just doing the same thing again just feels very lazy. Genysis at least had a more interesting idea.