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Genre: Science-Fiction
Premise: A young woman in Mexico City is hunted down by a killing machine from the future. She must team up with another woman from the future who’s sworn to protect her.
About: Terminator Dark Fate has a little extra shine on it compared to recent Terminator entries as it brings in Deadpool director Tim Miller to direct and Terminator creator James Cameron to write and produce. The always forthcoming Cameron said earlier this week that blood was spilled in the editing room between him and Miller and that that’s what the creative process is all about. The reason there are so many writers attached to this movie is that Cameron put together a big writing room to map out a trilogy.
Writers: James Cameron, Charles Eglee, Josh Friedman, David Goyer, Justin Rhodes, Billy Ray, and Gale Anne Hurd
Details: 128 minutes
I’m about to surprise you.
I liked Terminator: Dark Fate.
Here’s the thing with this movie. There’s so much hoop-jumping that needs to be done in order to explain the complex Terminator timeline that you’re either going to go with it or not. I would recommend not watching any Terminator movies in the lead up to this one. Cause then you’re going to be thinking about the rules in those films and how they contradict the rules in this one and you’re not going to enjoy yourself.
I hadn’t seen Terminator 2 in a long enough time where I didn’t remember everything. And so whenever someone referred to time travel here in a way that might’ve conflicted with the previous movies, I just gave Dark Fate the benefit of the doubt. Because once you give in to this movie, you realize it’s really fun. And it moves like lightning. They did a tremendous job plotting this script.
That doesn’t mean I liked everything. (major spoiler) I was shocked, at the beginning of the film, that James Cameron would kill off 13 year old John Connor. It was such an odd choice that I assumed we were watching a dream sequence. Cameron has gone on record as being devastated that Alien 3 killed off Newt. Yet he does the exact same thing here with Connor. I get why it was necessary. Killing off John opens up a ton of other story options, which they take advantage of. But if you really planned for this to become a part of the Terminator franchise, how could you in good faith advocate for something that would make the best movie in franchise pointless should the viewer pop in Dark Fate right afterwards?
I got over it quickly, though.
This movie has such momentum to it. Once it starts, it never stops. And while a lot of people are dinging it for its “Force Awakens” approach to storytelling, I’d argue this is a much more complicated movie than Terminator 2. I’m not saying it’s better. But there are a lot more moving parts. You’ve got a hybrid human, a girl who’s being saved, a Terminator-hunter, a new Terminator, and an old Terminator. And we’re not being chased around California. We’re in a totally different country. And that gave the film its own distinct flavor.
I loved that right when the movie was about to hit a lag, we introduced Arnold at the midpoint. It was the perfect way to infuse the movie with some fresh energy. A lot of movies fall apart around the midpoint because they don’t know how to both continue the story they’ve been telling yet also introduce new elements that make the story feel different from the first half. Throwing Arnold’s T-800 in there was the perfect way to achieve this.
And the script always seemed to have a nice dynamic with the characters. Nobody ever completely trusted each other which infused every scene with conflict or subtext or dramatic irony. Sarah Connor hates the Arnold Terminator with a passion because he killed her son! Yet they have to work together to destroy a bigger threat. That’s how you create conflict between characters.
With that said, Arnold’s part never quite fit into the story. And you could feel the writers battling that the whole time. The problem was that this wasn’t the Terminator from Terminator 2. This was a separate Terminator. This essentially made him a rando but you don’t have a Terminator movie without Arnold so you have to find a way to fit him into the story, even if that means creating a storyline by which a Terminator likes to text.
The whole thing got me thinking about screenwriting on a macro scale. And how every script has its “Dark Fate Arnold” problem. Every script has some major component that doesn’t necessarily work but you have to make it work. I remember watching an interview with Geroge Lucas where he talked about writing the scene in Return of the Jedi where Luke tells Leia that she’s his sister. He hated the fact that he had to write that scene. The audience already knew it so the only reason your’e writing it is because it wouldn’t make sense that Luke wouldn’t tell his sister she was his sister when they saw each other.
That’s the kind of stuff I mean. You’d prefer not to write it but you have to figure out a way to get it in there because it’s essential for your movie to work. And when you become a professional screenwriter, you have to be really good at this. Cause there will be a time where you’re pitching yourself for a Terminator-like screenplay and they’re going to say to you: “And how do you plan to include Arnold in the story?” And you’re going to reply, “But Arnold is 80 years old.” “Yeah, but he needs to be in the movie.” You have to figure something out. That’s what screenwriting boils down to. Creative problem-solving.
I was also surprised so many people disliked the main girl in this – the one who the Terminator is targeting. I liked her arc as a character. How she’s this nobody who’s terrified of everything and then she eventually becomes the opposite. And I loved how they played off our (spoiler) expectations that she was pregnant, just like Sarah Connor, only for us to realize that she was the resistance leader herself. I thought that was really cool.
And I liked how they tied her future storyline to MacKenzie Davis’s human-hybrid character – how she saves her in the future. And I even love how they explain how she becomes the resistance leader at the end of the movie – Sarah Connor trains her. It was a surprisingly clever time circle.
I liked this so much that I actually think Linda Hamilton should be nominated for an Oscar. She deserves it because… okay, I’m just messing with on that one. But I did like this movie.
If they could’ve simplified the group a tad – not had so many people running around together. And they could’ve done a little better with the special effects – don’t get me started on that plane scene. This would’ve been a really great action movie. As it stands, it’s just a fun time at the movies. And that was enough for me when I saw it.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Don’t get phased when you encounter that “insurmountable story problem” in your script. Every script has one. And part of the journey of writing each screenplay is conquering the mountain that is that “insurmountable story problem.” You might not figure it out until the sixth or seventh draft. But I can promise you when you do, you’re going to feel like a million dollars.
