WARNING!!!
The following post contains spoilers for the film ‘Terminator: Genisys’.
If you have not seen the film yet, please instead refer to my spoiler-free
review of the film, of which a link will be provided below, as I will be
discussing key plot points and elements of the film in spoiler-y detail.
Whenever
I do a spoiler post for a film on this site, it is usually for a superhero
film, having started with ‘Iron Man 3’ and most recently for ‘The Avengers: Age
of Ultron’. I’ve only done one Spoiler Post for a non-superhero film and that
was for ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ in regards to the big ‘Khan’ reveal of that
film. But today, I’m finally doing another non-superhero Spoiler Post and
today’s subject is ‘Terminator: Genisys’, the fifth installment of a film
franchise that many people feel should have ended after the series’ second
entry, ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’. You can definitely tell that just by the
reviews for ‘Genisys’, the under-performance of the film here in the U.S.
box-office wise (thankfully it has fared much better overseas), and the overall
uneasiness amongst film fans leading up to the film’s release due to the
aforementioned feelings towards the franchise post-‘Terminator 2’. But, as you
will recall from my original review for ‘Genisys’, I actually quite enjoyed it.
Was it the absolute best entry in the franchise? No, not by a long shot. But of
course what do you expect when James Cameron’s original two masterpieces were
such hard acts to follow? Ultimately though I do feel that ‘Terminator:
Genisys’ was a pretty darn entertaining sci-fi flick that perfectly balanced
action and humor while also staying faithful to the legacy of the franchise’s
first two installments. And it did this while also setting out on a unique new
path brought on by none other than…
AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE
As
I’ve no doubt stated in the past, one of my favorite films of the past few
years has been the 2009 ‘Star Trek’ reboot, which made the bold move of
creating a brand new alternate timeline. While this clearly was a controversial
move in the minds of long-time ‘Star Trek’ fans, I for one was 100% supportive
of this decision as I feel that the franchise can now move on in new directions
without having to strictly adhere to series canon… and yes, I say that even
after the last ‘Trek’ film, ‘Into Darkness’, proved to be even more polarizing
amongst ‘Trek’ fans for its callbacks, though seriously not as many as ‘Trek’
fans claim, to ‘The Wrath of Khan’. Clearly the success of the ‘Trek’ films
inspired Paramount when they developed ‘Terminator: Genisys’ as it too goes
with the ‘alternate timeline’ storyline. The film opens up basically re-telling
the original plot of the first ‘Terminator’ film but from the perspective of
the future war. In the midst of the war against Skynet, resistance leader John
Connor (Jason Clarke) learns of a plot by Skynet to send one of their
Terminator robots back in time to the year 1984 to kill his mother Sarah,
thereby erasing him from existence. John’s top lieutenant, Kyle Reese (Jai
Courtney), volunteers to go back in time to save her. But once he gets into
Skynet’s time machine, that’s when things start to change. Before leaving, he
sees John being attacked by another ‘soldier’ (more on this character later)
and before he arrives in 1984, he starts to have new memories of his childhood
that are much different than what he previously remembered.
It
is established at the beginning, through narration by Reese, that he was born
in 2004 after Judgment Day, which for the record has been reverted back to the
original August 1997 date from ‘Terminator 2’. In other words, this film straight
up ignores ‘Terminator 3’ and ‘Salvation’, which had Judgment Day occur in July
2004. But now his childhood is different as the world, for some reason, hasn’t
ended yet and his younger self repeatedly tells himself about how ‘he can shut
down Skynet before it is born’ and that ‘Genisys is Skynet’. He arrives in 1984
and basically goes through the same beats that we saw in the first film. He
steals a pair of pants from a bum (“That son of a bitch stole my pants”) and
rushes into a store to avoid the cops. But this time the cop (Lee Byung-hun)
happens to be a T-1000, the liquid metal shape-shifting Terminator who can take
the form of anything it comes into contact with. Before the T-1000 can kill
him, however, he is saved by Sarah, who is not the scared and vulnerable young
woman who Kyle was expecting to find based on what he was told by John in the
future. Instead, she is already a badass warrior who just so happens to be
protected by a T-800 Terminator. Slowly realizing that he is now in a new
alternate reality, Kyle learns that in 1973, Skynet had sent a T-1000
(presumably the same one that the trio deal with in 1984) back in time to kill
Sarah when she was a child. However, a as of yet unconfirmed party sent back a
T-800 to protect her, who ever since has trained her in combat to prepare her
for the impending apocalypse.
Now
this new ‘alternate timeline’ storyline has been referred to by some of the
film’s biggest critics as ‘lousy fan-fiction’. But you know what? ‘Star Trek’
basically did the same thing and you don’t see anyone complain about that (Oh
wait…). The fact of the matter is that, as I noted earlier, I don’t mind this
at all because I like the idea of re-writing the canon to allow for new
storyline possibilities that may or may not go down the familiar paths that we
had seen in the first two ‘Terminator 2’ films. If this new alternate reality
wasn’t real then this would be nothing more than a remake of the first film.
Maybe then it would be ‘lousy fan-fiction’ like those critics say but as is, it
is by no means that at all. I for one am intrigued to see what happens now for
this film franchise as it begins to uncover some of the mysteries that are
established in ‘Genisys’, like who is responsible for sending Sarah’s T-800
back in time. I also like how this film challenges some of the pre-conceived
notions of what we saw before, namely in regards to the relationship between
Sarah and Kyle. As we know from the first ‘Terminator’, the two of them ended
up falling in love, resulting in the birth of John Connor. But in this film,
that future relationship is put into question. For one thing, Kyle learns about
his fate from the other timeline; that he dies protecting Sarah, and also has
difficulty coming to terms with the fact that he’s John’s father. Throughout
the film, Kyle and Sarah have, to put it lightly, a rather strenuous
relationship. I mean at the end of the day, they do get together but seeing how
Kyle doesn’t die in this film, it’ll be interesting to see where their
relationship will go from there, especially since they come across his younger
self and even go as far as giving him the memories that the grown-up Kyle
experienced while traveling through time.
ARNOLD!!
Whether
or not you like this film, you cannot deny that one of the absolute best things
in the entire film is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s heralded return to the franchise
that made him a star. He may not be the absolute best actor in the world but
that correlates perfectly to his role in these films as a robot that has
difficulties trying to fit in with humans. Seriously just admit that you at
least laughed once when the T-800 tried to smile. And you know what? For a 67-year
old, Arnold still manages to not only kick major ass in what is easily his most
iconic role to date but also continues to excel in delivering memorable
one-liners (“Old but not obsolete!”). The fight sequence between him and the
younger-looking T-800 from 1984 is easily one of the biggest highlights of the
entire film. And hey, at the end of the film, he basically becomes a T-1000,
having been thrown in a vat of liquid metal by the T-3000 AKA John Connor
(again, more on him later) so it’ll cool to see how that will affect the
character in future films. He also gets major kudos for the solid father-daughter
relationship between him and Sarah, which ultimately is the heart of the film.
This leads perfectly into my next point…
SARAH AND ‘POPS’
I’m
just going to throw this out there… at the end of the day, ‘Terminator:
Genisys’ doesn’t really carry the same emotional depth of the first two
‘Terminator’ films. I’m not saying this as a criticism of the film; it’s just
that the first two films, especially ‘Terminator 2’ with the father-son
relationship of John Connor and the T-800, were so successful in this regard.
But ‘Terminator Genisys’ still manages to have some good emotional depth,
primarily in the form of the father-daughter relationship between Sarah and, as
she refers to him as, ‘Pops’. I loved the back-and-forth between the two in
scenes where they have arguments, like when ‘Pops’ brings up the awkward point
about how Kyle and Sarah, as he puts it, are expected to ‘mate’. And while of
course he’s a robot that doesn’t 100% grasp the concept of feelings and
emotion, there are times where he clearly shows how much he cares about Sarah.
One notable example of this occurs when Sarah, Kyle, and ‘Pops’ hide out in the
latter’s secret base and Sarah notices that he still keeps photos of her as a
child and drawings that she made of them. And while I’ll admit that going in I
already knew that this T-800 wasn’t going to die like in ‘Terminator 2’ (or
‘Terminator 3’), the scene where he appears ready to sacrifice himself was
handled great from an emotional standpoint, especially when he tells Kyle to
‘take care of my Sarah’.
Sarah
Connor is, without a doubt, one of the best female action heroines of all-time
and that legacy is done justice once again in this film thanks to Emilia
Clarke’s excellent turn in the role. Like Linda Hamilton before her, she does a
great job in giving Sarah both her confidence and fearlessness in combat while
also doing a perfect job in capturing the character’s vulnerability. In
‘Terminator 2’, Sarah’s vulnerability came from her past experiences in the
first ‘Terminator’ film and her distrust of John’s guardian T-800. In
‘Terminator: Genisys’, this is shown primarily through her relationships with
both ‘Pops’ and Kyle. Relating to what I talked about in my Spoiler Post for
‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ in regards to the controversy surrounding the
character of Black Widow, I feel that, contrary to popular belief, it’s
perfectly fine for female action heroes to show signs of vulnerability because
it shows that they’re human. Nothing’s perfect and a character that is meant to
be ‘perfect’ isn’t always the best-written character. I know that right now a
lot of people on the internet are raving about the character of Furiosa from
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ but at the end of the day, that character has nothing on
Sarah Connor and this film is 100% proof of that.
KYLE REESE
In
terms of respect/credibility, Jai Courtney has about as much respect from film
fans as Shia LaBeouf or Sam Worthington… in other words, not very much. In
fact, this makes ‘Terminator: Genisys’ the second instance in which Courtney
has starred in a major film franchise in which the installment that he starred
in was one of the worst-rated entries in the entire series, the other being ‘A
Good Day to Die Hard’ and I’m pretty sure all of this makes some DC fans
hesitant about his involvement in ‘Suicide Squad’. But I stand firm when I say
that Courtney is not at all to blame for the shortcomings of ‘A Good Day to Die
Hard’ and in response to some people who say that he ‘ruined’ Terminator too,
let me be the first to say that this is not true. Contrary to popular opinion,
I think Courtney did a fine job in this film. Was he the absolute best Kyle
Reese ever? No, not at all, but I do feel that Courtney did a good job in the
role as it was written in this film. In this film, Kyle Reese is basically the
avatar for the audience as he traverses through this new alternate timeline
trying to come to terms with what he’s dealing with. And ultimately Courtney
was at his best when he was with Clarke and Schwarzenegger so at the end of the
day, he serves his purpose in taking on this iconic role for the revival of the
‘Terminator’ franchise.
EVIL JOHN
CONNOR?
It’s
time to delve into what is arguably the most controversial element of the
entire film, which first attracted controversy when many people (even director
Alan Taylor) felt that it was spoiled in the film’s second trailer. And that is
the reveal that in this film, John Connor, who is arguably the main protagonist
of the entire series, has been turned into a Terminator by Skynet, effectively
making him the main antagonist of this new film. Of course, as noted earlier,
Kyle notices a mysterious figure grab John before he travels back to 1984 which
then results in him ending up in a new timeline. After helping Sarah and ‘Pops’
defeat the T-1000 that’s after them, Kyle and Sarah travel forward in time to
the year 2017 while Pops stays behind; in other words, he ‘takes the long way’
to reunite with them in the future. The two end up getting caught by the police
but are then approached by John while they are in the hospital. All seems well,
despite Kyle and Sarah questioning why he is there, until ‘Pops’ returns and
shoots John, who then reveals his new Terminator form. Now he is the T-3000,
having been turned into a Terminator by the mysterious figure who attacked him
in the future through the use of Nano machines. He is also the only T-3000 in
existence as any other attempts at creating this particular Terminator have
failed as a result of the human subjects driven mad.
Now
I’m not here to talk about the second trailer for the film and how many people
feel it spoiled the big twist. Instead, I’m going to say this… as controversial
as it is, I’m totally fine with this twist. I mean it’s not like the character
of John Connor was ruined by having him be the villain in this film. It’s just
an interesting new plotline that, to quote James Cameron, is “a riff against
expectations” and also makes the threat a much more personal one for Kyle and
Sarah to deal with given their connections to John Connor. As I stated in my
original review, I’m also glad that this meant that Jason Clarke, one of the
most underrated actors working today, had a much more substantial role than
what the very first trailer for the film implied. At first I thought that John
Connor would only appear in the scenes that took place in 2029 but thankfully
that’s not the case. In fact I’m just going to say it… Jason Clarke has been
the best John Connor to date, and yes that is even when taking the whole
villain characterization into account. In early scenes before Connor’s
transformation, Clarke does a great job in capturing John’s leadership
qualities, which are most evident from his speech to his troops before they go
off to fight Skynet. And after the big twist, Clarke ends up being a pretty
darn entertaining and intimidating baddie, basically being like a much more
advanced version of the T-1000 with the ability to regenerate and break apart
into particles during combat, the latter of which produces a pretty cool visual
for the action sequences.
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| Most badass 'walking away from an explosion' scene EVER!!! |
MATT SMITH’S
ROLE
And
now to close off this Spoiler Post, let’s end by talking about the most notable
secret of the entire film and that is Matt Smith’s (fresh off of his work as
the Eleventh Doctor in ‘Doctor Who’) role in the film. Whereas the big ‘evil
John Connor’ twist was revealed in the film’s second trailer, Smith’s role was
kept secret up until the film’s release, which of course led to speculation over
who he was playing in the film. The most common theory that I saw online was
that he was John’s best friend Tim from ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ which
given the film’s decision to revert Judgment Day back to 1997 could’ve made
sense. But in the end, he played a much different role in the film, one that
will no doubt play a bigger role in the grand scheme of things because… he
plays Skynet. Taking on the form of a super-advanced Terminator, the T-5000, he
is the one responsible for turning John into a Terminator and it is implied
that he has traveled through various timelines to get to this point. So
obviously he’s the one who is primary responsible for the new alternate
timeline and I think it’s safe to say that he will also be the primary villain
for the rest of the series. Because while Kyle, Sarah, and ‘Pops’ destroy
Cyberdyne and stop ‘Genisys’ AKA Skynet from going online, a mid-credits scene
shows that Skynet’s primary core survived the events of the finale, meaning
that Skynet isn’t defeated yet.
IN CONCLUSION
I
know that I’m in the minority when it comes to liking this film. But having now
seen the film twice in theaters, I am 100% serious when I say that this film is
by no means as bad as critics, and the internet, are putting it out to be. Like
I said before, it is by no means the best entry of the series but that’s just
because the first two ‘Terminator’ films were so good that they set up insurmountable
expectations for any subsequent entries in the franchise to have to live up to.
But ultimately I concur with James Cameron in that this truly feels like the
true ‘Terminator 3’. Ignoring the events of the original ‘Terminator 3’ and ‘Terminator
Salvation’ and instead following off of the first two films, ‘Genisys’ does not
go the same route of the former by pulling a shameless retcon that goes against
what happened at the end of ‘Terminator 2’. Sure the ‘alternate timeline’
storyline is just as controversial but in my opinion that just made the story
much interesting. Alan Taylor also deserves a lot of credit for almost
perfectly recreating classic moments from the first ‘Terminator’ film save for
a few cosmetic differences that are primarily due to that film being owned by
another studio. So in conclusion, ‘Terminator Genisys’ may not be the absolute
best film that has come out this summer but I still had loads of fun while
watching it, which ultimately makes it one of the most
underrated/underappreciated films of the year.
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