credit: The Terminator
Out of all the franchises that have come along over the years, The Terminator has been one of the most loved and also the most troubling storylines that have come along. The first two movies felt as close to perfect as they could be since Skynet was established as a villain, as were the terminators that it sent through time to kill Sarah and then John Connor. And Kyle Reese and the second terminator were just as great since they acted as the protagonists who weren’t perfect but were there to prevent the world from being taken over by the artificial intelligence that had taken over the world and attempted to eliminate humanity. Had the story ended after the second movie, it feels as though it would have been easy to save and possibly reboot, but the fact is that many fans tend to agree that once the third movie arrived that the franchise was in serious trouble, and things didn’t get much better. In fact, Dark Fate was unable to perform in the same manner as the first two movies even though it brought back Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger to take part in the same movie once again. Despite what James Cameron might have to say, many fans would doubtless disagree that this was the issue.
credit: Terminator 2
The first Terminator was simple
There wasn’t much to the first movie, and it was essentially the rise of artificial intelligence and the elimination of the species that had caused so many issues, human beings. This is a big fear among humans since not having control of the machines that they’ve built since the machines are far more efficient and not bound by the moral implications of their actions. This is why learning that James Cameron would want to focus more on the AI does make a Terminator reboot sound as though it might be even scarier to contemplate, but it also feels as though it would remove too much of the human element. That might not be the goal, but it sounds like Cameron might be veering off in a direction requiring something extra to work.
The second movie upped the stakes with a new machine, but it was still a fairly simple story
The T-1000 was revolutionary and changed the game up a bit, but the story still remained fairly simple compared to the movies that would follow. Looking at the first two movies it was easy to see that Skynet figured that it had failed the first time, so perhaps it could send another machine a little further into the future to eliminate the human that had been such a thorn in its side, John Connor. This didn’t work, obviously, since the humans still managed to send another savior back to keep John safe. But while some might wonder why Skynet didn’t keep sending killer robots into the past, Kyle Reese summed this up in the first movie, the trip wasn’t an easy one to initiate. Keeping to the simple truths established in the first movie did help the second movie to be great, and what was added helped it to fit into that era since fans believe that the second movie was one of the absolute best.
credit: Terminator: Dark Fate
The movies following T2 tried to up the complexity level
The movies that came after T2 are why a reboot is even necessary. The movies ended up becoming too complicated by trying to get too complex, playing with the timeline, and adding in too many new characters that were either secondary or barely important. Once Dark Fate came along, it was made evident that the basic idea of The Terminator had gone way past a single killer robot being sent into the past to kill someone and had become a tale that had so many moving parts that it was tough to keep track of them all. Thinking that a reboot is necessary isn’t tough, but thinking that it’s going to be more successful is still a shaky belief since the franchise has been going downhill for a while, but trying to reboot it with new characters sounds like an idea that could tank in a very unfortunate way.
Dark Fate had more than one issue
James Cameron has made it clear that he believes that placing Arnold and Linda in the same movie again was why this movie didn’t perform that well. Fans might disagree with this assessment since many people were adamant that introducing a new savior wasn’t that great of an idea, nor was adding Grace, who was hard to like at all. Linda and Arnold weren’t the problems to be fair, but killing off John Connor was a huge issue for many people since the mere mention of Edward Furlong’s return was enough to give people hope that Dark Fate would be the movie to turn the franchise around. At this point, though, a reboot feels as though it has a 50/50 chance of working.
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