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Terminator and Judgment Day are among the best movies in history, any comparison with them isn't fair.

Dark Fate is a solid action-sci fi movie, one of the best Terminator movie that isn't directed by Cameron. IMHO its only downside is the presence of Linda Hamilton: she's a good actress and certainly did a good job but I hate when someone reprises her/his most iconic role after 20-30 years. I prefer a re-cast most of the times, or the absence of that character is the plot is set many years after her last appearance in the story.

Personal opinions matter though and since Dark Fate isn't as good as a must watch movie, some people may love it, others may hate it, other ones could find it decent or pretty meh.

I litterally adore Terminator Salvation for example, but I understand why it was a huge flop and many people dislike it. In fact the only Terminator I really don't like is Gensys and mostly because I can't stand both Emilia Clarke and Jay Courtney.

For those who are fan of the franchise or just want to watch an action-sci fi movie I'd definitely recommend Dark Fate though. IMHO, although it's not a masterpiece, it's slightly above current Hollywood standards.

I agree about Emilia Clarke. I don't think she is a bad actress (and was great in GoT and the few other things I have seen her in) but I think she was miscast in Genisys. When you see Linda Hamilton doing chin-ups and her attitude you can totally believe that she could give someone a whooping. Emilia Clarke's Sarah Conner not so much, am I allowed to say she still just looked too cute..

Genisys was ruined for me by the trailers revealing that John Connor was going to be the bad guy. That could have been such a good twist/reversal (he has literally been the saviour of mankind across 30 years and four films) but instead they did one of those awful trailers that show the entire plot of the film. The best bit of that film remains for me that he got taken out in the end by Dr Who (Matt Smith) in a completely unforeseeable crossover..

 Blackie wrote:
IMHO its only downside is the presence of Linda Hamilton: she's a good actress and certainly did a good job but I hate when someone reprises her/his most iconic role after 20-30 years. I prefer a re-cast most of the times, or the absence of that character is the plot is set many years after her last appearance in the story.

No judgement, but that's an interesting take I haven't really seen before. I felt her return added a fascinating element to the movie, especially after so long. Idk, I just don't think I've seen people argue in favour of recasts when the OG actor is available, I was surprised.

Speaking of - I actually think Emilia has a surprising physical resemblance to LH's Sarah at times, she just doesn't have the same heft or substance and man does it make all the difference.

Casualty wrote:


No judgement, but that's an interesting take I haven't really seen before. I felt her return added a fascinating element to the movie, especially after so long. Idk, I just don't think I've seen people argue in favour of recasts when the OG actor is available, I was surprised.

When the OG actor is +30 years old than his previous appearance I'm all in favor of recasting him. That's mostly because I can't stand old characters for action movies.

Mad Max Fury Road is the perfect example of what I mean: Mel Gibson was iconic for that role and still a great actor but a 60+ years old protagonist is kinda boring and unrealistic, that character was recasted and the result was excellent. Pierce Brosnan was a good James Bond, but at some point he was too old to reprise the role... Casting Daniel Crag was crucial for restoring the franchise.

It's not only Sarah Connor: I have issues with all the older versions of Leia Organa, Luke Sywalker, Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Rambo, etc... in all those cases I would rather have seen a recast and a story set shortly after the last episode of the franchise or the total absence of those iconic characters from the movie if the story was set decades after their previous appearance.

For the most part I can see where you're coming from, I'd just think of it differently in this case because the idea Sarah is a lot real-world older and worn down is such a big thing, rather than pretending no time's gone by. If it was a Steven Seagal situation where we're pretending she can still go toe to toe with any twenty thirty-something stuntmen I'd feel different

Well, if it was Steven Seagal then he absolutely would be able to do that - plus the benefit of his incredible ability to ambush people from out of camera shot, even if there was absolutely no-where that he could have hidden and surprised them..

So I watched it last night and was surprised by some things. Overall, it's just yet another big dumb expensive action summer blockbuster action movie that in other years I'd have given two stars out of four and not thought of again (and definitely never spent money on for physical media or tie in products). There was no reason for the director to run his big fat mouth and pre-insult the existing fanbase for his film prior to release; the flip side is that the criticism of the movie was also overblown as it was neither as woke or cringey as it was made out to be (though it was both to some degree).

So, what surprised me about the film? I'll start with the good. I actually really liked the Grace character and thought she was a refreshing take on the savior sent back in time character trope that the original terminator introduced. The actress lived up to the physicality that the role/character demanded and I wasn't expecting that. I'd have been interested in her taking over the T-hunter role in future films that Sarah Connor had adopted for herself in this one but obviously that won't happen (both IRL due to this flopping and in universe because spoilers). The second surprise for me was that it was a Chinese co-production with Tenscent and it didn't have a stupid unnecessary forced tie-in with China unlike Transformers and Iron Man did. As soon as I saw that logo in the opening credits, I was expecting something like that and was pleasantly surprised that there wasn't one by the time the end credits rolled.

What was meh? The returning original characters. Sarah Connor was slightly better than I expected (once I got over her raspy voice... seriously, is she a chronic smoker of whatever Mark Hamill uses because both of them croak like frogs in their old age!). Arnie was a let down and progressively worse in his role as a T-800ish model terminator compared with Genysis (or is it Genisys?). His character "development" felt forced and trite as did Sarah's immediate change towards him and the amount of 'memberberry humor was too much IMO. Honestly, I hope that this really is the last time they reprise their roles in any way (in person or CGI).

What was bad? On occasion, the CGI. I know they spent a ton of money on this and the sheer number of largely overdone and unnecessarily bombastic entirely CGI action scenes indicate that budget. Unfortunately, it seemed to me like they had to pick and choose which ones to focus on and gave half of them to the gakky b-team studio to do. Seeing rubbery character models engaging in impossible physics took me out of some of the action scenes as they were the 2020 equivalent of that Blade 2 acrobatics scene. Others were done well (usually the ones with Grace versus the rev9 but she also had some badly done ones). Finally, I didn't find Dani to be a believeable military resistance savior of humanity. She's a tiny hobbit of a human with little t-rex arms and adding corn rows and some strategic smudges to her face doesn't make her a believable badass. When she was firing the shotgun (or was it an AR?) at the range I fully expected her to be knocked on her ass or the gun to fly out of her hands like in humorous youtube videos of people firing long arms for the first time.

I'd have easily believed Makenzie Davis though in that role but obviously she had another one to play in this film. Now that I'm typing this, I realize that would have been an interesting twist on the role and a nice variation from the John Connor/Kyle Reese connection if Grace always knew that she was always destined to go back in time and die in order to save her younger self and later humanity.

Grace pretty much carried this movie on her back. Based on the trailers I thought "so she's like a Terminator programmed to think she's human? Meh." But the revelation that she is a human who can briefly superboost herself to Terminator level added lot of tension to the scenes because you knew she can't maintain it for very long, they have to resolve it quickly somehow. It was really good concept.

Disagree slightly about Arnie - yeah this movie probably didn't really need him. And Sarah came around way too quickly. Any way, it was better performance and role for him than Genisys one - if not by much.
It does somewhat take away from the intimidation factor of the original Terminator concept if they can develope fuzzy feelings all by themselves. Though I suppose T2 sorta crossed that bridge already.

I enjoyed both Hamilton and Schwarzenegger. Grace was great. Dani was ...there.

There was no reason for the director to run his big fat mouth and pre-insult the existing fanbase for his film prior to release

I've seen lots of people say he did this, but haven't seen a single direct quote which did any such thing.

My conclusion is that the internet has an awful lot of hucksters who make money making people angry.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I enjoyed both Hamilton and Schwarzenegger. Grace was great. Dani was ...there.

Dani lost out in the editing, and I think it's a shame because Natalia Reyes is a fine actress. She was originally meant to have finished off the baddy solo, for example, but they reworked the fight to fit in more Arnie, which makes me think he signed on relatively late in the day and they had to shoehorn him in tbh.

There are also a few deleted scenes which flesh her out considerably, and I think there might be some merit in the theory I've seen that she and Grace were reading as romantic in test screenings and somebody with a scissors panicked at the character's expense.

Casualty wrote:

There was no reason for the director to run his big fat mouth and pre-insult the existing fanbase for his film prior to release

I've seen lots of people say he did this, but haven't seen a single direct quote which did any such thing.

My conclusion is that the internet has an awful lot of hucksters who make money making people angry.

https://variety.com/2019/film/features/director-tim-miller-terminator-dark-fate-comic-con-1203262797/

It's really not hard to find. If you had watched or read most any of what those "awful lot of hucksters" actually said then you'd have gotten both the quote and the source.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Casualty wrote:
She was originally meant to have finished off the baddy solo, for example, but they reworked the fight to fit in more Arnie, which makes me think he signed on relatively late in the day and they had to shoehorn him in tbh.

Good Lord.. that would have been even worse so I guess that they made at least one right decision in the editing room IMO. I agree that "Carl" finishing him off was shoehorned in and I'd have much rather preferred if Grace had yanked out her powersource and sacrificed herself that way instead of him.

 warboss wrote:

Casualty wrote:

There was no reason for the director to run his big fat mouth and pre-insult the existing fanbase for his film prior to release

I've seen lots of people say he did this, but haven't seen a single direct quote which did any such thing.

My conclusion is that the internet has an awful lot of hucksters who make money making people angry.

https://variety.com/2019/film/features/director-tim-miller-terminator-dark-fate-comic-con-1203262797/

It's really not hard to find. If you had watched or read most any of what those "awful lot of hucksters" actually said then you'd have gotten both the quote and the source.

Is this the right link? There's absolutely nothing there that could be read as "pre insulting the existing fanbase".

Casualty wrote:

Is this the right link? There's absolutely nothing there that could be read as "pre insulting the existing fanbase".

You and I have vastly different opinions then about calling parts of your customer base that are criticizing your upcoming movie's poster unenlightened and "closet misogynists". Maybe across the pond it's a term of endearment but over here it's an insult.

We covered this in the last thread about this film. As I recall, he was calling out a specific group of people, who likely wouldn’t watch the movie anyway.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
We covered this in the last thread about this film. As I recall, he was calling out a specific group of people, who likely wouldn’t watch the movie anyway.

Well, it was a big topic during the prerelease but this will be my final post about it as the controvery is long over and the new trilogy simply not happening even pre-pandemic. In my case, it was specifically the reason I decided to skip it and I didn't like the movie poster (though not for the reasons referenced). I'm tired of Hollywood folks going after long time fans of the properties that they're transiently working on and lumping criticism all into one pot. I still think it was a gakky poster. On the one side, you have a group whose name derives from the word fanatic so I'm willing to excuse some shitposting coming from anonymous joe blows typing on the internet. On the other side, you have highly compensated industry professionals who are the face of the products stooping almost to their level. I hold one to a higher standard than the other personally. If you're in that latter group and internet randos are frothing at their digital mouths over something that you find unreasonable, calmly state your disagreement, challenge politely to judge for themselves, and prove them wrong with the fruit of your efforts. That's how it used to be done for the first century of cinema (replacing the internet part with no name newspaper critics of course).

I'm ok if a fellow fan agrees with Miller's assessment of that portion of the fanbase and I'll even agree that portions of the criticisms were unenlightened and misogynist... but I think the poster was genuinely bad ignoring the customary standards set by the franchise over 30+ years and five films.

Oh, I agree the poster sucked. And if you feel the director was crapping on you, fair enough to skip it. I just don’t think the director was crapping on you.

From what I remember, he had nothing to do with the poster or earlier marketing yet got dragged into the controversy out of defensiveness. Probably would have seen a better outcome by staying distanced and professional, but after that poster I’m not sure he could realistically avoid being hounded by the fringe trolls until he lost his cool.

 warboss wrote:

Casualty wrote:

Is this the right link? There's absolutely nothing there that could be read as "pre insulting the existing fanbase".

You and I have vastly different opinions then about calling parts of your customer base that are criticizing your upcoming movie's poster unenlightened and "closet misogynists". Maybe across the pond it's a term of endearment but over here it's an insult.

He’s quite clear who the comment is directed to though. And it’s in response to mindless trolls who used chauvinistic hate speech (the exact words of the question).

He’s telling them and them alone out.

 warboss wrote:

Casualty wrote:

Is this the right link? There's absolutely nothing there that could be read as "pre insulting the existing fanbase".

You and I have vastly different opinions then about calling parts of your customer base that are criticizing your upcoming movie's poster unenlightened and "closet misogynists". Maybe across the pond it's a term of endearment but over here it's an insult.

So then the direct quote that triggered your reaction was -

If you’re at all enlightened, she’ll play like gangbusters. If you’re a closet misogynist, she’ll scare the f–k out of you

Which says nothing about the fanbase, and nothing that could even be sincerely mistaken for "pre insulting the existing fanbase". He's quite specific in who he means.

Which I think you know, to be honest, or you wouldn't have been so evasive about quoting what bit it was that you found so problematic.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 warboss wrote:

Casualty wrote:

Is this the right link? There's absolutely nothing there that could be read as "pre insulting the existing fanbase".

You and I have vastly different opinions then about calling parts of your customer base that are criticizing your upcoming movie's poster unenlightened and "closet misogynists". Maybe across the pond it's a term of endearment but over here it's an insult.

He’s quite clear who the comment is directed to though. And it’s in response to mindless trolls who used chauvinistic hate speech (the exact words of the question).

He’s telling them and them alone out.

Yeah, that quote in context is absolutely not talking about the Terminator fanbase in general. It's talking about people using misogynist language to deride a movie based on a poster. It seems pretty clear his ire is not directed at the fanbase in general and I'm not really sure how anyone can miss that.

Miller may well have said other things derogatory to the fanbase in general at some point, but that quote ain't it.

Slipspace wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 warboss wrote:

Casualty wrote:

Is this the right link? There's absolutely nothing there that could be read as "pre insulting the existing fanbase".

You and I have vastly different opinions then about calling parts of your customer base that are criticizing your upcoming movie's poster unenlightened and "closet misogynists". Maybe across the pond it's a term of endearment but over here it's an insult.

He’s quite clear who the comment is directed to though. And it’s in response to mindless trolls who used chauvinistic hate speech (the exact words of the question).

He’s telling them and them alone out.

Yeah, that quote in context is absolutely not talking about the Terminator fanbase in general. It's talking about people using misogynist language to deride a movie based on a poster. It seems pretty clear his ire is not directed at the fanbase in general and I'm not really sure how anyone can miss that.

Miller may well have said other things derogatory to the fanbase in general at some point, but that quote ain't it.

Please note the emphasized portions of your post above. You're not contradicting me but rather agreeing with what I said.

 warboss wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 warboss wrote:

Casualty wrote:

Is this the right link? There's absolutely nothing there that could be read as "pre insulting the existing fanbase".

You and I have vastly different opinions then about calling parts of your customer base that are criticizing your upcoming movie's poster unenlightened and "closet misogynists". Maybe across the pond it's a term of endearment but over here it's an insult.

He’s quite clear who the comment is directed to though. And it’s in response to mindless trolls who used chauvinistic hate speech (the exact words of the question).

He’s telling them and them alone out.

Yeah, that quote in context is absolutely not talking about the Terminator fanbase in general. It's talking about people using misogynist language to deride a movie based on a poster. It seems pretty clear his ire is not directed at the fanbase in general and I'm not really sure how anyone can miss that.

Miller may well have said other things derogatory to the fanbase in general at some point, but that quote ain't it.

Please note the emphasized portions of your post above. You're not contradicting me but rather agreeing with what I said.

If you want to go down that route, you also stated:

 warboss wrote:

I'm tired of Hollywood folks going after long time fans of the properties that they're transiently working on and lumping criticism all into one pot.

Which that quote absolutely does not do. It specifically does the exact opposite by calling out one very specific group, who may not even be fans in the first place. So, y'know, in context of your whole argument it certainly seems like you're accusing the director of criticising the hardcore fans for no reason, which is 100% not what he did.

Anyway, how does everyone rate the Rev 9? I thought the actor nailed the creepy, manipulative infiltrator part. He was scarier when he was talking than he was when he was fighting.

In fact, I wish they had given him a bit more a repertoire than “stab, stab, and stab some more”. The action scenes were pretty good early on, and for parts of the climax, but it really started to drag after a while. It’s also hard to take the Legion future as seriously when they canonically always bring knives to gunfights.

I liked it.

It retained what makes a Terminator scary (utterly relentless, seemingly unstoppable), whilst adding in better social skills. I mean, it’s really quite charming when it first shows up. None of the stilted speech of the predecessors. I can better buy it as an infiltration unit as a result.

And that’s as best we can hope for a sequel to be honest. Plus Gabriel Luna showed solid enough screen presence, which is of course crucial for any baddie.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Anyway, how does everyone rate the Rev 9? I thought the actor nailed the creepy, manipulative infiltrator part. He was scarier when he was talking than he was when he was fighting.

In fact, I wish they had given him a bit more a repertoire than “stab, stab, and stab some more”. The action scenes were pretty good early on, and for parts of the climax, but it really started to drag after a while. It’s also hard to take the Legion future as seriously when they canonically always bring knives to gunfights.

Yeah. There were a couple of elements I'd have liked them to lean on a little more - his genuinely creepy way of moving when he doesn't need to blend in, like when he's crawling over the detention cages for example. I really liked that he had a bit of strategy, too, using technology to herd everyone into the arms of the CBP felt like a clever use of resources available to him.

The accent switching was fun too. I did think we lost a sense of him a bit towards the end though.

I'm rarely a fan of modern sleeker redesigns, but I think the Rev 9 endo design is outstanding.

I think the Rev9 is the best terminator we have seen so far. As you said, he is scariest when he is talking. And they did an excellent job with the dialog and his acting.

If you are paying close attention he is always doing the most direct and simplest action to reach his goal. At the end when he tries to negotiate with them "Just give me the girl and you all can go" you can see that he does a quick calculation, determines that THIS time talking has a higher probably of success or at least is the more direct route then fighting all 5 of them, and gives it a go.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And that’s as best we can hope for a sequel to be honest. Plus Gabriel Luna showed solid enough screen presence, which is of course crucial for any baddie.

"Hostile burning skull guy" is the most weirdly hyperspecific typecasting I've ever seen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:
I think the Rev9 is the best terminator we have seen so far. As you said, he is scariest when he is talking. And they did an excellent job with the dialog and his acting.

If you are paying close attention he is always doing the most direct and simplest action to reach his goal. At the end when he tries to negotiate with them "Just give me the girl and you all can go" you can see that he does a quick calculation, determines that THIS time talking has a higher probably of success or at least is the more direct route then fighting all 5 of them, and gives it a go.

Yeah, I liked that. And as you say the way he's always got his eyes on the prize, even when he's fighting Grace he's usually looking past her at Dani.

I feel like they intended a parallel between those two characters actually. He's a fairly charming machine who can pass for human and blend in but has tunnel vision about his secret agenda to kill Dani, she's a sometimes-disconcertingly-blunt human with machine internals and visibly eye catching featues she has to cover and tunnel vision to keep Dani alive. It's easier for the machine to pass unnoticed in 2020 than the human.

In the grand tradition of Terminator trailers, they completely spoiled that she actually is human, but the opening sequence where they both arrives would have been really cool to watch if you didn't know what side either traveller was on and needed to work it out on the fly.

That’s a good point about the Rev-9 visibly strategising. And for me, it plays well against it not really knowing what the T-800 is capable of, it being the the unknown and completely unexpected factor.

My favourite bit (which is in the trailer, sadly. Well, at least one of them) is when the ICE Officers are bundling him, and he just Hedgehogs. One wonders if that was perhaps a leftover from Terminator 2 they just couldn’t get to work properly when it was made?

Ultimately? The Rev-9 is well portrayed on screen as both a credible infiltration and assassination unit. It makes you believe Grace when she (a total badass) says “you don’t fight. You run”.

Yep I think it was definitely well done.

It was similar in effect to when the agents are first introduced in the Matrix (or rather Neo chooses to fight and face one rather than run). I have been told the music switches to a minor key at that point to those few dark orchestral notes and you get that moment (followed by one of the coolest and most constantly repeated effects scenes of all time) where the whole audience holds its breath about what is happen on screen. It's been built up throughout the film that you have to fear those antagonists and what they are about to try and do to the heroes on screen.

I’m also satisfied that it feels like a natural evolution of what’s come before.

After all, if Liquid Metal can hold itself upright in human form, why not marry it to a proper endoskeleton, whilst retaining autonomous action? It’s certainly a superior take on the villain from Terminator 3 (though the embedded weapons, and more convincing “help me fellow Hu-Mons for I too have done a starve” stature. Compared to the T-800 at least!)

As great as Terminator and T2 are it's insane that Cyberdine thought Arnold would be a good infiltration unit. He speaks like nobody else he is interacting with and is a 7 ft tall wall of muscle.

If I ran into that knowing that the robots were trying to make units that could infiltrate human resistance cells I would know immediately that he was one of them.

The Rev-9 can emote like the others couldn't. It can hold a normal conversation to get information like it did when it first arrived or when it bantered with the soldiers. Then it's in the position it wants to be in or it got the information it wanted and a switch flips and it just starts killing.

The Rev-9 is terrifying.