DF analysis, sort of (SPOLIERS)

I saw the movie twice and here are my thoughts.

If you are in the US and haven’t seen the movie I strongly recommend you watch it before reading this for the sake of conversation. Don’t let someone else’s opinion spoil your own experience.

This is my first post on Reddit, I joined when the first DF teaser came out just to see other people’s opinions on the new movie. First saw T2 on VHS in early nineties when I was around 10, so obviously I’m one of those fans with strong emotional attachment to the characters, Uncle Bob being a father figure and all that.

Hated T3 when it came out, liked Salvation, didn’t care about Genisys, so I’m pretty much like everybody else here in their 30s.

I never read the leaks post but I got unintentionally spoiled by people who don’t put warning signs. Also, trailers showed way too much, especially the final ones with Carl’s ‘human’ part, so I pretty much knew the plot and what’s about to happen in each act.

So I’m going to take into account production, marketing, writing etc to figure out what we got as THE TRUE SEQUEL and why we got it.

1. Star Wars marketing book

Let’s face it, in many ways DF is Force Awakens aka ‘soft reboot’ (go watch RedLetter’s vídeos on this subject). Start of a new trilogy, passing the baton, Linda’s return - all this is very similar to Disney’s approach to SW. It’s even similar to a point where fans pretty much hated everything after the original movies, except Disney retained 1, 2, 3 as a part of the lore and Skydance had to get rid of the sequels whatsoever (partly because of its own mistakes, see Genisys).

This gives us several things to consider to do a soft reboot - a) a story continuation from the most loved installment of the franchise b) original cast (this is very important) c) new story set up by introducing new antagonists but similar to old ones, d) introduction of new characters to pass the baton.

1. Marketing and leaks

First of all, I think the marketing for the movie was a disaster. I believe this was mostly due to mismanaged timing on assets production, the initial poster and the first teaser felt rushed. Let’s take a look at Disney’s marketing machine. Or WB - even ‘indie’ Joker has so much better set up with Joakin’s photos with the makeup, the first trailers etc. You can’t change the first impression and DF failed big time. Everything else after that felt like a damage control chaos up until they figured it out with the trailers and cleaned up the mess after initial Tim’s interviews. The final release is a much better product than a lot of people perceived at first.

Also leaks never help, especially with such an audience like Terminator fans. Controlled leaks are way better.

Another thing to point out is the way they announced Eddie’s return. I personally felt like they are going to rewrite some of the stuff and have him act, as stated by Jim and Arnold. Lots of mismanaged expectations here and I think many of the rants out there are valid.

The leaks combined with later announcements about Eddie’s involvement, multiplied by John’s death purpose for the final script will have its negative effect.

1. The lore

So the goal is to reboot Terminator by having the events of T2 lead to a new future, with new characters and lore continuation.

Again, this is so similar the new SW trilogy. The First Order is The Legion in a way that they exist because the story needs new bad guys (the old bad guys were destroyed by the original characters that you need to bring back for a soft reboot). What makes it more difficult for Terminator is the fact that Skynet is a rogue AI and there is no antagonist that drives the story forward, while the terminators are just its puppets. Interestingly, SW failed to make The New Order a new threat in my opinion, while having so many potential advantages as not having the erased future problem, having an actual character representing a supporting organization etc.

So we know WHY we’ve got Dark Fate in its final form, let’s look at WHAT we’ve got.

1. The genre

Obviously the decision was to follow T2’s footsteps being an action movie with a strong focus on character development. I saw many comments that the franchise needs to be taken back to the roots with a low budget, character focused, genre movie approach. I don’t think producers even considered this option, even after two out of three sequels didn’t show an outstanding performance while being big budget productions. Again I’m not an expert in movie business, but given the names involved and the box office success of T2, ‘too big to fail’ approach looks more feasible. Especially when you are able to get Tencent involved to finance the project.

My opinion - DF is exactly what it needs to be. A fast paced movie that takes time to establish characters and story in between action screens that all lead to a finale that makes you want more.

BUT

1. Immersion

What makes us fans be attached to the prequels so much is the way Jim Cameron manages to make the characters and the action be so believable. While I absolutely adore him for his ability to create characters, what makes him special to me is that this visionary director stands on the intersection of art and technology (mainly because movies and video games are in many ways similar in the overall approach to production). Jim Cameron is a geek. He understands all aspects of technology that makes the visual art believable beyond actors’ play and story development.

You can clearly see this approach in T1, which is a miracle considering the budget. You can see this in T2 that had no technical flaws and everything just looked real, still does (bullet penetration morph effect aside). It was a breakthrough movie form a technology standpoint. You can see this in Abyss, Titanic and Avatar.

There are other directors that use a lot of CGI, but very few have the approach that balances the story and the visuals in a way that CGI blends in or even becomes unnoticeable. Christopher Nolan with his practical effects and invisible CGI. Denis Villeneuve. David Fincher.

Looking at Tim Miller’s background and his first feature Deadpool, I hoped Dark Fate to be flawless in terms of visuals. It’s not. While Deadpool benefited from over the top action scenes and supporting visuals, I think most of you would agree that Terminator is a completely different thing. Yes we all enjoyed spandex dressed Deadpool ass close up in slow motion, but we also expect total realism of what we see in a Terminator movie.

Let’s start with the chase scene in Mexico City. What could have been a great stunt work where REV-9 jumps from his truck became the worst visual part of the movie. Moreover, the unfinished work made its way to the teaser trailer and pissed everybody off. In an ideal world this should have been something similar to steel mill entrance scene in T2 where you see the best stunt of the 20th century cinema - a guy stepping from one truck to another and unleashing its firepower. We all saw Mad Max Fury Road making of videos with it’s incredible stunt work made possible by flawless choreography and wire work.

Dark Fate in many ways is a visual spectacle, but there are key scenes in the movie that make you feel that you are watching another over used CGI blockbuster. They didn’t have to make Rev-9 jump from that truck defying all laws of physics and being not believable with its flawed animation work. The actual stunt man could have just stepped over. They didn’t have to make him slam one plane into another and then JUMP FROM ONE PLANE TO ANOTHER. He could chase them on the runway and cling to sneak in after the take off. I mean Tom Cruse Cruise has done this himself!

I’m not trying to trash the entire movie for some CGI work because 90% of the time everything looks amazing. The fight inside the plane looks freaking great and you can clearly see that they have built a rig and everything was done for real with wires and rotating plane fuselage. This plane scene was very true to T2 heritage and I loved it.

The intro scene was good. I think Genisys did a better job with young Arnold. John looked almost real, so did Sarah. But somehow it was shocking and disturbing, setting a mood for the first part of the movie. This brings us to —

1. Original characters and JC’s fate

There is so much hate for JC’s fate at the moment but let’s take into account the points above. I’m not in a movie business, but I’m in video games and there are a lot of similarities. When you write a story you take into account everything, including actors and their characters’ value for the future. Again, many similarities with SW. The way Han Solo was brought back and killed off - he served as someone who provided a continuation with Kylo Ren, but clearly couldn’t provide a lot of value going forward. So his death was used to bring emotional momentum and develop a story for the new trilogy.

If you hate JC leak so much, try answering the following questions -

• was Eddie in shape as an actor to perform in the movie?
• with Legion introduced and Skynet future erased, what value could John bring except for the fan service?
• if EF is not in a good shape to rejoin the original cast, how can you kill his character and serve the story in the best way possible?

The decision was made to get him killed in 98 and introduce Carl and bitter alcoholic Sarah as a consequence of his death. It’s up to you to judge how it was executed and whether it was worth it, whether you had enough emotional attachment to a grieving Sarah and awoken Terminator (awoken, not woke!) in exchange for dead John.

There is a very good example of this sequel storytelling approach - Rachael from Blade Runner 2049. The character died off screen to give birth to a replicant, but that felt natural because the Joe’s character development and his detective story were great. Even her return as CGI double was great because it was such an emotional moment that explores Deckard’s character.

My opinion is they have pretty much nailed it with John’s fate and Sarah and Carl. Linda has great performance as Sarah, some moments are really touching. I liked her progression from ‘I know better’ grumpy old Sarah to realizing that things may be different this time. Something was missing too, like the fact that she is an alcoholic but she barely sips her Corona at Carl’s.

Carl is amazing too. Great character idea with a bad T-800 becoming self conscious. What was missing is a bit of substance and detail. The movie begs for a neural chip switch scene of sorts. The jokes are great! Arnold kicks REV-9 ass. I felt sad when he had a variation of ‘I’ll be back’ line.

That said I was really hoping for John return at least a cameo after the Edward’s announcement. I was hoping may be he survived and had to fake his death by separating with Sarah and becoming homeless, reappearing at the end of the movie. Nothing threatens his life anymore after the very last T-800 has been terminated. Edward could get in shape for the next movie and help Dani to become a leader. May be sacrifice himself for the new future. Oh well. RIP John Connor 1985 - 1998.

Not going to spend a lot of time on Grace and Dani, they have great chemistry. Grace’s story is good, Dani feels a bit underdeveloped, but I hope there will be another movie and she will have her time to establish herself and the leading character.

REV-9 is awesome and Gabriel Luna does a great job. Also the new future war scenes really show why you better run from it. All the tricks with separating from the endo work well during the fight scenes especially when it comes to tactical decisions to fight Grace and Carl.

1. Conclusion

Overall, I think Tim Miller and the team did a great job with Dark Fate. He is a true fan and you can see how he really cared about the movie being just right in many ways. I also think this subreddit needs to be a bit more realistic and give this movie a chance. Making movies is hard work and clearly the production team had many obstacles to overcome, judging by how the movie was marketed, the initial reaction etc. Yes they have made some mistakes but they have managed to fix most of them at the later promo stage and the film is superb.

I really wish Dark Fate a box office success so they can develop next films. I actually believe they have much better chance to succeed with the fan base with the next movies than Star Wars. If Tim will helm the production and they have already written the story for all three movies that means the new trilogy will have a single vision and not this cluster fuck up with Star Wars.

Submitted October 25, 2019 at 04:03PM by rekoner82 https://ift.tt/31IBCa8