Terminator: Dark Fate

[Seto Kaiba]

On 11/5/2019 at 3:30 AM, pengbuzz said:

With time unraveling, Skynet takes one final act to change time once and for all: it sends itself and every single HK and Terminator unit into the past, to access the military's data systems, launch the missiles and start the future war in 1984. And this time, the Resistance can send no one back to stop it.

I think they could stand to restore the horror with a Zero Time Dilemma kind of story that comes packaged with the realization that you can't actually alter the past... altering the past just creates a new alternate timeline that doesn't impact the one you currently exist in, so everything Skynet and John Connor have done to try and save themselves has only served to spread the misery into an ever-increasing number of parallel timelines.

They could even riff on what Terminator: Genesys played with regarding alternate dimensions and interdimensional travel.  Perhaps all these disparate timelines where a hostile AI is created and causes a human genocide before being defeated by humanity are all the result of the same iteration of Skynet that's been using time travel to deliberately create those diverging timelines and bootstrap paradox itself into existence to increase its experience and experiment with solutions to its human problem, which it'll then send farther back into the past to retrocausally wipe out those timelines and ensure the rise of a single timeline where Skynet is victorious.  That'd be a rather dark twist on the time travel shenanigans... a paradox where the heroes have to stop a version of Skynet that has already won the machine war in the future from creating the conditions that enabled its total victory.

 

On 11/6/2019 at 10:02 AM, tekering said:

The film opens on Friday here in Japan.  The Japanese distributors, in their infinite wisdom, have decided the English title is too dark.

They're calling it "Terminator: New Fate."

Talk about your non-indicative titles... because this fate isn't new.  This is the same fate that has been presented as inescapable in every Terminator movie made after Terminator 2: Judgement Day.  No matter what, humanity will one day create a military AI that will gain sentience and decide to destroy humanity to protect itself, cause a nuclear holocaust, and then start hunting humans with humanoid robotic assassins.

Maybe Same Fate, Different Day would've been a more honest subtitle?

[sketchley]

5 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Talk about your non-indicative titles... because this fate isn't new.  (...)

Ah, that line of reasoning assumes that everyone in Japan understands English at a native speaker level, no?

Nevertheless, overseas movie renaming has been going on for ages.  For example the 007 film "Tomorrow Never Dies" was changed to  "007 Never Dies".

[electric indigo]

 

13 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Talk about your non-indicative titles... because this fate isn't new.  This is the same fate that has been presented as inescapable in every Terminator movie made after Terminator 2: Judgement Day.  No matter what, humanity will one day create a military AI that will gain sentience and decide to destroy humanity to protect itself, cause a nuclear holocaust, and then start hunting humans with humanoid robotic assassins.

Maybe Same Fate, Different Day would've been a more honest subtitle?

wich finally brings us to this

 

[TangledThorns]

Just saw it. It was good but... wasn't better than T3 IMHO. I doubt we'll see a sequel but my love for all things Terminator was pretty much terminated after the FOX series cancellation and weak films after T3.

If there is going to be another Terminator film it should be a reboot, no more rehashed sequels.

That being said Mackenzie Davis and other actors from the film have a bright future ahead of them.

 

Edited November 9, 2019 by TangledThorns

[Seto Kaiba]

19 hours ago, sketchley said:

Ah, that line of reasoning assumes that everyone in Japan understands English at a native speaker level, no?

I was just being curmudgeonly... but I'm pretty sure that's English at a basic enough level that even the Japanese audience could muddle through.

 

19 hours ago, sketchley said:

Nevertheless, overseas movie renaming has been going on for ages.  For example the 007 film "Tomorrow Never Dies" was changed to  "007 Never Dies".

Oh, I know... it's been the subject of many, MANY eyebrow-raising conversations with my coworkers from the Indian subcontinent.  (Perhaps worse, given that they have multiple film industries and are constantly remaking each other's movies in their own languages... how many versions of Singham are we up to now?)

 

2 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

If there is going to be another Terminator film it should be a reboot, no more rehashed sequels.

Yeah, getting back to its horror-esque roots.

 

2 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

That being said Mackenzie Davis and other actors from the film have a bright future ahead of them.

Seems unlikely... you don't usually headline in a massive, franchise-killing box-office flop and go on to have a wildly successful career.  

[anime52k8]

11 hours ago, electric indigo said:

 

wich finally brings us to this

God the animatrix was stupid.

[M'Kyuun]

Just saw it, and liked it for what it was.  Lots of action and a basic Terminator narrative. It kept me entertained for a couple of hours, and that's all I really expected from it.

Everyone played their parts well...Linda falls right back into the Sarah Connor persona from T2, only  more wrinkled, and more angry.   

Spoiler

All the action was fun, but I also agree with the argument that it could have benefitted from trying to recapture a little of the suspense from the original with this thing relentlessly hunting them, and employing some cunning and stealth when attacking. Instead, it always just pops up where they can see him coming. So apparently, in the future, when AI decides to exterminate us, we'll have the leg up b/c it has no concept of the sneak attack.  Also, the scene where the KC-10 collides with the C-5 and doesn't explode is preposterous for two reasons- they got a C-5 off the ground on first try without some sort of maintenance breakdown, and second, the KC-10 is a flying gas bomb, and it would have exploded from all that metal on metal. Heck, we had a Kyrgyz aircraft clip the wing of a KC-135 on taxi and the whole wing caught on fire. The 135 was damaged beyond repair, and they sent a team in to cut it up and transport the remains back to the States. That was from a minor collision. Ah Hollywood.

 

[tekering]

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Also, the scene where the KC-10 collides with the C-5 and doesn't explode is preposterous

You mean, after decades of preposterous explosions a collision wouldn't cause, Hollywood has produced an action film where a collision doesn't cause the explosion it would?

[TangledThorns]

On a side-note the SFX was really good, especially the...

Spoiler

De-aging of Linda Hamilton and a young Edward Furlong in the first scene,

 

[Dynaman]

Just got back from seeing it.  Uninspired is the term I would use.  Or perhaps cookie cutter.  Better then the last couple of films by a long shot (I could never get past the Chippendales version of Kyle Reese in that last one - I never for a single second thought of him as a gritty survivor of the apocalypse) but that is damning with faint praise.  By the final action sequence I was pretty bored and ready for it to end.

[Dynaman]

Spoiler

With the bit about Arnold's Terminator learning to be more human a better ending would have been for the baddie terminator to have "won" and then over time decided to take Dani's place to complete the time loop.  A lost opportunity.

 

[anime52k8]

I actually really enjoyed this one, the action was a lot of fun and Mackenzie Davis was really a stand out. It's too bad the movie didn't do well, this is the first Terminator film where I've actually wanted to see where they go in a future film.

[Knight26]

On 11/10/2019 at 1:16 PM, Dynaman said:

Just got back from seeing it.  Uninspired is the term I would use.  Or perhaps cookie cutter.  Better then the last couple of films by a long shot (I could never get past the Chippendales version of Kyle Reese in that last one - I never for a single second thought of him as a gritty survivor of the apocalypse) but that is damning with faint praise.  By the final action sequence I was pretty bored and ready for it to end.

I said the same thing about his casting.  Kyle Reese was a survivor, being skinny and stringy fit the character, not Mr Beefcake, never misses the gym we got in Genesys.

[TangledThorns]

Another thing that grinds my gears with the post T2 sequels is their weak soundtracks, though T3 was valid attempt. Brad Fidel isn't a musical legend when it comes to movie soundtracks but he did get it right with his T1 and especially T2 work.

[peter]

Terminator/Matrix crossover.  

[Dynaman]

1 hour ago, peter said:

Terminator/Matrix crossover.  

I'll be back, Whoaaa....

[tekering]

Like Terminator crossovers, do you?  

Edited November 13, 2019 by tekering

[TangledThorns]

Frank Miller's RoboCop vs Terminator was a fun comic.

But yeah, I think this kind of idea would be a fun film to watch if made right. Doubt it'll happen though due to different studios involved.

[anime52k8]

superman vs the terminator sounds like a really short fight.

[Seto Kaiba]

11 minutes ago, anime52k8 said:

superman vs the terminator sounds like a really short fight.

TBH, most of these crossovers sound like really short fights... except Robocop, who is at a significant disadvantage due to only being able to walk like a little kid who has to take a dump.

[kajnrig]

I want Mackenzie Davis to step on me.

 

 

But seriously, I really liked that way more than I thought I would. Wasn't much a fan of

 

Arnold legit developing a "conscience," but they played it pretty well overall. It being specifically the one that killed John was an especially nice touch. They just couldn't avoid pulling the old "I'll never [action acknowledging your humanity]." / "Oh no it's the climax, time to [action acknowledging your humanity]." trick, though, could they?

Edited November 17, 2019 by kajnrig

[pengbuzz]

Honestly, the title of this movie should have been "Terminator: Wet Fart". It pretty much negated the entire storyline of T2.

[TangledThorns]

Miller has issues, maybe he should write his own movie or something.

https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/the-business/terminator-dark-fate-director-on-the-bumpy-road-to-a-box-office-bomb/tim-miller-on-terminator-box-office-woes-im-processing-but-im-very-proud-of-the-movie

[Dynaman]

Success has many fathers - failure is an orphan.

[pengbuzz]

3 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Miller has issues, maybe he should write his own movie or something.

https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/the-business/terminator-dark-fate-director-on-the-bumpy-road-to-a-box-office-bomb/tim-miller-on-terminator-box-office-woes-im-processing-but-im-very-proud-of-the-movie

Miller has an entire newsstand.

[Convectuoso]

Just watched this and liked it far more than T3, Salvation or Genysis. Classic Terminator action, but I just didn't feel like the heroes were in serious danger at any time. 

[JB0]

On 11/17/2019 at 9:18 PM, pengbuzz said:

Honestly, the title of this movie should have been "Terminator: Wet Fart". It pretty much negated the entire storyline of T2.

That's the Terminator tradition, isn't it? Judgement Day spits on the premise of The Terminator, Rise of the Machines hits undo on Judgement Day, Salvation ... we just don't talk about Salvation.

I don't even know on Genisys. The trailers made it look so dumb I couldn't oe bothered to even read a summary. Pretty sure it undoes SOMETHING by making John Conner a badguy. 

[Seto Kaiba]

6 minutes ago, JB0 said:

That's the Terminator tradition, isn't it?

More or less.  As I see it, most of the creative problems plaguing the Terminator franchise stem from the inability of its writers to establish a consistent stance on whether or not you can actually change the future/past using time travel.  Each new film's writing problems stem from reversing course on the previous film's stance... except Salvation, which didn't bother with time travel.  Can you change the future?  The franchise's answers are (in order): No, Yes, No, Who Cares?, Holy Cr@p Yes, and No in that order.

 

6 minutes ago, JB0 said:

Judgement Day spits on the premise of The Terminator, Rise of the Machines hits undo on Judgement Day, Salvation ... we just don't talk about Salvation.

I don't even know on Genisys. The trailers made it look so dumb I couldn't oe bothered to even read a summary. Pretty sure it undoes SOMETHING by making John Conner a badguy. 

Genisys and its planned sequels were a soft reboot that would, according to the screenwriters, have revealed that you absolutely CAN change the past using time travel... but you can't change YOUR past.  It's a Zero Time Dilemma-style scenario where you create another alternate timeline every time you try.  The goal was to both start fresh AND explain away all the problems in previous films by establishing that they occurred in separate alternate timelines... and Genisys's soft reboot timeline was a product of interference from multiple efforts on Skynet and the Resistance's part to change or preserve history that warped history into something none of the time travellers recognize thanks to the butterfly effect of so much time travel abuse.

 

Spoiler

The whole "John Connor is the bad guy" thing comes about because the Skynet from Rise of the Machines and Skynet legs it into the past in a Terminator body during its defeat at the Resistance's hands and ends up in a timeline similar to The Terminator, then ambushes John Connor after the defeat of Skynet in that reality's 2029 and Borg assimilates him into a nanomechanical Terminator that it send back to 1984 to assassinate Sarah Connor where that reality's Skynet's Terminators had failed.

 

[sh9000]

 

[pengbuzz]

On 1/16/2020 at 8:37 PM, sh9000 said:

 

I'm really beginning to think Hollywood needs to hire HISHE to write and film their movies. rofl

[Negotiator]

9 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

I'm really beginning to think Hollywood needs to hire HISHE to write and film their movies. rofl

that was good

[myk]

Just saw it myself and surprisingly I didn't vomit all over the floor and was actually moderately entertained.  Sure, this movie follows the droning hollywood trends of copying previous movie's plots and character gender swapping for a new, clueless audience, but Dark Fate wasn't a complete waste of time.   I suppose the highly derivative and ridiculous Star Wars Sequel movies have something to do with reducing my standards as a human being, but ah well.  It's not worth being upset about anymore...

[Lolicon]

4 hours ago, myk said:

Just saw it myself and surprisingly I didn't vomit all over the floor and was actually moderately entertained.  Sure, this movie follows the droning hollywood trends of copying previous movie's plots and character gender swapping for a new, clueless audience, but Dark Fate wasn't a complete waste of time.   I suppose the highly derivative and ridiculous Star Wars Sequel movies have something to do with reducing my standards as a human being, but ah well.  It's not worth being upset about anymore...

Saw it and that sums up how I feel about the movie. It's the best Terminator movie since T2, but remember that that is a very low bar.

[Hikuro]

On 1/22/2020 at 8:14 AM, Lolicon said:

Saw it and that sums up how I feel about the movie. It's the best Terminator movie since T2, but remember that that is a very low bar.

James Cameron had to find that damn bar again. 

[sh9000]