Building on the article from Cooper Hood in ScreenRant, the reason why the alternate ending of Terminator 2: Judgment Day should have happened is pretty simple: it would have had an end. As it stands now there’s absolutely no way that anyone with a serious idea that they can make the franchise better or ‘rescue’ it will pass up on the chance if they get up the nerve. As of now, and especially after the bomb titled Dark Fate, the Terminator franchise is slowly sinking into the mire, weighted down by the hubris that Cameron and others added to by thinking that they could right the sinking ship by blasting a hole in the other side via horrible sequels that would possibly cancel each other out. Yeah, how’s that working out again? Oh, that’s right, people are getting tired and rather frustrated with directors that think they can simply reinvent the wheel over and over and that giving it a new look will solve everything. Okay, deep breaths.
This is one franchise that should have been left alone after the second movie just to show that Sarah and John had a happy ending, the human race was saved, and the terminator was successful in his mission. But then again there would and will always be people pointing out this or that stating that something was left behind, there was a bit of machinery that can be reverse-engineered, judgment day is inevitable and so on and so forth and blah, blah, blah. If people really wanted to do something original with this story, not that I’m saying they should, they would go to the books and pick up on a different thread perhaps, finding something else to focus on that people might find entertaining if they could at least find a way to present it so that an audience would care. Does anyone realize how many Terminator books are out there that DON’T focus on John Connor? A.A. Dowd of AV Club has his own take on this. It’s amazing really that the screenwriters don’t seem to remember that there are vast libraries and bookstores out there that they can just pull ideas from. Or maybe they know all about them and figure that they know better and can pull something out of thin air. Again, that doesn’t seem to be working out so well these days as the canned and stale smell of so many movies that are being ripped up and put back together in a lump of something that can just barely be described as a new idea are continuously rolling of the assembly line that Hollywood has become. Oh yes, big-time cynicism is called for at this point since it would seem that the writer’s rooms are being filled with people that might really want to let loose with a new idea, but are being hampered by the ‘formula’ that Hollywood is so set on. In other words, creativity and innovation is being banned from the building it would seem, while comfortable formulas and ideas are on tap.
The Terminator is a great story, one that has inspired pop culture in a huge way. Many people enjoyed the first one immensely, while the second one was even better since we finally got to meet the vaunted John Connor as a young boy, and we were given a look at a new terminator that was absolutely terrifying since it could become pretty much anything or anyone it touched. We were even given a new version of Sarah Connor who was tough, mean, and could break a person down bone by bone if she so desired. In other words, despite not having Kyle Reese any longer we still had another terminator that had been sent back with the express purpose of protecting John Connor this time around, and while he was outmatched he was still determined to fulfill his mission and did so in a big and very exciting way. The thumbs up sign at the end when he was being dipped into the molten metal was pretty cheesy, as was the “I know now why you cry” line, but up until then it was a non-stop thrill ride that had everyone liking T2 in a big way. From that point on though things just got out of hand and became insanely silly since each new Terminator movie introduced another terminator, another savior, and another issue with humanity and Skynet that would lead to Judgment Day. Had the franchise been allowed to end with the alternate ending that was somehow touching and fitting at the same time, the disaster that was the current list of movies that have ultimately failed might never have happened, and we might have been better for it. Admittedly there were moments in each movie that worked, but overall, each movie following T2 was a continual train wreck that took years to complete.Dark Fate
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