The renowned director, James Cameron, was hardly a blip on the Hollywood radar screen in 1984 when he pitched his screenplay for a science fiction/action movie called The Terminator. Fortunately the film got done, he got to direct it, Arnold Schwarzenegger landed the perfect role for him at the time (lots of muscle, little dialogue), and the rest is history. The low-budget film (a little over $6 million) grossed $78 million and was a critical success, reviews earning it a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It is also enshrined in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
BEST SEQUEL EVER?
The inevitable sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (aka T2), did not hit the screen till 1991 due to legal and technical issues. Arnie’s bad-guy Terminator, the cybernetic android from the first film, became a good-guy Terminator sent back in time to protect John and Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) from a new, bad-guy Terminator, the T-1000, a creature made out of liquid metal. The special effects were amazing for the time, and T2 proved to be a major hit. Some even called it the best sequel ever. (I don’t know; I’d have to make a case for Aliens, the sequel to Alien…)
For me, T2 proved the perfect ending to a great story that began in the first film. (Skip this paragraph if you’ve never seen it.) The scientist whose research led to the development of Skynet is killed while helping Arnie and the Connors destroy the technology (though they succeed in carrying this out), they kick the T-1000’s ass, they melt the arm and the CPU from the first Terminator, and Arnie is lowered into a vat of molten steel so that his own CPU cannot be accessed to develop Skynet. Sarah’s final voiceover offers hope for the future. As I said, a perfect ending.
BUT UH-UH, MORE SEQUELS
So how come there are four additional sequels in the Terminator franchise. Oh yeah, the money thing. With its (then) inflated budget of about $100 million, Terminator 2: Judgment Day grossed over $520 million, and that made a lot of producers extremely happy. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) follows a twenty-something John Connor riding his motorcycle aimlessly around the country after his mother’s death. He is apparently trying to avoid Skynet…but why? Didn’t they prevent its creation in T2?
Terminator: Salvation (2009) takes place primarily in the future, after Skynet has destroyed most of humanity. (Really?) John Connor (Christian Bale!) is dealing with becoming the great leader that his mother said he would be. This poorly reviewed film is noteworthy to me—in a heartbreaking way—by the appearance of the late Anton Yelchin as a young Kyle Reese, John Connor’s father.
Terminator: Genisys (2015) is a muddled mess of a timeline-changing plot that I won’t even try to explain. It was the worst-reviewed film in the franchise. But, of course, it made money (not all that much, by Hollywood standards), and so…
Senior citizens Sarah Connor and the original T-101 in Terminator: Dark Fate.
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) was notable in that it reunited Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger for the first time in twenty-three years. Supposedly this was a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, although I thought that was kind of a reach. It also sucked at the box office, so more sequels are doubtful. In any case, it was kind of fun to see senior citizens Sarah Connor and the old Terminator kicking ass once again.
Don’t get me wrong—I did not dislike any of the sequels. Action/science fiction movies are among my favorites, and since I’m easily entertained I found all of them watchable. My whole point is that after the initial two splendid movies, there was no more story to tell. Skynet never happened.