Don't worry Tim, I felt most fatigued and betrayed by your Terminator movie than any of the others.
Spoilers Terminator: Dark Fate Review and Discussion
- Thread starter David cgc
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^Indeed. I certainly wasn't going in with any baggage from T3, Salvation or Genesys. This was marketed as a direct sequel to T2 and I took it as such. They wiped the slate clean of the last three so-so to crap sequels and positioned it right beside arguably two of the best sci-fi action movies of all time. They really didn't have the luxury of making an *alright* movie; they needed to knock it out of the ballpark if they expected it to be received as a worthy sequel to the first two.
Terminator: Dark Fate
The sixth movie in the Terminator series, that follows on from the second film, Terminator 2: Judgement Day (with Rise of the Machines, Salvation and Genisys retconned out of the continuity). Again, an Artificial Intelligence rises against humanity, this time called Legion instead of Skynet. However, that is jumping ahead. The movie opens with Sarah Connor recaping what originally happened, with Skynet and it's sending back of Terminators to kill herself and her son, John. The revelation that one succeeding in killing him is appropriately shocking.
But the it is the effects of that event on Sarah Connor that adds more interest to what would otherwise be a so-so film. More on Sarah's role in the film below. Then we see the arrival of Grace, the human (more-or-less) from the future. The interaction with the young Mexican couple who want to help her (and with the arriving police) was done rather well. This sets up Grace's character in an interesting way. As more, fragile, than Kyle Reece. Then there is the introduction to Dani and her family.
Also their situation. Dani is shown as a highly motivated young woman, who looks out for her family. (Reminding her father of his doctor's appointment and going in to negotiate with her boss about her brother being replaced by a robot.) At the same time the Rev-9 is introduced, arriving at the apartment complex where the Ramos family lives. The coincidental arrival of Grace and the Rev-9 at the auto-factory was done rather well. The initial scenes of the Rev-9 attempting to terminate Dani in the factory were done rather well.
As was the chase on the motorway. Appropriately chaotic, with Sarah Connor arriving towards the end. Sarah is competent in attempting to fight off the Terminator. But she doesn't know that this is a different Terminator than what she's familiar with. Dani having to deal with her grief for her father and brother while looking after Grace was a good look at her character. (But, having to use pharmaceuticals to get Grace to recover from the encounter with the Terminator? Wouldn't it have been better to have her recover after an appropriate meal?)
The chase to Texas. Riding on a train, and then Dani's uncle helps them across the border. The conversation on the train regarding Dani's role in the future resistance vs. John Connors role was an interesting discussion. Of course, miscommunication plays a role. Grace thinks that Sarah is being obtuse and and doesn't want to give away that it's Dani, not any of her offspring who would lead the resistance. Then they come to the border, where they have an experience with the detainment camps for 'unauthorised arrivals'.
(The less said about that the better. But the scenes there were well acted and choreographed.) Carl. Turns out that the Terminator who had succeeded in killing John and got a new purpose, raising a family, and also sending Sarah after newly arriving Terminators. And Grace had his coordinates tattooed on her to seek help. An interesting addition. Sarah is clearly unforgiving and only begrudgingly joins him to help keep Dani alive. All these scenes are done very well. Drapery? It works.
Even the scenes in the C5 work. (Clearly some time was spent in the 'Vomit Comet'.) It could be a little difficult to follow, but still enjoyable. (Overall the thing that cut into the enjoyment would be the visceral violence. If one is squeamish...) The ending, where both Grace and Carl sacrifice themselves to destroy the Rev-9 was rather good, as was the scene where Dani and Sarah watch young Grace playing. Overall, a good movie, but it can't match T2. 8.4/10.
The sixth movie in the Terminator series, that follows on from the second film, Terminator 2: Judgement Day (with Rise of the Machines, Salvation and Genisys retconned out of the continuity). Again, an Artificial Intelligence rises against humanity, this time called Legion instead of Skynet. However, that is jumping ahead. The movie opens with Sarah Connor recaping what originally happened, with Skynet and it's sending back of Terminators to kill herself and her son, John. The revelation that one succeeding in killing him is appropriately shocking.
But the it is the effects of that event on Sarah Connor that adds more interest to what would otherwise be a so-so film. More on Sarah's role in the film below. Then we see the arrival of Grace, the human (more-or-less) from the future. The interaction with the young Mexican couple who want to help her (and with the arriving police) was done rather well. This sets up Grace's character in an interesting way. As more, fragile, than Kyle Reece. Then there is the introduction to Dani and her family.
Also their situation. Dani is shown as a highly motivated young woman, who looks out for her family. (Reminding her father of his doctor's appointment and going in to negotiate with her boss about her brother being replaced by a robot.) At the same time the Rev-9 is introduced, arriving at the apartment complex where the Ramos family lives. The coincidental arrival of Grace and the Rev-9 at the auto-factory was done rather well. The initial scenes of the Rev-9 attempting to terminate Dani in the factory were done rather well.
As was the chase on the motorway. Appropriately chaotic, with Sarah Connor arriving towards the end. Sarah is competent in attempting to fight off the Terminator. But she doesn't know that this is a different Terminator than what she's familiar with. Dani having to deal with her grief for her father and brother while looking after Grace was a good look at her character. (But, having to use pharmaceuticals to get Grace to recover from the encounter with the Terminator? Wouldn't it have been better to have her recover after an appropriate meal?)
The chase to Texas. Riding on a train, and then Dani's uncle helps them across the border. The conversation on the train regarding Dani's role in the future resistance vs. John Connors role was an interesting discussion. Of course, miscommunication plays a role. Grace thinks that Sarah is being obtuse and and doesn't want to give away that it's Dani, not any of her offspring who would lead the resistance. Then they come to the border, where they have an experience with the detainment camps for 'unauthorised arrivals'.
(The less said about that the better. But the scenes there were well acted and choreographed.) Carl. Turns out that the Terminator who had succeeded in killing John and got a new purpose, raising a family, and also sending Sarah after newly arriving Terminators. And Grace had his coordinates tattooed on her to seek help. An interesting addition. Sarah is clearly unforgiving and only begrudgingly joins him to help keep Dani alive. All these scenes are done very well. Drapery? It works.
Even the scenes in the C5 work. (Clearly some time was spent in the 'Vomit Comet'.) It could be a little difficult to follow, but still enjoyable. (Overall the thing that cut into the enjoyment would be the visceral violence. If one is squeamish...) The ending, where both Grace and Carl sacrifice themselves to destroy the Rev-9 was rather good, as was the scene where Dani and Sarah watch young Grace playing. Overall, a good movie, but it can't match T2. 8.4/10.
Well that's disappointing. I would have hoped that at least one of them would have had the sense to realize that this movie had loads of potential that was being totally wasted by their senseless devotion to the Terminator formula. I still think that they should have done Carl's storyline as a 6-episode streaming series. I'd like to see that journey of a Terminator growing a conscience.
Terminator Salvation made the same point and flipped it and said that it's worse for humans to go out at night than during the day because of the infrared. Still, that movie never looked compellingly nightmarish the way that all the future flashbacks in the previous movies did, which was a big problem.
I had thought that perhaps they were saving the nightmarish battles at night for a sequel, especially since the T-800s were not around yet. I think I might have read that in an interview somewhere. But totally agreed that the day time scenes robbed us of what we really wanted.
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I'm too lazy to read through 12 pages of replies, so hopefully somebody can clear up a point for me. What did Carl mean when he told Sarah "If you want to keep your phone in a bag of potato chips, then keep your phone in a bag of potato chips"? Is he saying it doesn't actually block the signal, or that she should never take it out for occasional use or charging?
It means that she can keep hiding from the enemy like a wussy, or they can kit up and frag the baddies, and then live in a world where she doesn't need to put her phone in a chip bag.
That doesn't make sense. He said that in response to her asking if he was tracking her. Besides, she wasn't hiding. She went to every location he texted her and destroyed the terminators, although she was no match for the Rev 9. She was advocating they should stand and fight while Grace was the one who wanted to play it safe. Besides, it's not like she already knew about Legion. As far as she was concerned, Skynet was never built and there were no more "baddies" before Grace's arrival.
This movie was completly unneccessary. It was a step up from Genisys, but not by much. I actually enjoyed Salvation, so I was hoping for something similar to that.
Carl had sent Sarah on several missions to stop Terminators.
This was said on camera.
There were new baddies arriving from the future all the time.
She probably wasn't catching them all as they arrived, especially if they were landing somewhere like Australia.
Carl was her guy.
As far as she knew, he was a goodie, becuase he was sending her on missions to kill terminators. Probably human, and definitely from the future.
Not someone to hide from.
Also, google tells me that not all chip bags are created equal. Some companies don't use as much aluminium in their chip bags as others, which means that some makeshift Faraday bags work and others don't.
Genisys ended up making more money, even though Dark Fate had wayyyy more hype surrounding it.
More from Hamilton here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/h...ould-be-happy-never-return-terminator-1274687
That she was going after each Terminator says she wasn't hiding from anyone as you insist. But she had to wait for the notifications to know where to go. She couldn't very well just fly around the world blindly hoping to find a Terminator. You seem to completely miss that she was the one who insisted on taking on the Rev 9 while Grace was the one who wanted to hide Dani in a mine shaft.
My question wasn't whether there's variation in the bags, but what Carl meant by his comment. It's poor writing that the line is ambiguous. You still can't say what he meant. Was he tracking her when he took her phone out of the bag or because the bags are ineffective?
The latter. She was blocking the signal when she wasn't using it, but wasn't being careful about hiding what was going on when she did take it out to use it, so it didn't really matter that the phone was disconnected when it was idle.
That article really pretzeled itself up to turn "The movie didn't do well enough for a sequel, so I don't expect to be in another one, but either way is fine by me" into "take this role and shove it."
She was hiding from everyone.
But she didn't have to hide form the future any more if they did this one last boss killing fight, and killed the boss.
Google says the chip bags block gps.
But you can still get pinged by anyone in law enforcement or the telephone company, where they triangulate you from cell towers.
With the popularity of Rotten Tomatoes, you can make a snap judgment on whether a movie is going to be good or not once the reviews come in. I bet most studios will start paying down embargos on movies they're not entirely sure of.
Welcome to 10 years ago?
Rented this last night, it does not make a good first impression with conspicuous CGI and fidgety action scenes. It actually does settle down as it goes on and becomes more watchable even if never exactly compelling. Mackenzie Davis makes for a striking heroine with her lanky features and the southwestern settings are a nice contrast. I liked when Gabriel Luna would unnervingly turn on the charm, I think they could've played on that more but as a Terminator he didn't have that singular focus of Arnie or Robert Patrick. I was surprised by the opening sequence but Linda Hamilton seemed more angered by a family riff than haunted in her later interactions. I think there was a germ of something good here and it was OK but felt it could've been more.
I do think they've kind of reached a limit with the whole liquid terminator schtick. The separate endoskeleton and skin was an interesting idea but I think they should've shown some more distinct limitations in each mode.
I do think they've kind of reached a limit with the whole liquid terminator schtick. The separate endoskeleton and skin was an interesting idea but I think they should've shown some more distinct limitations in each mode.