Well, if you’re going to reignite excitement over a franchise that I’d struggle to still call a franchise at this point this trailer is the way to do it. Taking the cliche tactic of playing a slow, dramatic cover of a song over an action movie to make it seem deeper the first trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate actually pulls it off really well. It’s also awesome that the entire thing focuses not on Arnold Schwarzenneger, but on Linda Hamilton and the new half-human(?) Grace, played by Mackenzie Davis. This is their movie, not the T-800’s, and that’s awesome because we’ve tried to make it about Arnold and that hasn’t been working.
If you’re trying to fit this thing into the timeline of the entire Terminator story you should stop. This film completely ignores anything that happened since the second movie as James Cameron is looking to reboot the franchise he created. That means no confusing Matt Smith cameos, no complicated time rewriting, and no Christian Bale in the future. All that crap is gone in favor of Linda Hamilton once again blasting away T-1000s like a god damn bad ass. Seriously, the woman knows how to make an entrance. If you need some in universe reason for this happening it’s pretty simple: time travel. That’s a great excuse to wipe out whatever you want and start over and Terminator has it built right in.
Now, as far as the film actually looks from this teaser it seems to be all about the action. With Deadpool director Tim Miller helmming the movie that makes perfect sense, but it does give a slight bit of concern since he hasn’t really directed much outside of the Merc With A Mouth. Still, Cameron is keeping a watchful eye on this one and, man, do the action teases we get in this looking incredible. It kind of feels like they watched a Fast and Furious movie and then said, “but what if it had robots from the future?” I am 100% on board for answering that question.
The only other big reveal might be the hint that the opening dialog and film’s name give. It seems that the movie is taking place post-Judgement Day, meaning it did occur. That makes sense given the wiping of the timeline, but will be interesting to see just how apocalypticthe world is going to be.
Terminator: Dark Fate will open wide on November 1, 2019.
Here’s the official plot synopsis:
Welcome to the day after Judgment Day. Producer James Cameron returns with director Tim Miller for Terminator: Dark Fate. Linda Hamilton (“Sarah Connor”) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (“T-800”) return in their iconic roles in Terminator: Dark Fate, directed by Tim Miller (Deadpool) and produced by visionary filmmaker James Cameron and David Ellison. Following the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator: Dark Fate also stars Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, and Diego Boneta.
A new poster also dropped yesterday, which just reaffirms that this is Hamilton’s film, not anyone else’s. You can check it out below.
