Most of the hype surrounding the release of last year’s Terminator: Dark Fate was due to the returns of both James Cameron and Linda Hamilton to the long-running sci-fi series, but ultimately, the most recent installment turned out to be the fourth disappointing Terminator movie in a row, with the box office returns resulting in a heavy loss for the studio and perhaps even the final nail in the coffin for the franchise.
The autopsy has since been carried out on why Dark Fate bombed, with director Tim Miller publicly commenting on his disagreements with creator/producer/story developer Cameron, along with a controversial opening scene that split the fans right down the middle. At this point, there hasn’t been a good Terminator for almost 30 years, so now is probably the time to let the adventures of the cybernetic organisms, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton, ride off into the sunset.
Despite the mixed reviews though, one of the undoubted highlights of Dark Fate was Hamilton reprising her role as Sarah Connor, with the actress’ first appearance as the character since Judgement Day maintaining her reputation as one of cinema’s greatest female heroines, with decades of world-weariness adding new layers to her performance.
In a recent interview, the 63 year-old revealed that she wanted her long-awaited return to have even more shock value, so much so that she wanted to make Sarah fat in order to immediately let audiences know that this wasn’t the same version of her that they were used to.
“The shock value, I think, sort of plants everybody in, immediately. I actually kept arguing that maybe she should just be fat. That would have shock value too. There was the element of shock in between Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, where the audience sees Sarah Connor and they’re like, ‘Holy f**k!’. So, I thought that coming back 30 years later would give our audience a ‘Holy f**k!’ moment.”
Fat or not, it would have taken a lot more than Linda Hamilton packing on a few pounds to elevate Terminator: Dark Fate to anywhere near the quality of the all-time classic first two installments. The franchise has been running on fumes for a long time now, and after the latest high-profile setback, it would be best for all involved if the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 and all associated were permanently retired.
