Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

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  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,009
    chrisisall wrote: »
    chrisisall wrote: »
    T3 was terrible.
    I actually bought Genisys after seeing it in the theatre, and I've watched it ONCE since then. That means it sucks.
    I haven't seen Dark Fate, but I won't fall for it again. Another curiosity to waste my time & money....
    Terminator: Salvation is the only post T2 film I have any love for. It was a bit original in its take of the story.... not a sequel, but a 'sidequel'.

    Salvation deserves more love. It tried something interesting and while it may not have executed it perfectly, it still did so better than what followed it.

    Yep. It was an original take, imperfect, but fascinating & full of energy.

    I liked Salvation a lot. It's bizarre to think it came from the director of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.
  • Posts: 1,165
    I loved Dark Fate!
    The series was wrapped after T2 and doesn’t need any further entries, but if you’ve got to bring it back I can’t think of a better way to do it than the way Dark Fate handled things.
  • Agent007391Agent007391 Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start
    Posts: 7,854
    TR007 wrote: »
    I loved Dark Fate!
    The series was wrapped after T2 and doesn’t need any further entries, but if you’ve got to bring it back I can’t think of a better way to do it than the way Dark Fate handled things.

    Throwing it all under the bus and retreading the same ground with new characters?
  • Posts: 1,165
    TR007 wrote: »
    I loved Dark Fate!
    The series was wrapped after T2 and doesn’t need any further entries, but if you’ve got to bring it back I can’t think of a better way to do it than the way Dark Fate handled things.

    Throwing it all under the bus and retreading the same ground with new characters?
    Look around, that’s how you reboot!
  • Posts: 9,736
    I haven't seen any of them post Terminator 3 but Terminator Genesis is the one of the 3 I would be most interested to see.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    Risico007 wrote: »
    I haven't seen any of them post Terminator 3 but Terminator Genesis is the one of the 3 I would be most interested to see.

    It is the only good one, in my view.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,687
    Genisys was okay. I liked it enough to see it twice. I definitely has moments. Salvation was nuts. I hadda get the director's cut (not much different)!
  • talos7talos7 New Orleans
    edited June 2021 Posts: 7,891
    Risico007 wrote: »
    I haven't seen any of them post Terminator 3 but Terminator Genesis is the one of the 3 I would be most interested to see.

    Via my job as a Firefighter, I actually worked on the set Genisys when it was filming in New Orleans.
    The most remarkable sequence to watch being filmed was the Golden Gate Bridge.
    On the parking area of an abandoned shopping mall a section of the bridge’s roadway was constructed , along with railing and partial structural members. Traffic was added with stunt drivers and they actually flipped the bus.
    In post, the entire rest of the bridge, and background were added. The final images are pretty remarkable.

    None of this was filmed on the Golden Gate Bridge


  • Posts: 1,394
    TR007 wrote: »
    I loved Dark Fate!
    The series was wrapped after T2 and doesn’t need any further entries, but if you’ve got to bring it back I can’t think of a better way to do it than the way Dark Fate handled things.

    Such as killing off Edward Furlongs John Connor in the first three minutes thereby rendering the first two films pointless?

  • Posts: 1,165
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    TR007 wrote: »
    I loved Dark Fate!
    The series was wrapped after T2 and doesn’t need any further entries, but if you’ve got to bring it back I can’t think of a better way to do it than the way Dark Fate handled things.

    Such as killing off Edward Furlongs John Connor in the first three minutes thereby rendering the first two films pointless?
    I thought that was a great idea. Sarah is a much more interesting character than John. They tried to utilise his character in 3, 4 and 5 but to no avail. He’s not a good lead character so why not kill him off and focus on Sarah. I loved it!

  • RyanRyan Canada
    Posts: 692
    Sega Genesis, I mean, Terminator: Genisys, was decently enjoyable I thought. I think its premise was better than its execution. It should have gone full Back to the Future: Part II and done more with the time travel thing of going back into the previous films and changing events. Initially I thought that was the direction it was heading in, but then it no sooner gives up on that and ends up treading the same generic territory. Enjoyable, though. Better than ROTM and Salvation. I'd still rank Salvation as the worst entry in the series. Completely forgettable.

    Dark Fate is basically just a better Terminator 3, and it's a great example of doing too little, too late. Too many false starts and retreaded territory within the series to think it's anything more than just the previous sequels done better.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited June 2021 Posts: 14,861
    TR007 wrote: »
    AstonLotus wrote: »
    TR007 wrote: »
    I loved Dark Fate!
    The series was wrapped after T2 and doesn’t need any further entries, but if you’ve got to bring it back I can’t think of a better way to do it than the way Dark Fate handled things.

    Such as killing off Edward Furlongs John Connor in the first three minutes thereby rendering the first two films pointless?
    I thought that was a great idea. Sarah is a much more interesting character than John. They tried to utilise his character in 3, 4 and 5 but to no avail. He’s not a good lead character so why not kill him off and focus on Sarah. I loved it!

    Yeah, as you said, there wasn't really anywhere to go with this story since T2, so it was a decent route to go down - and as you also say, Sarah was the interesting one anyway.
    I thought Dark Fate was pretty decent and probably the best one after T2, but it does fall off a cliff a bit about halfway in or so. It was strange how the new Sarah character barely seemed to get any screentime, either.
    For me Salvation showed how if you remove the real killer concept behind Terminator (i.e. evil robot sent back in time to avert its enemy's birth) there's not much of interest left. There was really one movie's worth of appeal in it, and Cameron managed a pretty incredible feat to make T2 as good as it was.

    Interestingly (or terrifyingly) the idea of the machines rising up against us is actually a real and valid current concern, and potentially these movies might have numbed us to the dangers making it seem like a Hollywood fiction: risk from AGI (artificial general intelligence)
    Once AIs start designing their successors and improving upon them (which is what we'll use them for) they will start to be out of our hands and that is likely to at some point lead to superintelligence, more intelligent than us, and beyond our capacity to control.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489

    Some good scenes in this one, but not very memorable.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    The ending is good though.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    I also remember a fight scene between Arnold and Kristanna. Not much more.
  • Posts: 1,394
  • talos7 wrote: »
    Risico007 wrote: »
    I haven't seen any of them post Terminator 3 but Terminator Genesis is the one of the 3 I would be most interested to see.

    Via my job as a Firefighter, I actually worked on the set Genisys when it was filming in New Orleans.
    The most remarkable sequence to watch being filmed was the Golden Gate Bridge.
    On the parking area of an abandoned shopping mall a section of the bridge’s roadway was constructed , along with railing and partial structural members. Traffic was added with stunt drivers and they actually flipped the bus.
    In post, the entire rest of the bridge, and background were added. The final images are pretty remarkable.

    None of this was filmed on the Golden Gate Bridge


    That’s awesome you worked on Genisys, @talos7, and pretty funny that the Golden Gate Bridge scene was actually filmed in New Orleans. Genisys is actually my favorite after the original. I know, I know, T2 has incredible action and a tearjerker of an ending and Hamilton’s great, but it’s really 90s and not in a good way and John’s kinda whiny and I’m rarely in the mood to watch it. Genisys delivered likable characters, humor that works, fun twists on the timeline, a really good score, and a refreshingly bright setting in San Francisco. I enjoy the film start to finish, and as I said it’s bested only by the original for me.

    T3 is solid too. Arnold’s in top form. Stahl makes for a good John, Claire Danes works well as Kate, Kristanna Loken made for a fun and original new Terminator model, the truck chase was spectacular, and the film drove the narrative forward and had a great and unexpected ending. Salvation was solid also. I loved the whole idea of taking us into the future war. It does feel like a very different kind of film. I love the dark aesthetic of it all. But it also unfortunately feels like one action sequence piled on top of the other. Like the whole movie was built around the action sequences, and that probably isn’t too far off the mark from how the movie was actually made.

    Dark Fate is the lousiest of the bunch by a fair margin. Overstuffed with protagonists, Hamilton scowling and miserable the whole time, no standout action sequences to speak of, offing John only to have a new character try to retread Sarah’s arc, only this new character starts out as a badass so she has nowhere to grow as a character and giving her not one, not two, but three protectors just makes them all seem a bit incompetent in the face of the antagonist in the end, a visually dark and messy climax that was probably designed that way to cover up the rough CGI. There’s simply nothing to recommend in this one. Mackenzie Davis was good. The movie had that much. But she needed a good movie to star in.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    talos7 wrote: »
    Risico007 wrote: »
    I haven't seen any of them post Terminator 3 but Terminator Genesis is the one of the 3 I would be most interested to see.

    Via my job as a Firefighter, I actually worked on the set Genisys when it was filming in New Orleans.
    The most remarkable sequence to watch being filmed was the Golden Gate Bridge.
    On the parking area of an abandoned shopping mall a section of the bridge’s roadway was constructed , along with railing and partial structural members. Traffic was added with stunt drivers and they actually flipped the bus.
    In post, the entire rest of the bridge, and background were added. The final images are pretty remarkable.

    None of this was filmed on the Golden Gate Bridge


    That’s awesome you worked on Genisys, @talos7, and pretty funny that the Golden Gate Bridge scene was actually filmed in New Orleans.

    Pretty much all of the Golden Gate scene in A View To A Kill was filmed north of London! :D
  • mtm wrote: »
    talos7 wrote: »
    Risico007 wrote: »
    I haven't seen any of them post Terminator 3 but Terminator Genesis is the one of the 3 I would be most interested to see.

    Via my job as a Firefighter, I actually worked on the set Genisys when it was filming in New Orleans.
    The most remarkable sequence to watch being filmed was the Golden Gate Bridge.
    On the parking area of an abandoned shopping mall a section of the bridge’s roadway was constructed , along with railing and partial structural members. Traffic was added with stunt drivers and they actually flipped the bus.
    In post, the entire rest of the bridge, and background were added. The final images are pretty remarkable.

    None of this was filmed on the Golden Gate Bridge


    That’s awesome you worked on Genisys, @talos7, and pretty funny that the Golden Gate Bridge scene was actually filmed in New Orleans.

    Pretty much all of the Golden Gate scene in A View To A Kill was filmed north of London! :D

    For the close ups, true. But they did actually put two stuntmen atop the Golden Gate for the long shots, which is pretty dang cool.



    Some good scenes in this one, but not very memorable.

    I really wish they had kept the Sergeant Candy scene in. Would have made the film more memorable for sure!

  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    @Some_Kind_Of_Hero , never seen that. That was pretty cool.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    edited June 2021 Posts: 8,009
    Dark Fate was very close, conceptually, to being a legitimately great sequel to T2.

    What I personally would have done (for a start, at least) was drop Arnie. The film completely loses its way once he shows up and they have narratively pigeon holed themselves twice now trying to find ways to explain his age.

    There's a really lovely scene from The Sarah Connor Chronicles where John Connor visits a park and sees a very young Kyle Reese in the distance. That got me thinking about how John really could have been used in a post-T2 sequel in an interesting way.

    Dark Fate presents us with the idea that an AI war is inevitable, whether it be with Skynet or someone else - it's almost generational, with each threat having a different saviour. John Connor was the first, and now there's someone else. Instead of killing John off, however, I'd have kept him and used him as the protector character along with a grumpy, alcoholic Sarah. After living his life with the belief that he was the one who would save mankind, he now has to confront the reality that someone else now has that role, and he and Sarah have to ensure their safety. He would also, in a way, become just like his father - hence the scene where he would see young Kyle at the park; a decision-making moment for him where he embraces his new role as a guardian rather than the hero of the resistance.

    You'd have to be careful to not retread the ground of the first film too much but something like that, to me, would have been more interesting.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    That's just two characters playing the role that Sarah does in the finished film though, you don't need him. And as Hamilton is the established star of these films it's her you'd go with, rather than bring in yet another new guy the audience has less attachment to.
  • Well, a better idea than Dark Fate would have been to simply continue where Genisys left off. But I guess if a film doesn’t light the box office on fire, they scrap the direction they were going in and try a whole new tack. I guess that should provide some reassurance we won’t be getting Dark Fate 2. Still, seems like kind of a haphazard way of furthering the series.

    I’m glad you mentioned The Sarah Connor Chronicles though, @CraigMooreOHMSS. That series was better than most of the films and should be looked to as inspiration for the right way to tell new Terminator stories on film.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    edited June 2021 Posts: 8,009
    mtm wrote: »
    That's just two characters playing the role that Sarah does in the finished film though, you don't need him. And as Hamilton is the established star of these films it's her you'd go with, rather than bring in yet another new guy the audience has less attachment to.

    True in the context of the existing finished film, for sure, but I'd argue that you don't really need a lot of things narratively - however it certainly doesn't make them any less nice to explore nor is there only one way to do it. I liked Hamilton quite a lot in the film, all the same. As you say, the second half of the film doesn't really measure up to what she was bringing to it.

    Regarding another new guy; it wouldn't really bother me as long as the actor was good and played well off Hamilton, to be honest. It's really Schwarzenegger who's the established star anyway, and I'd be getting rid of him too.

    I’m glad you mentioned The Sarah Connor Chronicles though, @CraigMooreOHMSS. That series was better than most of the films and should be looked to as inspiration for the right way to tell new Terminator stories on film.

    It was a great show, criminally treated by a network that didn't have a clue what they were doing at the time. It did stray a bit towards the end of that second season, but overall I really enjoyed it. Headey was a great Sarah Connor. She managed to convey the same qualities that Hamilton had without being a copycat.
  • Agreed. Everyone on that show was very good, but Headey really developed Sarah Connor in some interesting and spot-on ways. I fully believe she’s the same character as Hamilton’s in the first two films, just a few more years down the road.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited June 2021 Posts: 14,861
    mtm wrote: »
    That's just two characters playing the role that Sarah does in the finished film though, you don't need him. And as Hamilton is the established star of these films it's her you'd go with, rather than bring in yet another new guy the audience has less attachment to.

    True in the context of the existing finished film, for sure, but I'd argue that you don't really need a lot of things narratively - however it certainly doesn't make them any less nice to explore nor is there only one way to do it.

    There's just no point in having two characters when you only need one. Sarah learning it's not about her anymore is the same as Sarah & John learning it's not about them anymore. Her role could have been given to two people in the first film (maybe her dad could have come along with her and Kyle), there would be no point though: films need to be elegant. John had a role and a story in T2, but there's no role for him here.
    I think the stuff with her despising Carl is more interesting than playing her beat about being irrelevant twice with someone else.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    edited June 2021 Posts: 8,009
    Okay, but I was specifically focusing in on John's arc, not Sarah and John together. I'm not suggesting they should have shoehorned him into the existing film. Sorry, I thought I had made that clear. Sarah would still be in it, obviously, but I just thought it was relevant to the points being made above about John not being an interesting character. There are ways of using him beyond the saviour role that I would have liked to have seen explored more and those absolutely would have been interesting.

    Killing him off the way they did is certainly one way to go - but I find the alternatives to be a bit more engaging, conceptually.
  • Posts: 1,394
    Terminator movies are like genders.

    There are only two.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    Okay, but I was specifically focusing in on John's arc, not Sarah and John together. I'm not suggesting they should have shoehorned him into the existing film. Sorry, I thought I had made that clear. Sarah would still be in it, obviously, but I just thought it was relevant to the points being made above about John not being an interesting character. There are ways of using him beyond the saviour role that I would have liked to have seen explored more and those absolutely would have been interesting.

    Killing him off the way they did is certainly one way to go - but I find the alternatives to be a bit more engaging, conceptually.

    You present it as him having the same arc that Sarah does in the finished film though. Which leaves Sarah with no reason to be in it.
    As Sarah is the star of these films, and not John, I think it makes much more sense to give that story to Sarah.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    edited June 2021 Posts: 8,009
    mtm wrote: »
    Okay, but I was specifically focusing in on John's arc, not Sarah and John together. I'm not suggesting they should have shoehorned him into the existing film. Sorry, I thought I had made that clear. Sarah would still be in it, obviously, but I just thought it was relevant to the points being made above about John not being an interesting character. There are ways of using him beyond the saviour role that I would have liked to have seen explored more and those absolutely would have been interesting.

    Killing him off the way they did is certainly one way to go - but I find the alternatives to be a bit more engaging, conceptually.

    You present it as him having the same arc that Sarah does in the finished film though. Which leaves Sarah with no reason to be in it. As Sarah is the star of these films, and not John, I think it makes much more sense to give that story to Sarah.

    I don't think that would remove her reason for being in it, no - unless the thinking is that an arc like that is the only thing that could be done with Sarah's character. If that's the case then I would disagree with that. There's plenty of things that could be done with her, too. Remember, I only suggested keeping the core concept of an inevitable future war with a new saviour that would need protecting. There's plenty of room for other things there to make the pieces fit around that. All that would have been needed is a decent script that fleshes out the relationships, establishes who John and Sarah have become since they allegedly averted the end of the world, and an actor who can bounce off Hamilton well. I really don't think it would have been too difficult really - which is why I enjoyed but was also frustrated by the finished film in equal measure. Davis did a decent job in the end as Grace but I fear her efforts were in vain as the last hour undermined the setup, unfortunately.

    Neither Sarah nor John were the stars of the films to me, I must say. While I do love both characters, it's a tough argument to position them above the actual Terminator itself in those first two films. That's obviously not to say people don't like Linda Hamilton (or even Emilia Clarke later on, for that matter), but Arnie was always the big draw for people - at least until 2003. It's evidently not the case anymore, though. I definitely thought Dark Fate would pull in a more respectable box-office total with both of them back together (a big part of the marketing was the return of Hamilton), but I guess nobody really cared in the end.

    Ultimately, all I'm saying is that while I didn't hate the route they took, there was plenty of room to use John Connor in interesting ways as opposed to just killing him off in order to accommodate an aging Arnie's involvement for the second film in a row.
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