This summer, The Terminator is getting a reboot. Two trailers have been released.
And boy is it a doozy. In terms of marketing it does everything it is supposed to. Show right out of the gate that this is new and also give away a lot. Kyle Reese is sent back from a timeline that is broken. Everything that presumably happened in the four other movies occurred but now has been reset to make room for this story. Your mileage will vary but I am genuinely excited for this. It feels a bit like what the Star Trek reboot did and this is a good thing.
The original Terminator is my favorite movie. I didn't fully understand it when I first saw it (probably around age 10) but it stuck with me through the years and still holds up on repeat viewings. And what keeps that viewing fresh is the love story underlying the plot.
Strip away the time travel, the apocalyptic future, the unstoppable killer cyborg and you have a story as old as fairy tales. One lone knight protecting a princess and willing to die to protect her. The sequel is a variation on this plot only it's a father protecting a family instead. Too early to tell if this film will have an authentic emotional core but I want to outline below the kind of potential I see.
The Terminator film rights revert to Cameron in 2019. Before that happens we get this film, the first of a planned trilogy. This second trailer gave away another plot point that I wished they'd saved but like the two terminators in the sequel it was kind of hard to avoid.
John Connor has joined the machines.
I cackled with glee upon seeing that twist. This series is going in a direction that I always thought it needed to if it would continue beyond two. John Connor would have to die. T3 and T4 sort of addressed this but mangled the execution. The Sarah Connor Chronicles was heading in this direction, I think, before it got weird.
My only worry for this series is that bit about stopping judgement day from occurring. This series now appears to be playing with quantum mechanics rules of time travel. Alternate realities here we come. It takes the sting out of that horribly bleak ending to the original. Maybe Sarah and Kyle can find a reality where the missiles were never launched.
