As the Terminator franchise prepares for the release of its sixth installment, Terminator: Dark Fate, it’s inevitable to look back at the previous entries, especially Terminator Genisys, which is mostly known for how bad it was – and the reason behind that is still a mystery. The franchise began in 1984 with The Terminator, which set the basic premise: Skynet, an artificial intelligence system from the future, wants to kill the leader of the human resistance, John Connor. But because this is science fiction and the future, Skynet sends a cyborg assassin known as the Terminator to avoid John Connor’s existence, either by killing his mother or a younger version of John.
The franchise is comprised by six films, including the upcoming Terminator: Dark Fate, which is a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgement Day, essentially rebooting the franchise. However, there was a prior attempt to reboot the saga that didn’t go as planned and ended up crashing and burning quite badly: Terminator Genisys, directed by Alan Taylor. The film was planned to be the first of a new trilogy, and the producers even consulted Terminator creator James Cameron as they wanted to bring back the spirit of the first two films, but this wasn’t achieved.
Terminator Genisys was mostly criticized for its convoluted plot and insistence on retelling the events from the first two films without anything original nor with the thematic depth of Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. But Terminator Genisys was only the reflection of all the issues that were going on behind the scenes, of which still not much is known, but everything points at a real, big mess. In March, 2018, Emilia Clarke admitted she was “relieved” when Terminator Genisys failed as that meant she didn’t have to return for a sequel. Clarke explained that director Alan Taylor, with whom she had worked with before on Game of Thrones, was “eaten and chewed up on Terminator” and no one had a good time.
In that same interview, Clarke shared that the crew from Josh Trank’s infamous Fantastic Four, which is mostly remembered for the chaos that was going on behind the scenes and which was filming near the set of Terminator Genisys, had jackets made that read “At Least We’re Not On Terminator”. Exactly what went wrong during pre-production and production of Terminator Genisys is unknown, but it might have all been rooted in the plot and the vision the producers at Skydance Media had. Time traveling stories can be hard to follow, and Genisys didn’t do anything to make it easier for viewers, nor did they do anything exciting with the most famous characters from the saga, something the cast might have not been totally comfortable with. Arnold Schwarzenegger told Business Insider back in 2017 that his character is a really interesting one, but in Genisys it felt like an “ordinary guy who suddenly gets activated again” and it was hard to come up with new ideas “when you stay within that framework”.
The story also tried to stay true to the rules of the timeline while trying to retell it, which sounds like an on-set nightmare by itself. At this point, it’s unlikely Alan Taylor or anyone else involved in Terminator Genisys will come forward and share what truly went wrong with the film, especially given how bad of an experience it reportedly was for everyone. Luckily, it looks like Skydance Media learned from its mistakes and did its best to bring a (hopefully) proper reboot with Terminator: Dark Fate.
