The Terminator Franchise

Well - I just wrapped up The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It was mostly a good show despite a few "filler" episodes. It's rare that I wish a show only had half as many episodes as the full seasons used to, but it could have been a much stronger plot if had it been condensed into 12 rather than the 22 the second season got. At some points it was clear that what they wanted to do with the "good guy" Skynet offshoot was the driving plot but it got lost in too many episodes about weird dreams and that whole Riley arc probably could have been much more refined.

Kalidor said:

Well - I just wrapped up The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It was mostly a good show despite a few "filler" episodes. It's rare that I wish a show only had half as many episodes as the full seasons used to, but it could have been a much stronger plot if had it been condensed into 12 rather than the 22 the second season got. At some points it was clear that what they wanted to do with the "good guy" Skynet offshoot was the driving plot but it got lost in too many episodes about weird dreams and that whole Riley arc probably could have been much more refined.

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IMO the only thing wrong with The Sarah Connor Chronicles is the fact it got cancelled after only 2 seasons. Yet, lame shows like Survivor stay on the air for 1000 seasons. SMH!

Outside of the first two, Genisys is my favorite.

And one of the earliest articles I wrote on PoisonMushroom.Org was about how Hollywood needs to do RoboCop vs Terminator already.

Of course, that was when Alien vs Predator and Freddy vs Jason were still pretty fresh...

I seen the five of the six films and honestly, I believe where they went wrong was when they tried to reboot with Gynesis, they should of contuined with the post judgement day setting and leave the time travel side of things in the past until they are ready to have Kyle go back in time and save John's mother from the T800

I guess it's hard to tell the post Judgment Day story because we already know how it ends, while the rest of the series can keep flip flopping on whether we can fight fate or not.

T1 and T2 are epic films, and some of my favorite scifi films ever. T3 was fun at the time, and I appreciate the ending that they went for. Salvation had some great parts in it, and I like the idea of the hybrid, and the CGI Arnold at the end was amazing. I really enjoyed the Genesis film. I think that its underrated, and I enjoy the plot of it. The most recent film was good, but I wasn't hooked on it. I did like how it picked up from T2, and Carl was great in it. The tv series was good. I just wished that we could have got more of the future war.

Given how "divisive" the newer movies are, it's a perfect franchise for Making Better Stories Yourself so it's cool that there's an RPG (tabletop) coming. They ran a very successful Kickstarter a while back which is still taking late pledges, and there are quickstart rules available now.

Terminator 3 - I should hate this more since it's a betrayal to the theme of fighting fate in the Cameron movies. I should hate it for being a watered down, tongue-in-cheek money-grab. I should hate it for Kristanna Loken having zero screen presence (imagine someone like Lucy Lawless in that role)

But I was still entertained, so what can I say.

Terminator Salvation - It was... okay. But it didn't deliver on the Future War premise. Its best asset, the true nature of Sam Worthington's character, was given away in the trailers. A decent SFX spectacle but it felt more like Transformers than Terminator.

Terminator Genisys - This is the point putting TERMINATOR on a movie stopped making me go to a theater. That said, maybe it was extremely low expectations, but I when I streamed this on a lark expecting it to be complete dog jive I actually kind of liked it even if it was thoroughly unnecessary. Although now when I think of why I liked it, I can't remember much of the specifics.

Terminator Dark Fate - The point I stopped caring. Zero interest.

It would take James Cameron back in the director's chair, because then I know it would be must-see.

That or give me my damn Future War movie and do it right this time. I'll probably have to settle for that Terminator Resistance game though.

With Salvation I believe they wanted to tell more stories in the future war era but the movie didn't preform as they hoped it would do, but then again, they said they had a plan for Genisys but again, it didn't preform, Dark Fate, while I not seen it myself, I understand it was a total failure on many levels despite bring back the original actress! At this stage, I think they really need to let the brand just get "Terminated!" and let it die, unless they actually just go with the future war that we been longing for where humans are more on the defensive against the machines!

Salvation might be the biggest tragedy of the series. Finally showing the future war was the obvious direction for the franchise to go at that point, and they went for it and gave it some trendy star power instead of banking it all on Arnie, and it was just kinda okay. It was an adequate summer blockbuster but it didn't do anything to make the Terminator brand matter again.

I first saw Genisys on a plane ride home from Europe, and I ended up really enjoying it (as noted above).

It just delivered everything I wanted from a movie like that: robots fighting robots (I especially love the shot for shot remake of the opening scene from the first movie leading into the first fight), time travel shenanigans, and it was just nice to get one with a happy ending for once.

I guess you could argue T2 had that... until the sequels and such effectively negated it, anyway, but even then, something about it just felt grim to me. (Or maybe that was the effect of the preceding events, and I just need to rewatch it again.)

CoffeeHorse said:

Salvation might be the biggest tragedy of the series. Finally showing the future war was the obvious direction for the franchise to go at that point, and they went for it and gave it some trendy star power instead of banking it all on Arnie, and it was just kinda okay. It was an adequate summer blockbuster but it didn't do anything to make the Terminator brand matter again.

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To be fair, Arny was Governor at the time. He probably didn't have time for a huge movie part. If I remember, didn't they have to CG the brief part he actually was in there?

I do think Genisys was the best of the post T2 movies, but that's an incredibly low bar. Really, they should've just left it at 2 and let the comics take over.

Caldwin said:

To be fair, Arny was Governor at the time. He probably didn't have time for a huge movie part. If I remember, didn't they have to CG the brief part he actually was in there?

I do think Genisys was the best of the post T2 movies, but that's an incredibly low bar. Really, they should've just left it at 2 and let the comics take over.

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Yeah, the only thing he did during that time was cameos that he could film during the weekend.

I'd argue that that should have been to the film's benefit. Seeing him in the role already wasn't a big deal anymore, but Salvation could have proved that that wasn't going to be a problem going forward.

I think they learned all the wrong lessons when it didn't work.

I dunno, I thought seeing him circa 1984 kind of tied things together in a neat way.

What I can't decide with Salvation is if they should have kept the other en-- no, no. Probably not.

A big problem that Terminator keeps running into is casting. Lena Headey was a decent Sarah, but didn't quite have the steel needed, And Emilia Clarke never stood a chance. Jai Courtney likewise. And nobody's been able to cast a good John Connor yet.

Ed Furlong was okay. I mean, as far as child actors go, he certainly wasn't the worst.

Agreed. I think that Gensis casting was good too.

I thought Genesys Kyle was awful casting. Everything else was great

I think with Genesys casting, they really messed up on the role of John Conner, I think Matt Smith who played Skynet would of been a better choice because I seen what he can do as a actor and he was a VASTLY superior actor to the one who played the role in the film, I felt that was a total waste of a acting abbilty on a minor part!