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Can James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger Revive The 'Terminator' Franchise? (etonline.com) 226

"The Resistance's war against Skynet rages on with the sixth installment of the Terminator series," reports Variety, adding that the James Cameron-produced film "serves as a direct sequel to the first two movies in the franchise, relegating the events of the intervening films to alternate timelines."

Or, as ET Online: puts it, "Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and James Cameron are together again!" On Thursday, Paramount Pictures released the first trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate, and it's a reunion for the film franchise's original stars and filmmaker. Hamilton steps back into her role as the badass Sarah Connor, who teams up with Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a woman from the future who shows up in New Mexico and first appears much like Schwarzenegger's character did in the first movie. Directed by Deadpool's Tim Miller, Cameron wrote the story treatment for the sequel and was a producer on the film.

After several action scenes, Sarah Connor knocks on the door of an old house, and the original Terminator (Schwarzenegger) appears with a salt-and-pepper beard. "We're back," Schwarzenegger, 71, tweeted along with the trailer, alluding to his iconic line "I'll be back."

After two days the trailer has racked over 12.5 million views on YouTube, and James Cameron "not only assures that the new entry will be R-rated, but he makes it clear this will be, in more than one way, much more similar to the first two movies in the series," reports Movieweb -- quoting these remarks from one of Cameron's recent interviews.

"I think, tonally, what makes this a direct sequel to T1 and T2 is as much about the tone as it is about the narrative: it's R rated, it's grim, it's gritty, it's fast, it's intense, it's linear."
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Can James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger Revive The 'Terminator' Franchise?

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  • James Cameron (Score:3, Insightful)

    by drewsup ( 990717 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @02:38AM (#58656212)

    Will do to Terminator what George Lucas did to Star Wars

    • the James Cameron-produced film "serves as a direct sequel to the first two movies in the franchise, relegating the events of the intervening films to alternate timelines."

      Wonder if they could do that to GoT? "The anyone-competent-really-produced series based on George R. R. Martin's latest work serves as a direct sequel to the first five seasons in the franchise, relegating the events of the intervening seasons to alternate timelines^H^H^H^Hhell".

      • you really beleive that he'll manage to finish writing dream of spring within his lifetime?
        seriously?

        also, I doubt HBO or anyone else will volunteer the budget for the ~12 extra seasons required after season 4 to adapt all the material from the (upcoming) books - if those ever get published.

        • Well, OK on the writing thing, but given how much money HBO made off it I can see why they'd want to make more of it. Money I mean, not episodes, but the episodes are part of it.
        • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

          you really beleive that he'll manage to finish writing dream of spring within his lifetime?

          Doubtful. The only question is who they'll get to write out the last one or two books. Jordan didn't make it either, but at least he was smart enough to know that when his health was declining to make heavy use of written, audio, and annotations in his digital copies so someone could finish it off.

      • the James Cameron-produced film "serves as a direct sequel to the first two movies in the franchise, relegating the events of the intervening films to alternate timelines."

        Wonder if they could do that to GoT? "The anyone-competent-really-produced series based on George R. R. Martin's latest work serves as a direct sequel to the first five seasons in the franchise, relegating the events of the intervening seasons to alternate timelines^H^H^H^Hhell".

        It's a bad idea. No one will want to pay for it. The actors won't be available. The production staff won't be available. The sets will be gone. No one is remaking that last few seasons.

    • Re:James Cameron (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @06:06AM (#58656568) Journal

      I think what's been done to Star Wars has already been done to Terminator. So we're way past that. And since it can't get much worse, I would think that this has some potential.

      I mean Deadpool was really good IMO. Battle Angel Alita was very well done so Cameron has proven to be someone who will stand up for projects dear to him.

      So we have an original cast, a "good?" director and James Cameron driving the project. Well, one can hope.

      • I agree, this might actually be good, certainly compared to the other blockbusters we've been subjected to in the past few years.

        However I shudder at the word "franchise". Used to be that studios made movies that stood on their own, and if one did well, then maybe there'd be a sequel. Perhaps even two. Nowadays a lot of movies seem to be written with a franchise in mind, or (even lazier) are simply taken from an already existing franchise in another medium. And you get endless fanserving and lazy wri
      • First, how is the Schwatzeneggor Terninator not melted down in a steel vat?

        Second, I actually think this could be good. We have very few organic women action heros. I don't really count any of the Marvel heros, women or men because they all have super power not moxie and grit. People like Ripley in aliens, and Linda hamilton are the high water marks for the original femal heros.

        And recently jamie lee curtis proved that you can dip into the older actress pool and revive one of these characters at even gre

        • by epyT-R ( 613989 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @10:43AM (#58657298)

          No. What we need are good stories with believable characters. Socjus themes are what is choking hollywood right now to a point where the movies are basically public service announcements. The last thing needed is yet another mary sue, chosen because she's a vagina 'with moxie'. It's not so much the linda hamilton-type characters that are problems, but how they're treated by the movie 'for great social justice.'

    • by reporter ( 666905 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @07:22AM (#58656718) Homepage

      The description of "Terminator: Dark Fate" suggests that it is intended to appeal to non-Western audiences. The film is packed with special effects instead of good dialogue that shows us the depth of the characters.

      This new movie is just part of a big trend. According to a report [usatoday.com] by USA Today, "American audiences should brace for a larger diet of the fare that's hot internationally: Namely, films centered on big special effects and 3-D."

      China is now the largest international market for such movies. The Chinese dislike movies with good dialogue and moral lessons. The Chinese prefer shallow dialogue with big special effects. So, Hollywood is loading its films with special effects.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        Less moral lessons might be good; if anything we're seeing more of these in recent movies, and not in a good way. Also, the box office figures seem to indicate that today's moviegoers also prefer loads of special effects. At least they are not turned off by them.
    • Re:James Cameron (Score:5, Interesting)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @10:56AM (#58657346)

      At this point I'm so sick of the time-travel shtick that I don't even care about the franchise anymore. The whole point of the franchise was to get to the REAL important part--the future war where humans finally defeat Skynet. Well, they finally got to that part in Terminator Salvation, with a great performance from Christian Bale to boot. And that was supposed to be the setup for a sequel that would see humanity finally beat Skynet for good. Only the studio didn't like the way that movie performed, so they rebooted the whole thing, and took us right back to the same old tired time-travel shtick. Now they're rebooting AGAIN, with even more time-travel confusion.

      So how is it even possible now to give a fuck? They've created a franchise where it's pretty much impossible to beat Skynet. So what is even the point anymore? What's the point of protecting John Connor if he's never even going to get a chance to win? What's the point of sending back Terminators if Skynet can just keep sending scores more of them back until it (inevitably) wins?

      The whole franchise went from hopeful, to fatalistic but still hopeful, to absolutely hopeless. At this point, we had may as well root for Skynet to win and finally put the audience out of its misery.

      Bringing the time-travel gimmick into a scifi franchise today is basically the death-knell of the franchise. It's basically the studio saying "Nothing that happens in this franchise matters anymore, because we'll just undo it or reboot it whenever we feel like it."

      • The whole point of the franchise was to get to the REAL important part--the future war where humans finally defeat Skynet.

        It depends on where you want to stop in the franchise. You got flashes of the future war (like the opening scenes in the first two Terminator movies), but the point of the franchise, at least when Cameron wrote the first two movies, was to avoid the future war entirely, to save the planet so that the armageddon doesn't occur. The first movie introduced the idea of changing the past to alter the future (in this case by trying to kill Sarah Conner) with that war looking possible, but the second was all about

    • If you saw how faithful Cameron remained to the storyline of the original Battle Angel (the anime; never read the manga), you'd be less likely to engage in such speculation...
    • James Cameron will do what James Cameron does because James Cameron is James Cameron.
      • by elrous0 ( 869638 )

        In this case, I think James Cameron just wants to make James Cameron more money, without James Cameron taking the risk of actually making James Cameron the writer or director.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 26, 2019 @02:49AM (#58656248)

    "I need your cane, your undergarments and your walking frame."

  • by dohzer ( 867770 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @02:52AM (#58656254)

    Just let it die!

    • Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and it absolutely WILL NOT STOP. EVER! Until you are dead.
  • I doubt it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @02:56AM (#58656266)

    The problem is that basically everything has to be mass-market compatible these days. That pretty much precludes good story-telling.

    • Not to mention the insistence nowadays that all the best scenes be included in the trailers anyway. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the best of the movie.

      • And by "nowadays" you mean 1991, when the trailer for Terminator 2 revealed that Arnie is the good robot now even though the movie tries its best to keep that ambiguous until the mall shootout.

    • by shanen ( 462549 )

      The problem is that basically everything has to be mass-market compatible these days. That pretty much precludes good story-telling.

      I disagree with the "these days" reference. I believe this obligatory joke is about 2 or 3 decades old: https://www.gocomics.com/calvi... [gocomics.com] .
      (Calvin's meta-commentary on TV shows versus real life, which just got coincidentally recycled.)

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Mass market compatible is one reason. Hollywood out of fresh ideas is another.

  • by mridoni ( 228377 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @03:03AM (#58656284)

    It's dead, James

  • Imagine a game franchise made up entirely of escort-the-NPC missions.

  • ... was not impressive. :(

    • by sad_ ( 7868 )

      remember the trailer from Alita, everybody was dissing it, mostly because of the big cgi eyes, it almost was a guaranteed bomb of a movie.
      when it came out, it turned out to be a decent action flick, probably the best live action anime hollywood has ever done, i wasn't even bothered by the eyes.
      i'm a big fan of the first two T movies, i'm not overly excited about what i saw in the trailer, but i haven't lost hope yet, hoping i will be surprised just like i was with Alita.

  • by Nocturrne ( 912399 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @05:36AM (#58656506)

    Pretty much sums it up:

    "Alejandro Basaldúa:
    1991: an Austrian bodybuilder riding a Harley-Davidson with sunglasses, leather jacket, boots and reloading his shotgun with one hand.
    2019: a lesbian college student. "

  • Probably so (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @06:07AM (#58656570) Journal

    Lots of naysayers commenting. I think it is possible that this new movie could be really good. I will provide a couple pieces of evidence. First off, Cameron has always had tremendous amounts of money and power to produce and write his films. When Lucas gained that kind of power and unbridled control, and created the prequels, we saw that he, individually, did not have the writing chops and ability to balance the serious with the slapstick, nor the ability to write decent dialog or direct children to act in a convincing way. Cameron, on the other hand, has had that level of control in several of his movies already, and apparently he has a proper combination of skills to bring an audience what they want to see, and / or the humility to lean on the talents of other people during that creative process.

    So my first point is that Cameron has delivered time and time again, and I don't have any reason to believe that he has somehow lost his talent.

    Second point is that others have been able to pull this off with tremendous success, and I'll leave this final piece of evidence here that it CAN be done.... George Miller creating Mad Max Fury Road 30 years after the third Mad Max movie (Beyond Thunderdome).

    • ...I'll leave this final piece of evidence here that it CAN be done.... George Miller creating Mad Max Fury Road 30 years after the third Mad Max movie (Beyond Thunderdome).

      I'll leave this final piece of evidence as to the difference here...George Miller wasn't stupid enough to go grab Great Grandpa Gibson to reprise that role.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I liked pre-Titanic James Cameron when he was an unapologetic asshole but his tree-hugging was old before the crapfest that was Avatar. The first Terminator with it's tech-noir nightclub set a tone that was ruined by the second movie. A narrative flip that preceded leftist politics taking a turn for the worst. If the first film were made today, the Terminator would be the good guy sent back in association with Planned Parenthood and the SPLC to punish "hate speech" and prevent evil white male John Connor

    • - Cameron is producing not directing. Producing can mean as much as being involved on set everyday to meaning as little as lending your name to the credits and having no real involvement whatsoever.
      - Cameron's last movie, Avatar, was garbage. It was a poor sci-fi ripoff of Dances With Wolves that made a ton of money because it brought back the 3D movie gimmick for the first time in a few decades. He's been teasing for 10 years that he wants to make more Avatar films. I don't know of anyone that is clamoring

    1. (x)Werewolves
    2. (x)Aliens
    3. (x)Sharks
    4. (x)Predators
    5. (x)Vampires
    6. (x)Zombies
    7. (x)Killer Future Robots
    8. (o)Werewolves
    9. (o)Aliens
  • They are just using the money they made and name they got when they directed good movies to make more money from the side lines. If he really believed in it he'd be directing.

  • by Lexicon ( 21437 ) on Sunday May 26, 2019 @09:25AM (#58657044) Homepage

    This has all the problems I have with modern movies:

    • Dead never stay dead - death has completely lost its impact in a world of movies where no matter how dramatic the death scene, it is no longer believable that a character actually died and thus has no realistic chance of actually really getting killed.
    • Ultra instant repair nanobots - magical repair using nano machines or whatever other magic technology of the year is, makes fight scenes pointless as attacks just do nothing anyway. I don't find it fun to see the same immortal enemies over and over again. There's no cleverness to 'killing' these things, it's just tedious.
    • Time travel changes everything again and again - I do like seeing alternative outcomes in the context of separate series, but movies now make time travel so trivial even within the same movie and/or series, it cheapens the outcome and often destroys any semblance of sane story flow.
    • Sequel of sequel of sequel - remake an old story over and over and over again, seriously? Can we get some genuine new movies please? Directors, please go to a library, there's an amazing selection of stories there that no one has ever made a movie of that would be incredible, written by people who can actually write.

    I like a good action movie as much as the next person, but I'd really like to see one that relies less on piling on the bad tropes until the whole movie is a joke about itself.

  • by PPH ( 736903 )

    Terminator 6: Rust Never Sleeps.

  • Also same problem with Avengers, Star Trek, Gotham, etc.

    If anything can happen and nothing matters, who cares?

    Some character dies? So what? That character will be back because of timelines and/or dimensions and/or brought back from the dead, or whatever.

    If anything that happens can be easily erased and done over, so who cares what happens? Nothing matters and everything is just boring.

    Prequels have an additional problem in that you already know how everything will work out.

  • ..oh, and they still doing this?
  • The Terminator storyline has an amazing amount of scope for innovation. In particular, how they have now introduced alternative timelines. Can't wait
  • If you want to truly kill the terminator you have to go back in time and kill James Cameron.

  • Add some new John Henry plot. Go full new look Catherine Weaver/James Ellison and Cameron plot.
    Explore a Will you join us? plot.
    Remove the John Connor, Sarah Connor, resistance fighter parts.
    Bad robots vs different good shape-shifting robots from the future with some side FBI detection plot.
    This would open the movie to not needing a complex Connor back story filler for 40 mins.
    Shape-shifting robots can be any actor wanted and that can keep the franchise fresh. eg T-X.
    Maybe the FBI facial recognition
  • As long as the film doesn't go full-bore SJW, but the signs seem to point to it doing exactly that

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