I’ve mentioned on several occasions about how much I love the first two Terminator movies. I will go to my grave loving those films. James Cameron burst on to the scene with the original movie that blew everyone away. Arnold Schwarzenegger became a household name and Cameron would go on to direct Aliens, another amazing sequel. If there’s a director who knows how to craft a proper sequel, it’s James Cameron. I recently reviewed Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and that is absolutely one of the finest sequels ever made. I would put it up there with Empire Strikes Back and Aliens. It’s that good. The ending of the second film was both ambiguous enough for a potential third film and solid enough that you didn’t need one. After Titanic hit theaters in 1997, James Cameron had the rights to Terminator sold from under him. The rights eventually ended up at Warner Bros. who would start development on a sequel: Rise of the Machines. Starring Nick Stahl as John Connor, and Kristanna Lokken as the new T-X Terminator, Terminator 3 would also see the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger. This would be the last film that Arnold would star in before he became governor of California. The film was released to theaters in 2003 and the reception was mixed but somewhat positive. It wasn’t a bad action movie. Jonathon Mostow knows how to craft a solid action movie. The problem with T3 was that it was a blatant re-hash of the previous film. It introduced a couple of new ideas like the fact that Judgment Day was going to happen anyway and an ending that was ballsy as hell. I have to give credit to Terminator 3 for that ending. It was definitely one of the highlights of the film. Unfortunately, the film began to rely more and more on CGI, and it was clear that it didn’t have the same feel as the previous films. Enter Terminator: Salvation, the first film that doesn’t feature Arnold Schwarzenegger as a main character. Starring Christian Bale as John Connor, Terminator: Salvation takes place in 2018, years after the bombs fell. Credit must be given to McG for trying something different here, but T4 ended up being a generic post-Apocalyptic film that happened to have Terminators. Visually, it was interesting and Sam Worthington’s character was fairly compelling, but the execution of the film left much to be desired. I didn’t hate the film. It was pretty decent for what it was.
Now, we come to Terminator: Genisys. After Terminator: Salvation’s lackluster performance, AND the fact that the franchise would again change hands, it was decided by Paramount Pictures that rebooting the franchise would be a good idea. It needed to happen. Sadly, Terminator: Genisys suffered from multiple problems which would end up with the franchise’s future hanging in the balance. The film’s marketing was awful. The second trailer for Genisys gave away a major plot point in the film, which could have been an awesome game-changer. That was also a problem that plagued the previous film. You don’t want to show too much in a trailer. You want to show enough to get people curious. The other problem is that the film wasn’t properly written or executed. The casting was….interesting. I don’t have anything against Jai Courtney, whatsoever. I actually happen to like him. I just don’t think he was the right guy to play Kyle Reese. See, the story would cause havoc with the timeline from the original film, so things would go haywire. The idea of multiple timelines in a Terminator film isn’t really a bad idea. Again, the execution was poor. The visual effects were great and the action was wonderful, but the story was so bogged down by so many ideas and theories that it got lost. The way the film ended was just….what?
The rights to Terminator will revert back to James Cameron in 2019. That’s a year and a half away. Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron have both gone on the record that they would like to see a final Terminator film that would tie everything up. Despite Genisys’s performance, it looks like we’ll be getting one more movie. Apparently, they are getting Tim Miller to direct, while Arnold Schwarzenegger will return. Emilia Clarke is not coming back and apparently, neither is Jai Courtney. As for what needs to happen, I genuinely don’t know. I feel that the Terminator movies NEVER should have gotten this far. I’m one of those people that feel that Terminator should have ended with the second film. I don’t hate the follow-up films, but they just pale in comparison. With James Cameron producing, Terminator 6 needs to find a way to finish the story that was introduced in Genisys while providing a satisfying conclusion to the entire series. This is my third “What’s Next?” post, but I’m having a hard time coming with ideas for what needs to happen with Terminator and things that I want see from the final movie. I think what I would want to see is the character played by Matt Smith, who played Skynet as a T-5000 Terminator. How did he end up in the original timeline. Who sent the Terminator back in time to protect Sarah Connor? These are questions that need to be answered, but I don’t know how they’re going to do that. While I would love to see one more movie, I think we’ve all seen what the Terminator franchise has to offer at this point. They’re just beating a dead horse. Maybe it’s just time to let it go.