Let me start this post by saying that I am not a “working” screenwriter. This post, and any others along the same lines, are all based on my opinion.
The trailers are where it starts to go wrong for Terminator Genisys. The main international trailer before release gave away one of the two main plot twists in the movie; John Connor becoming a Terminator. For the most part, that is a marketing issue. I have also since read a report from the director that said he was disappointed that it was in there. So I won’t hold that against them. However, onto the film itself, the script itself was wrought with issues. The script for Genisys was trying to be unnecessarily complex. This had the downside of making the film drag in several places due to exposition that needed to happen.
The original idea for Terminator, and Terminator 2 will show what I mean. In both of the original movies the script, while being simple, is pretty tight. It doesn’t go anywhere that is unnecessary for the story to flow. Anyone who has watched the original movies will remember that the only story in the first is, Terminator is sent from the future to kill the mother of the resistance leader, while the resistance sends a protector.
The second one, Judgement day, is not much more. The machines send someone back, but to kill John rather than the mother. Only difference is the protector this time is a reprogrammed machine. This is the main reason that these two films worked, while anything after them has failed. All the succeeding films have brought the story into a state of being needlessly complex.
Genisys is the worst of the latest of the sequels so far. The plot line goes from the future to the past, then people jumping into the future again.
First of all, once Reese makes it to 1984, he finds Sarah but due to someone sending a Terminator back earlier she is not the frightened character that we met in earlier films. This has the issue that she has nowhere to “grow” as a character, and leads it to her being stale and dry. The other main character, Kyle Reese, also has a similar problem. He spends the whole movie being told everything which lends the audience to getting information with lots and lots of exposition.
Exposition in Terminator Genisys is used a lot. One key part to the film is where the characters, Sarah and Kyle, are about to head to the future of 2017. The pace of the movie slows down dramatically for Arnold, as the guardian, to explain time travel; something that has never been done in previous movies. Why hasn’t it been done? Because it doesn’t need to be. Time travel in the Terminator films doesn’t need to be explained. In the rest, especially the original two, it is used and then bypassed for the rest of the action. It is used simply as transportation technique to get characters where they need to be.
Which leads me onto to why. There is no real need for the characters to time travel forward to 2017 at all. The entire purpose of the characters moving to 2017 is so that they can have some social commentary in the movie about how we spend so much time looking at cellphones. While this is true, it really did not need to happen and slows down the pacing while they look around to see how everyone is just inviting Skynet into their lives.
Skynet in this film is an operating system called, “Genisys” that connects everything to everything else. In the movie, this is also said to connect to military functions. This is where it continues to become unbelievable. The military would not be interested in a technology that links their computer network so readily with civilian networks and machines. Which brings me to Skynet’s part of the story.
In this film, Skynet (played brilliantly by Matt Smith of Doctor Who fame) is given a human face, and even a human body when he attacks John Connor at the start of the film. This is how the writers introduce the new style of terminator that is built on a nanite level and can replace a person’s genes with robotic versions of the same coding. This is what happens with John that turns him into a terminator. The robotic cells act in the same way as a liquid metal T-1000, being that it can change form and mimic people. The question is why? Skynet is an artificial intelligence, and has decided that humans are a threat to him and the world. Deciding that the only way to keep the world safe is to destroy us all. Never has it, or should it decide that it needs to take a human form. This shows a lack of understanding on the writers’ part about what Skynet is. Without understanding they give it a human focus, with human motivations. Everything about the way they have written this film attempts to turn Skynet into a mockery of itself.
Which leads me to the end of the film. The big countdown clock ending. While the two main characters are attempting to blow the building before Skynet “awakens and uploads” a clock is counting down during the action. The absolute purpose of this clock is removed when Skynet, as still a child projection, proclaims that he can now control the building. Even just before that, Skynet is talking to them as if he is a person. This leads to the question of why the countdown? Skynet is already “self-aware” at this point, which means the only thing stopping him from uploading is the need to try and convince Sarah and Kyle that he is the future. This is a very human response and there’s no reason for Skynet to act this way.
To conclude, this was a very disappointing addition to the disappointing sequels. The only way to enjoy this movie in my opinion is to switch off your brain so that you don’t think too hard while you’re watching the explosions and Arnie fighting himself.
So, decide for yourself based on what you enjoy. This movie was not for me, but if you enjoy it then don’t let anyone else convince you otherwise.
Thanks for reading..
Dream Big.
Dreaming Screenwriter 