Terminator: Dark Fate*

I didn't think it would be this bad but it was. The script is a mess and the CG was not up to standard. And like the Force Awakens, Dark Fate is kind of a remake of the first two movies. Lots of scenes we've seen before.
I put in the same category as the last two films. Mildy entertaining but not good. I actually enjoyed the last one more than Dark Fate.

I think J Cameron has lost it. Some of it anyway. That's why he hasn't done anything since Titanic except for Avatar, which I think he got lucky with in some ways.
His two big producing/screenwriting gigs (Alita and Dark Fate) both sunk..

 

Maybe I'm just not hip enough, but I feel like there's a whole "Emperor's new clothes" thing with Avatar. I thought it was terrible but it's like James Cameron had been away for so long, that when Avatar came out everyone was so eager to sing its praises. He should make another historical disaster movie like, I don't know, the Hindenburg or something.

 

I saw it in the theatres. It was entertaining enough, but I didn’t like that it undid the ending of T2. And the Terminators are so impossible to stop now, there’s really no suspense. They’re too indestructible.

Let’s face it: the Terminator “franchise” isn’t really a franchise. It’s the same story told over and over again (I did like the TV series and felt that had some potential, despite some flawed casting). Time to let it go.

 

It's really a duology. That's why Cameron stopped after 2, but he got greedy in his old age.

 

Déjà vu. Other landscapes, the same old story. A supplement for nostalgic retirees. Just another story of the "good terminator" (former bad but humanized) vs. the new "bad terminator" made of liquid metal, from an actualized future. With the same aging actors giving us the feeling that everything is transient in this world of illusions and our time has come to an end.

 

IMO, the weakest in the franchise...and kind of sad.

 

I watched this yesterday and IMHO it was terrible. It had an intangible cheap 'made for TV' feel, and the CGI was awful, especially the plane / dam scenes - nothing looked real, and it felt more like a computer game in many places.

T2 although 28 years old has far better CGI which holds up very well today.

I think out of the 6 files we've had, only Terminator: Salvation is worse than this. It makes the much maligned T3 look like a masterpiece.

 

I watched it recently. I laughed once when Arnold described his family life: 'I am extremely funny'.
The rest was a mess full of stupid ideas and things that don't make sense (biological anti-terminatress running on batteries or something? Little Mexican girl became a leader or resistance? John got killed? Arnold terminator got older looking?).
I still liked Arnold and the new terminator fighting girl characters, but barely.
It's better than Genisys though. Sarah Connor was played so horrible there. It felt like the worst acting ever.

 

interesting twist as far as the leader of resistance, but I think it makes sense because the whole idea is that you can change the future.
not as good as the first 2 Terminators, but I liked it

 

Actually most of the cast was awful in Genisys except for Jason Clark and Matt smith in their respective roles.

I think the big awful idea was killing a major character at the beginning. There were other ways to achieve the same end.

 

was Emilia Clarke that bad? Come on!
her eyebrows are mesmerizing, it's like they have a life of their own

 

I think she made the whole movie worth watching.

 

I wouldn’t say she was bad I just didn’t find her convincing as Sarah Connor.

 

For me the problems with Dark Fate are quite simple: 1) lack of originality (we've seen it all before at this point), 2) lack of truly compelling characters and actors (have any of them really compared to Linda, Arnie, Michael Beihn, Earl Boen, Paul Winfield, Lance Henrikson etc. since T1?) and 3) Does anybody really want to see Arnie as a 'good' Terminator (again)? We had that in T2 and these days I find it cringeworthy (teaching him to smile and so forth). T1 was a lean, mean, gritty cyber-punk sci-fi horror film. It was unaware of itself as it didn't have a history at that point. Go back to Arnie as a Terminator doing what Terminators do, keep it as just him as this unstoppable threat, even aged. Keep it simple. BUT feature The Future War - it's what the majority of fans have really wanted to see in full since the glimpses in T1 and T2! With today's de-aging tech. they could quite 'easily' make Arnie look like he did in T1 if necessary. However, it's probably best to see the franchise as T1 and T2 only at this point. And personally, it begins and ends with T1...

 

They need to put this franchise to bed, they just get progressively worse and each film rehashes previous storylines. Dark Fate was just completely pointless.

 

Right. Cameron producing picked my interest at first but what a let down. T3 and T5 was more fun if you ask me. Hell, even T4

 

I watched it on Hulu last night and honestly I’m already beginning to forget about it. But I do like how the Terminator can split its meat suit away.

 

Haven't watched this film since seeing in theatres but after all the criticisms, I still think it's better than 3, Salvation and Genysis. Linda Hamilton and Mackenzie Davis were fine - it's just a shame that the Dani character was forced out poorly towards the end, and she just wasn't believable.

Another problem with this film was that there were too many cooks in the kitchen as far as writers go. Yes, David S. Goyer gets a lot of criticism but I don't think he's entirely to blame really. At least he's not killing a particular franchise like Alex Kurtzman is doing at present.

 

Can anyone who owns this on UHD Blu-ray confirm something for me?

 

I know what you mean. I saw it recently and honestly can't remember anything that happened in it.

It was just so.....meh.

 

I can try!

 

I am a big fan of the Terminator Franchise, I like each movie to a degree some more than others. Having said that I gotta say I liked Dark Fate. I liked Linda Hamilton was back had an ok storyline, dont want to say too much so as to not spoil it. But me personally I would have loved to have seen what would have been the rest of the SL for Genisys

 

I agree that a lot of the effects in Dark Fate were strikingly rushed and bad looking, and I think the "made for TV" feeling you got had to do with the strangely tight, flat framing giving everything a kind of square look. The same director made Deadpool and that movie had a similar cheap look (although Dark Fate was worse). Terminator 3 also looks kind of cheap, but it at least has some spectacular real set pieces.

Shockingly, Dark Fate cost more than the much more impressive-looking Genisys.

That being said, the worst part about Dark Fate is that it does absolutely nothing new. They made a big deal of the return of James Cameron, but there was nothing in the movie that the other sequels hadn't already done:

* Arnold Terminator sticks around, grows older on the outside, gets a job -- already done in Genisys
* "Augmented" cyborg with human mind/organs as hero -- already done in Salvation
* John Connor death twist -- already done in Genisys (and also planned for Salvation but abandoned when the script leaked)
* Hero has a power cell that is also a nuclear weapon when damaged -- already done in T3 (same point in the movie too)
* Character tries to escape their fate as leader of the resistance, accidentally ends up fulfilling that fate -- already done in T3 (and arguably in T1)
* Future war sequences -- looked like Salvation (and not like T1 or T2)

And that's leaving aside the stuff that's fundamental to the series (e.g., naive young person who is the key to the future is hunted by both a killer and protector from the future).

I was shocked at how many ideas were recycled from T3 and Genisys, two films that (by all accounts) James Cameron was embarrassed by. He actually had an idea/treatment kicking around for a Terminator 3 that was much more interesting than any of the movies we have gotten -- where Skynet develops empathy and feels guilty at destroying humanity, so it sets the process in motion to create John Connor, thus saving humanity and destroying itself. This was one of several ideas for novels based on his movies that Cameron has apparently started but never finished (he spent several years on an Avatar novel without ever finishing it).

I did enjoy the hint that Dani and Grace are a couple in the future (which is presumably why Grace volunteers for the mission), although it was made VERY subtle to avoid running afoul of Chinese censors.

 

Thanks...

I am experiencing a moment, watching this disc from a Panasonic DP-UB9000 to a Samsung NU8000, when before the siblings enter the factory in Mexico to begin their shift, the outside of the factory facility exhibits weird shimmering/twitching in the vertical lines...do you see anything like this on your copy/setup?

 

I'll check tomorrow when I'm back in front of my TV!