They really and truly did. It’s too late to stop it, without, say, time travel: Terminator was shot in Hungary last year. It’s also apparently throwing out everything that happened after Terminator 2, which is admittedly the smart play, but… look. What is the reason for this?
…Oh.
Yeah, $440 million worldwide on a $155 million dollar budget can justify that, sure. Well, not to me; but then, I’m not exactly the target audience for this, am I? And who knows: maybe it won’t quite* suck.
Moe Lane
*Look, I figure that if there was ever a time to get expectations on the floor and then start pounding it with a hammer, it’d be now.
*sigh* Do not have a lot of hope on this one.
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The SM Stirling book series (Starting with T2: Infiltrator) actually was surprisingly good. The first book, at least, started off very strong (there were issues with later books.) It would have also given a reason for Arnold aging- as the character he would have played was actually the human basis for the Terminator model, an Austrian anti-terrorist operative who has now retired and just happened to have bought a ranch in South America right next to this strange widow, who has a son in military school. Wackiness ensues.
Throwing out everything after T2 was also what the TV series did. It seemed to work well enough… early on, at least.
Because attempting to torment us is the only bright spot in their pathetic existence?
I guess I’m the only one who liked Terminator Genisys? Certainly it was better than Rise of the Machines.
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It should also be noted that since the Terminator franchise has time travel to change the past baked in as a central premise, the idea of a “Terminator continuity” has to be regarded as amorphous at best.
The first one established that time travel can’t really change a thing
By sending the Terminator back in time to kill Sarah Connor, Skynet actually caused the creation of John Connor. (Both in his person, and being raised with a singular purpose.) Stable time loop.
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The second took the opposite tack, and appeared to succeed in creating a stable time loop without Skynet. Except the very existence of sequels stands as stark overwhelming evidence that they didn’t succeed.
> The first one established that time travel can’t really change a thing
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I feel like that’s reading a lot more into the movie than what’s there. All we saw one case where time travel apparently didn’t change anything.
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Anyway, this is all according to the first rule of time travel stories: time travel works the way the writer wants it to work.
I’m guessing it’s “use the license in x years or lose it” Hollywood situation (I am not a lawyer). The Terminator franchise has had a large number of hands owning it over the years, this is probably whomever got it after Genisys tanked.
That’s how we got that most recent Fantastic Four movie after all– the rights were going to revert back to Marvel.
If only.
Now Marvel can be like,
“SEE?!? You could have had a nice collab like Spiderman. Now you have your name on *that* thing. Hand over the goods to someone who can appreciate them.”