This film is the primary reason I’ve been thinking about blogging.
Of course, there have been a few people in my life that have suggested I write somewhere, but Terminator: Dark Fate is what really sealed the deal for me.
If you don’t know me, I bought an 8×10 postcard at the Universal Studios T2 3-D: Battle Across Time ride in 2001 and hung it up in the entrance to my first apartment alone in 2012. Arnold guarded the entrance to my home while being the only photo hanging in my apartment.
So yes, I was very excited when I heard Terminator 2 was going to have a proper sequel a la Neill Blomkamp’s cancelled Alien 5.
When talking about the Terminator series, Terminator 2 is my most favorite. The Terminator was historical and of almost equal standing. I try to forget Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was a thing. Terminator Salvation released around my birthday and my 4th screening is when I understood it better since it was also my first time seeing any film in DBox at the height of dubstep era which was echoed in all the sound effects. I honestly forgot Terminator Genisys even happened since I kinda fell asleep when they were at the Oracle towers scene.
And let’s not forget Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles which has the best series finale I’ve ever seen! (Best film ending probably goes to Whiplash.) If you venture down the T:TSCC path, understand there was a writers strike that occurred during the last couple of episodes and scabs came in to take over showrunning. Then tensions were resolved and the original showrunners had to fix what ever the fuck happened in the season 1 finale over 3 episodes. 3 episodes later they setup what was going to be interesting, before being told episode 6 was going to be their last. Then not. Then told episode 9 would be their last. Then not, repeatedly. Until they finally got word that it was definitely over at the end of episode 22. They had taken the punches honorably as they setup the dominoes to come crashing down in the best 15 seconds of television history.
So when it was announced that Terminator: Dark Fate was going to start off in the same sort of way that T:TSCC started, being a direct sequel to T2, I was even more so filled with excitement.
While I did not get to see Dark Fate on it’s opening night since it fell on Halloween, I was able to see it that Friday at an empty Alamo Drafthouse. And again that Sunday at an empty IMAX. And once more at an empty cinema by my house.
Each time the pacing was good. The action was the 90’s style action I’ve been yearning for. The acting was a grittier than normal Hollywood. Arnold didn’t try to be something he isn’t anymore, sadly. Nor did he just kick the bucket with the whole Going in Style sense. The new Terminator was Mexican! The new Arnold was a bad ass woman. And above all, Linda Hamilton comes back as Sarah Connor as the bad ass we knew and loved from T2 along with living the life portrayed in both T2 and T:TSCC to the fullest.
The film keeps the same plot outline as the first three films, in the same way that Back to the Future does across its trilogy. But it doesn’t feel worn out like it did in T3 and instead has a new, current feel while revamping/retelling/rebooting the original two.
I was confused by the outpouring of negative fan reviews while all the critic reviews were overwhelmingly positive. I feel like their marketing campaign was a bit off and rushed (which makes sense since they did move their release date back by five months, then forward by one). And most importantly, I was appalled (while being not surprised) that in Trump’s America there was a roaring hate for a female protector and two Mexicans in a film that caused many white males to feel emasculated over.
So no, don’t take the negative reviews of T2:P2 at face value. Instead, look at the critical reviews and those who don’t need exclusivity to keep from feeling threatened.
I hope my words and recommendations from a person who loves this series, but also isn’t reserved enough to call them on their previous shit films, encourages the reader to give Terminator: Dark Fate a try.
I very much enjoyed it and hope you do to.
After watching the film, stop by again so that we can talk about my favorite parts of this amazing film below.
Let’s first take a moment to bask in that beautiful vintage footage of Sarah Connor in the mental hospital from T2. The subsonic rumbling that was added. Sarah’s performance. The feeling that we are so familiar with: that Sarah is in the know and she is fighting against all odds to not only protect her child, but all of humanity.
So wow. Yeah, John Connor dies in the first five minutes. That was shocking and honestly made me tear up the first two times. Sarah had put so much hope, strength, and training into John. She had dated different men only for the period of time before they stopped being useful for John before she packed her bags and dated someone else. Her entire life changed on the first day she was a waitress at 19 when she was told she was going to give birth to JC (I hope the allegory isn’t lost on you). Then after all the machines, all the effort, and all the hope.
It was taken away from her.
For me this shaped the film into being not something of hope which Sarah spoke about while driving away in her Jeep at the end of The Terminator. Nor the hope of her monologue on the dark highway at the end of Terminator 2. Instead, T2P2 gives us what T:TSCC let’s us know:
Time is like a river. You can toss pebbles in the river, but the river will still move downstream. Now if you toss a lot of rocks, you may disturb the river, but only to make ripples since the water will still go around the rocks and end up where it was intending.
The goal, what is trying to be accomplished, is to get a big enough boulder and hope that the river not only diverges from its original path, but also doesn’t merge with the original path downstream. It’s a slim chance, but one with no room for hope, just action.
Ad lib from memory
This is the reality we are stuck with at the beginning of T2P2. A realization that John would ultimately die at one stage of his life, but that the war would never be over since the machines will never stop. But still we keep trying.
The first fight scene happens in an industrial setting which was a callback for me to the end scenes of T1 and T2. This brought me such joy to hear the machines working for us as a machine from the future is attempting to kill our only hope of a successful Resistance while seeing two machines fight it out metal on metal on metal.
Sarah Connor’s introduction was perfect. She was not the same scared girl from T1, nor the unruly mother in T2, but now a killing machine much like the machines she’s spent her whole life fighting.
The surprise reveal of the new savior, this time from Mexico City, was a warm touch and callback to the pebble analogy. However, in this case, the stream is no longer Skynet, but the Resistance which can’t be stopped.
It was nice seeing how Grace and Dani first met which was almost reminiscent of the playground scene in T:TSCC which is the most heartwarming scene in all of the Terminator saga.
This time Arnold is back with some humor, but never at himself like in T3, but instead from a heartfelt place. This plays off a deleted scene in T2’s Director’s Cut in which John and Sarah deactivate the machine’s read-only switch on its neural net processor. (Fun fact: Young John Connor actually looks directly at the camera in a super expensive shot which features Linda Hamilton’s twin sister in the mirror with real Arnold as real Linda works on Arnold’s prosthetic head. It was too expensive to reshoot and ultimately got dropped causing follow up scenes to trim the movie down by 16 minutes to 2 hours 17 minutes, which was already excessively long by 90’s standards for an action movie.) In T2P2, the machine’s neural net processor seems to have been activated after the mission was completed and much like in T:TSCC the machine has nothing but time for himself. In T2P2 I thought it was especially warming that a machine was able to raise a family and learn what it was like to be human, echoing back to the famous line “I know now why you cry.”
Plus, the polka dots line was super hilarious and apparently improvised by Arnold.
After Genisys, I did not want Arnold anywhere near air crafts, but was highly relieved when that scene played out with such high octane while being believable. Then quickly moved to an underwater scene which was claustrophobic and almost as terrifying as being hunted by sharks.
The crew’s last stand moment still brings tears to my eyes since everything is being put on the line for one unborn son which in all honesty may never be if the machines have their way. But it also showcases Dani’s transcendence into the Sarah Connor-eque savior she is destined to be.
The end scene is again a throwback to the T:TSCC playground scene, but even more so in a sense. It’s now up to the two mothers to not only save humanity, but also ensure Grace’s multiple sacrifices of injury, augmentation, and protection were not in vain.