"Thank you, Sarah, for your courage during the dark times." That's the beginning of John Connor's message to his mother as conveyed by Kyle Reese in the first film. Before we even get to the message, Kyle goes into detail about John's upbringing, making it clear that it was Sarah who instilled in him all the skills and qualities that turned him into the savior of humanity. She was never a walking womb. She didn't give birth to him and immediately pass him off to a military academy. It was all Sarah, her strength and motherly devotion to raising her son that made him a hero. Without Sarah Connor, there wouldn't have been a future for humanity. The people who wrote Dark Fate had never watched the first movie at all. If they had, they didn't understand it in the slightest.

A Terminator settling down and having a family sounds like something you'd see in an SNL skit

If it were “my granddad’s Terminator”, then it would’ve been a good movie.

The film has a very meaningful title: It is indeed a dark fate for the terminator franchise.

John Connor was such an iconic character that the audience developed a relationship with him literally before he was born. But it turns out he can be easily replaced by a 5 foot illegal alien waitress .

If it was "your grand-dad's Terminator movie", why did all the grand-dads hate more than anyone else?

The worst sin is having written Sarah's lines saying that she and Danny were just the womb for the savior of humanity to be born and nothing more. Since when in the first 2 films it is intuited that there is only this one to give birth to John and disappear. Kyle himself tells her that she is a legend and is the one who forms the character of John. Even in Terminator 2 we can see that she tried to train him or that's what she wanted before they put her in the psychiatric hospital. How does it occur to Miller or Cameron to give the green light to that dialogue? That is not feminism, that is an insult to a great female character that both men and women have empathy and want to see her succeed. We never saw her as a uterus with legs. I think John's bite 3 minutes into the movie was a sin, but it could also be an interesting twist in the story. However, it was only an attempt to leave the viewer in shock, in the end there is no twist, there is nothing, just the same story with another character.

"Grace steals a man's clothes." Thereby setting the tone for the entire movie.

Let's see. Why did Dark Fate? These are my reasons for it's failure: 1. Like Terminator Genisys, it thinks its doing something new and original. But it blatantly and half-heartedly recycles plot elements from previous films. 2. Pulled an Alien 3 by killing off a beloved character in a stupid and insulting fashion. 3. It was nothing more than a retread of T2. 4. Linda and Arnold, while still giving good performances, look bored and miserable. 5. The new characters are unlikeable and have zero development. 6. The director and writers called the people who hated this film sexists which alienated most people. 7. Too much SJW propaganda. 8. Forced Nostalgia Pandering and pointless fan service.

They should’ve stuck with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which was cancelled right when it was getting good.

In my lifetime, which spans many decades, I have never seen an industry thats willing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars on a losing proposition.

I'm not surprised that Cameron has a strange perspective on why Dark Fate failed. He's one of the wealthy, out of touch Hollywood elite - people who are insulated in a bubble of affluence and luxury that makes it impossible for them to understand what most of the audience want or expect. It's a big reason why so many films are terrible nowadays.

The scene where the diversity hire comes out as the strong leader in the future was hilarious, she was so tiny and insignificant, but those corn rows in her hair made her badass...apparently. More Police Academy Hicks than Aliens Hicks.

The movie defeats it’s own message. The theme was Jurassic Park. It will never matter who your protagonists are, A.I. will always find a way. And to think Linda Hamilton’s character had been hunting Terminators for 40 years and never realized that Skynet had been replaced by Legion is a plot hole that swallows the whole movie.

Replacing John Connor with Danny is the movie equivalent of stolen valor

I have a better question: "How did someone read the script and still give their approval?"

I believe the Terminator franchise should've been a trilogy, with a better version of Salvation as the third and final installment. We had the first movie about Kyle and Sarah, the second movie about Sarah and John, so the third movie should've been a prequel about Kyle and John fighting side by side in the future, with more details about the machines and the AI, new and unique Terminator models, and everything ending exactly like the beginning of the first movie (like they did with The Thing from 2011).

James Cameron no longer has any credibility. He made some truly great films in the past, but he's just a hack now.

The first Matrix works as a great sequel to T2. Years after the events of T2, the robots develop a new strategy and eventually humans lost, machines won.

If Arnold should not have been in the movie (as Cameron said), and audiences won't accept a Terminator movie without Arnold (as Cameron also said), then maybe that's the sign to STOP MAKING TERMINATOR MOVIES. Audiences have been saying this since 2003.

The problem was the opening. Killing John Connor basically kills off hope for the future. Doesn’t matter that you create a new replacement hero for the future, they literally killed the personification of hope for the human race, and never recovers. Plus a lot of the issues you mentioned, but that opener as like starting a route canal with a kick in the teeth.

The original Terminator gained popularity because of Arnold's character was a great villain and the story was fascinating. The 2nd was even better because you had Arnold return as a strong ally against the T-1000 and again another good story arc. That a machine could learn to see the good in humanity. Dark Fate was just another Terminator 2 redux to replace John Conner, the character we knew to be the savior of humanity with a Female. Now, how many of these new films who replace the Hero with a female actually succeed? Nobody wants their favorite characters tore down so that some film maker can make another movie so that a female can take over the franchise. Make a new franchise, don't tear down a good one.

Not only does Dark Fate Sarah not mention Reese, she narrates that SHE stopped Judgment Day, completely ignoring John, Miles Dyson and the Terminator's involvement.

In the words of John Conner from terminator resistance. The actual terminator three. " I always belive the future not set. There no fate but what we make for ourselves. You do have the power to change it and protect the ones you care about."

I saw T2 in the theater opening week. Those were the days

How can today's Hollywood destroy your favorite IP. Let's count the ways.

Apparently, the new Terminator was an idiot. While disguised as her father, it could have walked right up to her, given her a hug, then shredded her by turning its body into spikes and knives...but it decided to pull out a gun and try to shoot her from a distance. I mean, what's the point of a shapeshifting assassin that can perfectly mimic people if it is impatient and incompetent? It could have even waited until she got home, it wasn't in danger of losing her. Also, the killing John thing. The 1st movie said they sent one Terminator back in a last minute and desperate attempt to win, John sent back one human to stop it. The 2nd movie said "oops, Skynet sent back two Terminators, and that was kind of believable and we went with it. Now we are to believe that they missed a third one (and later even more) that was also sent to kill young John. That is too much of a stretch, and completely garbage writing.

James Cameron is the Vince McMahon of filmmaking. He used to be a mad genius, but now he’s just a madman.

I'm guessing I'm the only one who liked T3. It could never match the expectations placed on it, but it was a fun diversion.

thats easy.. they killed john connor in the first 10 minutes.. the whole dang series revolves around john... until now

They made Arnie into the Termineighbor! "Come with me if you want a bratwurst"

She has to fully extend her arm to reach the rifle lmao

From Terminator 1 to T2, we get to see Sarah Connor go from meh to amazing, not because she was born that way, but our of necessity. It instills the idea that the viewer could and would step up, just like Sarah Connor did.

The first two are amazing. Part 3 not as good but still enjoying it. 4 was ambitious but decent. Genesis and Dark Fate could have never happened. Just me.

The problem with all new Terminators is they removed the horror aspect of it, it's not an action story, it's about a nearly unstoppable killing machine doing anything and killing anyone in order to kill the protagonist, it's essentially a horror monster movie, even in Terminator 2 which is more action orientated but still kept that horror aspect

Eloquently put as always Dave. And as I was listening it struck me the same argument could be made for Prey, the recent Predator movie. Historically the Plains Indians protected their women, keeping them at home while the men went out to hunt and fight, you know the dangerous life threatening jobs. Why? Because they knew the future of the tribe depended on the women staying alive to bear warriors to protect the tribe. But the women had important work too, they were the healers, food gathers, they made the weapons the men fought with, they set up and broke down the camp if they had to move. But Prey, instead, does exactly what Dave says here, they make the female protagonist change from her set path of being a woman in the tribe to being instead a male warrior in the tribe. Going again centuries of tradition for no reason other than, and I believe she actually says this in the movie, to prove she is better than the men.

This is review is a very accurate and critical analysis about the Terminator's saga downfall. Well done.

That “gender studies course” was funniest thing I heard in this video 🤣🤣🤣 16:13

As a woman, I understand in movies when female protagonists become tough and strong out of necessity in their situation, like the T2 version of Sarah Connor, but they don't lose their feminine nurturing qualities. I feel this also describes me in a way. But I'm only forced to be strong and independent during though times when there is no strong and brave man that can help me, and I really wish for society to bring back the strong, brave, heroic virtuous men! But no, now society wants women to do and handle everything ourselves.

Would love to see you review Terminator Salvation (2009). That was a good entry and an underrated film. Salvation SHOULD have been Terminator 3, focusing on the Future War. It built on the foundation Cameron had established, respected the lore, and was not a cheap effortless retread of Judgement Day like Dark Fate, Genisys, and Rise Of The Machines were.

Seriously? He thought Arnold and Linda were the weak points? Not the work? Not that the two new female characters were cringe bad? Not that they kill off John Connor and have Sara rant anti female mother etc crap? Or even that the story was REALLY badly written? Hell Arnold as the terminator explaining his life, as intense about the proper curtains for a little girl as it would be about a tactical target, was the best part of the movie! The most memorable line in it was him explaining why he had so many lines. Ending with his, “..and we are in Texas.” Agree a movie focused on evolved older Arnold Terminator would be much better. I liked a lot of the plot arc twists in the TV show Terminator the Sara Connor chronicles.

It kinda sucks finding out in the terminator 2 movie the protecting of john connor was all for nothing. I guess after that scene it’s like : Well, that’s it then. 🙃 that’s the end.

You kinda made me see the original ending of T2 in a different light. I always preferred the one we got, darker but with a hint of hope instead of the cheesy "everything turned out alright" one, but seeing the original one as closure for Sarah makes it nicer.

👏 Thank you, as a currently pregnant woman I couldn’t agree more. But do you never ask yourself what the source of all this wokeness is? It definitely isn’t something that just occurred naturally, I’ll give you a hint: The Frankfurt School.

When Dani in a flashback/flashforward scene says "Fuck fate" my reaction was not "Oh, she's badass! I'm gonna follow her!". It was more akin to Sheldon Cooper's reaction to Bernardette trying to scold him "She's so tiny. It's funny when she's mad."

Wasn't it the whole point of Kyle coming back to save Sarah was that John showed a picture of his mom to Kyle and told him stories about how she was strong and brave and that was the reason he volunteered to go back and save her and to finally meet the legend of Sarah.

I love that in retrospec, Salvation wasn't that bad.

Excellent analysis! Thank you for standing up.

How is Carl, the Skynet Terminator, able to predict where and when Legion Terminators will arrive from the new future? A future that Carl knows nothing about?

Thanking my lucky stars that I ended the franchise at T2. Great insights, Dave!

What I would’ve done with Dark Fate, is making Dani the mother of Kyle Reece. The movie doesn’t have to take place in the modern day, the movie can take place a couple of years before Kyle could be born. The movie could recycle back and John can still exist, follow same timeline and still defeat Skynet.

Perfectly put!!! While "A lone wolf makes easy prey," a lone feline is Absolutely f*cked!

Why TDF failed?....They killed John Connor to replace him with Jane Connor. What's more to say? I didn't even finish watching this shit....when it became obvious that scared little girl will become the future Jane Connor, I stopped watching and deleted the film.

I realize how much our values evolve as we get older. The legacy we leave behind for our future generations becomes more of a priority. It’s not so much what I can get from life but rather what we can give to future lives. Dark Fate is well titled, a selfish portrait where you are the center and the future

Even Sarah Connor Chronicles series did it 99,9% better. Establishing a present-day war since the hellish future never happened, but the present-day was infested by Terminators. It had something like Dark Fate tried to feed from, the series had this secret backup sent to the past in case the prototypes failed. I remember some machines converted to human cause, while the others kept with the program (or not, but still helped the machines). Sarah overtook the central character to the "new future" very naturally, nothing woke, while John got outdated. He got over-protected (having to prove to his mighty mother he's ready even in a different future, eventually he finally finds his leadership) Sounds hard but for me it is very simple. Dark Fate failed because it simply wasn't natural at that. We always had a strong female character in the first two movies and series, why force crazy shit? This is not helping my cause, women or lgbt etc. because it is cringe and undermining the struggle.

That one scene where John gets terminated... If I saw that scene I'd discard the rest of the series automatically as it breaks the canon and entire logic of the movies.

Why? Because it sucked. Why? Because it retconned everything after T2 in the first five minutes of the movie, by killing John Connor.

Its funny how we keep hearing about toxic masculinity when it comes to men but when women do it it's celebrated

Really the only place the series had left to explore was the future war aspect, which we got a brief scene of in genesis but was way too short. I also wouldn't have minded a T-800 ending up being a father figure like was hinted at in T2, and we saw a tiny bit of in genesis, but again those ideas weren't explored much. Most of the problems with the new movies is that they just rehashed the first two terminator movies without adding much of significance.

Dave Cullen is a total badass

Linda and Arnold were the cinematic equivalent of clickbait for this rolling train wreck

Sounds like he threw the original stars under a bus to save face.

The last box office hit Linda Hamilton had was Dante's Peak back in 1995 and Arnold Schwarzenegger has hardly lit up the box office since his movie come back

The game Terminator Resistance should've been the third movie!

Thank you! This is the message we need to pass on to the next generation!

This movie died with John Connor.

I like to know how a terminator from a complete different timeline would know where terminators will appear and who they will target

The message seems to be that being a mother is a sign of weakness, taking a step down in order to raise a child is making a woman take a back seat when they could be the alpha figure instead. It misses the point of what Sarah’s role was in the original terminator franchise. How being a mother is the strongest role of all.

Genysis was rubbish, but at least I didn't get the impression that the filmmakers despised the franchise and its fans. I can't say the same for Dark Fate.

I agree the Terminator ended at the second movie. I haven't bothered watching any of the other Terminator movies after that.

The game released a few weeks after Dark Fate...Terminator Resistance was leagues above the movie, and felt like a decent thirt instalment...plus had a freaking awesome soundtrack.

I've seen a few videos of yours and generally like them and have now subscribed. A really passionate well structured piece from you. i've watched a few videos like this critiquing modern movies / writers but this one was pretty succinct. Great stuff.

Imo, T3 contributed greatly to the franchise and doesn't deserved to be lumped with the movies that followed. First it closed the time travel paradox introduced by T2. If T3 didn't fix things T1 couldn't happen. Second, it tells the story of Kate Brewster, and her rising from animal vet to 2nd in command of the resistance. I really liked her story arc. T3 isn't as strong as T2, but I really liked it.

I think terminator 3 added plenty. It's the weakest of the three and is a little too silly but adding in Kate Brewster and the military connection, the virus attack, and the bomb shelter twist was a great way to end the series. Judgement day happened, it really was inevitable and by happening, Reese and the other terminators are able to go back in time in the first place. It brings it full circle. Adding in Kate as his future wife, and by extention connecting John to her general father in charge of developing skynet, helps explain why John defeats skynet in the first place. It does "downgrade" him but it takes him from "fallout jesus" to a more realistic "first among many". He doesn't single handedly save the world, he has his wife's support, her father's insight, his mother's training, and later even their children take up the cause. I just think 3 should be included on the right side of the line that's drawn between a coherent terminator franchise and the mess it is today.

Let me tell you the definition of insanity... Those people make same shit, again and again, then it fails and they go out of their way to avoid mentioning one common element that all of those movies have, as reason for failure.

Ahhhh. The Cullen Cut! Brilliant Dave, brilliant.

I didn't want to see a Terminator movie where Grandpa goes to Mexico

Soon as I heard about the John Connor thing, I pretty much bailed on this one, so to this day, I still haven't seen Dark Flop. Very much doubt that I will at this point. Also, could have sworn I detected a Pale Blue Dot reference mixed in here somewhere. Might have just been my imagination, though.

I think Cameron's had it anyway. Watching the typically fawning media critics calling the new Avatar movie a snooze fest, and then considering the amount of money it has to pull just to break even, I don't think anyone is going to be in a rush to put him in charge anything in the near future. But who knows. Hollywood is full of stupidity these days.

John Conner was hacking an ATM as a kid. he already had talent... what did she have? nothing to begin with.

The most interesting question that No one asked is: how the FFFF did Arnolds terminator found Sara and John in freaking post revolution Guatemala. How did they continue to send those freaking terminators if we established that SkyNet was over. If it was over, were the old Terminator came from??? They prevented that future. It was a classic chicken and egg loop that was closed in the second movie. Terminators 3,4 and 5, were just silly. But this ....this is really new level of stupid.

LGBT 9000

The franchise ended with Terminator 2: Judgment Day. James Cameron and William Wisher wrote the script with the intention of leaving no option for a sequel. Turns out their ending wasn't good enough to prevent more movies from being made. I like to pretend those movies never happened. They are not in my headcanon.

This is the same Tim Miller that got kicked out of the latest Deadpool movie. T1, T2, and Terminator Salvation are where the franchise ends for me. Same with Alien. The first movie, Aliens, and YES ALIEN COLONIAL MARINES the pc game is where it ends for me as well.

Even without killing off John and the ongoing stupidity of "go to this movie that hates you or we'll accuse you of sexism", "Terminator" had long ago degenerated from any kind of even tenuously plausible storyline to a big game of "Nuh-uh" "Uh-huh". "I send back a machine to kill your leader's mother!" "Well, I send back our leader's father to protect her!" "Well, I send back a more advanced machine to kill your leader as a boy!" "Well, I send back a reprogrammed machine to protect him!" "Well, I send back an even more advanced machine to kill him as an adult!" "Well, I send back another reprogrammed machine to protect him!" "...How many of those do you have?" "How many advanced versions of the machine do *you* have? And why didn't you send one of those, first?" "Shut up. Well, uh, I... turn a human being into a machine, and send him after the resistance!" "...And for some reason, you gave him all the killer-machine strengths, but no way of actually controlling him." "Nuts. Uh... Nanomachines! I take over your leader with nanomachines!" "Again, why didn't you do that first... 'Kay, fine, *another* reprogrammed machine." "A different version of me sends back a machine that kills your leader as a boy! No takebacks!" "Fine! I send back another part-machine to protect a new leader!" "I send back a machine... *before* I even discover time-travel technology!" "How does that make any sense?" "Excuse me? When did we set rules saying this had to make any sense?" "Okay, I send back a purple android unicorn with the magic of love..."

T1 and T2 are the true Terminator films and that ending when she is a grandmother and living with a smile on her face should've been the true ending.

Short answer : Because it was ... Terminator : Dark Fate

1:50 This is what Hollywood has done for decades. They have a “script” as to what they should say about a movies failure. Instead of owning up and saying “You know what the direction sucked, the writing sucked, etc.” they give out some circumstancial reason. “Oh the actors were too old, I guess audiences just aren’t ready for such & such, nobody was interested in this genre anymore.” It can never be that they just made a sub par movie. That’s fine, not every single one can be bangers.

Boom. Lots of truth-bombs and thought-grenades set off in this, especially towards the end. Well done, sir!

You could even argue T2 was unnecessary. T1 was a complete film, and the story could have ended with Reese sacrificing himself so John could be born. T2 was a near carbon copy of the original. But Cameron did what he did best (at that time), which was to make the franchise more popular on a bigger budget.

I might be in the minority here but I Liked Terminator 3 rise of the machines and found it added a lot to the series as it all came around full circle and showed that fate cant be changed. I got chills at the end of it when they asked who was in charge of the shelter John Conner was in and he said " I am" and it pans out and you see their hopelessness as it all happens I found it was a good round out to a trilogy

Great analysis, as always 👍🏽

The Terminator was arguably a science fiction film, although it had strong action elements, and films that might have been science fiction have subsequently developed into the action films we see today. True science fiction films are almost non-existent now, they don't really deal with thoughtful themes and situations, or strange ideas - except for woke messaging - they seem to exist to provide a fantasy framework for action, stunts, gratuitous violence and explosions.

Moral of the story: Terminator: Resistance is the third Terminator film and it can also be looked at as a prequel to Terminator 1.

Never knew about that T2 ending pretty sick. I still think the idea that it didn't matter what they did the war was still going to happen could have been done very well.

It's Lesbinator the Woke Fate

In the alternate ending of T2, John has a daughter. If they wanted a new *female* hero to save the day, why couldn't they just let it be *her?!*

"I'm gonna stand and FIIIGGHHHT!"

Love the review thank you for your content as always.

well said Dave, never agreed with a critique and analysis of a movie so much as this.