I caught Terminator: Genisys last week, I was going to write about it but I wanted to let it percolate in my brain.
It was.... weird. I'm a big fan of the first two movies, and I think both stand on their own as a satisfying two-part sci-fi epic. I actually quite enjoy the third film, it's a solid action flick and I think the ending is great. I know, people love the "No fate but what we make" mantra of the second film, but Judgement Day HAS to happen. As Arnie says: "Judgement Day is inevitable." T3 is a 7/10 film compared to the 10/10s that are the first two films, but it is a strong 7/10 and is a good capper to a trilogy.
Terminator Salvation was also pretty good. I liked that rather than reboot, they moved into the future and planned a future war trilogy of films. My only nitpick was yet another recast of John and a recast of Kate. The series was pretty consistent with actors up to this point, only recasting John Conner in T3 because Furlong was a druggie. Still the recast worked because we were jumping forward in time. The jump from 2004 to 2018 is a decent amount of time, but now it's adult to adult, so the change in actors is a little jarring. I wish they had the opportunity to make the next two movies as it would have been fun to see John Conner Bale send Kyle back to 1984 in the third film.
So Genisys... it's another one of those light reboots that the film industry is so hot for right now. Full of callbacks for long time fans, but enough newness to constitute a reboot. Problem is, Genisys not only reboots T3 and T4, but it also reboots the most beloved films of the series, T1 and T2. Now, to do this takes balls. The only way to succeed is to craft an even more compelling story. X-Men did this by erasing X3 and taking us back to the 70s/80s with several X-Men that fans loved. The films fans loved the most still could occur in the timeline, but they are not the focus.
Genisys, however, makes it clear that T1 and T2 and beyond did not occur in this dimension. That's right, there are now alternate dimensions in the franchise and Skynet aka the T-5000 can dimension hop. Who knows if he is from another timeline/dimension and invaded the original timeline/dimension of the series. Who knows... who cares. The filmmakers clearly didn't because I had to learn of this from interviews rather than the movie itself.
Once again we have a total recast, but this time they only acknowledge past actors by way of Arnold. The rest, like Linda Hamilton who was seen in photo form in T3 and T4, have now totally taken over this movie universe even going so far as to replicate the classic photo Kyle carries around. I get why they did this, as they recast Sarah Conner, but it is jarring. It's like if T3 showed a photo of young John and instead of Edward Furlong we saw a teenage photo of Nick Stahl. It was just weird. For a film that goes so far as to recreate scenes from T1 and recreate classic Arnold it was just off-putting to see a new Kyle, John, and Sarah take over. This will sound weird, but recasting Arnold's Terminator would have actually helped this film, as then it would have at least been a total reboot.
John Conner was an asshole. I did not like the actor they chose, and I did not like the direction they took John. From Furlong to Stahl to Bale worked pretty well, but then you get Jason Clarke whose face just does not match what I picture John Conner to look like (aside from the signature scars). Same goes for Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney. Just poor choices for Sarah and Kyle. I also hated how they rubbed the audiences faces in "Sarah is not a damsel in distress this time!". Sure Sarah was in the first T1, but she grew into this badass lady in T2. Linda Hamilton in T2 was far more badass than Emilia Clarke in Genisys. I don't care if she was raised by an aging T-800, I didn't buy it on screen. She looked like she was trying to be a strong woman, but she wasn't succeeding. Doesn't help that in the end *spoiler alert* she was like "I choose to let you boink me, Kyle.".
Oh god, and the mid-credits scene... I left when the credits rolled, but I later learned and saw on YouTube a mid-credits scene which shows *spoiler alert* Skynet didn't die and he has a glowing red ball thing. I guess they wanted to emulate Marvel with their Thanos teases, but instead it just makes the whole film for nothing. Genisys wants us to again believe that there is "no fate but what we make", yet that scene brings back the "Judgement Day is inevitable" notion. Which is it, Genisys!? T1 chose inevitable, T2 proposed no fate, T3 showed inevitable, T4 promised salvation. Now Genisys proposes this murky fate maybe but probably not.
Overall, I'd rate it a 5/10. It's a dumb summer movie and nothing more. My preferred Terminator timeline is T1, T2, T3, T4, Dawn of Fate video game, and loop back to T1. Genisys is a goofy, occasionally fun piece of what if fanfiction and nothing more to me.
