Terminator: Genesis

[Dai]

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]

[Henry88]

[metal_bryan]

[jellydonut25]

[The Real McCoy]

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]

[jellydonut25]

I care so little about Terminator...

[MekaGojira3k]

[jellydonut25]

I still like Terminator and T2...but I just don't care what they do with the property anymore. There's nothing I particularly want to see with the franchise at all. I feel like the first two films kinda did everything I'd want them to do, and if that weren't enough, the third film did the only other thing you really could have wanted to see.

Everyone CLAIMS they want to see the future war but...do you really? You know how it's gonna end, and we've seen enough glimpses into the future through the first two films.

[klen7]

I think the world of Terminator has a lot of potential but it is greatly handicapped by refusing to move away from John Conner and family. 3rd and 4th film were guilty of this and it sounds like the reboot will be as well. This is one of those instances where an extended universe would offer a lot more than the established characters will.

[Hybrid Gojira]

[mr.negativity]

[jellydonut25]

that article doesn't answer my biggest question: who the hell is Jai Courtney?

[mr.negativity]

Arnold reveals his robot will age; and there's more than one of him.

[mr.negativity]

Variety:

The studio has dated “Terminator 2″ for May 19, 2017, and “Terminator 3″ on June 29, 2018.

THR:

The two films will be filmed back to back, provided Genisys works, according to insiders.

[Benjamin Haines]

That seems incredibly presumptuous for a reboot that hasn't even come out yet.

The Terminator series thus far has consisted of four movies spread out across 25 years. Now Paramount is rebooting the franchise and already planning to have a third movie in theaters just three years after the upcoming film opens? That's insane. Are they really expecting their Terminator: Genisys to be a substantially bigger hit than Sony's Robocop (2014) or Total Recall (2012)?

[Dai]

It's nothing new. As I recall, Salvation was also planned as the first part of a trilogy. These plans can vanish in a puff of smoke if the movie doesn't perform at the box office. Personally, I would have preferred the Salvation sequels. It was a far more enjoyable movie than T3.

Relying on Arnie as a crutch to prop up this franchise is as much of a mistake as trying to concoct ways to keep Sigourney Weaver in the Alien movies. At a certain point, the improbability of that actor still being in that scenario warps the plot around it to breaking point. I'll be happy if Team Genisys can prove me wrong, but let's not forget that this is the director who brought us Thor: The Dark World, the weakest Marvel movie since Hulk.

[Benjamin Haines]

Alan Taylor strikes me as something of a studio stooge, the kind of director that producers hire to realize their own collective vision without raising a fuss or injecting his own unique style, similar to Joe Johnston. I really don't expect Terminator: Genisys to be any less contrived or vanilla than Thor: The Dark World, which is to say it will probably be a fun piece of entertainment fluff that's completely unmemorable and doesn't inspire repeat viewings.

Everything about this rebooted Terminator approach just seems wrong to me, right down to the basic fact that they're rebooting goddamned Terminator of all things.

You're right about Terminator: Salvation being intended as the first in a trilogy. I think that was why that film's plot was so insubstantial compared to what could have been. It could have been a complete showcase of the war between humanity and the machines, culminating in the final battle of the war and the victory to which John Connor leads humanity. Instead it was a thrilling but ultimately inconsequential story set during the early part of the war, an obvious attempt at setting the stage for further sequels without justifying its own existence. The filmmakers held back because they expected to drag the premise out to three movies, and while Salvation was no bomb, it failed to hit the tremendous box office heights needed to recoup its ridiculously bloated budget. It's impossible to tell whether audiences would have been as lukewarm to Salvation had the filmmakers not held back, but had the movie gone all-out and audiences turned out in T2-level droves then there would have been nowhere to go with another sequel. It's like the chicken-egg dilemma played out on a blockbuster franchise.

I get the impression that Paramount is getting even more ahead of themselves with this intended reboot trilogy than The Halcyon Company did when they produced Salvation. We've already seen what this kind of approach can lead to and they aren't giving the impression that they know what they're doing by keeping the focus on Arnold Schwarzenegger. If they think his casting is so integral to the audience's perception of the Terminator series as iconic, then why are they even making this a rebooted continuity? Why not just make this Terminator 5 if they're still going to be plastering Ahnuld's face on the poster?

[tbeasley]

What I've seen of Taylor's Game of Thrones work is pretty strong and I quite liked his Thor sequel. If anything I found it visually stronger than the first film although the humor was really forced in places (especially during the final showdown). So I at least can expect this to turn out better than the last two Terminator flicks even if it's still a little wonky in places.

[Gman2887]

^Agreed. I don't think it's entirely fair to judge directors who have only done Marvel movies-- All of those films are producer based flicks with strict do and do nots lined up so nothing can obstruct the general continuity of the universe. There just isn't a whole lot of creative freedom amongst those films. Granted, Terminator 5 seems like a similar situation, but Taylor is quite talented. And smart. He's using established franchises to climb the latter and he's likely doing the best that's given to him at the moment.

I'm not expecting much from Terminator 5 either, but I can't condemn Taylor this early in his blockbuster feature career-- Nor can I compare him to someone like Johnston who has been at it for much longer. His work in Game of Thrones was really something else, he's got a fantastic visual eye and if he can continue to be successful he may perhaps have more power over his own features. Until then he's at the mercy of studios looking at him as a relatively young director.

[klen7]

Trailer for this is out... it seems like most of the special effects looked better 23 years ago.. i'm also becoming convinced that Jai Courtney is franchise poison

[MekaGojira3k]

Meh. I'll probably check this out much later, but I'm not going to see this in a theater unless I am incredibly bored.