Terminator: Dark Fate: Almost Great (Spoilers)

[Yukaphile]

With your logic, with merely two movies, it's not a franchise. Even with the third movie, it'd just be a trilogy.

[Mecha82]

This franchise has been dead for a long time now, even ignoring my own reevaluation of T2 for a while now.

Terminator didn't die, it resolved its story with T2, which is a good example of a sequel because it naturally built from the first film, yet it's resolution left no way for continuance.

Indeed. They saved humanity in T2 by making they own fate. Then T3 come along and undid all that.

[Yukaphile]

So, your guys' headcanon is the Terminator Duology. Got it. I consider T3 on par with T2. Fun, mindless eye candy, little more.

[Beastro]

That story was already closed with T1. It was a stable time loop. The logical story to tell was a future war story done properly, not building off the flaws of T2 and T3. And making time travel be the last battle that both sets it off and concludes it.

Oh T2 is open to criticism and did open the Pandora's Box, but it works well enough to be forgiven for that. The problem is it was one note to the end of a song and the only note that could be added without fucking up the song. All others have either been a repetition of that same note or simply badly done Salvation as a premise, that is going into the future to see the war, would have worked establishing it as a continuation of T1 rather than continuing on from T3.

[Winter]

If Winter likes the movie then that's good sign that it's worth time and money to go to watch. Based on that DF is actually good attempt to give franchise 3rd entry.

Thank you for the complement?

[Beastro]

So, your guys' headcanon is the Terminator Duology. Got it. I consider T3 on par with T2. Fun, mindless eye candy, little more.

It has nothing to do with head canon.

I look on T2 the same why I look on Aliens: It's a wonderful sequel and a good example of a sequel done well, but that doesn't mean it's without flaws. Both have plenty, but I appreciate what they added on more than what they detracted from.

T2 leaves the time paradox unresolved, as John Conner should now not exist, because preventing the end of the world wasn't the point of the original; Aliens reduces the closest thing to a modern mythological archetype, a living embodiment of chaos that is more alien than any real extraterrestrial because it's symbolically embodying alienness itself, into an hive colony creature little different than many earth insects robbing it of it's mysterious, lethal and unpredictable nature.

The issue I have with both ultimately is the precedent they set, not exactly them on their own due to their quality. They added an "and" into the stories of the previous movies that left it open for others to continue to push more "ands" in turning both into a tired, run on sentence.

[Yukaphile]

I don't consider it added anything more, tbh. I used to love T3 despite fan complaint. Now I see T2 is fundamentally no different. People act as if T2 is better, but what new it adds is not enough to overcome an illogical repeat. As I've said, Back to the Future always had nonsense time travel, and Palpatine building a second Death Star was consistent to his character, and his overall insanity (do the same thing expecting a different result). T2 is different from them in being an illogical repeat. Basically it's just an extended "deleted scenes" from T1 Cameron seemed pissed about, that even he admits to. Because it resolves nothing past saving the world a bit sooner, and adding more plot holes than it solves, because Reese should have known about the second Terminator. And if you're going to break a clear time loop in favor of the writers' intended version of time travel, then you need intelligence, and this just did not have it. Explain that it's an alternate timeline, and that the Resistance learned after sending Reese back about Skynet's plans, and responded accordingly before nuking the place. But then, since the Terminator part was responsible for Skynet's creation, that's itself a paradox you cannot overcome. How the hell was it created in the "original" timeline? This film just CANNOT stand up under logical scrutiny while T1 does.

[Simplicius]

I'm with Yuka. T1 was a genuinely great film with a satisfying causal loop. T2 is well-made, sure, but it's a typical sequel; playing out the plot of the first film with a pointless twist.

T1: Stable Time Loop (Bootstrap Paradox Notwithstanding)
T2: Judgement Day Averted
T3 & T4: Judgement Day Actually Not Averted
T5: Judgement Day Made Worse? (Very Confusing)
T6: Judgement Day Averted But Actually A New Judgement Day Is Coming

Hooray?

[Yukaphile]

Oh, btw, Winter, didn't see your comment. But yeah, I tend to think like Chuck. If something brings somebody joy, that's great. It was meant to be a compliment. We could all use more happiness in the world. So yeah, if you genuinely like even a small part of this, and it's helped your life in some small way, that's a good thing.

That said, I'm still free, like Chuck had said, to own the feelings these create in me. And while I like T2, again, I just consider it like T3. Fun eye-candy, nothing more. The lengths some people (not pointing fingers at anyone on this forum, mind you) will go to in order to insist that T2 has "depth" while T3 has none is amazing to me, because any such depth was superficial, at best, and would have made a far more interesting and near flawless story elsewhere, like exploring Skynet's creator as it comes online and starts the machine war, ending the movie with Kyle Reese being sent back in time. And seems vast majority of people will defend remaking T1 into T2, because... well, far as I can tell, it's the same mindset went into defending the Legends decanonizing. They should not be "beholden" to what came before, but... with that logic, should Harve Bennett and Nicolas Meyer just reboot the movie once they got control? No, they showed respect to the past, and examined the past.

[Mecha82]

Important difference between T2 and T3 is that T2 is really well made movie and among best movie sequels in history while T3 is neither. T3 is just attempt to do another sequel while following same beats as T2 while doing those worse. No wonder Linda Hammilton didn't want to be in it after she learned that Sarah Connor would get killed in brief scene leading to us getting even worse solution of Sarah Connor having died off screen to decease between movies.