Terminator: Dark Fate, which sees Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton returning alongside franchise newcomers Natalia Reyes and Gabriel Luna, is due to hit theaters November 1st, 2019. Preceding today's trailer we recently got the first official movie poster, which capitalized on the return of Hamilton as Sarah Connor after a 28-year hiatus, and today's trailer has a similar vibe...
The trailer confirms much that has been speculated and leaked thus far - Davies portrays Grace, a Human/Terminator hybrid sent back in time to protect Reyes' Dani Ramos from termination by Lunas' Terminator, the Rev-9 (Revision-9, maybe), that can be best described as a Terminator endoskeleton covered in a sheath of liquid metal. Additionally, Sarah Connor returns (without her son John) and enlists the help of an aging Terminator played once again by Schwarzenegger to protect Reyes' character.
According to a recent interview (posted by Flicks and the City, but since removed) executive producer (and creator of the Terminator franchise), James Cameron states that the movie is set in the present day and will disregard (retcon) Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation and Terminator Genisys. Cameron also stated that the future war is an inevitability that has been delayed following the events that have occurred between Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator: Dark Fate, and that following August 29th, 1997, the once prophecized date of Judgment Day, Sarah Connor has become a Terminator Hunter.
It would seem Terminator: Dark Fate is a soft reboot of the franchise with Sarah/John Connors struggle now being transposed onto a modern day setting and upon the shoulders of Reye's character Dani Ramos. With Ramos as the new hope for humanities future one would presume that John Connor died sometime before the events of the movie (unless he is secretly shacked up with Schwarzeneggers' T-800 in the cabin in the woods), and that realizing she has changed the future when Judgment Day passed by without incident Sarah Connor has somehow become a Terminator hunter, in a bid to prevent, or at the least continue to delay, the inevitable future war from ever occurring.
So to recap...
Judgment Day has been delayed but is inevitable (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), and in the present day Davies plays the protector who is a female Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington, Terminator Salvation) sent back in time to protect Reyes' Dani Ramos (the new Sarah or John Connor) from being terminated by Luna's Terminator that is a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 and Robert Patricks' T-1000, or more aptly a reimagined version of Kristanna Loken's T-X (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines). Meanwhile, Sarah Connor knows the address of an aged, reprogrammed T-800 Terminator while having pursued the career of a Terminator hunter (Terminator Genisys).
So in summary, we have a retcon featuring a lot of content recycled from the movies that are being retconned, within a modern-day retelling of the first installment that was released 35 years ago, all played against modern day politics and social politics.
I want to remain optimistic with Cameron's partial return to the franchise he created, and some elements of the new trailer do hit the mark, such as the Rev-9's endoskeleton which returns to the organic look from the first two installments, though inevitably upgraded rather than the cross-eyed needlessly corporate endoskeletons we saw in Terminator Genisys. However, this trailer's incomplete visual effects, over-referential nature, the movies needlessly recycling of content that this movie is retconning out and the poor trailer music choice (would be interesting to see a fan edit with Brad Friedel's iconic theme) has me fearing that for fans at least the Terminator franchise will remain, for now, a bargain bin franchise.
