Why ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ Didn’t Need to Kill [Spoiler]
Warning: This editorial contains major spoilers for Terminator: Dark Fate.
In the opening minutes of Tim Miller’s Terminator: Dark Fate, the film lives up to its title — literally. John Connor, played by Edward Furlong in T2: Judgment Day and returning here with the assist of questionable de-aging technology, meets a deadly end when a T-800 is sent by Skynet to murder him. It’s a moment that is intended to leave the audience gobsmacked, which it does, but what follows just doesn’t justify the film’s attempt at shock value.
What we’re left with is a film that promises to shake things up, but ultimately plays it too safe. This is becoming a familiar formula — the same formula that some filmmakers have gotten right (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Halloween) and some have gotten wrong (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales). Filmmakers and studio deliver a slick, revised version of the thing you love, expecting audiences to eat it up just like they did the original. They offer the promise of something new without delivering, all the while forgetting what made the originals so great in the first place. Unfortunately, Terminator: Dark Fate falls into this category.
Look at Terminator 2: Judgment Day. As YouTube video essayist Michael Tucker explained in his deconstruction of the franchise, T2 works fundamentally because it is a remake of the original — but inverts many of the original film’s tropes. The film still has a Terminator hunting Sarah Connor — but now she is protected by the same Terminator who tried to kill her in the last movie. That Terminator is replaced with a newer model, an inversion of the T-800. T2 gives you everything you want in a Terminator movie, but flipped. The essence is still the same, even if the specifics are different.
Dark Fate tries to offer something new with killing John Connor. However, instead of delivering on that promise, what it offers is simply more of the same. New model, same old tricks.
Tim Miller talks about the creative choice to kill Connor, explaining why it was an obvious choice to off one of the franchise’s main protagonists in the opening of his film:
In breaking down that explanation, there seems to be a couple of things to point out. For one, killing legacy characters “just because” or to add “rocket fuel” for characterization — especially female characterization — feels like a lazy contrivance. Sarah Connor (played again with fiery gusto by Linda Hamilton) doesn’t need the death of her son, the sole reason why T2 even exists in the first place, to be motivated. It also doesn’t make much thematic sense, for a character that went to extraordinary lengths to protect her son in the last two movies, to let her guard down even for a minute. This is supposedly the same Sarah Connor that chastised her son for saving her, inspecting his body for injuries when he thought she wanted a hug. The same Sarah Connor that was ruthless, cold, and determined at all costs to make sure her son was safe. The same Sarah Connor, who in Dark Fate, gives the T-800 the perfect opportunity to strike. It just doesn’t add up.
There could have been some additional meat to that sub-plot, but the execution feels more skeletal than an exoskeleton. The film doesn’t care to mention how Sarah easily let her guard down, which could have contributed to a character arc where she realizes she can’t ever do that again — and more so, has to make peace with that failure. There’s an emotional scene where Sarah talks about not having any pictures of her son and not remembering what he looks like, but that character moment is never paid off. When Carl (Arnold Schwarzenegger), the T-800 that killed Connor, sacrifices himself at the end of the film it feels perfunctory, not profound. If Miller and his team of screenwriters paid off that moment, perhaps with Carl holding onto a picture of John that he used to find him, and then handing off that picture to Sarah in order for her to find solace, that would have been a way to resolve that character arc in a compelling way. Instead, it feels trite and unnecessary — much like the rest of the film.
More to the point, the creative decision to kill off John Connor feels pointless by the conclusion of the film. Sarah Connor has some kind of emotional catharsis, and she finds someone new to train, but it feels like a placeholder of what we’ve already seen before. Skynet is gone, but now there’s a new AI called “Legion” that has seemingly the same goals as Skynet, but things are different now… because. A new, “good” Terminator (i.e. advanced cybernetic human hybrid — resembling Marcus Wright from Terminator: Salvation) is sent to protect a new John Connor. Tim Miller said he doesn’t believe in “the Chosen One” trope, yet by sending a protector back in time to prevent the murder of a future resistance leader feels awfully similar to me. You took out one character, a beloved character with history and tangible connection with the audience, and replaced him with a character no one cares about.
Dani (Natalia Reyes) has all the ingredients to be a compelling character, but comes across as under-cooked. The writers don’t bother to explain her likes, her interests, what she wants, what she doesn’t want — she comes across as completely filler, a vessel in which to push the same character trope without adding anything substantially new (but this time different, because). On the flip side, John Connor liked video games, he was a punk kid, a loner who didn’t like his foster parents. He wanted, and needed, a father figure. What does Dani want and need in Terminator: Dark Fate? She’s thinly defined, and without any substance comes across less like a fully formed character and more like an excuse to exist (well…. because.)
Miller mentions that the creative idea of John Connor living a normal, everyday existence isn’t thematically or creatively interesting. On paper, sure, but the thought that John was going to be the leader of humanity but had to settle with a banal existence feels ripe with thematic potential. Imagine a scenario where John Connor didn’t have to fight Terminators for nearly 30 years. Then, he’s suddenly thrust into this situation again as an adult. There could have been a great character study of John finding himself again, and regaining the confidence maybe he lost during his adult years. That has all of the ingredients for a compelling character arc, if executed well.
If Paramount and Skydance are wondering why Dark Fate flopped this weekend, executives may want to look at shaking up the formula. For a franchise that should have been terminated a long time ago, simply offering a remixed version of what audiences love isn’t going to cut it anymore. Taking “risky” creative moves with characters and stories audiences love without producing a legitimate reason for those risks to exist feels inherently lazy. It also explains why hardcore fans of these franchises, whether that’s Terminator or Star Wars or otherwise, feel betrayed and disrespected. That’s why they’ll stop showing up to those kind of movies, and why studios can expect diminishing returns almost each time.
Audiences are done with movies that exist just because.
