
Overall it was an entertaining movie
The action and effects were awesome! Especially in the fight scenes which were all well choreographed. A battle between an enhanced super human soldier versus the most advanced terminator robot, how can that not be cool to watch. I sincerely enjoyed watching the movie.
BUT…..
The plot felt lazy and the story-line throughout the film was awkward. There are 5 movies that preceded this one and no attempts were made to somehow blend them together. Instead the old protagonist was tossed out the door haphazardly and a new one was slapped on top of it.
WARNING: Spoiler alert below!
Franchise Loyalty and Keeping Up With The Times
I respect the plot twists and change in direction of the Terminator franchise. I don’t agree with how they just erased john completely from the story though. That’s who we have been rooting for all this time and now you just walk away completely?!?!?!? I thought that was a lazy approach by the writers.
However, seeing the evolution of Sarah Conner from the first movie to now made me happy and is an example of the current differences in generational social views. The very first terminator Sarah Connor was a classic damsel in distress running around with some random guy from the future. Of course a forced love story between the two involve a sex scene ultimately creating THE MAN THAT WILL SAVE THE WORLD!
That has all changed. Even though Sarah has evolved into a genuine survivalist badass, she still is a product of her generation. She assumes that Dani is nothing but a breeder of the next male savior and the reason the future terminator wants her dead. That’s not the case at all and Dani herself is the reason. I don’t know why because there were no qualities shown that would make the audience understand how Dani was special but that is my opinion.
It’s important to show the generational differences. Like in the movie about RBG she was a woman of her time and the generational social norms were different between herself and her daughter. Everyone grows up exposed to the prevailing ideas and social norms of the time. It affects all of us in how we think about he world around us in ways we do not even realize.
Women Leads Do Not Ruin Movies

Strong tough capable women roles are not uncommon in action movies. Their presence is respected as capable tough individuals who help the usually male protagonist defeat his enemies. The female can’t be too tough or “masculine” though. Too often the movie has some part where its trying to compensate for this and we are subjected to an oversexualization of the character. I mean why else would you hire some woman to play a character in an action movie? The female leads role is to be the eye candy/love interest of some male character.
In the Terminator: Dark Fate, the female leads were not the love interest of the male lead. The discourse between the three women also had nothing to do with romance or competition for male attention.
In action films traditionally, no matter how intelligent or capable the female lead is, it’s never enough to win the fight. They always need to be rescued by the leading man in some weird bravado laden unrealistic action sequence.
The Terminator: Mister Arnold Schwarzenegger
I loved seeing Arnold again on the big screen. I laughed at the lame blatant one liners he delivered especially when they were attempting to have inside jokes with the audience. The Terminator is just a fun simple character that is always creating massive explosions either in an effort to kill or save us, these poor weak humans.
Yes, the Arnold Swarznegger ultimately is the one to take down the bad guy. Yay, Good Terminator! Which, for the record, I AM PERFECTLY FINE WITH! IT IS THE TERMINATOR FRANCHISE AFTER ALL. ARNOLD WINS THE DAY IN TERMINATOR LAND!
Again, my only real criticism is that I strongly disagree with removing John completely from the story line. It felt like they didn’t know how to incorporate the charter to fit in with the new direction of the franchise. That was slightly infuriating as John is the protagonist we have watched grow up and you’re not even going to attempt to tie the movies together creating maybe one cohesive theme or concept. That sucked.
I have read several critics of the movie implying that this movie was the victim of trying to fit into the political/social zeitgeist stemming from the increase in women movements.
Sorry you think this movie ruined some very specific ideals of “maleness” that are held so dearly apparently. Shattering the dystopian heteronormative fantasies that reinforce unhealthy beliefs is not easy to accomplish. Stringent views on gender identities is a learned social construct. The deeply rooted ideologies ingrained in a person come from our exposure to the culture we are raised in. The identity of a person is intertwined with the social norms they were exposed. It significantly defines who they are, how they see themselves, and what others see them as within the social group.
Movies, books, art, and social media content are influential on a persons behaviors and views. Challenging any set of beliefs stirs up anger and resentment. Open discussion and exposure to new people/ideas outside of an innate social group is what helps combat the fear of change. Unlearning unhealthy reinforced societal beliefs is a gradual generational shifting of ideals.
Until then, please stop creating false narratives creating fears that there is an intersectional feminist uprising planning to destroy all male lives and ruin the sanctity of all “good” women. People create social constructs which are not uniform globally and have constantly changed throughout human existence. It’s not a bad thing to break free from ascribing a persons sex to personality traits, abilities, intelligence, or worthiness.
It’s okay to loosen the grips on your “should’s” and “should not’s”. Relax on passing judgement on the fate of future generations. Accept the changing social norms. Be brave enough to unlearn the social rules of your past opening up room for discussions on the new generations social norms.
My suggestion, just enjoy this action packed movie. It’s not winning an Oscar but the 2 hours and 14 minutes went by in a flash and I got to hear that famous line, “I’ll be back”, one more time.

