Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

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  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 41,011
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    Posts: 25,427
    Creasy47 wrote: »

    Sarah Connor 'If we don't win this one, it's allover'... That's most likely true
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,723
    The review embargo for Terminator: Dark Fate will lift on October 22nd (next Tuesday), 1 day before UK release and 10 days before the US release.
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    Posts: 25,427


    Arnie is such a Legend
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,231
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,231
    https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terminator_dark_fate

    Mixed verdicts, ultimately. We'll see how its batting average balances out over the next few days. I'm seeing it tomorrow.
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,723
    https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terminator_dark_fate

    Mixed verdicts, ultimately. We'll see how its batting average balances out over the next few days. I'm seeing it tomorrow.

    I'm seeing it in a couple of hours. I hope it's good!
  • edited October 2019 Posts: 1,661
    No surprise some of the reviews are negative:
    The set-up and structure is so similar to 1991's landmark Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Dark Fate could almost be called a remake. It's a watery facsimile of that movie, so full of nods and winks that you worry that it may be having a stroke.

    https://www.timeout.com/us/film/terminator-dark-fate

    On September 1st I posted:
    fanbond123
    September 1 edited September 1 Posts: 1,562Flag
    I feel 50:50 on the new trailer. On the positive side it looks loaded with action and they haven't given anything away about why/how the future didn't end up peaceful. No sign of John Connor which suggests he won't play a big part in the storyline. The John Connor rumours are online if you want potential spoilers. We'll have to see if they're accurate or not. On the slightly negative side it does feel a bit of a copy and paste of T2 and Terminator Salvation (hybrid human/Terminator).

    Perhaps the biggest problem with the franchise is it's very restrictive. It's basically Terminator chases humans. It's a cool concept but there's only so many times you can redo that before it gets a bit repetitive. James Bond is basically Bond saving the world 24 times but there's so many ways to tell the same sort of story but, I dunno, Terminator feels limited in how you tell the same story. Dark Fate is meant to be part one of a new trilogy so the writers/producers feel confident there is enough new/different material for three films. I wouldn't mind a massive plot twist in part 2 to really play with people's expectations rather than another truck chase through LA or New Mexico!

    The TimeOut review confirms my initial gut reaction to the first trailer. It looked unoriginal. If you rehash too much and it's painfully obvious it's rehash, you can't expect people to go "wow, this is amazing" because we've seen it before. My guess is the best chance for Dark Fate and any follow-up sequels is it appeals to a younger audience not that aware of the earlier films. I've no idea if it will pull in those people but my gut feeling is the older fans will just say "not original enough." Thankfully the James Bond franchise can feel reasonably fresh with each new entry. It's one of the main reasons it's lasted so long, but the Terminator universe is quite restrictive in scope.
  • ThunderballThunderball playing Chemin de Fer in a casino, downing Vespers
    Posts: 815
    Please oh please be good. [-O< I disliked T3, thought Salvation was okay and thought Genesys was messy and mediocre at best. I’m glad someone realized that the Terminator movies are (or should be) about Sarah Conner, not the T-800. Not even John Conner, really. Linda Hamilton’s Sarah was a badass from the beginning, she just didn’t know it yet until she had to step up. Similar to Ripley in Alien and Aliens. I’m really looking forward to this. It looks good, at least.
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    edited October 2019 Posts: 15,723
    Just saw it. I really enjoyed it. Far below the level of T1/T2 but it's the best post-T2 outing by a huge margin. I still have a soft spot for T4 so I'd say that bar the original I enjoy all even-numbered Terminator outings. Very fast paced, almost non-stop action from start-to-finish. Hamilton was great, so was Arnold (both badass and hilarious), and the 2 younger female leads were very good too. The evil Terminator was quite bland, but he was given plenty of badass action to make up for it. If T1 and T2 are solid 10/10, this one is a strong 7.5/10 for me. The plot is sadly very linear and predictable (some interesting twists though), but on the action front the film fully delivered AFAIK.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,231
    Just saw it. I really enjoyed it. Far below the level of T1/T2 but it's the best post-T2 outing by a huge margin. I still have a soft spot for T4 so I'd say that bar the original I enjoy all even-numbered Terminator outings. Very fast paced, almost non-stop action from start-to-finish. Hamilton was great, so was Arnold (both badass and hilarious), and the 2 younger female leads were very good too. The evil Terminator was quite bland, but he was given plenty of badass action to make up for it. If T1 and T2 are solid 10/10, this one is a strong 7.5/10 for me. The plot is sadly very linear and predictable (some interesting twists though), but on the action front the film fully delivered AFAIK.

    Glad to hear this, @DaltonCraig007!!
  • Posts: 5,767
    Interesting. I became curious enough to want to see it finally.

    Maybe I will even watch the new Star Wars movie ;-).
  • DaltonCraig007DaltonCraig007 They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
    Posts: 15,723
    Terminator: Dark Fate could become the first 'certified fresh' outing in the franchise since T2 in 1991. It's currently at 68% on RottenTomatoes, and continues to climb.
  • Posts: 5,767
    Terminator: Dark Fate could become the first 'certified fresh' outing in the franchise since T2 in 1991. It's currently at 68% on RottenTomatoes, and continues to climb.
    Wow, can´t wait to see it, since I quite enjoy T4 ;-).

  • 00Agent00Agent Any man who drinks Dom Perignon '52 can't be all bad.
    edited October 2019 Posts: 5,185
    Just came back from the cinema.
    Even though i think it's the best Terminator since T2, i am still slightly disappointed.

    Just shows how trully awful the other sequels were.
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    Posts: 25,427
    T2 - Alternate Ending

    Probably the best ending we will ever get to the Terminator films
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 41,011
    I simply pretend Judgment Day was the final installment in the series, keeps things simple. I thought Dark Fate was awful - better than Genisys, but that’s really not saying much.
  • MinionMinion Don't Hassle the Bond
    Posts: 1,165
    Sad that of Arnie’s 80’s output, Conan can’t find the opportunity to complete its story but Terminator keeps plugging along with mediocre entries.
  • MurdockMurdock The minus world
    Posts: 16,360
    The terminator franchise is itself a terminator. An entity that can't seem to die and tries to kill the audience with it's mediocrity. Time to nuke Paramount. :))
  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    Posts: 25,427
    Some one online made a good point as to why the Back to the Future films worked, the sequels expanded upon the first film, Marty did not keep repeatedly going back in time to save his parents marriage in the sequels.

    The Terminator films for the most part keep flogging the same dead horse, repeating the same tired formula with the odd change which irritates fans of the first two films. (at least Salvation tried to go in another direction).

    I will be very surprised if Dark Fate gets a sequel even though its already a sequel/threequel/part 3 version 4 whatever it is.

    I think the next inevitable step will be a total reboot, though I think they should leave it alone for a long time the franchise is a creative dead end.
  • Posts: 5,767
    boldfinger wrote: »
    Terminator: Dark Fate could become the first 'certified fresh' outing in the franchise since T2 in 1991. It's currently at 68% on RottenTomatoes, and continues to climb.
    Wow, can´t wait to see it, since I quite enjoy T4 ;-).
    I went to see it last night.
    On the one hand, it was the first time in any franchise that I thought the return of two old heroes was really cool. And Schwarzenegger puts his money where his mouth is when he says he is
    incredibly funny. That really made me laugh.
    On the other hand, the film as such left me so unmoved, I left the cinema before the film was over.




    Murdock wrote: »
    The terminator franchise is itself a terminator. An entity that can't seem to die and tries to kill the audience with it's mediocrity.
    Good point!

  • 00Agent00Agent Any man who drinks Dom Perignon '52 can't be all bad.
    edited October 2019 Posts: 5,185
    Been thinking about this film all day. Getting more disappointed the more i do.

    This is really sad, because i thought the story was very solid. It was very well thought out, putting Sarah Connor front and centre again. I really liked the characters and performances overall. I did not see a cheap T2 rehash at all. In fact it was too far removed from what i was hoping for and expecting.

    What bothers me about this film the most is everything to do with 'modern day film making'.

    It's pretty needless to say that Tim Miller is not James Cameron (80's & early 90's Cameron that is) but that's exactly the problem with this film.
    Nothing feels real. It's just another 'modern day' marvelesque CGI fest.

    T2 may have revolutionized CGI in film, but it had surpisingly few CGI effects in it. And almost none of them were used for the action scenes. Most of the CGI shots in T2 were about the T-1000 reassembling after the action was over. 80-90% of the action was done with practical effects.

    In Dark Fate we see so much unrealistic and wheightless typical CGI BS that you stop caring after pretty much the first action set piece. There is no weigth to any of this. These Terminator are supposed to be unstoppable and heavy machines, but early on you see the Villain jumping up Walls and climbing around them like a spider monkey and it takes me right out of the film. I don't wanna see that crap.
    And as if to tell their critics in advance to f off, they even include a 'weightless' action scene midway through, where the terminators are basically fighting in zero gravity.

    I hate to say it but T3 did a FAR better job in the action depratment when it comes to CGI action, especially the bathroom fight. Or the truck chase where the T800 throws over cars purely with his weight.

    In Dark Fate, after a while nothing makes sense anymore, they throw out any believability for outrageousness and you simply stop caring.
    The pace is too fast, it's just one ridiculous action scene after another with next to no meaningful exchange.

    T2 was the opposite of that. The movie was full of slow camera shots, and keeping occasional frames for as long as possible to build tension. For example when the T1000 comes out of the burning truck, no camera movement, no edits, it's a long and steady shot that creats unrest because of that.

    The other, more personal problem i have with DF is that i consider the T2 Soundtrack to be possibly the greatest movie Soundtrack ever made. It had a profound influence on me, and to this day, whenever I want to write something 'futuristic' i always end up with some Brad Fidel influences in there.

    Here, in my naivity, i thought that the filmmakers would be aware of the importance the music had in creating that otherworldly mood that T2 (and T1 to some extend) had, and would try to emulate that in some way but nope... We ended up with a boring generic run of the Mill orchestral score that did not manage to grab me even for a second in the whole 2 hours. Yes, the Terminator theme is there somewhere, and there are occasional cues and sounds from T2 but the mayority is utterly forgettable.

    I'm a bit pissed. I think Cameron should have directed it, but i am not sure he would have had it in him to do it justice either. As it Stands i don't need another sequel to this.

    What disappointed me the most is that Tim Miller even said in the very first Q&A he did with Cameron that he very much wanted the action to feel real and have weight to it, but todays film making has become so over reliant on this CGI crap that film maker apparently have no freaking clue how to achive that.

    At least there still one man you can rely on for practical stunts. You know the name, you know the number.
    (even though they had to learn a costly lesson with DAD).

    So even though i really liked the story overall (not necesserily HOW it was told) and the performances, especially from Linda and Arnold, right now i don't see myself watching this movie ever again.
  • Posts: 6,710
    I just don't understand why they make these films anymore. They had a good movie, one good movie in six. That is not a good statistic, is it? Same with Rambo, I think. They may be iconic movie characters, but they belong in the late 80s and early 90s. They work in that movie making world that, let's be honest, is dead and buried. They only want cash cows now. Same goes for Star Wars. They just don't do it for the sake of art and fun. They do it for the money. And it doesn't work in any other sense other than being money makers.

    It's just sad.
  • WalecsWalecs On Her Majesty's Secret Service
    Posts: 3,157
    Actually two good movies.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,231
    Walecs wrote: »
    Actually two good movies.

    Two near perfect movies and two okay ones, for me. The only irredeemable one is Genisys.
  • edited October 2019 Posts: 1,661
    A major problem with the Terminator franchise is lack of brand loyalty. What I mean is T3 Rise of the Machines storyline was axed and replaced by Terminator Salavation and that plot was axed for Genisys and now Cameron is back on board and Dark Fate is the official sequel to T2. None of the other producers/writers/investors had enough confidence to stick with one major storyline for several films so it's hard for fans to remain loyal to the brand. For example - if you liked Salvation and its post Judgement Day setting you'd want to see a sequel but nope, sorry, that was axed! You're never gonna see a sequel. I liked Salvation but it didn't get enough support to warrant a sequel? I guess so.

    It's no surprise some fans are sceptical about Dark Fate. The three previous films were axed, the plots never carried on. I'm sure some fans think Dark Fate may end up going nowhere plot-wise. Cameron says Dark Fate is the official sequel to Terminator 2 but my guess is the producers of Rise of the Machines thought their film was the official sequel. The franchise is a continuity mess. Unless Dark Fate is a massive box office hit it's hard to see any future for the franchise. Perhaps it's time to stop saying "I'll be back."
  • 00Agent00Agent Any man who drinks Dom Perignon '52 can't be all bad.
    edited October 2019 Posts: 5,185
    fanbond123 wrote: »
    A major problem with the Terminator franchise is lack of brand loyalty. What I mean is T3 Rise of the Machines storyline was axed and replaced by Terminator Salavation and that plot was axed for Genisys and now Cameron is back on board and Dark Fate is the official sequel to T2. None of the other producers/writers/investors had enough confidence to stick with one major storyline for several films so it's hard for fans to remain loyal to the brand. For example - if you liked Salvation and its post Judgement Day setting you'd want to see a sequel but nope, sorry, that was axed! You're never gonna see a sequel. I liked Salvation but it didn't get enough support to warrant a sequel? I guess so.

    It's no surprise some fans are sceptical about Dark Fate. The three previous films were axed, the plots never carried on. I'm sure some fans think Dark Fate may end up going nowhere plot-wise. Cameron says Dark Fate is the official sequel to Terminator 2 but my guess is the producers of Rise of the Machines thought their film was the official sequel. The franchise is a continuity mess. Unless Dark Fate is a massive box office hit it's hard to see any future for the franchise. Perhaps it's time to stop saying "I'll be back."

    That's a good point. And the reason why they do it mostly is because everyone wants to get back to the greatness that is T1 and T2, but they always go about it so half assed, as if they can't figure out what made these movies actually great.

    Apparently not even James Cameron at this point can figure out what made these first two films such masterpieces. It was a multitude of reasons, not just one specific thing. They did capute some of that in DF, but not all of it saddly.
  • Posts: 5,767
    Univex wrote: »
    I just don't understand why they make these films anymore. They had a good movie, one good movie in six. That is not a good statistic, is it? Same with Rambo, I think. They may be iconic movie characters, but they belong in the late 80s and early 90s. They work in that movie making world that, let's be honest, is dead and buried. They only want cash cows now. Same goes for Star Wars. They just don't do it for the sake of art and fun. They do it for the money. And it doesn't work in any other sense other than being money makers.

    It's just sad.
    What are you talking about? What´s it got to do with the late 80s/early 90s? Haven´t we got films like Logan and MM Fury Road? It´s not as if all sequels were made for the fun of it in the 80s or 90s.

  • Posts: 5,767
    fanbond123 wrote: »
    A major problem with the Terminator franchise is lack of brand loyalty. What I mean is T3 Rise of the Machines storyline was axed and replaced by Terminator Salavation and that plot was axed for Genisys and now Cameron is back on board and Dark Fate is the official sequel to T2. None of the other producers/writers/investors had enough confidence to stick with one major storyline for several films so it's hard for fans to remain loyal to the brand. For example - if you liked Salvation and its post Judgement Day setting you'd want to see a sequel but nope, sorry, that was axed! You're never gonna see a sequel. I liked Salvation but it didn't get enough support to warrant a sequel? I guess so.

    It's no surprise some fans are sceptical about Dark Fate. The three previous films were axed, the plots never carried on. I'm sure some fans think Dark Fate may end up going nowhere plot-wise. Cameron says Dark Fate is the official sequel to Terminator 2 but my guess is the producers of Rise of the Machines thought their film was the official sequel. The franchise is a continuity mess. Unless Dark Fate is a massive box office hit it's hard to see any future for the franchise. Perhaps it's time to stop saying "I'll be back."
    Cameron says a lot when he promotes a film he worked on as a producer. I think all he´s really interested in for the time being are his Avatar films. He didn´t even manage to get The Abyss released on br, even though he claimed years ago that they made a 4K restauration and were ready to launch.

  • WalecsWalecs On Her Majesty's Secret Service
    edited October 2019 Posts: 3,157
    Walecs wrote: »
    Actually two good movies.

    Two near perfect movies and two okay ones, for me. The only irredeemable one is Genisys.

    Agreed with this, but I can see why some hate T3 and Salvation (I, on the other hand, can't see why some like Genisys).
    fanbond123 wrote: »
    A major problem with the Terminator franchise is lack of brand loyalty. What I mean is T3 Rise of the Machines storyline was axed and replaced by Terminator Salavation and that plot was axed for Genisys and now Cameron is back on board and Dark Fate is the official sequel to T2. None of the other producers/writers/investors had enough confidence to stick with one major storyline for several films so it's hard for fans to remain loyal to the brand. For example - if you liked Salvation and its post Judgement Day setting you'd want to see a sequel but nope, sorry, that was axed! You're never gonna see a sequel. I liked Salvation but it didn't get enough support to warrant a sequel? I guess so.

    It's no surprise some fans are sceptical about Dark Fate. The three previous films were axed, the plots never carried on. I'm sure some fans think Dark Fate may end up going nowhere plot-wise. Cameron says Dark Fate is the official sequel to Terminator 2 but my guess is the producers of Rise of the Machines thought their film was the official sequel. The franchise is a continuity mess. Unless Dark Fate is a massive box office hit it's hard to see any future for the franchise. Perhaps it's time to stop saying "I'll be back."

    Agreed, I was very annoyed when they announced that Genisys would not be a sequel to Salvation.

    But, to be fair, Salvation did not axe anything from T3, John's wife was also brought back.
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