Terminator Genisys (2015) (1 Viewer)

[Sam Favate]

I feel about Terminator like I do about Alien: There hasn't been a good movie in the series in more than 25 years (30 in Alien's case).

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I liked Genesys, but Adam, I think you're right on the money with the film's failings. Jai Courtney was a terrible choice for Kyle Reese, and the movie itself didn't have a compelling story to tell.

I will say that I think I rate Lena Headey higher than you; I really loved her Sarah Connor and the layers of nuance she was able to develop over two seasons. It's the most screen time we've ever seen of a single actor in that role, a record that's not likely to be broken anytime soon, and I was tremendously moved by her performance. It's certainly more Linda Hamilton in T2 than T1, but I think that's appropriate for the story being told. And not only did Headey play the role for a longer amount of screentime than anyone else, but more time also passes in her version of the story than anyone else's. With Hamilton and Clarke, we get to see them over the course of a few very bad days. Headey has to sell that this has become their new reality, that they're always in danger and running from Terminators that are now always around. But maybe that's what you're saying afterall (I'm not entirely sure about the meaning of "elseworlds"?).

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I loved Headey as Sarah Connor, too, it's just a very different take on the character -- increasingly so as the show goes on.

I do think the reason for that is, as you mentioned, the amount of screen time. Television shows are fundamentally a back-and-forth between the writers and the cast. The writers of "Sarah Connor Chronicles" started out writing Sarah Connor but inevitably started writing to Headey's take on Sarah Connor. She made choices that Hamilton wouldn't have, and those opened up interesting new avenues for the writers to explore, and as that process propagated the distance between the big screen Sarah Connor and the small screen Sarah Connor widened.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

I purchased both seasons of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" for a reason: For most of it's run it actually feels like a real continuation of T2. With the exception of T3 -- which admittedly had some good moments -- none of the other sequels have even remotely come close to the quality of the first two.

"Terminator:Genisys" looked like it had potential based on the first theatrical trailer, but by the time we saw the second -- which for some reason spilled the "twist" of John Conner of the future being transformed into a Terminator (Why would they do that in a trailer??????????) -- it was obvious that it wasn't going to make the cut.

BOTTOM LINE: If Cameron is going to be involved in some fashion with the next one, I'll try to remain optimistic ...

 

[Jeff Cooper]

So do we want Cerci Lannister or Danerys Targareyn as Sarah Connor?