Over the weekend I saw Terminator Genisys. Weird spelling aside the movie was great. I’d been on the fence about my feelings for this sequel since it got announced. At first I rolled my eyes. Then I was pleasantly optimistic. Then I read a plot summary and was nervous. Then I saw the trailer and was pleasantly optimistic again. It’s been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. Finally after seeing the movie I thought I could rest easy. It was good! I liked it! Drama over. Except apparently a lot of people on the internet don’t agree with my positive opinion. So, here’s a last ditch effort to get it all off my chest and get myself off this ride.
Over at The Mary Sue, Lesley Coffin wrote a post called Review: Terminator Genisys Warns Us All of Smartphone Updates . I don’t regularly follow The Mary Sue but I do check in and check up on posts relating to things that’ve peaked my interest. After seeing the movie I was eager to hear other opinions about it, especially after my husband and I both liked it but for different reasons. I was definitely surprised to see the less than thrilled review. Especially one that starts so adamantly against the movie.
There are several film franchise whose lore have literally been destroyed by their own massive success and financial demand for sequels. For example, try piecing together the logic of the Halloween films, and your head might explode. But one of the best examples of a franchise not only being unable to continue their success with subsequent sequels, but tarnishing the original’s legacy is certainly Terminator.
Coffin’s claim is valid. Lots of movies and books get totally ruined by beating a dead horse. Now, I never saw Terminator Salvation and I’ve only seen a handful of episodes of The Sarah Conner Chronicles so maybe I’m not the best person to be taking a defensive stand here. But, as I’m sure nearly everyone can agree, Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a pretty perfect sequel. This is a more controversial statement to make but fortune favors the bold, I suppose: I really enjoyed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. I don’t think that either of those sequels did any inherent damage to the Terminator mythos.
I know that people’s complaints about Terminator Salvation and The Sarah Conner Chronicles had to do with the idea that, as Coffin states, it destroys the lore and makes things sloppy. For a movie with a main plot point moved forward via time travel I think we’re already in sloppy enough territory. The movies all center around the notion of having to go back in time and stop Skynet from launching. Anyone with even the slightest bit of interest in the logistics of time travel would start thinking by the second movie about the issues with the time stream. Heck, even the first movie raises some pretty severe questions about the fluidity of a time line and whether or not destiny is fixed or fluid. Rise of the Machines starts to address these concerns for the people that have them. There’s altered timelines and things not working the way that John Conner has been raised to believe they’ll work. If my brief understanding of the television show is correct it deals with this far more heavily and introduces the notion of various time streams.
That’s essentially where we are now with Genisys.
Coffin talks about the changes that have happened that enable Kyle Reese to meet a different Sarah Conner than he has been told to expect. He thinks he’s going back to protect and save a helpless woman (there’s a funny scene here where he doesn’t know what a waitress is because, well, technological apocalypse). However, everything has changed due to the addition of a terminator having been sent back to kill Sarah as a child (makes sense to me) and another terminator having been sent back to protect her. Coffin seems to have been irked by the similarity this bares to Judgment Day, but that similarity is one of the stronger points of the movie in my opinion! Who didn’t love watching John Conner attempt to bring out the humanity of the reprogrammed T-800? Who doesn’t prefer badass Sarah Conner?
The problem is that by going back to the first film and using narrative themes from the second to wipe the last films, this leads to a lot of this movie feeling very old and tired, and comparisons to the earlier films.
So, seeing scenes and visuals from movies that take place in the same universe previous to the movie you’re watching currently but changing those visuals and scenes to form a new narrative and plot makes the new movie feel old? I mean, isn’t it more logical to say that the old movie feels new? That’s how it felt to me. Seeing the opening to the original movie reshot with subtle differences to imply the new timeline was so genius, so effective for me as a viewer that I was holding my breath with anticipation for whatever big change was about to happen. I also felt that by reshooting with these new actors they were given a chance to show off their chops rather than, as Coffin suggests, not letting them shine.
I have never been more impressed with Emilia Clarke than while watching her in this movie. Because it’s impressive enough to see an actress take a role and embody it, but to see Emilia Clarke now only playing Sarah Conner but playing Linda Hamilton playing Sarah Conner? Mind blown. Amazing. (Full disclosure this is one of my favorite film conventions so maybe I’m being biased here.) She is also rightfully badass as anyone being raised by a T-800 would be, but also still possesses her humanity and compassion. It makes the fact that so much is riding on her shoulders more emotionally impacting because the audience can see Sarah Conner the person struggling under Sarah Conner the legend.
Is the movie perfect? No. Is the plot tight? Eh, I could probably poke it full of holes if I put my mind to it. Is it a good movie? Yes. Time travel is hard as a plot device. It’s sloppy, it’s technical, and it leads to more loose ends than it solves. However, I think they’ve done the series justice with this newest installment. They’ve done their best to clean up what they could and introduce a new idea into the franchise. Time changes and so the lore and canon of the franchise must as well. The plots of these movies need to be as fluid as a T-1000 in order to keep up with the consistent time travel and time altering that they hinge upon.
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