I Like to Watch | Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
1984 was a great year for movies. As a senior in high school, I was (in my limited view of the future) at the top of my game and going to the local cinema was just one of my favorites places. Like a grandmother who can tell you exactly what she was doing the day she bought each one of her Hummel figurines, I can recall the exact circumstances that surrounded a lot of the films of that year.
STARMAN
A day at the Mall. Lew Hanna and I pretending to be Russian foreign exchange students and asking directions to the Spenser’s Gifts. We got tired, had some Orange Julius, and caught the afternoon show.
The Adventures of Buckeroo Bonzai in the 21st Century
On a date. Can’t remember her name but I remember we ate at Willie C’s Cafe and she hated the movie. I loved it so I didn’t ask her out again.
Footloose
Ryan Berger and I spending the day drinking beer and eating pizza. He had gone to a car dealership and asked to test drive a Camero. We drove all over Wichita as fast as we could, blaring the stereo. The Kenny Loggins’ title track came on and we liked it enough to go to Town East Square. We subsequently went to see it every night for a week.
Terminator
Christmas vacation. Lew, Mercer, Lynn, and I hop in my car and head to the mall to see a movie I really wanted to see and they were not quite as excited. Lew thought it was a comedy. I went nuts for it.
The thing about this first Terminator movie that gave it heart was Sarah Conner. She was us, going about her life, being a normal person with a normal life. It all comes crashing to a halt when both Kyle Reese and a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Terminator show up. The arc of her character follows her from damsel in distress to reluctant badass in the course of just under two hours.
The sequel, T2: Judgement Day, continues that arc. She knows the future. She knows her son is the only hope for humankind in that future. No longer fighting for her own life, she’s now responsible for the fate of the world and her kid. The Model 101 also gets an arc of sorts, learning human behavior, adapting to the role of protector instead of assassin. In the end, the machine sacrifices himself and Sarah changes the future. We are left with her musing about an unknown fate.
And then came the Big Mistake in the franchise.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Terminator: Salvation decided that John Conner and the Terminator were the soul of the film series. Sarah Conner is mentioned, mythologized, but is no longer a relevant character in the storyline.
Sure, they’re kind of fun (especially Salvation) but the central character is missing.
Then, Terminator: Genisys makes Kyle Reese the central character and completely changes Sarah’s journey. Again, the writers, directors, and producers missed again. The universe they collectively created is like a series of Harry Potter films without Harry at the center or Star Wars without Luke in the driver’s seat. The world created has to be grounded in someone the audience gets and whose eyes they can witness the world created. Without that character, it’s just an exercise in world-building with no heart.
Which is why, despite the miserable box office reception of Terminator: Dark Fate, I had high expectations. Linda Hamilton is back and looking badass! Someone gets it!
I wasn’t disappointed. Hamilton is great back in the driver’s seat. Arnold’s Terminator 101 finally gets a story arc worth exploring. Wait. What? De-aging that actually looks like people rather than creepy sex doll faces on old bodies?! The first third takes place in Mexico where people are mostly brown and don’t speak English? How novel!
Exploring the concept of saving all of humanity from itself only to have humanity double-down and create a version of Skynet anyway, lose her son despite all of her courage in the second film, change the future but not the outcome, while still all meta and time dashing, this movie didn’t feel like it was a stretch. In fact, it just felt like a natural extension of the first two rather than a room full of dude screenwriter fanboys geeking out on the whole time travel paradoxes and What If John Conner was the Bad Guy!?
Most importantly, Sarah Conner gets her due. Her arc gets completed. Her purpose is clear and her continued fight, not against the Machines but the very fact that humanity will continue to tempt this very fate over and over again does not deter her from planning and fighting back against a future that keeps coming back like a malicious weed in time.
Perhaps this all just feeds into my GenX dive into the nostalgia of my youth.
1984 was a great year for movies. On some level, Ghostbusters is mine because I was there first. I am Axel Foley, Billy Peltzer, Daniel Laruso, and Alex Rogan*. Roy Hobbs was mine before he was yours and a reboot featuring his bat doesn’t work for me.
Maybe I didn’t mind so much the continued rebooting of the story with the Terminator itself being the focus because when I was younger, the robots were the cool shit. It might be that, as I grow older, I want to see myself on the screen, dealing with age and loss, more than all the trappings of time travel, killer robots, and the Resistance.
Yeah, Sarah Conner is a woman but I’m not hung up on the heroes looking like me because I’m not defined by my gender or the color of my skin or my almost invisible heritage. Heroes are defined by their heroism rather than their identity. She was my entry into the story so I identify with her.
Sarah Conner is GenX. Good to see her still kicking robot ass.
*Beverly Hills Cop, Gremlins, Karate Kid, The Last Starfighter.
