Nah, this film wasn't bad only because Arnold was in it - and the same is true for T3, T4 (if you an count his CG-cameo as being "in it") and T5 as well.
The number one priority should have been hiring better writers. All movies after T2 failed in that regard. Surprisingly enough, Arnie worked well in all of them (T4 aside), he tried to work with the material given to him, and elevate the script - and he succeeded in all of the films (T4 aside) to a certain extent.
The reason why T6 Arnie looks tired and uninspired is because of two reasons. #1 is idiotic, horrible writing - a Terminator bleds in and sells curtains, tapestry or whatever... there is no way anyone thought this was a good idea, but yet here we are. And #2 - with the exception of the opening factory fight, the movie constantly tried to rehash T2. It even ends in a steel mill for crying out loud! So at the end we get a third grade copy of the T2 finale, which is... tired and uninspired. There is nothing new, nothing interesting for Arnold to do. All in all it's not his fault how these movies turned out to be.
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MickyMac (2951)
2 years ago
The storyline has been exhausted, Arnie's terminator has done all that he's been asked to do.
The template of T2 a reprogrammed T800 vs a liquid metal terminator is kind of hard to be effective at all when it's a commonplace in pop culture and movie fans, which makes every sequel after T2 pointless because all the surprises of the first two movies aren't there, so your just watching these retreads with the surprises you know are coming which takes you out of the experience of watching them.
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sati_84 (441)
2 years ago
Agreed. This is why it's really disappointing how T3 and T6 both wanted to re-hash T2. T4 at least tried something different, whereas T5 had some fun with timelines and whatnot. Not that I like them, but I'd rate them a notch above T6.
It's just astonishing that the writers could not come up with anything new since 1991, not even on the technical level of these movies. Really shows how utterly brilliant Cameron's work was with the originals.
I mentioned this issue in my thread about the movie as well:
https://moviechat.org/tt6450804/Terminator-Dark-Fate/5f44f182cd32005dd3198f3f/Pointless-plot-and-absolute-disrespect-towards-the-source-material
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acidraindrop (3055)
2 years ago
T4 was too incoherent of a film for me to defend, but I was surprised at how much flack T5 got. I thought it was a fun twist on the mythos. Hell, even though it totally conflicted with one of the pillars of Terminator (i.e. John Connon is the saviour), at least it was done more respectfully than what we got in T6 lol.
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sati_84 (441)
2 years ago
Agreed - in principle T5 was fun, however they utterly botched the casting of John Connor and Kyle Reese, and I just couldn't get into it because of that.
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acidraindrop (3055)
2 years ago
Kyle Reece's casting, and actually the way he was written to be fair, is the one thing that upsets me about the movie. His character should be untouched from timeline bullshit, so he should really be the crazy, PTSD survivor we see in T1 but he isn't :(
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MickyMac (2951)
2 years ago
That's why if your gonna do a sequel you have to change it up especially if it's a beloved film, you give people the exact same thing in a new gift wrapping they're gonna open it up and say "dude I've already got one of those".
A future war movie would've been a more natural way to continue the franchise, T4 tried to do that but didn't feel like the intros to the first two movies.
Problem is the writers can't get out of Terminator 2, that's the template, they can't change the template. Two options do something new like a proper future war movie or do nothing with Terminator from now on.
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sati_84 (441)
2 years ago
I wouldn't say Future War or bust, I still think that in the hands of talented writers, a movie set in present day could be interesting and successful, without being a copy of T2.
Too bad that talented writers got nowhere near writing a Terminator movie after T2...
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MickyMac (2951)
2 years ago
If they do a time travel movie it would have to be man vs machine like T1 again, the Dark Horse comic Tempest would be cool for a movie.
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sati_84 (441)
2 years ago
Agreed! Given an exciting and appropriate source material, which has creative ideas, we could be in for a treat.
Not likely to happen, but it's fun to speculate.
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MickyMac (2951)
2 years ago
So far there's been very little talk of getting another film out, Dark Fate has probably killed the franchise for the foreseeable future.
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