Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
October 28, 2019 12:31 PM - Subscribe
Sarah Connor and a hybrid cyborg human must protect a young girl from a newly modified liquid Terminator from the future.
How much Arnold is there in this, actually? He seems pretty prominent in the marketing, and I have a lower tolerance for seeing that guy's face than I did in 1992.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:50 PM on October 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 12:50 PM on October 28, 2019 [2 favorites]
mind you i didn't watch genisys or whichever the one with khaleesi-as-sarah, so i can't give that kind of in-verse comparison, but i'll say he's prominent as he joins the party in the second half, but otoh a lot more of the heavy lifting drama-wise comes from the other characters.
posted by cendawanita at 1:09 PM on October 28, 2019
posted by cendawanita at 1:09 PM on October 28, 2019
We had a survey to do when we watched this, because it was opening weekend.
The survey had a lot of very strange questions about why we had come to see this film in particular which might have coloured my perception of it.
I thought it was far too heavy handed the way Sarah kept going "She's me, she's going to give birth to some MAN who'll lead the resistance" whilst the entire audience rolled it's eyes and were all "no, obviously she is going to lead the resistance".
It felt like it was an exciting feminist statement 20 years ago but the supposed reveal was obvious to the rest of us.
Overall it seemed to be a decent Terminator 3. I liked it. It was fine. Good even. I had a good time watching it.
But it seemed to lack a spark. There was nothing that felt all that new to me.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:01 AM on October 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
The survey had a lot of very strange questions about why we had come to see this film in particular which might have coloured my perception of it.
I thought it was far too heavy handed the way Sarah kept going "She's me, she's going to give birth to some MAN who'll lead the resistance" whilst the entire audience rolled it's eyes and were all "no, obviously she is going to lead the resistance".
It felt like it was an exciting feminist statement 20 years ago but the supposed reveal was obvious to the rest of us.
Overall it seemed to be a decent Terminator 3. I liked it. It was fine. Good even. I had a good time watching it.
But it seemed to lack a spark. There was nothing that felt all that new to me.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 4:01 AM on October 29, 2019 [3 favorites]
in one clear sense i agree, but it's also like ocean's eight and ghostbusters, and mad max: fury road. i can't quantify how i feel watching women take the lead but also narratively where it's no longer a John Connor, but a Daniella Ramos who is the leader of the resistance. i guess that is more of the same for many, but not to me.
posted by cendawanita at 6:26 AM on October 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 6:26 AM on October 29, 2019 [7 favorites]
and if they need Sarah Connor be the mouthpiece to connect the dots of this thesis together, then so be it, because it needed to be spelled out, and in a beanplating kind of way, she should be the figure to bridge that argument of what female representation should be for this day and age.
posted by cendawanita at 6:28 AM on October 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 6:28 AM on October 29, 2019 [6 favorites]
I loved it. I can’t be any sort of objective, I don’t have enough examples to compare it with. I loved, loved, loved brave, ripped Grace shielding Dani with her body, sledgehammering their pursuer in the head, loved growly old Sarah once again showing me a way I could be in twenty years that I’m not offered elsewhere, loved Dani’s clap-backs about being the only one left to throw a punch and the other times she called them out for talking about her like an object or like she wasn’t there, loved avuncular, asexual Arnie taking up just the right amount of space. I get there’s not much there there As they say, but I don’t care, I got a dumb movie full of women protecting each other, casual intimacy and fan service. THANK YOU THATS ALL I WANT! For a fun time go watch this movie with dykes. We had a ball and more or less lost the plot at the “sometimes mommies and daddies” line, but also the “no you may not” reply to Carl asking if he could ask what she was. Seen it twice, can well imagine going one more time, am happy to throw money at this.
One of the most important things for me though is that Grace got to die. I a in the process of making a tumblr about this, women heroes never get to die! Recently it’s been teased, but most often stolen away at the last minute. I’m glad Grace got to do what she needed to do.
If you don’t have money to see the movie, you can watch the teaser trailer and then the full trailer. It literally has the entire film in it, so that’s nice. I can’t imagine what it’s like seeing the film without having seen the trailers!
posted by Iteki at 5:30 AM on November 1, 2019 [10 favorites]
One of the most important things for me though is that Grace got to die. I a in the process of making a tumblr about this, women heroes never get to die! Recently it’s been teased, but most often stolen away at the last minute. I’m glad Grace got to do what she needed to do.
If you don’t have money to see the movie, you can watch the teaser trailer and then the full trailer. It literally has the entire film in it, so that’s nice. I can’t imagine what it’s like seeing the film without having seen the trailers!
posted by Iteki at 5:30 AM on November 1, 2019 [10 favorites]
I get there’s not much there there As they say, but I don’t care, I got a dumb movie full of women protecting each other, casual intimacy and fan service.
Yeah, it was kind of by the numbers, but so what? Just a bunch of different women at different stages in their lives and a machine saving the world. I'll show up for that.
posted by praemunire at 3:41 PM on November 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
Yeah, it was kind of by the numbers, but so what? Just a bunch of different women at different stages in their lives and a machine saving the world. I'll show up for that.
posted by praemunire at 3:41 PM on November 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
(I'm actually pretty annoyed by the trailer business, though I suppose it wouldn't have been possible to completely suppress the T-101's involvement in the plot.)
posted by praemunire at 3:44 PM on November 2, 2019
posted by praemunire at 3:44 PM on November 2, 2019
i can't quantify how i feel watching women take the lead but also narratively where it's no longer a John Connor, but a Daniella Ramos who is the leader of the resistance.
That people can even be blasé about this shows how far we've all come since The Terminator.
posted by chavenet at 3:50 PM on November 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
That people can even be blasé about this shows how far we've all come since The Terminator.
posted by chavenet at 3:50 PM on November 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
Well this was the best Terminator move in over a quarter of a century. I think they call that damned with faint praise. A bit better than the last three but follows T2 basics like its on rails. New characters were fine but nothing new or interesting about the movie as a whole. Were some issues with the motivations of the older characters too. I'm not totally convinced a terminator who had killed his primary target would settle down with a human family. It makes no sense. Not the only thing.
One thing I noticed besides the sparse attendance in my local cinema on opening Saturday night, was that every one in the cinema was over 40. I am wondering whether that gap of 28 years since a good terminator film means that no one under 40 is bothered enough to see another one.
posted by biffa at 11:17 AM on November 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
One thing I noticed besides the sparse attendance in my local cinema on opening Saturday night, was that every one in the cinema was over 40. I am wondering whether that gap of 28 years since a good terminator film means that no one under 40 is bothered enough to see another one.
posted by biffa at 11:17 AM on November 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
I really love that the film takes a few moments to show Dani and Sarah both working through the trauma of what is happening and has happened to them.
For Dani it’s a shot looking into a mirror. For Sarah, it’s a moment sitting on a log - and Dani is there to support her.
The film was unexpectedly funny, but the heroes don’t just glide through the action being unaffected by it all. In 2019, the most action hero thing of all is sincerity.
posted by FallibleHuman at 2:26 PM on November 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
For Dani it’s a shot looking into a mirror. For Sarah, it’s a moment sitting on a log - and Dani is there to support her.
The film was unexpectedly funny, but the heroes don’t just glide through the action being unaffected by it all. In 2019, the most action hero thing of all is sincerity.
posted by FallibleHuman at 2:26 PM on November 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
I was one of those olds who came to see it (and in a mostly-empty theater; apparently it's had a really underwhelming opening weekend), and agree that, even as it did in fact have a lot of callbacks to T2, it also justifies ignoring the previous post-T2 sequels. (I only saw an episode or two of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, so fans of that show may feel differently.) The only thing that I've seen Mackenzie Davis in was the "San Jacinto" episode of Black Mirror, so I was pleasantly surprised at just how adept she was at handling all the action--if/when we get another Cameronesque butt-kicking SF movie heroine, I hope that she's on the short list for it. I did have a few quibbles with the movie--that NuSkynetLegion didn't have specific instructions for the T-800s if they succeeded in their mission (if you're going to send something back in time to change it in a particular way, why would you leave it active like a proverbial loose cannon? Have it walk into the ocean and chill out there, or go on standby to make sure that your own future is safe), that Sarah just happens to know an Army major who can both get her EMP grenades and safe passage on a military plane, and that the T-800's power plant couldn't have been used for the final weapon--but these are relatively minor. And I loved "Carl's" lecture on drapes for kids' rooms.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:59 PM on November 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:59 PM on November 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
it's been over a week and i just have a lot of feelings for Sarah Connor, and her just going through this realisation that this young girl's worth was her entire self, and not just her reproductive capacity. and Grace's fierce love for her adopted mother figure (not that I won't ship it). *____* okay, i need to go for a rewatch for sure.
posted by cendawanita at 8:14 PM on November 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 8:14 PM on November 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
AAAAAAAAAHHH. This had SO MUCH awesome female badassery in it. It makes me happy. Also, as a woman in late middle age, I am SO HERE for Hollywood's seeming recent discovery that women - particularly older women - can be action heroes.
Definitely the best Terminator movie since T2. T3 was a serviceable big budget action movie but, really, nothing standout; Terminator Salvation annoyed the hell out of me in several ways and was just ... ugh; Terminator Genisys was kind of fun in a way that felt like someone wrote some Terminator alternate-universe fanfic and then filmed it. (I only saw a couple of episodes of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, but it looked fun, but that's absolutely some TV alternate branch of the franchise, discussion of which will not fit in the margins of this comment.)
This was a great take on the Sarah Connor character and returned the series focus to her, and completes her character's journey through a thematic line of a particularly violent take on 'maiden/mother/crone' archetypes. Dani coming into her power was maybe a bit clumsy in places but still solid, echoing Sarah's "GET UP, SOLDIER" at Kyle in the first movie. And Grace was just great. She also had some of the best line for handwaving without technobabble, "Future shit."
Post-movie logic problems so far: I had some of the same quibbles as Halloween Jack. Also, I can forgive the idea that a T-800 can learn without having the chip adjusted if it's finished it's previous program, but I'm not sure how Sarah gets specific coordinates for someone making a time jump but instead she shows up on a random bridge an hour or more later. Overall, lots of solid action scenes. The CGI was a bit distracting in places, but the stunt folks were great. And Fury Road has spoiled me for action movie editing - I found the airplane scene hard to follow, and I suspect better editing would help. (I suspect the fact that it's presumably all cgi may feed into that compared with, say, Inception's hallway fight.)
posted by rmd1023 at 4:50 AM on November 5, 2019 [7 favorites]
Definitely the best Terminator movie since T2. T3 was a serviceable big budget action movie but, really, nothing standout; Terminator Salvation annoyed the hell out of me in several ways and was just ... ugh; Terminator Genisys was kind of fun in a way that felt like someone wrote some Terminator alternate-universe fanfic and then filmed it. (I only saw a couple of episodes of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, but it looked fun, but that's absolutely some TV alternate branch of the franchise, discussion of which will not fit in the margins of this comment.)
This was a great take on the Sarah Connor character and returned the series focus to her, and completes her character's journey through a thematic line of a particularly violent take on 'maiden/mother/crone' archetypes. Dani coming into her power was maybe a bit clumsy in places but still solid, echoing Sarah's "GET UP, SOLDIER" at Kyle in the first movie. And Grace was just great. She also had some of the best line for handwaving without technobabble, "Future shit."
Post-movie logic problems so far: I had some of the same quibbles as Halloween Jack. Also, I can forgive the idea that a T-800 can learn without having the chip adjusted if it's finished it's previous program, but I'm not sure how Sarah gets specific coordinates for someone making a time jump but instead she shows up on a random bridge an hour or more later. Overall, lots of solid action scenes. The CGI was a bit distracting in places, but the stunt folks were great. And Fury Road has spoiled me for action movie editing - I found the airplane scene hard to follow, and I suspect better editing would help. (I suspect the fact that it's presumably all cgi may feed into that compared with, say, Inception's hallway fight.)
posted by rmd1023 at 4:50 AM on November 5, 2019 [7 favorites]
This, to me, was like the Rev-9: two very different movies kind of mashed together.
There was the skeleton of a really atmospheric, tense, female-led action movie that hinted at some legitimately interesting things about the Terminator universe (how time travel works, whether the machines are conscious) and had some tightly choreographed action scenes; and then there was the messy skin of a Michael Bay Transformers movie over the top of it, with predictable beats, cliched lines (someone who just yells “drive faster” every three seconds) and implausible / incomprehensible CGI of military aircraft exploding.
I’d love to see a director’s cut, one day.
I was actually in Mexico during the first week of release and I really wanted to watch it there but the Mexico release is only happening this week.
It continues the franchise trend of extremely stupid and offensive depictions of Mexico and Mexicans (see also: the end of T1 at the gas station, the whole scene where they collect the heavy weapons in T2). I did see it in Mexico and after some initial hilarity at the accents and dialogue (couldn’t they have found some actual Mexicans??) it received an absolutely sub-zero reception in the theatre where I watched it. The first half of the movie is supposedly in Mexico City but appears to be shot somewhere.... completely different (like shooting NYC in Arizona). The scenes with the Bestia train, the friendly coyote uncle and so on are toe-curlingly bad. And the fact that any time something emotional happens with Dani, the soundtrack switches to plaintive guitar strumming... Car plant fight aside (incidentally, there isn’t really a car industry in CDMX, the sector is predominantly in the northern and central states) the film until the border crossing was mostly a huge embarrassment.
And yet I think it came from a well-intentioned place! Aside from placing a Mexican as the leader of the human resistance - the use of the Border Patrol as the stand-in for the LAPD as sinister uniformed thugs who get their comeuppance made the movie’s politics very obvious.
They just probably should have involved, like, at least one Mexican person in its production.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 5:30 AM on November 6, 2019 [8 favorites]
There was the skeleton of a really atmospheric, tense, female-led action movie that hinted at some legitimately interesting things about the Terminator universe (how time travel works, whether the machines are conscious) and had some tightly choreographed action scenes; and then there was the messy skin of a Michael Bay Transformers movie over the top of it, with predictable beats, cliched lines (someone who just yells “drive faster” every three seconds) and implausible / incomprehensible CGI of military aircraft exploding.
I’d love to see a director’s cut, one day.
I was actually in Mexico during the first week of release and I really wanted to watch it there but the Mexico release is only happening this week.
It continues the franchise trend of extremely stupid and offensive depictions of Mexico and Mexicans (see also: the end of T1 at the gas station, the whole scene where they collect the heavy weapons in T2). I did see it in Mexico and after some initial hilarity at the accents and dialogue (couldn’t they have found some actual Mexicans??) it received an absolutely sub-zero reception in the theatre where I watched it. The first half of the movie is supposedly in Mexico City but appears to be shot somewhere.... completely different (like shooting NYC in Arizona). The scenes with the Bestia train, the friendly coyote uncle and so on are toe-curlingly bad. And the fact that any time something emotional happens with Dani, the soundtrack switches to plaintive guitar strumming... Car plant fight aside (incidentally, there isn’t really a car industry in CDMX, the sector is predominantly in the northern and central states) the film until the border crossing was mostly a huge embarrassment.
And yet I think it came from a well-intentioned place! Aside from placing a Mexican as the leader of the human resistance - the use of the Border Patrol as the stand-in for the LAPD as sinister uniformed thugs who get their comeuppance made the movie’s politics very obvious.
They just probably should have involved, like, at least one Mexican person in its production.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 5:30 AM on November 6, 2019 [8 favorites]
Oh, I see it was all filmed in Spain, which explains why it doesn’t feel very convincing in its depictions of Mexico (and also why the pesero buses they used were all brand new).
posted by chappell, ambrose at 5:45 AM on November 6, 2019
posted by chappell, ambrose at 5:45 AM on November 6, 2019
Yeah I was like, did I imagine my time in Mexico or did the movie??
It's ok, it's like that time with world war z and because I'm more familiar with Glasgow, I didn't see Philadelphia at all on screen.
posted by cendawanita at 6:59 AM on November 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
It's ok, it's like that time with world war z and because I'm more familiar with Glasgow, I didn't see Philadelphia at all on screen.
posted by cendawanita at 6:59 AM on November 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
I thought it was far too heavy handed the way Sarah kept going "She's me, she's going to give birth to some MAN who'll lead the resistance"
Yeah, I was feeling this way at the time, but then I remembered that I got to watch The Terminator and the sequel and then go off and do other things for almost 30 years. The Sarah Connor who said this has been living this life, with the fallout of the those events, since then. It felt heavy handed to me to have it said out loud, but sending machines back in time to kill you and your son is also pretty heavy handed.
Also, some people do better with comprehension when things are spelled out, so I try not to begrudge them a little exposition.
Anyway, I enjoyed it for the most part. Hamilton's Connor is great to watch as always. Her strength as she transforms herself into the person she needs to be to meet the extreme challenges set before her is pretty much the heart of the franchise for me. I thought the three newcomers playing Dani, Grace, and the Rev 9 rose to the challenge and each had some pretty compelling moments.
posted by ODiV at 8:53 AM on November 7, 2019 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I was feeling this way at the time, but then I remembered that I got to watch The Terminator and the sequel and then go off and do other things for almost 30 years. The Sarah Connor who said this has been living this life, with the fallout of the those events, since then. It felt heavy handed to me to have it said out loud, but sending machines back in time to kill you and your son is also pretty heavy handed.
Also, some people do better with comprehension when things are spelled out, so I try not to begrudge them a little exposition.
Anyway, I enjoyed it for the most part. Hamilton's Connor is great to watch as always. Her strength as she transforms herself into the person she needs to be to meet the extreme challenges set before her is pretty much the heart of the franchise for me. I thought the three newcomers playing Dani, Grace, and the Rev 9 rose to the challenge and each had some pretty compelling moments.
posted by ODiV at 8:53 AM on November 7, 2019 [3 favorites]
Re “drive faster”: Grace’s “the fuck do you think I am doing” look was a fabulous touch to highlight the deliberateness of the cliché there, a nice little subversion of the trope with a sprinkling of “are you trying to mnasplain escaping by motor vehicle to me?”. Love Grace. Third time in theater soon I think. Also maiden/mother/crone, yes, yes, yes! That’s is exactly! And yeah, directors cut soon please?
posted by Iteki at 3:23 AM on November 9, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by Iteki at 3:23 AM on November 9, 2019 [5 favorites]
I just came out of my second viewing myself, I think it's definitely more enjoyable this time around, especially tracking Dani's development and her leadership qualities even before the future crashed into her. :') and the quiet moments where the camera lingered on Sarah and just a million kudos on Linda Hamilton's face, that's just pages of monologue unsaid.
posted by cendawanita at 3:56 AM on November 9, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by cendawanita at 3:56 AM on November 9, 2019 [1 favorite]
Agree a ton with cendawanita, Hamilton’s face after she sees Carl and realizes this is the machine that killed her son... it’s just devastating. And to come back from that and work with him and then when she yelled his name in the dam after saying she would never call him that. It was just great. I loved Dani and Grace but Sarah is just the heart of this movie and Hamilton is so great. This was a really fun move and the action was excellent, I thought.
posted by dellsolace at 6:22 PM on November 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by dellsolace at 6:22 PM on November 12, 2019 [3 favorites]
If we get about 100% more female-led and -focused action movies, I'll be willing to quibble about this one, but until then (like with Ghostbusters and Ocean's 8) I'll take stuff like this and like it. Although this is one of the rare SF films where I really wish there was a novelization, because there's enough worldbuilding done that a competent writer could make a really, really solid book out of it.
(While I love Grace's character and that archetype is one I have an elemental vulnerability to, I wish the actress had a little more martial arts training or something - she just didn't come across to me as being as comfortable in her body as I want my action heroes, you know?)
posted by restless_nomad at 9:05 AM on November 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
(While I love Grace's character and that archetype is one I have an elemental vulnerability to, I wish the actress had a little more martial arts training or something - she just didn't come across to me as being as comfortable in her body as I want my action heroes, you know?)
posted by restless_nomad at 9:05 AM on November 17, 2019 [4 favorites]
Director Tim Miller breaks down the truck chase scene.
Can we get Mackenzie Davis and Kristen Stewart to do a remake of The Departed?
posted by rmd1023 at 5:37 PM on November 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
Can we get Mackenzie Davis and Kristen Stewart to do a remake of The Departed?
posted by rmd1023 at 5:37 PM on November 17, 2019 [2 favorites]
I 100% know it's true that there are dudes who cannot enjoy a movie if they aren't 100% being pandered to, and it's depressing - this was a solid movie. I mean I'm sort of burning out on cut-and-paste CGI green screen fight scenes and it might have leaned a bit too heavily on Linda and Arnie for a movie a whole dang generation later, but it also helped ground it in a post-Skynet universe that T3/Genisys/Salvation/etc sort of struggled to account for.
(Oh skynet wasn't _defeated_ they were just _delayed_, izzat so T3.)
posted by Kyol at 2:13 PM on January 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
(Oh skynet wasn't _defeated_ they were just _delayed_, izzat so T3.)
posted by Kyol at 2:13 PM on January 22, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best Terminator movie since T2, but they were all not good although Genisys was fun.
restless_nomad - I'm completely a-ok with Mackenzie Davis not totally being "comfortable" with her augmented body. I know time travel, but I wonder how much time she had to learn her new systems? I suspect not a lot.
Despite time travel, the script hinted that augments don't survive long, even if they survive a terminator. My feeling is that they sent her back without extensive training on her new systems, before the system degraded too much.
I thought that she felt a bit more natural by the time of the free-fall cargo bay fight scene.
Personal nit is that Grace's supped out metabolism isn't really supported by her needing calori... oh, right, "power source." Ok, proteins for regeneration, then. Nanobots, you say? Er, mass quantities?
Kyol - I think that there is a slight nuance there. T3 they delayed Skynet but it was still Skynet. In T2, they prevented Skynet but in TDF it sounds like (to me) it was a parallel endeavour and didn't have much proprietary Skynet IP (as implied in T4 and T5). My takeaway was that it was a completely different AI, but guess what, military AI gonna military AI (and if time travel is going to get invented, time travel is just going to get invented).
posted by porpoise at 6:09 PM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
restless_nomad - I'm completely a-ok with Mackenzie Davis not totally being "comfortable" with her augmented body. I know time travel, but I wonder how much time she had to learn her new systems? I suspect not a lot.
Despite time travel, the script hinted that augments don't survive long, even if they survive a terminator. My feeling is that they sent her back without extensive training on her new systems, before the system degraded too much.
I thought that she felt a bit more natural by the time of the free-fall cargo bay fight scene.
Personal nit is that Grace's supped out metabolism isn't really supported by her needing calori... oh, right, "power source." Ok, proteins for regeneration, then. Nanobots, you say? Er, mass quantities?
Kyol - I think that there is a slight nuance there. T3 they delayed Skynet but it was still Skynet. In T2, they prevented Skynet but in TDF it sounds like (to me) it was a parallel endeavour and didn't have much proprietary Skynet IP (as implied in T4 and T5). My takeaway was that it was a completely different AI, but guess what, military AI gonna military AI (and if time travel is going to get invented, time travel is just going to get invented).
posted by porpoise at 6:09 PM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
A have a whole bunch of nits but this is a B+ movie for me mostly because it didn't really introduce anything new, copied a little too much previously done, and it's been long enough since T2. I'll let them rest.
Maybe I'll like the movie better on a rewatch later. On a rewatch of BR2049, I liked it a lot more especially if I amnesia-ed the original Blade Runner and imagined it was written not to rely on the original BR but was a direct inspiration from 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' with a lot of beats from BR written in.
Not a nit but a WTF - why were all (even off screen ones - Connor mentions "terminators falling out of the sky") of the temporal events inaccurate in altitude?
How many time travelers materialized underground?
Does displacement from the past brings material from the past into the future - and the time travelers got too many time travel centers demolished from time traveling ancient asphalt so they ran a CAPA and just calibrated altitude higher than expected - once their terminators were mimetic alloy and didn't have to worry about living tissue damage from the tumble?
Ooh, boy, the resistance is probably pissed about getting a big disk of a deck of steel suspension bridge in their science experiment.
Old quibble - why still show up naked if mimetic alloy works just like flesh?
--
The "drive faster" was definitely a callback. Wasn't it John Connor who told Arnie to "drive faster" in the handyman's busted up truck at the end of T2? Davis gave the same look as Arnie gave Furlong.
iirc, that handyman in T2 was totally a Mexican stereotype/ caricature. wth? Thanks for the reminder, chappell, ambrose.
--
Why/ How Connor showed up waaay after the temporal event? Connor pointedly avoids answering - I think the writers had enough self-reflection to call themselves out on a plot quandary (probably created by on outside/ corporate source).
posted by porpoise at 6:55 PM on January 28, 2020
Maybe I'll like the movie better on a rewatch later. On a rewatch of BR2049, I liked it a lot more especially if I amnesia-ed the original Blade Runner and imagined it was written not to rely on the original BR but was a direct inspiration from 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' with a lot of beats from BR written in.
Not a nit but a WTF - why were all (even off screen ones - Connor mentions "terminators falling out of the sky") of the temporal events inaccurate in altitude?
How many time travelers materialized underground?
Does displacement from the past brings material from the past into the future - and the time travelers got too many time travel centers demolished from time traveling ancient asphalt so they ran a CAPA and just calibrated altitude higher than expected - once their terminators were mimetic alloy and didn't have to worry about living tissue damage from the tumble?
Ooh, boy, the resistance is probably pissed about getting a big disk of a deck of steel suspension bridge in their science experiment.
Old quibble - why still show up naked if mimetic alloy works just like flesh?
--
The "drive faster" was definitely a callback. Wasn't it John Connor who told Arnie to "drive faster" in the handyman's busted up truck at the end of T2? Davis gave the same look as Arnie gave Furlong.
iirc, that handyman in T2 was totally a Mexican stereotype/ caricature. wth? Thanks for the reminder, chappell, ambrose.
--
Why/ How Connor showed up waaay after the temporal event? Connor pointedly avoids answering - I think the writers had enough self-reflection to call themselves out on a plot quandary (probably created by on outside/ corporate source).
posted by porpoise at 6:55 PM on January 28, 2020
Last comment - honest.
Jeez louise, Edward Furlong's T2 John Connor is all kinds of tragic.
At the end of T2 he loses his best friend and surrogate father, after losing his (albeit merely latest) foster family and reunited with his crazy mom.
In T3 he gets replaced with a huge loser, loses his mom to leukemia, and then he's not even the John Connor he was told he was going to be. And he can't ever know if his partner loves him for himself, his (from-the-future) reputation, or that she's stuck alone with him for however-so-long after severe and persistent C-PTSD all along with only him (and radio with government bases) in a bleeding fallout shelter. In their earliest 20s.
His crazy mom also told him to stay off the internet and to stay away from computers since 1997 and T3 is set in 2004, 4 years before the 2008 financial crash - when he used to be a real hacker/ phreaker in 1995.
John Connor could have been Gates+Jobs+Zuckerberg+Ma+++ - without being a public figure. Maybe that might be the kind of thinking that's going on with T5 and the cyber-John Connor.
'Hackers' was released in 1995.
T4 he dies (after confirming that his hot talented wife was far more important than he was and "John Connor" is mostly a figurehead, a square jaw for his wife to use to inspire/ manipulate/ lead humanity), and so literally gives his heart to a robot.
T5 he never gets born (or is some kind of time loop escapement -a JC who didn't listen to Sarah and kept playing around with computers)? . Because a robot defended his mom from another robot(s) and helped her gain self actualization and didn't need his father when the future thought when she needed him.
Anyways, he's a robot and not JC.
T6 - whew! escaped all those alternate realities - then he gets shot in the chest before secondary sexual characteristics manifested by something that shouldn't ever have existed, but did and was so incompetent that they only succeeded because they failed for so long and thus wasn't expected or planned for.
This screwball terminator also ends up saving and setting up his alternate in a "fateful history" universe and who ends up stealing his mom as her own in addition to his fate as savior of humanity. (!!)
In T:SCC, he loses his mother for a bit, she doesn't get leukaemia and really cramps his style, he falls for a robot, loses a human girlfriend, and then never gets to be the leader of the resistance and doesn't even get to be with the robot and probably never (BETTER never!) with the future human that the robot was based on.
--
In real life, he's actually Edward Furlong.
posted by porpoise at 7:24 PM on January 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
Jeez louise, Edward Furlong's T2 John Connor is all kinds of tragic.
At the end of T2 he loses his best friend and surrogate father, after losing his (albeit merely latest) foster family and reunited with his crazy mom.
In T3 he gets replaced with a huge loser, loses his mom to leukemia, and then he's not even the John Connor he was told he was going to be. And he can't ever know if his partner loves him for himself, his (from-the-future) reputation, or that she's stuck alone with him for however-so-long after severe and persistent C-PTSD all along with only him (and radio with government bases) in a bleeding fallout shelter. In their earliest 20s.
His crazy mom also told him to stay off the internet and to stay away from computers since 1997 and T3 is set in 2004, 4 years before the 2008 financial crash - when he used to be a real hacker/ phreaker in 1995.
John Connor could have been Gates+Jobs+Zuckerberg+Ma+++ - without being a public figure. Maybe that might be the kind of thinking that's going on with T5 and the cyber-John Connor.
'Hackers' was released in 1995.
T4 he dies (after confirming that his hot talented wife was far more important than he was and "John Connor" is mostly a figurehead, a square jaw for his wife to use to inspire/ manipulate/ lead humanity), and so literally gives his heart to a robot.
T5 he never gets born (or is some kind of time loop escapement -a JC who didn't listen to Sarah and kept playing around with computers)? . Because a robot defended his mom from another robot(s) and helped her gain self actualization and didn't need his father when the future thought when she needed him.
Anyways, he's a robot and not JC.
T6 - whew! escaped all those alternate realities - then he gets shot in the chest before secondary sexual characteristics manifested by something that shouldn't ever have existed, but did and was so incompetent that they only succeeded because they failed for so long and thus wasn't expected or planned for.
This screwball terminator also ends up saving and setting up his alternate in a "fateful history" universe and who ends up stealing his mom as her own in addition to his fate as savior of humanity. (!!)
In T:SCC, he loses his mother for a bit, she doesn't get leukaemia and really cramps his style, he falls for a robot, loses a human girlfriend, and then never gets to be the leader of the resistance and doesn't even get to be with the robot and probably never (BETTER never!) with the future human that the robot was based on.
--
In real life, he's actually Edward Furlong.
posted by porpoise at 7:24 PM on January 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
Kyol - I think that there is a slight nuance there. T3 they delayed Skynet but it was still Skynet. In T2, they prevented Skynet but in TDF it sounds like (to me) it was a parallel endeavour and didn't have much proprietary Skynet IP (as implied in T4 and T5). My takeaway was that it was a completely different AI, but guess what, military AI gonna military AI (and if time travel is going to get invented, time travel is just going to get invented).
Right, that's what I meant - T2 ended with it being fairly clear that Skynet was defeated, huzzah, hurrah, long live the humans. Then T3 shows up and nah psyche JK, y'all just delayed them a generation.
I liked how Dark Fate handled it better, even if it's sort of just a head fake that Military AI is gonna Military AI, whether it's Skynet or Legion or whatever.
I should pull a Terminator rewatch marathon one of these lazy Sundays, I know I watched everything since T2 but honestly I couldn't tell you what the impact to the timeline was or much of the story about any of them.
posted by Kyol at 10:15 AM on January 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
Right, that's what I meant - T2 ended with it being fairly clear that Skynet was defeated, huzzah, hurrah, long live the humans. Then T3 shows up and nah psyche JK, y'all just delayed them a generation.
I liked how Dark Fate handled it better, even if it's sort of just a head fake that Military AI is gonna Military AI, whether it's Skynet or Legion or whatever.
I should pull a Terminator rewatch marathon one of these lazy Sundays, I know I watched everything since T2 but honestly I couldn't tell you what the impact to the timeline was or much of the story about any of them.
posted by Kyol at 10:15 AM on January 29, 2020 [2 favorites]
I was thinking about that too, Kyol, as it seems like most of them are streaming right now. I haven't seen any others past T3 (other than about the first hour of Genisys, and when I had to wander away from that I never really felt compelled to go back) and I am very, very mildly curious. Very mildly.
posted by restless_nomad at 10:47 AM on January 29, 2020
posted by restless_nomad at 10:47 AM on January 29, 2020
We finally saw this yesterday. A fanfic sequel, as some have pointed out above, but good. The third best Terminator film.
This fixed four out of the five biggest problems of the post-Cameron Terminator sequels:
-brought back Linda Hamilton
-ditched John Connor, who, as an adult, is a desperately boring character
-twisted the "What will the new Terminator be like?" expectation by putting the focus on an augmented human instead
-turned into the skid of always bringing back an aging Arnold for sentimental reasons by having him be aging, sentimental
The one they were powerless to overcome, of course, is that the first two movies are best enjoyed as a closed loop, and trying to reopen the storyline will always produce diminishing returns.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:58 AM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
This fixed four out of the five biggest problems of the post-Cameron Terminator sequels:
-brought back Linda Hamilton
-ditched John Connor, who, as an adult, is a desperately boring character
-twisted the "What will the new Terminator be like?" expectation by putting the focus on an augmented human instead
-turned into the skid of always bringing back an aging Arnold for sentimental reasons by having him be aging, sentimental
The one they were powerless to overcome, of course, is that the first two movies are best enjoyed as a closed loop, and trying to reopen the storyline will always produce diminishing returns.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:58 AM on August 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
We realized after watching this that while we had mostly kinda sorta enjoyed Genisys not one member of our family could recall the plot. It just didn't stick with us in the slightest.
T3 we had rewatched recently and it might have been sorta good if the ending wasn't a turd. Four remains joyless and unwatchable.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:01 AM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
T3 we had rewatched recently and it might have been sorta good if the ending wasn't a turd. Four remains joyless and unwatchable.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:01 AM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
My kid asked why, instead of sending an augmented soldier back in time to protect the human who would try and save humanity, they didn't just send her back in time to destroy all of the labs, servers, and IP of the people building Legion.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:27 AM on August 11, 2020
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:27 AM on August 11, 2020
Multiply redundant distributed backups, clear lines of succession at key positions.
Once Skynet was terminated, Legion sprang up in its place. If you got rid of Legion, a different group of people would come up with military AI again, and military AI's gonna military AI.
posted by porpoise at 9:07 AM on August 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
Once Skynet was terminated, Legion sprang up in its place. If you got rid of Legion, a different group of people would come up with military AI again, and military AI's gonna military AI.
posted by porpoise at 9:07 AM on August 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
Hah, and now I'm watching the Sarah Conner Chronicles and they're still calling it Skynet in the future, but it's not coming out of Cyberdyne, it's just some guy's chess computer and well here's Shirley Manson doin' a thing. God only knows what the canonicity of any of this all is, mind you.
It does occur to me that every time either the robots or the resistance sends someone back from the future, it sort of waters down the amazing power they have. I mean, Dark Fate sort of tried to answer that: Most terminators end up cratering, or Sarah Conner blows 'em up before they get settled or whatever. But otherwise, right: Huh, we sent back ArnieBot, he failed, Sarah Conner lived. Either time travel is difficult and requires rare materials and unimaginable power, i.e. you're blowing up the world to save it sort of thing (and let the paradox resolve itself) oorrrrrrr send back ArnieBot Mk 2 to continue the job and if he fails, there's Mks 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9 and 10 waiting in the queue. And if you're sending people back from the future regularly enough that it's A Thing (tm), welll... I think the first movie tried to answer this, but the later movies sort of went "yeah but it's cool, so ehh.".
It's an interesting world although I think I need to take notes because I'm pretty sure I've forgotten the twists in Genisys and T3, and I'm pretty sure the universe has been reset at least once...
posted by Kyol at 9:18 AM on August 12, 2020
It does occur to me that every time either the robots or the resistance sends someone back from the future, it sort of waters down the amazing power they have. I mean, Dark Fate sort of tried to answer that: Most terminators end up cratering, or Sarah Conner blows 'em up before they get settled or whatever. But otherwise, right: Huh, we sent back ArnieBot, he failed, Sarah Conner lived. Either time travel is difficult and requires rare materials and unimaginable power, i.e. you're blowing up the world to save it sort of thing (and let the paradox resolve itself) oorrrrrrr send back ArnieBot Mk 2 to continue the job and if he fails, there's Mks 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9 and 10 waiting in the queue. And if you're sending people back from the future regularly enough that it's A Thing (tm), welll... I think the first movie tried to answer this, but the later movies sort of went "yeah but it's cool, so ehh.".
It's an interesting world although I think I need to take notes because I'm pretty sure I've forgotten the twists in Genisys and T3, and I'm pretty sure the universe has been reset at least once...
posted by Kyol at 9:18 AM on August 12, 2020
(which, if you haven't watched, holds up surprisingly well for episodic television. I mean, I can tell they lost some budget in the second season, but it's good enough that I'm wondering who was behind it, whether they've gone on to do other stuff I might also like.)
posted by Kyol at 9:42 AM on August 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Kyol at 9:42 AM on August 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
TSCC is fantastic, but alternate cannon. I preferred it very much over T3 (set after Sarah Connor dies of leukaemia) but the ending was disappointing. We get a much better John Connor, but way worse Kyle Reese. Derek Reese was ok, and Summer Glau as Cameron was fantastic. Lena Heady was an excellent slightly more experienced Sarah Connor.
It all depends on the propagation speed of Time. My headcannon is that the events at the end of T2 doesn't propagate fast enough and future Skynet manages to continue to pollute the past with enough future tech to make Skynet still possible. Additionally muddied up by a separate AI faction (Shirley Manson) that's on the outs with Skynet-Skynet, who needs a Skynet so itself can be created.
Dark Fate follows T2 directly and relegates all other cannon as alternative. I think that the plot of Dark Fate is that, fuckit, someone's eventually going to make military AI anyway, lets make the best of a bad situation a la 'the devil you know.'
Maybe a Dark Fate sequel is the team trying to take down Legion, but we now know how that story is going to play out.
posted by porpoise at 10:40 AM on August 12, 2020
It all depends on the propagation speed of Time. My headcannon is that the events at the end of T2 doesn't propagate fast enough and future Skynet manages to continue to pollute the past with enough future tech to make Skynet still possible. Additionally muddied up by a separate AI faction (Shirley Manson) that's on the outs with Skynet-Skynet, who needs a Skynet so itself can be created.
Dark Fate follows T2 directly and relegates all other cannon as alternative. I think that the plot of Dark Fate is that, fuckit, someone's eventually going to make military AI anyway, lets make the best of a bad situation a la 'the devil you know.'
Maybe a Dark Fate sequel is the team trying to take down Legion, but we now know how that story is going to play out.
posted by porpoise at 10:40 AM on August 12, 2020
Yeah, but if it's got Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, and Linda Hamilton as some kind of maiden/mother/crone of badassery, I'm there.
posted by rmd1023 at 12:33 PM on August 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 12:33 PM on August 12, 2020 [3 favorites]
Finally got around to watching this and it was extremely just okay. The cast is mostly really good and there are some new ideas but the whole thing felt pretty stale and a little boring.
posted by octothorpe at 5:31 AM on October 17, 2020
posted by octothorpe at 5:31 AM on October 17, 2020
Just saw it.... way late. Just want to mention, I bought into the "the son/daughter of Dani will lead the resistance" fake since I thought there wasn't enough time between present Dani and the dystopian future. But I probably just got all the dates wrong. The movie kinda sets it up, when she goes to argue for her brother and the manager is like 'but he's not you.
Loved the cast, the action was just... forgettable? I kinda zoned out like I do in a lot of action movies these days. I will admit I chuckled at the "and I'm extremely funny" line, actually Arnold somewhat ended up with all the best lines, since he's the only one being campy while eveybody else is dead serious all the time.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 9:06 PM on December 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
Loved the cast, the action was just... forgettable? I kinda zoned out like I do in a lot of action movies these days. I will admit I chuckled at the "and I'm extremely funny" line, actually Arnold somewhat ended up with all the best lines, since he's the only one being campy while eveybody else is dead serious all the time.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 9:06 PM on December 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
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I like it! As fanfic-sequels go, I'd rate it highly, though I'm curious to see if the reception will fragment along gender lines as I suspect it might. because no doubt parts of it felt like a rehash, but if you're coming into it like I did, and feeling pretty damn good for an above average terminator sequel starring mostly women and about women, then this is a pretty worthy remix.
But omg my heart really did go out to Sarah Connor in this movie. That opening?? Agh. Somehow I found myself so affected that I teared up at the bookend of that arc at the end.
posted by cendawanita at 12:36 PM on October 28, 2019