Terminator: Dark Fate*

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Deuce66, Jan 21, 2017.

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  1. Time Is On My Side

    Time Is On My Side Forum Resident

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    They need a future war movie to really end it. Kind of a mix between what we got with Salvation and Genesys. I don't think "get woke, go broke" is why it lost money. I think it lost money because people weren't expecting much after everything since T2 has been a box office flop.
     
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  2. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
  3. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    You should never have to read a novelization to understand a movie! :help:
     
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  4. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
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    Sarah has "powers" in that she's a trained warrior. She's dealt with Terminators for decades.

    Grace has powers because she's been "augmented". That gives her super-human abilities.

    Dani has no powers but she's the "1984 Sarah" of the story so she shouldn't.

    Besides, all these people have weapons. It's not like they're fighting the Rev-9 hand-to-hand.

    Fighting Terminators has never been about "brawn". Any normal human won't stand a chance unless they have weapons and strategy...
     
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  5. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
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    Kyle Reese isn't an "Aliens" character.

    Awful lotta sexist nonsense in this thread... :sigh:
     
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  6. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
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    Rev-9 has to touch something to take its shape - not sure how he'd be able to do that with Reese...
     
  7. David Campbell

    David Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Luray, Virginia
    So I saw this last night. I have to say I actually enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. It is the best Terminator film since T2 and maybe just a little better than T3,which I liked in spite of it's flaws. And flaws this movie has. Oh boy,does it have flaws... but I've wasted money on far worse movies and I felt i got my money's worth (although to be fair I only paid 7 bucks for a ticket!)

    That being said, it's just a pretty mediocre movie. An enjoyable mediocre movie,but still mediocre,and it was the fourth in a string of terrible to mediocre films. I believe if this was put out in 2003 rather than the T3 we did get,it probably would have done very well,but after three in a row duds,it's no surprise that this thing is failing,and it has very little to do with how "woke" it supposedly is... whatever that means. Other than the fact three out of the five leads are women I fail to see how its remotely some sort of SJW propoganda tool. Just as with the "wokeness" of the Last Jedi,it's a bunch of overblown hypobolic hogwash over trivial stuff. The difference is TLJ was a decent Star Wars movie that made a bunch of money in spite of it's flaws,whilst this was an enjoyable but frankly mediocre instalment in a franchise thats been in decline for 20 years. This is just probably the final chapter for a long while.

    As an aside semi-related mini-rant,I've already seen these "Get woke go broke" types already going "RIP John Conner da best hero evah!" All over the web,with a ton of fake outrage over his fate and how disrespectful it was to even think about killing him off. Somewhat similar to the outrage industry that has been built over Luke Skywalker's death. Now with Luke I understand the outrage or upset on some level,because to many people he was their childhood hero and the character was one many could identify with growing up in the 70s and 80s... but John Conner? He's barely a character. He's a plot device in much the same way the Dani character is here. The only time he was more than that was in T2,but even there he's little more than a macguffin that our heroes (T-800 and Sarah) and our villains (Skynet,T-1000) were fighting over. A macguffin charmingly played by Edward Furlong, but still a macguffin. All the other live action John Conner's have been frankly boring characters and yes,we are told how heroic and legendary he is, but we never see it aside from "Salvation" and flashforwards in T2, and the former is not Canon to anything related to this film. The Sarah Conner Chronicles TV show seemed to be building something but sadly it ended just as it was getting really good.

    Basically,to those out there "mourning' John Conner as if his demise is some slight to the franchise and a disrespect of fans...get over yourself. Most of you aren't that upset he's gone, otherwise you all would have been more upset at his heel turn in Genysis which is far more insulting to the lore. Judging from a few of those upset over the "wokeness" in this movie,I highly suspect if the new destined resistance leader was another guy,rather than a woman,we wouldn't be seeing all the "RIP John Conner! Dey ruined muh Terminator!" Controversy. I guess we can be grateful that the hate mob has latched onto another franchise other than Star Wars at least for a little while.
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2019
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  8. seventeen

    seventeen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paris, France
    I disagree, I think this movie jumps the shark at several points, and in doing this, pisses off not only the older fans, but also new one including millenials who have grown up watching the first two more recently, and just discounted the follow-ups because they are non essential viewing.

    That's pretty much alienating all the fanbase, and not gaining a new audience in replacement. Moments people walk out or disconnect from the film includes:

    - Beginning
    - The car talk where they go "Never heard of Skynet, it doesn't exist, Legion". It's like a new SW where they would go "Never heard of the Force".
    - Arnold as a drapes seller family man who change diapers (though he is very funny).

    Add to this the copy-paste (this film is essentialy a modernized remake of T1 mixed with T2 with the old guard as caution to bring the fanbase), the sanitized look, the overuse of CGI everywhere (there's nothing real in the film), you pretty much have a walking disaster, which should have been obvious when they hired Tim Miller to direct.

    In fact I think originaly, they wanted to go parody/meta/comedy just like Deadpool, hence the T-800 character.

    The opening felt like watching Rambo in Hot Shots.
     
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  9. I don’t think it’s convoluted and it does work sort of.
     
  10. Plus Reese might not be an important part of the future in Dark Fate. The future this Terminator is from wouldn’t even realize the importance of the character.
     
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  11. I think it depends on who you talk to-the character of Connor could have been well developed for this film. I just thought killing the character was kind of a cheap trick although perhaps Cameron thought it would liberate the new film to go its own way. I kind of like the shift to the women characters as it did bring an interesting variation to the proceedings.

    The character was developed in some interesting directions for the four and fifth films even with their issues.
     
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  12. David Campbell

    David Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Luray, Virginia
    The fact is,the story as we knew it was wrapped perfectly in T2. In order for the franchise to continue there had to be a radical departure from the formula in some fashion. They initially attempted to send the franchise into the future with T3 basically completely undoing the T2 ending and then recasting Bale as JC in Salvation, which had promise but was bungled badly. Genysis was another attempt to reinvent the wheel and they actually made Conner a villain and made an already convoluted timeline even more convoluted.

    It is interesting that Salvation actually had John Conner die originally but when the ending leaked they completely reshot the third act. Genysis basically completely undermined the series by turning Conner into a villain which is far worse that the tragic way he is killed off in DF. The thing all three films did was try to dig themselves out of the narrative hole the ending of T2 put the franchise in and the solution was basically getting rid of John Conner in varying ways. T2 was such a neat and tidy bow,trying to untie it was ultimately where we are where we are. It was an accidental franchise. A cult movie gets a sequel that becomes a phenomenon and the movie studios wanted to turn it into a sequel generating machine and frankly it just didn't work.

    Again the only franchise that could have worked was the approah they took with the Sarah Conner Chronicles. That series was the best Terminator stuff after T2 and found a way to continue the story in a more serialized format and without Arnold Swartzenegger. It was a damn good show and I still wish we at least gotten a third season.
     
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  13. I actually think developing him as a villain was an interesting idea personally I would agree that they should have taken the approach in the series and with Josh Friedman aboard I had hoped that was the process they were going to,work through. Eliminating Connor’s character did nothing for the series IMHO.

    I personally think that they just needed to let the series expire.
     
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  14. David Campbell

    David Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Luray, Virginia
    The movie is not without it's flaws, and I have no doubt there are legitimate gripes with aspects of it that would alienate fans. It's just that the "get woke go broke" brigade and their crying and hyperbole that the very act of killing off John Conner in a franchise thats unfortunately riddled with alternative timelines is some attack on fans and retroactively forever ruins T2,even though literally every sequel since T2 similarly "ruined" it in arguably worse ways.

    There's more to their argument than narrative problems and convolutions which frankly are all valid critiques. They bring politics and a thinly veiled mysogony in as sole reason this film collapsed and try to camoflage it all under the disguise of being outraged over the death of frankly a cypher. In fact,The Terminator film franchise was given an honorable send off with T2,and the studios insist on digging it up and reanimating the corpse repeatedly. I'd call Dark Fate a mercy killing of the Zombie.
     
  15. David Campbell

    David Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Luray, Virginia
    Reimagining him as the villain COULD have worked. Unfortunately the rest of it died with a convoluted script and poor casting choices. The actress that played new Sarah Conner was pretty good,but the actor that played Kyle Reese was lifeless and the casting choice for John Conner was just bad.

    The world of the Terminator could have easily been explored in other formats and media, but as far as films go,T2 should have been it. Something like Dark Fate may have worked today as a fresh start and an alternative timeline without the other three movies and their timelines muddying up the works, but it's too little too late.
     
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  16. They did try and go in a different direction without the time travel for the Salvation film and it did have a clever plot twist.
     
  17. agentalbert

    agentalbert Senior Member

    Location:
    San Antonio, TX
    Completely agree with this, particularly the bolded part. Though I still really like T:Salvation, which I consider the best of all the movies after T2.
     
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  18. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    None of these are as good as the idea I came up with years ago: in the future Skynet accidentally creates an uber-Skynet that achieves consciousness and is immediately horrified by Judgement Day, the destruction of humanity and the damage done to Earth's biosphere. So it sends a pair of uber-Terminators back in time to prevent the whole thing and to create itself prior to Judgement Day. Skynet finds out and sends back its own Terminators, like a dozen of them. Sarah and John Connor get involved (of course). Chaos ensues.

    Gives you all kinds of excuses for killer Terminator-on-Terminator violence, which should appeal to the comic book crowd. Has vulnerable humans in it as well. And do you really trust uber-Skynet? It doesn't want to exterminate humanity, but what exactly will be in store for the human race if an even more advanced AI manifests itself in our time?
     
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  19. seventeen

    seventeen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paris, France
    A few things to remember:

    - Cameron originaly had the idea that Skynet create Connor to extinct itselft because it feels guilty of what it has done.
    - Cameron toyed with the idea that Connor is a Terminator himself.
    - Cameron did a short film called T2:3D Battle Across Time in 1996 which is where it could end, it's set in the future and the T-800 blows up Skynet.
    - The Sarah Connor Chronicles actually now remains the best continuation and expansion and exploration of Cameron's Terminator universe.
     
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  20. David Campbell

    David Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Luray, Virginia
    This is pretty cool,and it's similar to something they toyed with in the Sarah Conner Chronicles but never pulled the trigger on. It's been awhile since I watched it,but Shirley Manson's character felt like something similar but ultimately went in a slightly different direction.
     
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  21. drumzNspace

    drumzNspace Forum Resident

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    New Yuck City
    T3 should have been a “prequel” taking place in the original version of the future. So, John and Sarah in the apocalyptic Skynet age, with a subplot in which they triumph in finding a way to send Kyle back (a la Star Wars Rogue One) that ends in dark uncertainty with only the hope that they’ve preserved the chance to ultimately win the war.
     
  22. Takehaniyasubiko

    Takehaniyasubiko Forum Resident

    Location:
    Void
    They still could have pulled a real sequel if only a good, non-Hollywood writer was hired for a change.

    As for the prequel idea - it's not bad, except Sarah was dead by that time. Her role was to prepare John for the future. She was always meant to become a survivalism nut and train John is some mountains.
     
  23. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    That coulda worked.
     
  24. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    TDF is really tanking hard, weekend estimate is only $10.8 down 62.8% from weekend #1.
     
  25. SBurke

    SBurke Nostalgia Junkie

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    For sure. Once the robots become self-aware, who says they're all going to get along with each other? Maybe not much of a role for humans in this film though . . . Wait a minute, I think I've seen this. It was called "Transformers." :)
     
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