MovieChat Forums > Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) Discussion > How Schwarzenegger's Fame KILLED the Ter...

How Schwarzenegger's Fame KILLED the Terminator franchise


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4CG44pgFwU

Talk to the hand no more!

https://lebeauleblog.com/2019/11/22/let-it-die-the-terminator/

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It's kind of hard to do a Terminator movie without Arnold when audiences, distribution and production companies want to see and fund Terminator movies with Arnold in them.

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The Sarah Connor Chronicles was pretty decent. I could see it, and in fact it would make sense, because why would they create a robot that is supposed to blend in with people that is a hulking musclebound monster with a thick Austrian accent?

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Sarah Connor Chronicles had to do it because they couldn't afford Schwarzenegger to was a TV show, even in the original they had another Terminator that was not played by Schwarzenegger nobody complains about that. The only reason why all T-800s look like Schwarzenegger because he was such a massive star, Terminator launched his career sky high and making the T-800 the good guy was the last change to his character.

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I saw it when it came out. I'm just saying it was a pretty good show ... but I think what killed it was that it was so slow moving. On the very last episode we see saw some kind of SkyNet drone outside the window ... and boom - series ended just as it was getting interesting.

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I think the writers strike hurt it a bit, not to mention Fox not giving a shit about it.

It took the Terminator mythos towards a higher level of scifi that the films would never reach.

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Linda Hamilton winning the rights to Terminator in her divorce from James Cameron is what REALLY killed the franchise.

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Good point, just like how Sigourney Weaver effectively becoming an executive producer for the Alien movies after Aliens killed that franchise.

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Very true, Alien 3 was a huge mistake.

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sjw wokeness is what killed the series. nobody wants to see some super musclar manish women save the day

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Right on

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Give me "sjw wokeness" any day compared to whatever that your was.

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lol up until now, I never considered that there was actually a portion of the audience that was upset that the terminator was a woman.

Nevermind that her being a woman was integral to the narrative development of the story, and nvm that she's a far more effective infiltration unit compared to the giant models with the thick, Austrian accent.

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Weird, I thought it was bad writing, effects, and acting.

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It's because they've done nothing but remake (the vastly inferior, but highly successful) T2, instead of realising what made the franchise 'great' in the first place.
Schwarzenegger needs to terminate people (in nasty graphic ways) no stupid jokey soundbite dialogue, no gay CGI shite (and no box ticking agendas) just straight up horror/sci-fi......*preferably* low-budget.

Sadly, since the success of (the vastly inferior) T2, a succession of directors have figured that throwing millions at the screen (and blowing shit up) is the answer?

It isn't.

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Nah, this film wasn't bad only because Arnold was in it - and the same is true for T3, T4 (if you an count his CG-cameo as being "in it") and T5 as well.

The number one priority should have been hiring better writers. All movies after T2 failed in that regard. Surprisingly enough, Arnie worked well in all of them (T4 aside), he tried to work with the material given to him, and elevate the script - and he succeeded in all of the films (T4 aside) to a certain extent.

The reason why T6 Arnie looks tired and uninspired is because of two reasons. #1 is idiotic, horrible writing - a Terminator bleds in and sells curtains, tapestry or whatever... there is no way anyone thought this was a good idea, but yet here we are. And #2 - with the exception of the opening factory fight, the movie constantly tried to rehash T2. It even ends in a steel mill for crying out loud! So at the end we get a third grade copy of the T2 finale, which is... tired and uninspired. There is nothing new, nothing interesting for Arnold to do. All in all it's not his fault how these movies turned out to be.

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The storyline has been exhausted, Arnie's terminator has done all that he's been asked to do.

The template of T2 a reprogrammed T800 vs a liquid metal terminator is kind of hard to be effective at all when it's a commonplace in pop culture and movie fans, which makes every sequel after T2 pointless because all the surprises of the first two movies aren't there, so your just watching these retreads with the surprises you know are coming which takes you out of the experience of watching them.

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Agreed. This is why it's really disappointing how T3 and T6 both wanted to re-hash T2. T4 at least tried something different, whereas T5 had some fun with timelines and whatnot. Not that I like them, but I'd rate them a notch above T6.

It's just astonishing that the writers could not come up with anything new since 1991, not even on the technical level of these movies. Really shows how utterly brilliant Cameron's work was with the originals.

I mentioned this issue in my thread about the movie as well:

https://moviechat.org/tt6450804/Terminator-Dark-Fate/5f44f182cd32005dd3198f3f/Pointless-plot-and-absolute-disrespect-towards-the-source-material

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T4 was too incoherent of a film for me to defend, but I was surprised at how much flack T5 got. I thought it was a fun twist on the mythos. Hell, even though it totally conflicted with one of the pillars of Terminator (i.e. John Connon is the saviour), at least it was done more respectfully than what we got in T6 lol.

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Agreed - in principle T5 was fun, however they utterly botched the casting of John Connor and Kyle Reese, and I just couldn't get into it because of that.

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Kyle Reece's casting, and actually the way he was written to be fair, is the one thing that upsets me about the movie. His character should be untouched from timeline bullshit, so he should really be the crazy, PTSD survivor we see in T1 but he isn't :(

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That's why if your gonna do a sequel you have to change it up especially if it's a beloved film, you give people the exact same thing in a new gift wrapping they're gonna open it up and say "dude I've already got one of those".

A future war movie would've been a more natural way to continue the franchise, T4 tried to do that but didn't feel like the intros to the first two movies.

Problem is the writers can't get out of Terminator 2, that's the template, they can't change the template. Two options do something new like a proper future war movie or do nothing with Terminator from now on.

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I wouldn't say Future War or bust, I still think that in the hands of talented writers, a movie set in present day could be interesting and successful, without being a copy of T2.

Too bad that talented writers got nowhere near writing a Terminator movie after T2...

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If they do a time travel movie it would have to be man vs machine like T1 again, the Dark Horse comic Tempest would be cool for a movie.

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Agreed! Given an exciting and appropriate source material, which has creative ideas, we could be in for a treat.

Not likely to happen, but it's fun to speculate.

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So far there's been very little talk of getting another film out, Dark Fate has probably killed the franchise for the foreseeable future.

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