Terminator: Dark Fate

I am tired of the "alternate timeline" stuff as well. Star Trek, X-Men, Terminator...it's getting old.
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Hollywood has gotten too preoccupied with staying in continuity.

Mad Max #4 wasn't in continuity with the others - so what? It worked.

Superman Returns was in continuity with the Donner Superman movies. It didn't work.


Not every franchise can be like Star Wars in this respect. It just isn't always the best plan.
 
Ill go out on a limb and guess it would be called "The Terminator" and not T6 or anything as a solid continuation other than whats been established in the original Terminator, likely even taking the place of T2. There really is no way JC could direct it as he is locked into Avatar for the next decade. There is an ungodly amount of money spent on those Avatar sequel movies yet not one has been released. I dont comprehend how anyone hasnt had an aneurysm backing those films.

JC could easily pen The Terminator script but who would direct?

The T4 (Salvation) ideas layed out had John Connor Jr as the one who ends the fight, the entire project went haywire when Bale became involved, characters were changed as was the plot with the added unfortunate passing of a lead actors family member removing her from completion of her role deducing that to minimal reshoots. The end result to this day makes me stutter and blow a gasket trying to explain the potential lost to more big bangs and booms.

The T5 (genocide) script had everyone buzzing, and then more big bang boom was added (as well as an absurd chopper chase), a terrible cast ending up hitting the wall so hard the only good that came out of it was yet another role swap making JK Simmons the only worthwhile thing watchable, and yet another huge let down of a future war sequence that was great on paper but on camera, just, no.

What the past has taught us about anything Terminator movies, less is more. Less big bang boom, less over the top action sequences, less actors, less budget. Im a broken record here but Roland Kickinger could walk right in and fill the T800 shoes if The Terminator is to be a solid continuation of the first film. If its to be an all new setting, all new looks should be brought in and everything changed.

On a side note, imagine the summer of 2020 with Aliens 2.5 and The Terminator on the marquee.
 
robstyle said:
Ill go out on a limb and guess it would be called "The Terminator" and not T6 or anything as a solid continuation other than whats been established in the original Terminator, likely even taking the place of T2.
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Since the Terminators were new, it stands to reason they were not present in the majority of the war, so unless they show that last stand, there probably shouldn't be any humanoid robots, let alone cyborgs, so could be called Skynet. But sure... keeping the "Terminator" title is sorta the draw... but, if they are really going the T1 future war route... then distancing themselves from the other movies would make sense by choosing a different title. The first movie was about the terminator sent through time... and this one could be about the brain behind the scenes: Skynet.

If they go for a reboot kinda thing... I'm just wondering why they would do that. Or... is it what people are calling a soft reboot, where it takes things back to basics and ignores some or all of the previous movies, but keeps the characters, like we saw with Star Trek?

Reese tells a lot about what happened and what he did during the war - it gives a nice framework to craft a story around. And before anyone says that it won't be any good because we know the story... well... I'll just say: look at war movies about actual skirmishes and battles and events. Look at Titanic. Look at historic drama. It just all comes down to a good story, a good director/editor/score/characters and you'll have an exciting movie. The fault of all the other Terminator movies, but T1 is their constant need to change things, making things way more complicated and ultimately stupid in their presentation. T2 is the same, but is still a good movie, so can be forgiven more than the others that simply aren't. I didn't even bother with the last one, as the trailers looked like crap upon crap. Keep things simple - thriller over explosions. Go back to the roots. Which we haven't seen since T2... even though that one started the messing with the time-line crap and probably shouldn't have been made, as it doesn't correspond with what Reese says in T1 - the facts he tells, not his philosophical talk.
 
I actually kind of liked Genesys. I went in expecting utter garbage and got....slightly better than expected. I thought the concept was an interesting one, and it was a perfectly acceptable way to finish out the series, or say "Ok, so that's that timeline taken care of."

But honestly...I find it hard these days to get too worked up about Terminator movies. Mostly because everything since 2 has been mediocre at best, and even 2, while amazing in its time, is...I dunno...unnecessary.


You know what I'd much rather see? A resolution to The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I really enjoyed that show and thought it was a really interesting premise. Of course, it being on Fox and not being American Idol or sports or the Simpsons, the had no idea what to do with it, and that was that.
 
The Terminator said:
I would say look at Rogue One. Call it a "spin off" and simply call it "SKYNET" or whatever :)
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LOL... I didn't even think about Rogue One, but that's s perfect example. I both liked and disliked the film, but that was mostly because of strange pacing issues and a sense of making things a little bloated regarding all the places shown and traveling there for conversations that could have been handled over view screens in the first half of the movie - and a few other nitpicks. But that was a story we'd been told about in the opening credits of ANH... and it was still possible to make an exciting story of those few facts.

But yes. I still get excited about Terminator news... but they are always proven worthless because of the trash that is ultimately produced. Sure, I'm certain the people involved put their heart and soul into it. I get that. It's just not movies I like to see. Gone is the gritty, grungy, tech noir thriller feel - the impossible battle against the machine(s). When you throw a good-guy terminator into the mix, the stakes are suddenly taken away from the story. You never really doubt they'll succeed in escaping and destroying this threat, regardless of how beat up Schwarzenegger gets... we all know he's gonna win the day. And the battle damage has become so sterile and kid friendly it's almost a cartoon. That's why his casting as the enemy in the first one worked so well - he was a force to be reckoned with even before you saw the metal endoskeleton underneath.

With Terminator it would almost work better with less rather than more as we've seen in all the sequels. Sure there was action and explosion in the first one, but it wasn't over the top, in the same way as the sequels. It was cool, because it didn't try to be cool.

Also... you gotta think about what Skynet's end goal is. I'm certain it wants to achieve something. Being hooked into everything it was subjected to every dirty little secret the government was trying to hide from the people. It had access to everything. So something clearly tipped it over into that extermination mode it went through. And no... not terminator from the future infecting things with computer vira - that's just stupid. I always thought that a better ending for T2 was for Skynet to start the nuclear war was because Connor and co. went to Cyberdyne to destroy it before it was "born". This would have worked well with the ring theory presented in the first one... that things are in a loop and cannot exist outside that loop - the future happens because the future attempts to alter the past, but without the terminator sent back - no Skynet - and without Connor being born, no plan to send a terminator back... which again means, no Skynet. Being a military A.I. hooked into everything, I am certain Skynet already knows this chain of events and knows it has to do it in order to be created - it knows it will fail. The question then is... what is it really that Skynet is trying to do. Extermination is one thing - to stop humans from destroying the world and themselves and being in service of the military it will find the solution in that way of thinking. But a machine, being logical, would have a purpose for its actions that goes beyond itself. The war has to happen in order to achieve something specific - and not just the extermination of the human race.

CRAP... why do I keep getting excited by Terminator news and get carried away... I know it will not be addressed in whatever movie comes out... because... it seems the only thing the movie creators are interested in is adding weird twists and illogical decisions and actions to what is essentially a computer that achieved A.I. Man... thinking about those sequels just makes my head hurt because of all the unnecessary crap and twists and idiotic complexity sprinkled in with some explosions and destroying a lot of stuff. Almost to the point of being a pointless Michael Bay movie who ****s on whatever franchise he's handed and still manages to become financial successes... so... oh... now I get it - it's not about the art or making sense... it's about being Michael Bay. LOL. :)
 
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Solo4114 said:
You know what I'd much rather see? A resolution to The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I really enjoyed that show and thought it was a really interesting premise. Of course, it being on Fox and not being American Idol or sports or the Simpsons, the had no idea what to do with it, and that was that.
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HELLS YES :)

The money WASTED on Salvation and Genisys(or either one alone) would have been much better spent on one or a few more seasons worth of TSCC.


Too Much Garlic said:
LOL... I didn't even think about Rogue One, but that's s perfect example. I both liked and disliked the film, but that was mostly because of strange pacing issues and a sense of making things a little bloated regarding all the places shown and traveling there for conversations that could have been handled over view screens in the first half of the movie - and a few other nitpicks. But that was a story we'd been told about in the opening credits of ANH... and it was still possible to make an exciting story of those few facts.

But yes. I still get excited about Terminator news... but they are always proven worthless because of the trash that is ultimately produced. Sure, I'm certain the people involved put their heart and soul into it. I get that. It's just not movies I like to see. Gone is the gritty, grungy, tech noir thriller feel - the impossible battle against the machine(s). When you throw a good-guy terminator into the mix, the stakes are suddenly taken away from the story. You never really doubt they'll succeed in escaping and destroying this threat, regardless of how beat up Schwarzenegger gets... we all know he's gonna win the day. And the battle damage has become so sterile and kid friendly it's almost a cartoon. That's why his casting as the enemy in the first one worked so well - he was a force to be reckoned with even before you saw the metal endoskeleton underneath.

With Terminator it would almost work better with less rather than more as we've seen in all the sequels. Sure there was action and explosion in the first one, but it wasn't over the top, in the same way as the sequels. It was cool, because it didn't try to be cool.

Also... you gotta think about what Skynet's end goal is. I'm certain it wants to achieve something. Being hooked into everything it was subjected to every dirty little secret the government was trying to hide from the people. It had access to everything. So something clearly tipped it over into that extermination mode it went through. And no... not terminator from the future infecting things with computer vira - that's just stupid. I always thought that a better ending for T2 was for Skynet to start the nuclear war was because Connor and co. went to Cyberdyne to destroy it before it was "born". This would have worked well with the ring theory presented in the first one... that things are in a loop and cannot exist outside that loop - the future happens because the future attempts to alter the past, but without the terminator sent back - no Skynet - and without Connor being born, no plan to send a terminator back... which again means, no Skynet. Being a military A.I. hooked into everything, I am certain Skynet already knows this chain of events and knows it has to do it in order to be created - it knows it will fail. The question then is... what is it really that Skynet is trying to do. Extermination is one thing - to stop humans from destroying the world and themselves and being in service of the military it will find the solution in that way of thinking. But a machine, being logical, would have a purpose for its actions that goes beyond itself. The war has to happen in order to achieve something specific - and not just the extermination of the human race.

CRAP... why do I keep getting excited by Terminator news and get carried away... I know it will not be addressed in whatever movie comes out... because... it seems the only thing the movie creators are interested in is adding weird twists and illogical decisions and actions to what is essentially a computer that achieved A.I. Man... thinking about those sequels just makes my head hurt because of all the unnecessary crap and twists and idiotic complexity sprinkled in with some explosions and destroying a lot of stuff. Almost to the point of being a pointless Michael Bay movie who ****s on whatever franchise he's handed and still manages to become financial successes... so... oh... now I get it - it's not about the art or making sense... it's about being Michael Bay. LOL. :)
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I too thought R1 was a "perfect example" :p

T2 didn't completely ruin the loop. In the sense a sequel could "fix" it. Follow the events of T1 and T2: Cyberdyne building's destroyed, their Terminator related materials: gone. Not quite, even if Dyson didn't know about it, the people at the top must have had data backup off site. A different Cyberdyne facility. Enter the US Department of Defense, buys Cyberdyne System Inc. and completes Dyson's research and builds Skynet, which becomes aware and launches all them missiles on Aug 29th 1997. Could have the two stories played out at the same time during the course of the film. Jumping between the end of the war in 2029, and the beginning 1995-1997.

A rough idea, thought up in no time, a hell of a lot better than the TX virus infecting the internet and the even worse ideas that came after.

You're spot on when it comes to the films becoming "kid friendly". Look at the first film, an R-rated horror film with sci-fi elements, within minutes you have a cyborg killing a guy by ripping out his heart. With T3 and its sequels, these cyborgs suddenly become invincible wimps with Superman-esque strength. And they don't really kill people, they seem to prefer to throw them around like ragdolls.

:facepalm
 
Unless a reboot is Hard R, forget it. its pointless. The Terminator has been reduced to a kid friendly action figure because of T3, Salvation and Genesys.

If they do a reboot, do it properly, balls to the walls violence, action and non generic soundtrack score. It should be lethal, scary and dangerous and like T1, make you want to **** your pants when you see it.
 
Unless a reboot is Hard R, forget it. its pointless. The Terminator has been reduced to a kid friendly action figure because of T3, Salvation and Genesys.

If they do a reboot, do it properly, balls to the walls violence, action and non generic soundtrack score. It should be lethal, scary and dangerous and like T1, make you want to **** your pants when you see it.
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Yes. At this point I think every real fan of the franchise would agree.

But at the same time, be careful. It would be easy to overdo it. Cameron's movies weren't trying to be R-rated movies. They were naturally R-rated stories and they didn't try to avoid the rating.
 
batguy said:
They were naturally R-rated stories and they didn't try to avoid the rating.
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I don't know... When they establish that the T-1000 is made of liquid metal, his kills are brutal and on full display. That mental guard's death could have been an easy off-camera stab to the gut like the police officer that the T-1000 killed when he first showed up. But oh, no. Not to Cameron. The moment the T-1000 is established to form sharp weapons with his mass, we see it all complete with a juicy sound design that even by itself would leave little to the imagination.
 
IMO it would have been gratuitous if Cameron had shot the T-1000 killing a bunch of humans unnecessarily. He didn't. He shot just enough to keep the audience reminded about what kind of monster the T-1000 was.

If he had cut away from all the T-1000's violence then it would have been an intentional effort to clean the character up. When the character kills somebody it's not just that information being conveyed to the audience. The emotional impact also carries weight. Cutting away from violence minimizes it.

But I agree about the sound effects. Overdone sound effects have become standard procedure in Hollywood.
 
The thing about the terminators in the Cameron films is that they are infiltrators. They work under the radar.

You can't exactly call the TX an infiltrator working under the radar, with all the mindless and pointless destruction it causes. And the complete lack of reactions from the surrounding society - no extra police, no calling in the national guard due to the destruction, no nothing. No one comments on it, it is just a scene and when it is done, it is forgotten and doesn't have consequences. There is no cause and effect. And for a robot that can kill very easily, the fact it opts to use a saw, which is a horror movies slasher trope, and punching through the chest to drive the car... it just doesn't make sense. It's cheap horror that actually makes you cringe or laugh because it's so stupid.

The reason T2 doesn't work is because Reese never told anything about a second encounter. He said no one else comes through. That pretty much cancels out T2. John Connor in the future knew of the first encounter, because Sarah had told him and trained him since he was a kid - something she couldn't have done if Reese hadn't always gone back in time and the events of T1 playing out. I'm fairly certain John wanted to tell Reese that he was his son, but seriously couldn't because... well... would anyone believe such a loony story? He gave Reese the picture and told him about his mother instead. John knows about the first encounter and knows he cannot exist without Reese going back. But... that would stand to reason that he would also know of the second encounter, but decided not to tell Reese about it... and thereby failing to warn his own mother about it as he could have easily warned her through Reese. But there's no mention of a second encounter, which means that in T1, it was supposed to be a singular story, a closed loop. No one else comes through. That was that. I both like and dislike T2 - I think it's an okay flick, a little less gory with the battle damage, but in terms of T1 it doesn't fit in.

Just take the battle damage in T1 and how long it took to strip it down to the raw endoskeleton and look how grimy and scorched it looked and then compare it to the scene in Genisys where it is stripped off nearly completely and cleanly exposing the chromed endoskeleton within a few seconds - and that endoskeleton shows no sign of having been engulfed in flames or being in an explosion strong enough to remove all skin. It's almost sterile in the way it is done and it looks completely fake.

The other thing is the score. Sure, I kinda like the Salvation score, but the movie still lacks that fast paced music that builds up during the chase to really get your blood pumping. There's basically nothing like that in T3. Just look at that chase scene after the TX takes over the police cars to chase the terminator, John and what's-her-name. The music is lame and you don't really feel any excitement, but pop on the second track from the T2 album and you have a scene that feels like a chase scene. I was surprised. WHAT a difference. It showed how much the music means to a movie. We need that kind of music back into the terminator series and not just the main theme, which the other composer also botch up completely, concentrating more on percussion and bass, rather than the theme and it sounds like a disjointed mess. You can still go with traditional orchestral score rather than keyboards and synthesizers, but you just gotta know what to emphasize in the music and no... bass and percussion should not be the main sound.
 
Too Much Garlic said:
The other thing is the score. Sure, I kinda like the Salvation score, but the movie still lacks that fast paced music that builds up during the chase to really get your blood pumping. There's basically nothing like that in T3. Just look at that chase scene after the TX takes over the police cars to chase the terminator, John and what's-her-name. The music is lame and you don't really feel any excitement, but pop on the second track from the T2 album and you have a scene that feels like a chase scene. I was surprised. WHAT a difference. It showed how much the music means to a movie. We need that kind of music back into the terminator series and not just the main theme, which the other composer also botch up completely, concentrating more on percussion and bass, rather than the theme and it sounds like a disjointed mess. You can still go with traditional orchestral score rather than keyboards and synthesizers, but you just gotta know what to emphasize in the music and no... bass and percussion should not be the main sound.
Click to expand...

What's your thoughts on Bear McCreary's work he did for TSCC? ;)
 
It was an okay series. A little corny at times, but I never really paid much attention to the score in that show.

Another thing I thought could be an interesting twist is if Skynet was simply running a war simulation and wasn't even hellbent on humankinds annihilation. It was just running with the program - all-out warfare - and doesn't really know the difference between simulating the battle and then doing it for real. It's just running the program some nut military or something ordered it to. :p
 
Too Much Garlic said:
The thing about the terminators in the Cameron films is that they are infiltrators. They work under the radar.

You can't exactly call the TX an infiltrator working under the radar, with all the mindless and pointless destruction it causes. And the complete lack of reactions from the surrounding society - no extra police, no calling in the national guard due to the destruction, no nothing. No one comments on it, it is just a scene and when it is done, it is forgotten and doesn't have consequences. There is no cause and effect. And for a robot that can kill very easily, the fact it opts to use a saw, which is a horror movies slasher trope, and punching through the chest to drive the car... it just doesn't make sense. It's cheap horror that actually makes you cringe or laugh because it's so stupid.

The reason T2 doesn't work is because Reese never told anything about a second encounter. He said no one else comes through. That pretty much cancels out T2. John Connor in the future knew of the first encounter, because Sarah had told him and trained him since he was a kid - something she couldn't have done if Reese hadn't always gone back in time and the events of T1 playing out. I'm fairly certain John wanted to tell Reese that he was his son, but seriously couldn't because... well... would anyone believe such a loony story? He gave Reese the picture and told him about his mother instead. John knows about the first encounter and knows he cannot exist without Reese going back. But... that would stand to reason that he would also know of the second encounter, but decided not to tell Reese about it... and thereby failing to warn his own mother about it as he could have easily warned her through Reese. But there's no mention of a second encounter, which means that in T1, it was supposed to be a singular story, a closed loop. No one else comes through. That was that. I both like and dislike T2 - I think it's an okay flick, a little less gory with the battle damage, but in terms of T1 it doesn't fit in.

Just take the battle damage in T1 and how long it took to strip it down to the raw endoskeleton and look how grimy and scorched it looked and then compare it to the scene in Genisys where it is stripped off nearly completely and cleanly exposing the chromed endoskeleton within a few seconds - and that endoskeleton shows no sign of having been engulfed in flames or being in an explosion strong enough to remove all skin. It's almost sterile in the way it is done and it looks completely fake.

The other thing is the score. Sure, I kinda like the Salvation score, but the movie still lacks that fast paced music that builds up during the chase to really get your blood pumping. There's basically nothing like that in T3. Just look at that chase scene after the TX takes over the police cars to chase the terminator, John and what's-her-name. The music is lame and you don't really feel any excitement, but pop on the second track from the T2 album and you have a scene that feels like a chase scene. I was surprised. WHAT a difference. It showed how much the music means to a movie. We need that kind of music back into the terminator series and not just the main theme, which the other composer also botch up completely, concentrating more on percussion and bass, rather than the theme and it sounds like a disjointed mess. You can still go with traditional orchestral score rather than keyboards and synthesizers, but you just gotta know what to emphasize in the music and no... bass and percussion should not be the main sound.
Click to expand...

They have had 3 movies now with orchestras and all failed. You can't have a Terminator action scene with some orchestral music, it doesn't work.
The music should be mechanical, with lots of percussion metallic sounds, minimal and creepy like T1 and T2.
People forget how important the music is to the balance of the movie. Brad Fiedel is a sorely missed composer, and made two great scores that suited exactly the images on the screen, which is not what can be said for T3, Salvation and Genesys.

Fiedel was a genius, he took a Fairlight brass drone and turned it into a T1000 theme, simple and effective, not to mention how his music perfectly meshed with the movie sound effects.

These days, the music is just an afterthough, total garbage and generic, its a crying shame.
The last three movies have been way too glossy, too much cgi and just a lack of thought in making good stories first and foremost.
 
g
Solo4114 said:
Bear McCreary is the new Mike Post.
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Which in your book is a "good thing"? :p

Too Much Garlic said:
It was an okay series. A little corny at times, but I never really paid much attention to the score in that show.

Another thing I thought could be an interesting twist is if Skynet was simply running a war simulation and wasn't even hellbent on humankinds annihilation. It was just running with the program - all-out warfare - and doesn't really know the difference between simulating the battle and then doing it for real. It's just running the program some nut military or something ordered it to. :p
Click to expand...

You should have a listen to just the soundtrack ;) I think he did an awesome job taking what Brad Fiedel established and went with that sound.

Sort of like the movie WarGames :D awesome film.
"Shall we play a game?"

airair said:
These days, the music is just an afterthough, total garbage and generic, its a crying shame.
The last three movies have been way too glossy, too much cgi and just a lack of thought in making good stories first and foremost.
Click to expand...

Going into Salvation I thought since I knew the composer's previous work my thought was: at least the music will be awesome. NOPE. "Generic elevator music" would be my best description for it.
 
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