Terminator: Dark Fate **Spoilers from post 983**

Padraig Mor

Watched this last night. Wasn't expecting much...... thankfully as it was absolutely dreadful! Worst of all, it looked CHEAP. Terminator 2, despite being almost 30 years old, pisses all over this in every respect.

pixelburp

AllForIt wrote: »

I had though that this one was going to be good with the return of Sarah Conner but even cynical me didn't think it would be quite as bad as it was.

The idea that one of the Terminators hooks up with a human and sees the error of his ways is just so laughably ridiculous that if you told me this is what happens in a Terminator movie I wouldn't believe you.

I was quite looking forward to this but I have to say - it's not worth watching. Even Genisys was better than this imo.

I thought it made sense when you think about it; we clearly saw in T2 that the terminator was capable of some version of empathy (albeit by removing a convenient chip IIRC). He learned to protect and value life, to care about the wellbeing of those he was in charge of. That model had the ability, so having fulfilled its original orders, what else would it do?

The drapery gag didn't land for me and just the wrong side of goofy, but his adoption of a woman and child as surrogate father to them was precisely the thing Sarah Connor herself speculated upon in T2.

_Kaiser_

pixelburp wrote: »

I thought it made sense when you think about it; we clearly saw in T2 that the terminator was capable of some version of empathy (albeit by removing a convenient chip IIRC). He learned to protect and value life, to care about the wellbeing of those he was in charge of. That model had the ability, so having fulfilled its original orders, what else would it do?

The drapery gag didn't land for me and just the wrong side of goofy, but his adoption of a woman and child as surrogate father to them was precisely the thing Sarah Connor herself speculated upon in T2.

Yea, I watched this last night and had much the same thought. With no further orders, no ability to "self-terminate", what would a Terminator that had successfully completed its mission, but with no way to return to Skynet for reassignment do?

Presumably there's a default "inflitration mode" where it's tasked to emulate and fit in with human behaviour as closely as possible, so once it completed it's task it defaulted back to that?

The stumbling block I guess is the default read-only CPU setting as without that being changed as in T2, how could it learn empathy for Sarah?


Overall though, I thought this was a lot better than anything since T2. It was a bit pointless in renaming Skynet as Legion but having virtually all the same designs and tech as we've seen in the previous films, but I don't think it deserved all the hate I skimmed over online.

Arnie and Linda were the best two things about it, and the first half was definitely better than the second (it started to come loose with the planes I think and the end was pretty much a remake of T3)

rob316

Crap, not Genesis crap but still bad. Why does it have to be so cheesey? It's killer robots it should be pretty serious.

Either do a decent future war movie or end the franchise, they are just rehashing the same story line over and over.
If Batman can recover from Batman and Robin this should be able to too, with a decent director and writer behind it.

SirLemonhead

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Yea, I watched this last night and had much the same thought. With no further orders, no ability to "self-terminate", what would a Terminator that had successfully completed its mission, but with no way to return to Skynet for reassignment do?

Presumably there's a default "inflitration mode" where it's tasked to emulate and fit in with human behaviour as closely as possible, so once it completed it's task it defaulted back to that?

The stumbling block I guess is the default read-only CPU setting as without that being changed as in T2, how could it learn empathy for Sarah?


Overall though, I thought this was a lot better than anything since T2. It was a bit pointless in renaming Skynet as Legion but having virtually all the same designs and tech as we've seen in the previous films, but I don't think it deserved all the hate I skimmed over online.

Arnie and Linda were the best two things about it, and the first half was definitely better than the second (it started to come loose with the planes I think and the end was pretty much a remake of T3)

I think the CPU setting thing should really be disregarded, as it wasn't at all part of the original theatrical release - that and the T800 in the first movie is shown to learn on it's own regardless. It makes everything that comes later on less confusing

Stone Deaf 4evr

Watched it Friday with no expectations and came away pleasantly surprised.

I've always felt that the franchise never quite hit the heights it could have off the back of 1&2, and this is no different. However, I did feel that Grace, Dani, and particular the Rev9 (I enjoyed how he took on different mannerisms and accents in his default form, as opposed to the deadpan delivery of the T1000) are all worthy additions.
If I were to put together a ranking, it'd be

T1&T2 for Joint first & second
Dark Fate
T3
Salvation
Genysis

TheIrishGrover

I thought it was pretty OK.

The biggest problem was the Dani character. Not the best actor in the world and it does seem that her character suffered severely from the edit. Probably to big up Linda Hamilton more.

I thought Grace was actually a good character and well played. The initial poster way back when, I thought she looked like a Korean Boyband reject but I thought she was an interesting idea and well acted.

Was great to see Sarah Conor again. Linda Hamilton great as usual: Bringing the right amount of unforgiving badass and more than a little crazy. The use of the T2 footage at the start was brilliant and the initial flashback was quite effective. Interesting to see a slightly different version of the Arnie model terminator.

I could have done without the "Carl" stuff but I did actually like what they did with the character: Having a family but not really understanding it. And I did actually find him funny when he was intended to be:

"Even without a rogue AI taking over, I calculate a 74 percent chance that human civilization will collapse into barbarism. And in that eventuality, these weapons will be vital to protect my family. Also, this is Texas"

"Our relationship is not physical. She appreciated that I could change diapers. Efficiently and without complaints. I am reliable, I'm a very good listener and I'm extremely funny."


So, was it The Terminator or T2? No. But it was a damn sight better than the rest.

Don't listen to the mouth-breather neck-beards on about some feminist agenda: it's Sarah Conor etc fighting a Terminator. The only difference is they are women. If that annoys you, don't watch it. If you don't care, give it a go.

Dades

Watched it over the weekend with little expectation.

Thought it was pretty enjoyable. Arnie coming into it was best for me. Great choice to bring himself and LH back. 2hrs well spent while the missis watch Love Island.

It's not T1 or T2 but it didn't bring shame on them either.

SMC92Ian

Salvation is still the best 3rd film. At least they took risks and tried something new.

rob316

SMC92Ian wrote: »

Salvation is still the best 3rd film. At least they took risks and tried something new.

And they should of continued with it, instead of rebooting it and rolling out Arnie all the time.

B.A._Baracus

SMC92Ian wrote: »

Salvation is still the best 3rd film. At least they took risks and tried something new.

:eek: How dare you say Salvation is better than t3! :pac:

Nah but seriously, they should have continued on with Salvation movies. I mean, we've had two sequels since. Someone thought there'd be money making more. So why not make a Salvation 2.
Then again, it wasn't well recieved and those who had the power to greenlight probably thought it didnt do well cause of Arnie not being involved. So a reboot yadda yadda.

pixelburp

Not sure I'd classify "Terminator: Salvation" as taking risks: they went with a plot the fans supposedly were clamouring for ("show us the future war!"), while jamming in as many references, callbacks and characters from previous movies as possible. It was anything but safe IMO.

If they wanted to take risks, they'd throw the franchise at Blumhouse, or some indie types & say "do what you want", no more than we saw recently with "Joker" (still not sure how the executives were kept at bay there).

The most obvious low-ball "risk" they should have taken ages ago is: stop with the same time period each film. The franchise has the entirity of time to play with, and every sequel has gone with a contemporary location.

Goodshape

Have said it a thousand times, but they needed to ditch Arnie after T2. He was a bit (to be kind) too old in T3 and just a joke after that.

If you want to make “an Arnie movie”, fine. But T1 and T2 weren’t typical Arnie movies. As much fun as he is as an action star, and he was great in the role originally (Cameron really seems to know how to get the best of him), those first two films were great despite his presence, not because of it. And there’s so much scope in the story to write that model of machine out and create a new-look cyborg.

Just not possible to have a serious thriller/horror film while also creating an action vehicle for an OAP. So we’re just left with unavoidably silliness. Even Salvation, for all it’s attempts at doing something new, couldn’t get away from sticking in a pointless and silly looking CGI-Arnold towards the end.

TBH no decent director is ever going to take on this franchise again are they?

EltonJohn69

glasso wrote: »

TBH no decent director is ever going to take on this franchise again are they?

I heard Billy Crystal will be writing/directing a potential trilogy once the film rights go up for auction

Rob2D

Just watched this and couldn't delete it fast enough. Same old trashy rehash. I'd rather the machines just win at this stage.

Bigmac1euro

Well that was like a terrible episode of friends.
****ing hell.
Back to T2 and forget this ever happened.
What a joke

Bigmac1euro

And what’s the story with Miley Cyrus
Christ almighty.
That was poor.

Thargor

We just watched it in the last week aswell, tbh it started well and I had some hope for it but when Arnie showed up and made his speech about falling in love with his son and daughter and it being a non-physical relationship and all that other crap we were just speechless at how anyone could get Terminator so wrong, it was actually amazing. Also why was this T-800 talking about John Connor like he knew him? That T-800 was melted down at the end of T2, why was he saying crap like "Lets do this for John" etc? The scenes set in the future were completely moronic aswell.

The endless plane sequence that seemed to go on forever, later acts that were even darker than Game of Thrones so you couldnt see what was going on, the utterly boring girl they chose as the future resistance leader...

Also dumping Skynet in favour of some generic legion crap? How many games have had a rouge AI or whatever called Legion? It was so lazy. The fact that they would just dump one of the best enemies in sci-fi like that showed they just had no clue what makes Terminator 1 and 2 so good.

The White Wolf

I did like the stuff with Arnie, it was easily the highlight of the film for me.

The "for John" stuff I think is just born out of guilt having learned to become a father figure to a child himself. I don't think he had to know John to be tormented by the memories of murdering him.

Grace and this Arnie Character would have been worthy of a better film. The rest of it was awful, Linda Hamilton included sorry to say.

pixelburp

You can sorta see the supposed clash between Tim Miller and James Cameron that went on behind the scenes. It was like there were two separate movies: the first half, the car chase being the highlight, was IMO genuinely excellent and thrilling stuff. Didn't hate the twist that Arnie learned to settle down - I took the adopted family to be some Connor surrogate group for him to protect, that's all - but the back half completely lost coherence and all that tension. From focused, linear action to sloppy, generic noise Blockbuster seen everywhere. Arguably, Dark Fate nearly did it, was nearly a Good Movie.

silverharp

I dont remember mush of it at this stage, but character writing has gone downhill. Arnie playing a robot in the second movie had more heart than po faced Grace, or great scenes like the boy teaching Arnie to trash talk, by the end of this movie do you really care who lives and dies, its just an amusement ride get on get off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_7vVOnpyJY

pixelburp

I liked Grace: she had good charisma, as well as a pretty interesting flaw - one not used enough in these kind of "super strength" stories. It added a nice balance of tension that she could only be super-powered for short bursts, leaving her vulnerable afterwards. Of course it got forgotten in that clusterf*ck of a Last Act but the whole film kinda went off the rails there.

Her clashing with Sarah worked too, and like I said had no problem with the T-800s own evolution. The main cast all clicked for me, it's just that the new Saviour was a big black hole of charisma or characterisation. Made all the more egregious by how the characters orbiting her were so much better realised. Natalia Reyes was kinda out of her depth.

Mackenzie Davis made for a really intense lead; having been watching Halt & Catch Fire lately, am curious why she's not headlining more vehicles like this (sidebar, I had been wondering who might work as a younger Furiosa in that Fury Road sequel - Davis could work). For instance: she would have been a much better Captain Marvel for one.

TheIrishGrover

pixelburp wrote: »

I liked Grace: she had good charisma, as well as a pretty interesting flaw - one not used enough in these kind of "super strength" stories. It added a nice balance of tension that she could only be super-powered for short bursts, leaving her vulnerable afterwards. Of course it got forgotten in that clusterf*ck of a Last Act but the whole film kinda went off the rails there.

Her clashing with Sarah worked too, and like I said had no problem with the T-800s own evolution. The main cast all clicked for me, it's just that the new Saviour was a big black hole of charisma or characterisation. Made all the more egregious by how the characters orbiting her were so much better realised. Natalia Reyes was kinda out of her depth.

Mackenzie Davis made for a really intense lead; having been watching Halt & Catch Fire lately, am curious why she's not headlining more vehicles like this (sidebar, I had been wondering who might work as a younger Furiosa in that Fury Road sequel - Davis could work). For instance: she would have been a much better Captain Marvel for one.

Yeah, same here. It felt like there was some serious tweaks in the editing room, giving more focus to Sarah Conor. Then by the end they sorta went "Oh sh*t, we forgot, this other girl has to be the new John Conor. Right, three lines or so oughta do it"

I think I posted before that I liked Arnie's homemaking version. Either intentionally r unintentionally I read that it was just an almost abstract thought that he couldn't get his head around but went through the motions like programming.

Plus I loved his "We're in Texas" and "I'm extremely funny" lines

Yeah, for me, the girl was easily the weakest link in the chain. I thought the idea of Grace was great and I loved MacKenzie Davis' performance in it (Despite my initial misgivings based purely on the terrible initial promo images that made her look like a Korean Boyband member).

I liked Sara's (further) descent into paranoia (Is it really paranoia if they really are out to get you? ).

It's unfortunate that it didn't do well, it was certainly the best post T2. Also unfortunate (But TOTALLY predictable) that it was so heavily bombarded by trolls for its percieved anti-male bias (They seem to forget that Sarah Conor was the hero in the originals, NOT John Conor/Arnie/whoever). But that's another topic that's been done to death.

Church on Tuesday

I will always remember this film to be the final nail in the Terminator franchise.

A domesticated hen picked T-800

The White Wolf

pixelburp wrote: »

I liked Grace: she had good charisma, as well as a pretty interesting flaw - one not used enough in these kind of "super strength" stories. It added a nice balance of tension that she could only be super-powered for short bursts, leaving her vulnerable afterwards. Of course it got forgotten in that clusterf*ck of a Last Act but the whole film kinda went off the rails there.

Her clashing with Sarah worked too, and like I said had no problem with the T-800s own evolution. The main cast all clicked for me, it's just that the new Saviour was a big black hole of charisma or characterisation. Made all the more egregious by how the characters orbiting her were so much better realised. Natalia Reyes was kinda out of her depth.

Mackenzie Davis made for a really intense lead; having been watching Halt & Catch Fire lately, am curious why she's not headlining more vehicles like this (sidebar, I had been wondering who might work as a younger Furiosa in that Fury Road sequel - Davis could work). For instance: she would have been a much better Captain Marvel for one.

Christ Davis as Captain Marvel would have been some shout.

Hopefully a better film will come along for her that will launch her onto the next level.

Greyfox

Church on Tuesday wrote: »

I will always remember this film to be the final nail in the Terminator franchise.

And so will most people but the truth is Genysis had already killed the franchise for good. I'd love to see an 18 rated film thats bleak and depressing as fook as death is everywhere but sadly lots of people don't have the stomach for this kind of film

Thargor

Kind of shocking how many people in this thread think that joke of a T-800 with his family was a good idea tbh, I still cringe when I think about it.

Dades

pixelburp wrote: »

(sidebar, I had been wondering who might work as a younger Furiosa in that Fury Road sequel - Davis could work).

I'd thought that too, after seeing Tully. Only 11 years in the difference though, and Charlize clearly has a portrait of Dorian Gray in the attic.

pixelburp

Thargor wrote: »

Kind of shocking how many people in this thread think that joke of a T-800 with his family was a good idea tbh, I still cringe when I think about it.

The drapery gags were a really weird choice I won't deny, but don't get the angst over the T800 becoming a surrogate dad to a wayward mother & boy. Not like the thematic links with T2 weren't obvious, while the reveal he was helping Sarah from afar was also a nice character beat that worked well with her own arc.

Your mileage may vary n' all, but think people are overly critical on the T800s post-mission spiral. It wasn't Citizen Kane like, but I guess if you already were sour on the movie as a whole it was just another thing to beat over the head with.

Greyfox wrote: »

And so will most people but the truth is Genysis had already killed the franchise for good. I'd love to see an 18 rated film thats bleak and depressing as fook as death is everywhere but sadly lots of people don't have the stomach for this kind of film

Agreed: the Terminator franchise was dead already before Dark Fate came along. It had limped along from Rise of the Machines to Genisys, the latter being the real creative low-point IMO with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Terminator hasn't been unreservedly good in 30 years - can't blame Dark Fate for killing a franchise that was already moribund.

And while it still tries to cling to Blockbuster status, it'll continue to float around mediocrity and redundancy. Presumably once Arnie joins the great gym in the sky, they'll finally retire the franchise.