Which Terminator films do you need to watch before Terminator: Dark Fate? Created by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd, the Terminator franchise was launched back in 1984. There have been no less than four sequels to date, but unfortunately most critics would agree quality has diminished as the films have continued.
In large part that's because of the departure of director James Cameron. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines may have had an excellent twist at the end, but it generally lacked the creativity and flair of the first two films. Terminator: Salvation failed to kickstart a planned trilogy, and 2015's Terminator Genisys had a weak story and by-the-numbers action sequences. Fortunately, Terminator: Dark Fate sees Cameron return (as a producer, and with a story credit), reunited with stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton.
Cameron has effectively wiped the slate clean, meaning viewers only need to be familiar with the first two Terminator films in order to make sense of Dark Fate. The new Terminator movie is intended to serve as a sequel to T2: Judgment Day, ignoring all of the other sequels beyond that, acting as though they simply never happened. The legendary writer-director found the franchise as a whole to be too restrictive, and believed the timeline had become just too complicated. As Schwarzenegger explained in one interview, "What they are doing now with this one is basically to just take a few very basic characters, like Linda Hamilton’s character and my character, and dismiss everything else. Just move away from all these rules of the timeline and other characters."
Unsurprisingly, most viewers seem quite happy to see Terminators 3 through 5 consigned to non-canon status. Terminator: Dark Fate is the sequel fans have waited 30 years for, and a franchise that had felt close to death has been brought back from the brink. Cameron is already planning further sequels, and he intends these to explore the complex relationship between human beings and artificial intelligence. "I feel that we set the stage or we set the table for that exploration," he observed, "and that exploration would take place in a second film and a third film." He's been working with writers Chic Eglee and Josh Friedman to map out a three-movie arc, implying that Cameron intends to helm the franchise for some time to come.
All this isn't to say that there is no rewatch value in the other three Terminator films, though. It's actually quite an interesting and enjoyable exercise to compare and contrast them, to view them as two different and competing directions for the Terminator franchise. James Cameron's take is far superior, however, and box office tracking suggests that Terminator: Dark Fate will be a hit.
