The Terminator saga is now 35 years old. Unfortunately, the series has gone from amazing to asinine in recent years. While Terminator: Salvation breathed new life into the legendary sci-fi franchise, Terminator: Genisys brought the whole thing to a screeching halt. But now that creator James Cameron has gotten back on board with an all new tale of time-traveling robots, is there reason to hope that the series has more to offer? We'll have to wait until Dark Fate hits theaters to see. In the meantime, we've compiled a list of all 6 of the series' theatrical releases to date and ranked them in order of artistic quality, entertainment value and plain ol' dopeness. Here they are:
6. Terminator: Dark Fate
5. Terminator: Genisys
Even the marketing for this bad decision was incompetent. The trailers gave away what should've been a surprise twist in the overall Terminator story. But that twist -- making John Connor a Skynet puppet -- is stupid anyway so it hardly matters. I couldn't even finish this bucket of dishwater.
4. Terminator: Rise of the Machines
Rise of the Machines is so bad that the next scheduled sequel in the series will pretend that it never took place. I'm not sure what the bigger tragedy is: the fact that Schwarzenegger was paid a reported $30 million for his participation or the fact that this dutch oven of a movie was released at all.
3. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
T2, the nickname for this movie, moves the story away from its sci-fi horror roots and plants it squarely in the action comedy genre. Even the killer robot smiles and delivers one-liners.
2. Terminator: Salvation
TS, by far the most underrated Terminator film, finally gives us a long (two hours' worth, anyway) look at the bleak future glimpsed in the original Terminator. It looks like we all dodged a bullet, for now, since the movie, set during the war between humans and machines, takes place in 2018.
Surprisingly enough, the movie, the only one to not star Arnold Schwarzenegger and the first to not receive an R-rating, is among the best of the series. Salvation is also the only Terminator movie that doesn't feature time-travel.
The story centers on an adult John Connor during his time as a member of the human resistance but before he becomes its leader. While the troops under his command recognize John's potential, the heads of the Resistance have little time or faith in a quasi-prophet without a military background.
A teenage and orphaned Kyle Reese, who ultimately fathers Connor, is also in the mix, struggling to survive in the bombed-out remnants of Los Angeles, which is teeming with various Terminator models stalking any remaining homo sapiens.
Sarah Connor, Skynet's long-ago (and future) target for assassination, is long dead and only exists as a voice on a collection of cassette tapes she recorded for her son.
The newest player in the AI-gone-wrong saga is Marcus Wright, a death row inmate who remembers signing his body over to medical research before the nuclear strikes that wiped out most of humanity. changed the world.
As Connor discovers to his horror, the T-800 line of Terminators, one of which will eventually be sent back to 1984 to prevent his birth, have just come online and are nearly unstoppable.
But the T-800s are merely the cutting-edge of what the machines have to throw at mankind. Skynet's extensive arsenal includes: hydrobots, which patrol bodies of water; Moto-Terminators - riderless speed bikes that patrol the streets; T-1s, which are upright robots that travel on treads; T-600s, which are 800-lb humanoid robots with rubbery skin; T-700s, which look like T-800s without the skin; HK-Aerials - flying robots that provide air support for ground-based machines (the HK stands for Hunter Killer);
and Harvesters - giant robots that transport human captives.
Terminator: Salvation, released five months before the 25th year anniversary of the original's premier, returns the series to the dark tone of The Terminator.
1. The Terminator
The Terminator is aptly named. Though you root for them, none of the film's human characters manage to even come close to stealing the spotlight away from the hulking cyborg in its posters.
In the year 2029, mankind is at war with an army of robots under the command of a self aware artificially intelligent defense network called Skynet that initiated a nuclear holocaust in an attempt to eradicate humanity. Concluding that the human resistance is on the verge of defeating the machines, Skynet uses time travel technology to send one its T-800 Model 101 cyborgs to 1984 to assassinate unassuming waitress Sarah Connor. As it turns out, Sarah is due to conceive John Connor, who will lead the human resistance, in the next few days. Discovering the plot, John sends one of his soldiers back in time as well in the hopes of preventing the murder.
Before the soldier, Kyle Reese, arrives, the cyborg, which appears to be a competitive bodybuilder due to a layer of flesh over its metallic endoskeleton, racks up quite a body-count. The robot kills thugs for the clothing, dusts off a gun store salesman for weapons and systematically goes through the Los Angeles phone book bumping off residents who happen to be named Sarah Connor.
After Reese locates Sarah in time to rescue her from the literal killing machine, he's arrested and Sarah's taken along to the police station in order to give a statement. Undeterred by its target's now seemingly impenetrable level of security, the Terminator mows through 17 police officers and her mom in another attempt to take her out.
Because the film has one of the slickest twists in sci-fi movie history, I won't spoil the ending or give any more details.
Originally Posted 9/22/19
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