Ever since the opening scene of James Cameron’s classic original, fans had been desperate to see a full-scale war movie that captured the brutal battle between man and machine, but when they finally ended up getting it in Terminator Salvation, the results were as dry as the wastelands the conflict was fought on.
While a $371 million take at the box office wasn’t bad, it wasn’t quite worth the $200 million investment, and neither was a Rotten Tomatoes score of only 33 percent. Even director McG knew he messed up, and has since apologized more than once for failing to deliver on expectations.
Heading back to the drawing board, Terminator Genisys then rebooted all over again to even worse results, with an already-announced sequel being pulled from the release calendar. Proving that third time really wasn’t the charm in this instance, Dark Fate fared worse out of the three rapid-fire reinventions by losing $120 million after bombing hard in theaters.
At this point, it’s fair to say that maybe Terminator should take at least some time away from our screens, if not go away forever. Delivering three failed reboots in the space of 10 years is ludicrous even by Hollywood’s standards, but Salvation has been coming in for some faint praise by way of a prosperous Reddit thread aiming to drum up renewed appreciation.
It’s sort of working, but being called the best out of a trio of colossal failures is hardly a glowing appraisal, and it may not even be true depending on how you feel about the other two. The best we can hope for is that somebody makes what everyone can agree is the third best Terminator ever, which says it all, really.
