Last Saturday, we saw that the writers had already introduced a number of bizarre choices to Terminator Genisys (2015) that make all the prior installments of the Terminator series feel pointless. The situation doesn’t improve.

Once Kyle Reese is sent back in time, we are transported back to the world of 1984. The original Terminator, the first T-800,  appears and finds the gangsters from the first film. But this time, rather than attacking the gangsters to acquire some badly needed garments, the original T-800 encounters an older version of itself waiting for it.

The two robots fight, and someone — hint: it’s Sarah Connor — shoots the original T-800 with a very large gun. She kills it before it can finish off the older robot who, we later learn, is called Pops. As fun as it was to see an older version of Arnold Schwarzenegger fight a younger version of Arnold Schwarzenegger, this was a remarkably stupid decision because it ruined the only thing this lousy film had going for it, a mystery.

Switching the focus to Sarah Connor

While Kyle was being sent back in time, a robot attacked John Connor. Then the audience saw Kyle experience a number of bizarre visions, which he later says are memories. However, at this point in the story, the audience doesn’t understand what these visions are, so one could argue that there is a decent mystery here. Has something changed, or did Kyle, for whatever reason, refuse to tell Sarah her son’s fate? It’s a clunky setup, but the audience doesn’t know what’s going on, and such a question could create at least a little tension to keep the moviegoer interested.

But once the movie moves away from Kyle’s point of view and switches to Sarah, the only story question the writers have raised is answered. To be fair, the audience doesn’t actually see Sarah’s face, but we hear her breathing, and who else would have a Terminator in 1984?

It was very unlikely that the audience was going to be introduced to a new female protagonist, so the only candidate has to be Sarah. Sarah is the hero now. The audience now knows this, so they’re forced to wait for Kyle to figure it out. This makes everything that happens up to the point Sarah and Kyle meet feel like wasted time, which is a shame because there are some neat scenes leading up to Kyle and Sarah’s “reunion.”

A return to Kyle’s perspective

When the audience returns to Kyle’s perspective, he finds himself in 1984, and the movie does a good job recreating the iconic scenes from the first film. But once Kyle holds a cop at gunpoint, the cop turns into a T-1000, the villain from the second movie, and attacks him. Kyle runs from the liquid robot, and I thought it was a nice touch when the writers recreated the original clothing store scene from the first film, only now, instead of running from the cops, Kyle is running from the T-1000. The robot eventually corners Kyle and another police officer, but then Sarah runs a truck into the building and says to Kyle, “Come with me if you want to live.”

A scene that should’ve been riveting, but wasn’t

The first issue is the one I just mentioned. Showing Sarah killing the Terminator immediately after John was attacked told the audience exactly what the movie was going to be about. It forces us to simply wait for Kyle to figure out what they’d already put together. So, when the T-1000 attacks Kyle, there’s no confusion, no intensity, nothing. The audience intuitively knows that Kyle has to figure out the situation before the story can progress. Therefore, the T-1000 offers no real threat.

If the writers had been thinking things through, they would’ve kept the movie going from Kyle’s perspective. This would’ve kept the audience off-balance by rapid-firing a number of questions at them. What attacked John? What are these visions? Why is there a T-1000 in 1984? What’s going on?! Hitting the audience hard and fast with these questions would’ve created tension and made for a more interesting film. Of course, rapid-firing these questions and making them the center of the story would’ve required the writers to answer those questions at some point, which I don’t think they were inclined to do.

Memory berries

In my opinion, the writers weren’t interested in a mystery. They weren’t interested in the plot. They wanted the old callbacks to serve as memory berries for the audience; however, they were unwilling to establish a proper set-up to create those callbacks. So, for them, it didn’t matter when Sarah arrived. It didn’t matter that her presence served as a spoiler for the rest of the film. It didn’t matter that by showing her when they did, they turned the T-1000, a formidable villain to say the least, into a run-of-the-mill movie monster.

Basically, I think the writers wanted to create a Terminator Monster Mash, not a coherent story. They wanted to see an old Arnold fight a young Arnold. They wanted to see those old gangsters from the first film. They wanted to see the homeless man Kyle ran into. They wanted to see the clothing store. They wanted to see the T-1000. They wanted the audience clapping like seals at every nostalgic token.

What they didn’t realize was that an audience is chiefly interested in the story. So, by showing Sarah too soon, they turned all those nostalgic tokens into mini reruns because the moviegoers had already figured out the whole mystery. John was attacked, and that has somehow reset the timeline. The only story question left now is how long it will take for Kyle to figure this out. And by making this the new story question, the writers deflated the threat the T-1000 represented: Kyle has to figure out the mystery before he can safely die and still keep the narrative coherent. The story can’t progress until Kyle’s narrative arc is complete. The audience knows this on an instinctive level, so in the situation the writers set up, the T-1000 isn’t a threat; it’s a distraction, a way to waste time until the writers choose to revive the story question.

Deflating the tension

If the T-1000 had attacked before Sarah showed up, if the movie had continued to follow Kyle’s perspective, then the audience would’ve reacted to the attack the same way Kyle did, with fear and confusion. Even if certain audience members were quick enough to figure out that the timeline had been reset, they would still be left wondering how in the world Kyle is going to escape this new opponent. In this scenario, there wouldn’t be a gun-touting Sarah Connor running around ready to save Kyle when writers decide the time is right, which is exactly what happens. But since the audience has already seen Sarah, and not only seen her but also watched her take out the first Terminator, they already know she’s privy to the entire situation and is already on her way to save Kyle, which again, deflates the tension.

This is just the first problem with the sequence of events that take place before Kyle and Sarah meet. And sadly, I feel like I need to go through as many of the problems as I can. I don’t want to seem pedantic, but these flaws are important to understand because Terminator Genisys is one of those movies where the viewers are likely to experience a growing sense of unease that they can’t put a finger on. The reason for the unease is these flaws. They seem minor but they stack up and create a boring but subtly frustrating film. I’ll explore the various problems during these scenes next Saturday.

Here’s what I wrote last Saturday: Terminator Genisys Review, Part 1: What was the point? When filming a sequel, it’s important to draw on the previous story, to keep the viewer emotionally invested in the characters. Genisys completely ignores everything set up in Terminator Salvation and Terminator 3 and assassinates John’s character, reducing the emotional stakes.