The Terminator franchise doesn’t seem likely to be revived any time soon, but the best bet for the survival of the series would be killing off Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor and making a smaller, scarier outing like the actor herself suggested. Beginning in 1984 with the sci-fi action horror The Terminator, the franchise has expanded in the decades since to include five subsequent films, a television series, and a whole lot of knotty, complicated time-traveling lore for the series. However, despite boasting not one, not two, but three theatrical reboots in Terminator Salvation, Genisys, and Dark Fate, the franchise has never really returned to the slasher roots of the original Terminator.
The first film was a sparse, intense chase thriller with horror elements, whereas each subsequent sequel has broadened the scope and expanded the action of the series. Despite the maxim that “bigger is better,” the opposite has consistently proven true for the Terminator series. The third film, 2003’s Rise of the Machines, ends with the global apocalypse and was received less favorably than its predecessor Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
The next sequel was an even more ambitious post-apocalyptic war movie, and 2009’s Terminator Salvation fared even worse with critics. Now, original star Linda Hamilton has said she is tired of the franchise and would only want to return for a smaller, more intimate outing. So, what would be a better small role for the veteran blockbuster star than killing off her iconic character to establish there are real, life-or-death stakes for what would otherwise be yet another reboot?
Killing Off Sarah Would Fix Dark Fate’s Biggest Mistake
Dark Fate made numerous missteps, with one critic noting the sight of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s once-ferocious titular killer being reduced to a retired drapery salesman named Carl was just unintentionally funny. But killing off Sarah’s son/pivotal franchise figure John Connor in the opening scene of Dark Fate was an understandable mistake since the moment did act as an effectively bleak way to prove the sequel was unafraid of upsetting long-time fans. However, in practical storytelling terms, the shock also undid Judgment Day’s ambiguous ending and ended up complicating the entire franchise timeline. Killing off an aging Sarah, in contrast, would be arguably even more shocking (she is, after all, as iconic a heroine as Ripley or Laurie Strode), but wouldn’t necessarily result in the tangled mess of alternate timelines Dark Fate spent its runtime unknotting.
Terminator Has Lost Its Brutality
Blame the outings saddled with sanitized PG-13 ratings, the goofy disco shades Arnold Schwarzenegger’s once-scary eponymous robot dons in Rise of the Machines, the same movie giving the first female Terminator an inflating chest, or Dark Fate’s retired senior citizen Terminator. Regardless of what caused the decline, it is hard to deny the Terminator franchise has never returned to the original movie’s intense, slasher-influenced brutality since Judgment Day’s apocalyptic opening sequence. Outside of Salvation, the movies have grown progressively lighter in tone, most likely because their growing budgets meant the creators needed to attract huge crowds to the multiplex and, as such, they were often stuck with a more inclusive PG-13 rating.
While this reasoning somewhat excuses the lighter tone of Terminator 3 or the regrettable decision to remove some of the darker moments from Terminator: Salvation, it does not account for how little tension featured in Dark Fate, which boasted both Deadpool director Tim Miller and an R-rating. With no limit to the violence that could be depicted, Dark Fate could have brought back the unpredictable ultra-violence of the original, but failing to kill off its resilient heroine Sarah Connor meant none of the movie’s theoretically shocking content was particularly impactful. When Hamilton returned alongside newcomer MacKenzie Davis, it did not take an expert to work out which actor’s character would be dead before the credits rolled, but Dark Fate’s R-rating was wasted on a plot whose only shocking death was John Connor's. Killing off Sarah, in contrast, would be the shock to the system jaded Terminator fans need to be engaged by the series again.
Terminator 7 Could Be The Smaller Movie Hamilton Wants
The seventh Terminator movie, if it comes to pass, can be a more intimate thriller, something Hamilton herself said would be the only interesting direction for the franchise to take going forward. In an interview, Hamilton said she would be fine with the creators adding another film to the franchise, with one major proviso. Per her Hollywood Reporter interview in January 2020, "I would really appreciate maybe a smaller version where so many millions are not at stake." The actor is right about the sort of story the franchise needs to return to its strengths, a smaller, character-focused horror-thriller that re-establishes the titular character as a genuine threat - and makes it clear no one is safe from the wrath of the Terminator.
A brutal, small-scale horror that kills off Sarah Connor (something that Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was originally intended to do) could pull the ailing franchise away from the blockbuster-scale action that saw the last few entries prove disappointing at the box office and back to its horror roots. A return to slasher-style horror would be a welcome change for the series for several reasons, as the attendant lower budget would put less pressure on this latest reboot to do big business, the recent revival in popularity of the slasher subgenre makes it a canny choice, and killing off Sarah could make way for a slew of new characters in the likely situation this smaller outing is a success.
Both the Rock and John Cena have recently been attached to the role of the franchise’s titular android assassin, but what the Terminator series needs is not another big name attached to its reboot. Rather, the best move for the iconic sci-fi franchise is to off its most famous star and leave audiences uncertain who will and won’t survive in the harsh, intense sci-fi horror, regardless of who plays its villain.