We have reached the point with Terminator that there is nothing good to say about this franchise anymore. Four years ago, we thought we had reached the last stop with Terminator: Genisys, a film that proved the demand for another Terminator film simply isn’t there. In 35 years, You’ve had two great films and then one poorly executed sequel after another. Since 2003, Hollywood has tried to recreate the magic that hasn’t existed since 1991 and things have hit rock bottom since 2015 when faux female empowerment has become the new focal point of the series.
This franchise is dead, like George Washington Dead. It’s time to pay your respects.
Terminator: Dark Fate is the 3rd attempt to reboot this franchise and retcon the events of the previous Terminator movies. A couple of years after the events of Terminator II, Sarah Connor and her son John, have stopped the events of Judgement Day but a wild T-800 arrives to kill John, eliminating him from the picture. Jumping to the present day, we follow Grace, who is a cybernetically-enhanced woman, as she tries to save a young Hispanic girl named Daniella who is being hunted down by the latest advanced Terminator model named the Rev-9. The duo is saved by an older Sarah Connor, who is now hunting terminators after the death of her son. It turns out that Daniella is the next future resistance leader and the newest version of Skynet called Legion is out to kill her like they tried to do with John Connor all those years ago.
Let’s not beat around the bush, Terminator Dark Fate is an unoriginal disgrace on just about every level. The very fiber of this film comes off as someone who is ashamed that the foundation of this franchise does not fit their current day intersectional feminist worldview, so they decided to change it by repealing and replacing everything they felt was problematic with more progressive friendly elements.
Let’s start with John Connor. The character who is the primary protagonist of the Terminator franchise is killed minutes into the film and is completely removed from the equation only to be replaced by the new hero of Daniella “Dani” Ramos. This is why progressive think tanks are killing cinema and entertainment as we know it. Because in the world of intersectionality, the only thing they see is a white male action star who just doesn’t fit the bill of the modern Hollywood diversity and inclusion agenda so he must be replaced. If you thought it was bad enough that they made John a villain in the last movie, the progressive Gods decided it was time for him to die thus rendering the plot of multiple films completely and utterly useless. At no point does anyone stop and understand that John Connor is the glue that keeps this entire franchise together. The character who both Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese sacrificed life and love for in the only two movies that are worth a damn because he symbolized humanity, leadership, and hope.
Dark Fate gets rid of John and replaces him with Dani, a 5-foot, 110 pound Hispanic illegal immigrant female who learns that she has become the newest threat to the machines. In short, she has become the new leader of the resistance. In a lazy attempt to transfer John Connor’s story arch to Dani, the film remakes the 1st movie by making Dani the new chosen one that everyone must fight to protect against the all-new version of Skynet. This reset retroactively makes The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day a complete waste of time, everything that happened in those films means absolutely nothing now.
During the progression of the film, Dani slowly strips away her femininity in order to become, the more masculine leader of the resistance aka the role that was always meant for John. This is progressive agenda 101, we must replace all strong male characters with strong female characters, but the women must first reject traditional femininity and take over the masculine role of men, thus contributing to the eradication of gender roles and gender identity. This is how they progress to the vision of society that they want.
Sarah Connor’s entire purpose of the franchise was protecting the life of her son, but now that John is dead, Sarah has become a bitter childless old woman with no purpose in life outside of vengeance, also known as the 3rd stage of feminism. It’s like the filmmakers watched the badass Sarah from Terminator 2 and forgot what made her that character in the first place. Sarah had a purpose that she was willing to die for and they removed her purpose because it didn’t hit enough checkmarks for them. With John out of the picture, the film tries to re-create a link between Sarah and Dani, who takes over the role of Sarah’s son, by attempting to make a callback to the storyline of the original film. The filmmakers, however never watched the 1st movie or were offended by who the real Sarah Connor truly was.
In The Terminator, Sarah represented the nurturing mother. A woman who with the help of a strong male counterpart (Reese) built up the courage to become the strong, heroic character that everyone loved in the first two movies. A character who due to her maternal strength, resolve, and instinct was able to raise the child who would grow up to be the strong male character humanity needed to be its savior against extinction, John Connor. But since progressivism looks down at traditional family structures as oppressive to its agenda, all of that is stripped away.
Instead of Dani learning the same lessons that Sarah did, she discovers that she is the hero the world needs and there is no need for her to lower herself for the sake of a man and humble herself for the sake of a child. You don’t need those things because progressivism says, you are already perfect as you are. Love and relationship which built the backbone of this franchise are torn away and thrown in the trash because how else is this film going to pass the Bechdel test?
Then that brings us to Grace. Grace is the character that has been selected to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as the ass-kicking terminator we all know and love. Despite the fact that Mackenzie Davis is not as physically intimidating as Arnold was in the first film, making him an iconic character to being with. Despite the fact that she doesn’t have any of Arnold’s charm or memorable lines that made likable in Terminator 2. Despite the fact that she doesn’t have ANY of the marketability that Arnold has which brings fans back into theaters in hopes that maybe one of these films will be good. Dark Fate sets up Davis to be the new terminator moving forward as this film is supposed to be the jumping point of a new trilogy, why? Because the future is female and that female like all the others progressives envision is very masculine.
Once you realize that this film is nothing more but a feminist reboot of a franchise that should have never lived on past 1991, you see Terminator: Dark Fate for actually what it is, empty calories. Every impactful scene is an unoriginal retelling of an event that has already taken place in a prior movie that did it far better. The endgame of Dark Fate is to hand the movie over to progressive women so that they can be given something that they could never achieve on their own merits…a successful franchise.
Make no doubt about it, there will be members of the media who will try to shame you into liking this film by accusing you of being a misogynist if you don’t like it, but that was always their gameplan. Tim Miller knew this from the start which is why he began attacking ‘Misogynistic Internet Trolls’ when this film had nothing more than a trailer to sell itself. When speaking about Arnold’s replacement, Miller said:
“If you’re a closet misogynist, she’ll scare the fuck out of you, because she’s tough and strong but very feminine. We did not trade certain gender traits for others; she’s just very strong, and that frightens some dudes.”
Well, that was a bunch of bullshit because there is nothing feminine about this movie. They knew it and we knew it from the jump.
They can’t create a riveting story that actually appeals to people outside of their cult echo chamber so they take over mediums where people already exist and then radically change the environment to their liking as they yell at those who leave to find a new platform.
If you thought Terminator: Genisys felt like a god awful fan film that damaged the legacy of its predecessors, Terminator: Dark Fate will make you write a full-fledged double-sided apology to Christian Bale and Kristanna Loken for every horrible thing you ever said about them and their films because yes…it did get worse from here. Dark Fate is the all-female reboot of Terminator that that didn’t have the balls to call itself one. By film’s end, you’ll regret that this franchise ever became successful enough to get this far and witness what the Hollywood machines have done to it.
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