At this point, the Terminator film franchise is right up there with Halloween when it comes to “choose your own adventure” series. By that, I mean each have had their timelines branch in various directions since the original first debuted in cinemas.
In the case of Terminator: Dark Fate, it appears to be a followup to Judgment Day for all intents and purposes. Previously, we’d had the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series and Genisys flick exploring new avenues, but now the time has come to (sort of) wipe the slate clean yet again.
I guess one advantage the new installment has over previous offerings is that it actually features Linda Hamilton reprising her role as the aforementioned Sarah Connor. In the latest TV spot, which has been embedded at the top of this article, she makes quite the impact before delivering a line normally associated with co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger, that being “I’ll be back.”
Obviously, Hamilton’s return is a big deal here, as producer James Cameron hyped up her involvement by saying the following:
“Sure, there are lots of female empowerment characters — you’ve got Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman and Black Widow. There’s quite a list. How many of them are over 40? Not too many. Gets to be a very short list. Talking about action empowered, action females. There are all these dewy young things. How many of them are over 60? Big fat zero. And now you start looking back through history and how many female action hero prototypical characters that were over 60. Lots of guys. Lots of midlife crisis guys — you know, Bruce Willis, Liam Neeson, Clint Eastwood, they’re still packing guns into their 80s. How many ladies? Not too many. So I thought, ‘This is worth doing, this is a great thing to do.’
“This is a powerful archetypal figure. You put that together with a known great kickass action hero I think you’ve got something special and something you haven’t seen before. … She’s bad grandma with a shotgun, and you’d better watch your ass.”
Now, keep in mind that Cameron isn’t directing this time around (that honor goes to Deadpool‘s Tim Miller), but having his name attached to the project should provide a seal of quality of sorts. Similar to how John Carpenter was hands on with last year’s Halloween sequel, one would certainly hope likewise results are produced here.
We’ll find out if that’s the case though when Terminator: Dark Fate opens in theaters on November 1st.
