***Spoilers For The Terminator movie series***

*Plus, I’m writing this with the assumption that anyone reading it has seen at least some of the movies*

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, okay quite a while I’m now realising, you’ll know what my thoughts on the Terminator movies are. Briefly, the first Terminator movie is a work of art. From the writing, to the casting, to the directing, and more. It’s pretty close to a perfect movie, but the second movie surpasses that by quite some distance. It takes the first movie and knocks it out the park. Terminator 2: Judgement is as close to the perfect movie as it is possible.

The third film is underwhelming. It was good seeing the end of the civilised world, but Nick Stahl didn’t sell it as John Connor. I liked how they built some details about the overall world, and the addition of Claire Danes (kate) as a love interest for Connor was a nice touch and having her dad being high level in the Air Force worked well. It is underwhelming though, plot holes, humour that falls flat, and it doesn’t work. It lacks a finesse that the first two movies has. It’s also the first of the films that isn’t directed by James Cameron.

Terminator: Salvation gets a lot of hate, but it’s one I quite enjoy. I loved seeing the world after Judgement Day. Christian Bale as Connor didn’t blow me away but it was okay. (I think John Connor is a hard character to pull off, there’s so much expectation of the character that I’m not sure how the character could be pulled off). I did like the connection between Connor and Kate. It was nice seeing him being open with her about what he was thinking and so on. The movie did have its problems. It was too tidy how Connor rose the ranks of the resistance. Connor and Reese in the death camp wasn’t harsh enough. It should have been brutal, and the focus of the film. With the end being the moment they get free. The major one was the character of Marcus. It wasn’t needed, its just an example of the movie trying to do something out there. Something different. It wasn’t needed.

God, now we have to talk about Genisys……. Do I have to??? Balls, okay. They started it off badly by trying to reset the world. The film had talent, by why oh fucking why would you want to eradicate the first two movies? Two of the finest movies ever made? Like, really? But to the rest of the movie. One of the biggest plot holes, Arnie’s T-800 working construction at the place they blow up at the end of the film. If he’s meant to be as advanced a robot as he is, then why did he not sneak in a couple of well placed lumps of C4 for later if need be? I like Jai Courtney, but Kyle Reese isn’t a buff hunk. He is traumatised by a lifetime of hiding from machines that wanted to kill him. Michael Biehn nailed it in the first movie, Anton Yelchin in Salvation does a damn good job. There’s an eagerness to fight and survive there that works for that movie. Genysis was a bad idea.

Dark Fate. The biggest mistake was killing John Connor in the first three minutes of the bloody movie. I wish I could say just how much that pissed me off, but when I first saw it I compartmentalised it. The rest of the movie is okay. There’s some good action, but I liked the characters played by Gabriel Luna and Mackenzie Davis, and it was good seeing Linda Hamilton back as Sarah Connor, but I wished she’d been given more power as a character. I get why she was written like that considering she saw her son executed in front of her.

Dark Fate wasn’t made for me, it was made trying to keep a connection to the original two movies while also trying to hook a new generation of fans.

Now, why am I ranting about all this? Quite simply, I’ve seen on socials recently that James Cameron has said he’s working on a new Terminator movie. No, just please no. Can we stop whipping the dead horse. It’s not just died, it’s been dead for years and the fact that none of the films since Terminator 2 have really hit the spot is testament to that.

James Cameron is a legend, but I don’t know if he can make it work again. Not while he’s working on other projects. Now, don’t get me wrong, I would love a Terminator film which blew me away like Judgment Day did, but I’ve been burnt by previous movies.

And yes, I’m being one of those fanboys who shouts into the abyss that is the internet, and I’m not taking away from all the hard work that has gone into making these movies, there just hasn’t been one that has ignited my excitement since those first two.