Discuss Terminator: Dark Fate
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One way to have improved the film and make it feel a proper follow up to T2
posted by fan_of_filmsSTAFFMOD on November 3, 2019 at 10:41 AM
Instead of Dani as some random Mexican, have her as John Connor's girlfriend. They lived together for a few years, were planning to marry but split up. Prior to the split, John said he still had dreams of Judgement Day and himself leading the resistance against a new threat, Legion. He was convinced his dream was a premonition. He wrote down all of the dream in a journal.
The journal mentioned a software company called Legion Dynamic. It was developing AI software for cars and prototype robots for use in combat. John was convinced Legion was the cause of the next war. He contacted a private detective to investigate Legion Dynamic but the detective disappeared. John assumed he was killed.
Sarah asks about the whereabouts of the journal. Dani believes John hid it in a secure location. The plot involves Dani and the others searching for the journal and that leads to them finding out more about Legion.
The start of the film with John getting killed could have been altered. He could have been in his early 20s, not a teenager. John and Dani could be around the same age - early to mid 20s. John was killed after they split up so Dani never knew about the terminator.
Had they been boyfriend and girlfriend it would have given Legion a reason to target Dani. She knew about Legion so she was the new target. If the film makers had gone that story route there would have been a reason why Dani is in Dark Fate.
T1 - Mother
T2 - son
T3 (Dark Fate) - girlfriend.
It all ties in. A natural progression of the saga. One simple plot change and I think Dark Fate would have been a stronger sequel.
Reply by RodimusConvoy
on November 3, 2019 at 4:53 PM
Not bad. It would have required a recast of Dani, but that might not have been a bad thing.
Either that, or, if they really wanted to use the actress, she could have been John and this girlfriend's daughter. Maybe John was estranged from his mother, and when he was killed the girlfriend later found out she was pregnant. So Sarah would have only known/eventually found out that John was killed, not that he had a girlfriend nor a child on the way. Everything could have progressed almost the same (dad becomes granddad, same actor).
Reply by fan_of_films
on November 3, 2019 at 9:06 PM
It's weird why James Cameron would be on board for the official third Terminator film - sequel to T2 - and he makes the next target, Dani, have no link with the two previous films.
Dani could be anyone linked to John. I dunno, sister (adopted but she left earlier as a child), wife, girlfriend, other relative. Take your pick. Just give the audience some link to John and we get the impression Dark Fate is a natural continuation of T2 and not a Force Awakens reboot.
My guess is the producers/writers/studio saw the huge success of The Force Awakens (essentially a soft reboot of A New Hope with stronger female roles) and they thought "let's do that with Terminator 6! We'll convince James Cameron to come on board, the rights have gone back to him. He'll say Dark Fate is the official third film in the franchise even though it's just The Force Awakens done in a Terminator style."
Reply by Innovator
on November 4, 2019 at 5:58 AM
They did that for 3 films following T2. None of them worked. This movie was better than all three of those. Reviewers say that's not saying much, but it actually does say a lot as they had 3 attempts before hand to get it right, but didn't.
Reply by Innovator
on November 4, 2019 at 6:15 AM
Dark Fate is still better reviewed than all 3 of the others with practically all the reviewers agreeing that this is a better effort than all those after T2.