The Terminator series started as the story about a woman with a terrible destiny. That’s how most prophetic narratives work, after all. But after the sequel, filmmakers seemed to forget that. They made new movies in which that woman was dead, or her son took center stage surrounded by men, or she was played by Emilia Clarke for some reason. Every single film past Judgment Day forgot that the Terminator series was meant to be one thing—a moment in time when a singular woman had the power to save the world.
Terminator: Dark Fate is a renewal of faith in that story. And it is a beautiful thing to witness.
[Major spoilers for Terminator: Dark Fate]
Dark Fate starts right out by destroying its elephant in the room. We find out that, following the events of Judgment Day, after Sarah Connor saved the future with the help of an oddly friendly Terminator, another one arrived on the scene—looking exactly like the protective Model 101 they came to trust—and blew her son away. She may have saved humanity, but in the end she couldn’t save John. She couldn’t protect the one person who was meant to be her entire life’s purpose.
It’s hard to understate how seismic that move is. The announcement at San Diego Comic-Con this year led fans to believe that John Connor’s role in this new tale would be somehow more significant, surprising everyone with the knowledge that he would be present at all. But they hyped his return only to murder him in the opening moments of the movie. This is a glaring message to anyone who was perhaps hoping it was his turn to take up the mantle: This is not John Connor’s story. In point of fact, it never was.
And in any case, his death was over two decades ago. Now there is a new threat and a new mission: another AI rising that goes by the name of Legion and is after a woman named Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes). An augmented human called Grace (Mackenzie Davis) has been sent to protect her, though she’s determined to keep a lid on the future she’s trying to protect and why she must save Dani in particular. It’s no time at all before they run into Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who helps them because all she’s done since John’s death is fight Terminators on mysterious tips from an unknown source that signs each communique “For John”. Sarah is bitter, alienated, known the world over as some kind of rabid criminal. But she knows this story because she used to have the starring role. Her special messages come from the same source that Grace got tattooed on her ribs by her superiors, so they head to Loredo, Texas to find it.
The premise is simple enough, but it cannot effectively communicate what it means to see the Terminator film series own up to its true power and amplify it tenfold. This is a sci-fi action film centered on not one, but three women. Each of them is unique, each of them is important, and each of them is permitted a complete arc that highlights their strengths and vulnerabilities. Sarah can barely contain her disgust for what’s happening to Dani, the assumed mother of another key to the resistance. She already knows what it feels like to be reduced to her status as a bearer of some sort of future messiah, and how being reduced to that status doesn’t make being a savior better or more meaningful. All those years running and hiding have allowed her to save the world over and over, but it doesn’t allow her anything real to hang onto. She drinks each night until she blacks out. She’s forgetting what her son ever looked like. There’s no home base for her, no friends or family to make the purpose bearable.
Then there’s Grace, whom Davis infuses with such intensity and power that she’s frequently hypnotizing. No one else so seamlessly melds intimidation with intense devotion. Grace’s body has been tuned and enhanced for her mission, but she’s still human, and with that humanity come certain limitations. Her body breaks down and requires medicines to bring her back to fighting shape. So, all of her power still requires her to be exposed, to both Dani and Sarah, in order to continue protecting Dani. We get the enjoyment of watching Grace do so many of the things that only Terminators can do, but this time with all the humanity attached, all the prickly emotions and entanglements that brings.
Reyes’s portrayal of Dani is stunning, as we’re forced to reckon with a new woman thrust into Sarah’s old position as Most Important Woman in the World. But Dani’s life isn’t like Sarah’s—before the Rev-9 arrives and destroys her life, she is already responsible for taking care of everyone in her orbit. She has a father and brother to protect, a job at a factory that is intent on replacing people with machines. Sarah Connor’s destiny seemed to come out of nowhere, but with Dani, we see a woman already deeply committed to looking out for others, fighting for them, demanding better of them. Dani Ramos doesn’t have the luxury of partying through her twenties with no perceived direction. Though the terms of her life are not quite so bombastic before a Terminator shows up, she was already operating with the wisdom and forceful purpose of someone twice her age and experience.
All three of Dark Fate’s focal characters have particular ways in which they embody a truth that women know the world over—they are each expected to give and give of themselves until they have nothing left. And then they are expected to give more. Batteries at zero? Power up and keep moving. Family murdered in front of you? There isn’t time to mourn. Spent the last three decades saving humanity? That’s sweet, but there’s still more to do. There is no rest for these women. No scheduled reprieves to remind themselves that they’re human, or comforts to make going along a little easier. But they don’t seem to notice that they never get a break because that’s the default they’ve always operated under.
Sure, Schwarzenegger shows up and gets his own heroic arc. He’s living as “Carl”, and he’s the same T-800 that killed Sarah’s son all those years ago, though he managed to grow a conscience and tried to give Sarah purpose by telling her where new threats would emerge. But the film lets his character work in service of Sarah’s story, and Dani’s, not the other way around. He’s their glorified bodyguard, arriving at just the right time to enable not only the narrative, but the emotional bonds these women end up making with each other. He’s a very fun means to that end.
Dark Fate has politics in play that are extremely relevant to this exact moment in time, and it smartly doesn’t shy away from them. A hefty portion of the film’s action is dedicated to a perilous cross at the U.S./Mexican border, one which sees Dani, Sarah, and Grace caught and placed in holding pens while the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) hunts them down. Grace is injured and taken for medical attention, and when she wakes and demands to know where the prisoners are being kept, one of the guards tries to correct her by saying “detainees”—Grace isn’t having it. The fact that the film devotes so much focus to the concept of the new world savior being kept in a cage (and almost killed) for crossing a border illegally is something the audience must engage with. The fact that said savior is also a Mexican woman who spends much of the film speaking Spanish is equally important. These elements only add to Dark Fate’s relevance as a story, making it more grounded than ever.
The film’s action sequences and special effects are all excellent, and with them comes a visual theme that is rarely found in movies; because Terminator: Dark Fate is a story centered on three women, the action sequences are constantly rotating around the ways in which they interact, but more explicitly on how they protect one another. Almost every fight or battle inevitably involves some form of close-up with these women holding onto each other, covering one another, shielding each other with their bodies. It is hard to describe how powerful and moving that is when it’s so uncommon to what we see on screen.
And the end of the film that begins with the death of John Connor takes this one choice step further. Terminator: Dark Fate is about Dani Ramos, and it’s about her bond with Grace, and it’s about a renewal of purpose for Sarah Connor. Because Dani isn’t really Sarah—she doesn’t give birth to a leader, she is the leader. It’s fairly obvious that this reveal is coming right from the beginning, but it matters because it reframes the entire Terminator series around the woman who drove it from the start. Sarah Connor wasn’t special because she gave birth to John Connor. The leader of humanity’s resistance was never going to be one special man because that conceit is ridiculous. There are other leaders all around us, and the person who keeps back the monsters is whoever steps up to take the mantle. Sarah Connor already did that. She did it with every action she took. The gift of Dark Fate is its decision to prevent her from facing that destiny alone. Is this theme a little on the nose, at times? You bet. But it doesn’t wrestle one inch of power away from that choice.
It would have been so easy to make a movie that was Sarah Connor’s Last Hurrah. But Terminator: Dark Fate is anything but lazy. Then again, it’s the next chapter in a story founded on the power of Sarah Connor… so it had a lot to live up to. And it finally lived up to the challenge.
Emmet Asher-Perrin pretty much sobbed their way through this movie. You can bug him on Twitter, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
I saw the movie this weekend and really enjoyed it. This morning I read the news that the box office for the movie was poor. Despite all the critics saying good things about it.
Damn.
Maybe if we talk loudly enough about the movie, next weekend’s box office will be better?
I watched this yesterday and enjoyed it, too.
Or it means by trying to avoid the Skynet Judgement Day and her destiny, Sarah Connor may have made things worse for herself and possibly the world,. It seems Judgement Day is some kind d of fixed event in the human timeline, though the exact circumstances of how it happens are not.
I saw this film in a theatre that was probably not even half-full, on its opening weekend. That’s a shame, because it’s a fine action film and by far the best Terminator installment since T2. However, it doesn’t seem to have received very much promotion. One wonders why not.
@5 – You’re joking, right?
@6: About the advertising? I wasn’t, although from a search I see Variety reporting a huge ad buy, so I guess the advertising just wasn’t at all effective in reaching me. I saw essentially none. *shrug*
I was pretty disappointed in it, tbh. To me it was a retelling of the first two, nothing more, with some gimmicks thrown in. They could and should have done a lot more with it – for example, an exploration of how the attempt to kill Dani the girl creates the successful warrior. No need for another machine v machine scenario – this was interesting in T2 because one of the machines was learning to be human, while the other was flawed by the ability to become angry, also T2 really showed us Sarah as more than capable of rising to the occasion when the stakes get high, but never quite losing touch with her essential humanity.
This film gave us none of that, and we don’t get to “know” Dani the way we do Sarah from T1, to feel like we could easily have been Sarah. I’m not sure why, but the true magic was there for T1 and T2, and almost completely absent from this one.
@7 – Dark Fate was everywhere. Countless commercials, web ads, talk shows, etc.
It sucked. No tension no internal conflict no heart no mouthwatering action rehash plot.
Fuck sake its an example of overall bad storytelling and how Hollywood can hardly come up with original live action sifi/fantasy IPs anymore.
If it ain’t horror comedy or drama then its a remake but often worst or an adaption.
Sigh
I just saw that because of the disappointing box office returns the studio is already saying it now has no plans for the planned trilogy they had announced earlier. Seems a bit fast of them but whatever. I believe this is now the third or fourth Terminator movie to make such plans then abandon them. Maybe best to keep your plans secret until after the movie is actually released, guys. Don’t jinx it.
I have to agree with @@@@@ 8.
To be honest the movie lost me within the first 5 minutes. Call it what you want, I’ll get into that in a minute, but killing off John like it did is a story telling trope that I can’t stand. It reminds me of Alien 3. When that movie killed off Newt and Hicks, again within the first few minutes of the film, that movie was dead to me. It didn’t matter how much I like Ellen Ripley or how much I like David Fincher as a director there was nothing that movie could do to save it after that.
I won’t call what they did to John a fridging since that trope is specific to women characters but if we were to gender swap the situation with John as a woman and Sarah as a man everyone on the internet would be up in arms over how the movie fridged the female John.
As for the rest of the movie, I figured out the two big twists way before the reveals. As soon as Sarah said she was receiving mysterious texts I knew it was the terminator that killed John and while Grace was telling the story of why the new terminator wanted Dani dead I knew it was because she was the resistance leader, despite what Sarah said.
And while there were some decent action sequences, there was nothing that we haven’t already seen, and done better IMHO, in T2.
It’s curious that last year’s Halloween reboot-remake-sequel was a huge hit but this Terminator is a flop. Are audiences just tired of these darned time-traveling robots? Or is it too close to the box that Halloween already checked so recently? Too much been there, done that.
The reviews I’ve seen/read have been completely negative in terms of it being a TERMINATOR movie because of offing John in a giant f you to the fans of the first two movies. Right up there with Grumpy Old Luke Skywalker dying. Those that see it as an action movie have been okay with it. Bad word of mouth has also been strong enough to keep away fans of the other movies. Keep putting out bad movies in a franchise, and, eventually, even the the diehards will stop buying tickets.
I suspect there are too many reboots/revivals/prequels/squels/etc. Too much greed from the entertainment executives. The public just got tired of being sold over and over the same stories and faces.
I think its box office trouble has everything to do with all the spurts and starts and missteps since T2. I haven’t been able to follow the timeline at all since then, and gave up trying. I still don’t know if I’m supposed to ignore the other sequels, where does the tv series start in, is this like a T3 reboot? or what? Too confusing to be interesting.
I appreciate what Emily’s saying, just wish it took place in a better vehicle.
Part of the problem of this movie is that it doesn’t answer a question anyone might have had. The original Terminator had the grandfather paradox conundrum: Leader from the future sends his best fighter back in time to save his mother and become his father. Pregnant Sarah Connor heading off into the desert to raise John to become the savior of humanity raised the question of what that would be like: Raising a son knowing the apocalypse is coming, being the son told you’ll be the savior of humanity. We see the result: Sarah is locked up, John becomes rebellious. The grandfather paradox rears its head again — Skynet is going to exist because pieces of the terminator it sent back in time are going to be used to to make it. The driving plot of the movie is to destroy the pieces of the terminator to prevent that loop from ever starting; it’s the inverse of the first movie.
What’s left as an open question for Sarah and John? How do you live life on the run from the authorities after averting armageddon?
Dark Fate doesn’t do much with that setup other than to remix set pieces from the first two movies. What makes factory worker Dani the future savior of humanity? Because future Dani sends Grace back in time to tell her that she is. (Might have have made more sense for her to be a gritty cartel drug smuggler.)
The impulse to include Schwarzenegger as a killer robot turned interior decorator also adds a needless silliness to the middle of the movie; who can believe Sarah effing Connor wouldn’t have tracked down the machine that killed her son?
In other words, what you’re saying is that the Terminator series failed because it tried to do something different when it should have been telling the same story over and over again?
When did the Terminator series try to do something different? I suppose Salvation might count because it had no time travel, but these things always amount to roughly the same: an evil robot chasing people into an industrial set piece so it can be destroyed. Then something something hope for the future and roll credits.
The fact of the matter is there was never enough here to carry a film series. T2 worked because it was a big budget remake of the first movie. But you can only get away with that novelty once.
I quite enjoyed the first half of Dark Fate. Hamilton put in a solid performance, and Davis’ character was interesting and well-played. From the moment the old Terminator is introduced, though, it becomes ridiculous, and by the end of the movie I was hoping that they never make another one.
One of the things I found most galling about the movie was apparently something that the author of this article appreciated: “Sarah can barely contain her disgust for what’s happening to Dani, the assumed mother of another key to the resistance. She already knows what it feels like to be reduced to her status as a bearer of some sort of future messiah, and how being reduced to that status doesn’t make being a savior better or more meaningful”.
Maybe that’s what Emmet Asher-Perrin thinks of Sarah Connor, having watched three movies after T2 in which that character was dead, (though one could argue that the early training she provided John, not to mention that convenient weapons cache she left for them in T3, is what allowed him to survive and become the messiah) but it’s not what the character Sarah Connor in Dark Fate should think of herself. This Sarah Connor was never reduced to just the “bearer of some future messiah”.
In the first Terminator, Kyle Reese venerates Sarah Connor. He states that he volunteered for the mission to go back in time and save her because, “It was a chance to meet the legend: Sarah Connor … taught her son to fight, organize, prepare, from when he was a kid”. Later in the scene, he gives her a memorized message from her future son: “Thank you, Sarah, for your courage through the dark years”.
And then, in T2, Sarah Connor, helped by her son and a re-programmed Terminator, succeeded in destroying SkyNet, saving, as she states in Dark Fate, 3 Billion lives. So, at what point did this character lose all value except for her womb, and why would she assume, incorrectly, that Dani’s only value is her womb? In the original, she was a legend who gave birth to the savior, despite danger and hardship, and trained him to be the leader of the resistance that saved humanity. And in T2 she became the savior, or one of them, who helped to destroy skynet herself, by her own heroism, saving 3 billion lives. In short, this Sarah Connor was never reduced to anything, but is, by her own acknowledgement, a co-savior of 3 billion lives.
Those dialogues make no sense except as statements the movie writers wanted to make for the sake of making them, not because of any narrative logic. And perhaps it’s an important lesson to teach, that women can be heroes in their own right, not only through their children, but that lesson was taught in the first movie, back in 1984, and then even more strongly in the sequel in 1991, and far more clearly than anything in this uninspired, nonsensical installment of a tired, obsolete franchise.
20, Well said!
The Terminator franchise has often felt to me like a series of ads from the NRA (as soon as people learn about the robots from the future, they all start stockpiling the most powerful weapons they can get. Remember people: only guns can protect you!). This time on the other hand, it’s anti-Trump rhetoric that is served with the same lack of subtlety. Yes, the message is important. But doing it this way doesn’t help anyone.
22, When have action movies ever been subtle? I’m not sure there’s any other way to deal with killer robots hellbent on exterminating the human race, but it would be interesting to finally hear why they’re so hellbent on doing so. In between gunshots.
I saw it earlier in the week and did enjoy it quite a bit — it’s certainly better than anything since T2, and I admit the opening scene with John Connor did surprise me.
The first section — that highway chase especially — was first-rate. For my money, it did start to drag a bit in the back half, pretty much after they met Arnold. I couldn’t quite figure out why he had grown a conscience (or a beard, for that matter), and there was more CGI in the final battle than I really needed.
TBH, I kind of think it would’ve been better without him? At least in that role? Maybe a surprise appearance by Lance Henriksen in the cabin or something … Oh, well.
I just got back from the theater and I absolutely adored every minute of it. I saved this article to read until after I’d seen it. In the interest of full disclosure, I always felt the franchise was the story of Sarah Conner, and Sarah Conner could only be played by Linda Hamilton. I refused to see the other 3 movies in the franchise, and I don’t even know the plots. Nor do I care. Despite the presence of Summer Glau (Firefly/Serenity & Dollhouse), I refused to watch the series due to no Linda Hamilton. When Linda did 2 episodes of Lost Girl and had a short arc in Defiance, I was ecstatic. And Mackenzie! I became a huge fan of Mackenzie in the criminally underrated Halt and Catch Fire. She owned Black Mirror with San Junipero, and she did an extraordinary job channeling Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner 2049. Somehow Natalia Reyes held her own with the 2 other powerful women. The fact that she was Mexican, and working in a maquiladora factory where humans were about to be replaced by machines (hint, hint) was a perfect touch. 2 action set pieces (in the aircraft and underwater) were a bit over the top, but the rest of the action, including the climactic fight, was outstanding. Arnie was ancillary to the relationship among the women, and knew it, and didn’t try to hog the screen. It’s criminal that so few people are going to see it, although my 4:20 PM Sunday show on the 2nd weekend was nearly sold out. Reviews on imdb look like another 4chan men’s rights campaign to drag down the rating. I see the same thing happening with Batwoman. I don’t know if this affected the box office or not. They did the same thing with Wonder Woman, and that turned out to be a huge hit, so maybe they don’t have the influence that they think they have. I wish it had done better because I want more Linda Hamilton as Sarah Conner.