I was recently thinking about how amazing the first two Terminator movies are. And that train of thought got me thinking about how shitty the last few ones have been. So I decided to rank them. And I have a blog, so why not let everyone else know where these movies fall on my list.
Alright, let's do this. Obviously from worst to best starting with -
6. Terminator Genisys
That's ... not how you spell that. Who let their
ten-year-old name the movie?
There was a lot of amazing press for this movie. Arnie was back as the Terminator. Sarah Conor was back (and she was being played by Emilia Clarke). The T-1000 was also going to be in it. Matt Smith was going to be playing the villain. Jai Courtney was playing our favorite 80s everyman superhero Kyle Reese (Although, I don't know who was happy about that. Possibly Australians.)
And then the movie was fucking terrible. They spoiled the big twist of the movie in all of the trailers. And the big twist was stupid as fuck. John Connor as the bad guy makes no sense. Matt Smith was in like one scene and had no lines. They cast some random Asian as the T-1000 (despite the fact that you could go to any trailer park and find like five dudes that look like Robert Patrick) and was only in one scene. Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney had as much chemistry as two drops of water.
Remember when they first showed us this set photo at Comic-Con?
Notice how Jai Courtney is the only one who doesn't look confused.
I'm not going to lie to you, the only thing I remember about this movie is that something happened on a bridge. Also, old Arnie travels back to the opening of the first Terminator and kills the OG T-800. Although, I wouldn't have even remembered that if that scene didn't come up while I was looking up the director. This movie is the worst thing an action movie can be. Forgettable and boring. I honestly can't think of anything good about this movie.
5. Terminator Salvation
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| Don't ask me how I even knew that... |
I would probably have loved the twist where the main character is actually a Terminator if it wasn't spoiled by the trailer. (And if it actually had any impact on the plot.)
The movie is also, somehow, boring. Which is insane. You took the apocalyptic future scenes from the openings of Terminator 2 and 3, made them into a whole movie, and cast Batman as John Connor and it wasn't an instant classic? That's a clear cut problem. (I think the drastic tonal differences between some of the poster art accurately sums up the issue. This is the movie we could've gotten. This is the movie we got. This movie could be so much more badass than it is.)
Note From Future Joe: So I now know this film was a victim of the 2007 Writer's Strike. And in my opinion, that technically would mean there's only five Terminator movies. Despite what Hollywood tries to tell you, you can't make a movie without a writer. There was a script, but it wasn't finished by the strike and it went through so many different hands and rewrites, they might as well have been filming three different movies at once. All of a sudden, Terry Cruise's corpse but not his character being in the movie makes sense. The mismatch of cool looking posters and slow dialogue-heavy scenes makes sense. This movie isn't bad, it's just 2/3 of a movie.
4. Terminator: Dark Fate.
This one was okay. I liked that Linda Hamilton and Arnie came back. I liked that the opening scene ties into T2. Apart from that, this movie was laughably bad. It kind of felt like this movie was trying to push a weird political agenda. The way they repeatedly emphasized Sarah and John as failures kind of felt like the movie was saying "Out with the crotchety old white people and in with the young people of color!" I think at one point, they even free everyone in an ICE detention center. The main character has asthma or something. I'm not against all of that shit, but I don't think it belongs in a Terminator movie.
On top of all that, Linda Hamilton seemed like she didn't want to be there. A lot of her dialogue was TERRIBLE. Hell, most of the dialogue in this movie was terrible. Honestly, the only good parts of this movie are the scenes with the T-800.
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| Unlike Salvation, where the worst part is when the T-800 is on screen. |
Arnie saves this movie from being completely unwatchable.
It may not make sense why I ranked it above Salvation, but if I had to rewatch one of the two, I'd pick Dark Fate in a heartbeat. I have to give it to this movie because there's an intense action scene at least every five minutes. I can't say the same for Salvation.
3. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Yeah, I haven't seen this movie in a while. I wouldn't mind watching it again though. I can't say that about the three movies that came after this. This movie is genuinely funny at times and it's arguably the very last classic Arnie movie. Nick Stahl is also always fun to watch (Have you seen Sin City? It's a shame he hasn't done more movies) and the T-X is an interesting villain.
Although, the movie is indeed a tad bit silly.
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| Just a tad bit... |
The final fight is a lot more boring than a fight between two cyborg assassins from the future should be. This movie isn't bad in my opinion. In fact, it's miles ahead of all of the Terminator movies that came after it. But, it's just average. And the first two Terminator movies are anything but average.
2. The Terminator
This is a classic. I can probably watch this movie over and over again and still enjoy it. And I love how as I got older the way I watched this movie changed. The Terminator can be viewed as a stand-alone sci-fi tinged slasher movie. Think about it. You have the emotionless, inhuman killer, who just keeps coming back. The Terminator is basically Jason Voorhees, merely sharing a scene with him is a death sentence for most characters. All of the important characters are picked off until we're left with one final girl. And this movie is from the mid-80s, the height of the slasher genre. This is a slasher movie.
Apart from that, this is peak Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hell, this is peak Michael Biehn. The man only did like three movies and is a bonified 80s action hero. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is James Cameron's (second) best movie. Fight me.
1. Terminator 2
Imagine you just made one of the most successful sci-fi/slasher movies of all time. Now take the villain from the first movie and make him a genuinely lovable action hero. And then replace him with another villain that's just as terrifying as the original villain was in the first movie. Then take the kid of the protagonists of the last movie and make him the main character. Also, ditch the horror undertones this time and go for straight-up action.
Do you know how hard that would be to pull off? It would be insanely hard, and James Cameron pulled it off so well, there was nowhere else to go.
I don't have to tell you about how awesome Terminator 2 is. This movie is a bonified American classic.
What Now?
I honestly think they should call it quits and stop making these movies. The big issue here is that none of the sequels since 2003 are even canon anymore. And all of them have been at best, mediocre movies. Another gigantic issue with the franchise has been shitass marketing. Salvation was marketed as a kid-friendly, action-packed blockbuster and its mostly pointless talking, shooting, and running in the desert. Genisys was obviously just a bad movie to begin with, but they put everything that could've redeemed it in its trailers. And I don't even remember seeing any marketing for Dark Fate. Which is just shameful, because I'm a twenty-something nerd. You know, the exact target demographic for the goddamn movie?!? I didn't even know there was a new Terminator movie, until we got to the theater and Joker was sold out.
And not to mention, that anytime these last movies have had even a slight plot twist, the ad company made sure to put it into every trailer.
I don't believe that Disney owns the rights to the movies, but this is one case where I think it would be better if they did. In the state this franchise is in, I don't think the House of Mouse would even attempt to make any more sequels. And if they did, they'd do a better job than Skydance. They wouldn't allow trailers that reveal key plot points. They wouldn't keep recasting everyone. They wouldn't make sequels that retcon each other. And if Disney is good at anything, it's knowing their target audience.
Honestly, the best thing to do would be to make a loose sequel to Dark Fate and move on from there. It doesn't matter if Dark Fate sucks and this new movie is going to be completely different. The Child's Play franchise is a perfect example of working around bad movies. You acknowledge the good parts of those movies, and you mock the bad parts. You don't just ignore them and start over.
The Terminator Series is Owned by Skydance Media
