As the story nears its climax, Grace reveals that Dani (a sort of female John) isn’t going to be the mother of humanity’s hero; she is the hero. This should not be a shock to anyone. But Grace’s flashback shows just how little thought the writers had given to this new setup. As Grace is recounting the story of how she met Dani, we see her enter the scene looking exactly the same as she does in the present, save for the fact that she has her hair in cornrows.

At first, I thought the studio was being cheap. They’d blown their budget on the fancy CGI to de-age Sarah and John and couldn’t afford the makeup for Dani’s future wrinkles. But sadly, I was giving the writers too much credit.

These people honestly expected the audience to believe that Dani, the female John of the present, would become humanity’s future warrior in only a handful of years. This was insane! There is no way that a girl who works at a car factory is magically going to endure the end of the world, develop the charisma to unite a fractured humanity, and obtain the military prowess to outwit an army of robots — all while Grace is still a child.

Remember all the careful thought that went into John Connor’s backstory? Remember how Sarah Connor trained him until she was locked away? How he had a natural talent for hacking, which he perfected while being dragged from home to home in foster care? How he spent his adult life living off the grid, learning to avoid mechanical detection? How he was locked away in an underground bunker, where the most he could do during the opening days of the war was tell the military what was going on and give them insight into the machines’ plans? That earned him a reputation as a prophet and made him an honorary military leader — despite having no rank?

Backstory? Why?

Apparently, Dani needs no such story. She’ s just that awesome! How did the military come to trust her? Don’t know! Was there even a military during this discount apocalypse? I have no idea. If there wasn’t a military, how did her ragtag team of rebels learn to fly helicopters? She certainly couldn’t teach them. She says she doesn’t even know how to drive!

From a storytelling perspective, Dani has no credibility. John had a small degree of military training and foreknowledge about the machines’ plans. She is just very opinionated. Neither the audience nor the people in her world have any reason to listen to her. And frankly, force-feeding the audience a replacement John and just expecting them to accept her without giving the character some kind of skill or unique feature is just lazy.

The Rev-9 returns

Anyway, after the revelation that wasn’t really a revelation, the Rev-9 attacks again. The way he does this is just idiotic. The trio is being guarded by fighter jets — plural. The Rev-9 flies up to the trio’s plane, acting like he’s going to refuel the vessel, but then he lowers his plane — which is filled with flammable gas — on top of one of the fighter jets.

Point one: Both the plane and the jet should’ve exploded. Point two: The other jet or jets should’ve shot the Rev-9 down. The military official Sarah met told his troops to protect the trio’s plane. But, for some incomprehensible reason, the other aircraft meant to protect the trio vanish with no explanation. I’ll say it again for emphasis: LAZY!

The Rev-9 rams his plane into the trio’s plane, but the trio escapes the crash. There is a very long and dramatic fight scene that eventually ends when the EMPs Sarah was going to use are destroyed.

The trio is trapped inside a dam with the Rev-9 right behind them. Dani tells the group that they are going to make their last stand, which seems inevitable because there’s no place to run anyway.

The Rev-9 shows up. Carl and Grace fight the Rev-9 while Sarah shoots at it a few times. The group is unable to overpower the discount Terminator. but luckily, since Grace is an augmented human, she conveniently has a power source inside her body that will fry the Rev-9 just as well as an EMP.

Funny how that detail was never brought up until the climax—not once.

Grace tells Dani to kill her and pull the power source from her body. At first, Dani doesn’t want to, but Grace is mortally wounded anyway, so she eventually gives into the dying woman’s demands. She takes the power source from Grace’s body and tries to kill the Rev-9, but the Rev-9 is too strong for her.

Thankfully, the Terminator, who was knocked out, wakes up because Sarah called him Carl — that worked for some reason, but who knows why?

Carl helps Dani kill the Rev-9 by holding the evil robot down while the power source fries it. The Terminator’s last words — probably for the entire franchise — are “For John.” Then the Rev-9 blows up, and the Terminator is killed in the explosion.

Things that don’t make sense

First of all, Carl has a power source too, so the final explosion should’ve detonated his batteries as well, killing everyone. But that wasn’t the most upsetting part of this sequence. There was one shot that sickened me. I’m not joking. I get angry at films a lot, but it’s not very often that my temper distills into a simmering disgust.

While Carl is holding the Rev-9 down, Sarah and Dani stare at the two robots from the top of a pit, and the shot is identical to the iconic scene where Sarah and John watch the T-800 lower itself into molten metal. It was as if the writers were practically screaming, “This is your John now! Accept it!” I didn’t. And frankly, all I felt during this scene was a deep loathing for the movie. After the fight, Dani visits a younger Grace, then drives off with Sarah.

I can’t fault the actors for any of this. From a performance perspective, nobody does a poor job. But I will say that Linda Hamilton carries this movie. For me, she was the only thing that made the film tolerable.

Where the writing fails, the acting can’t always save it

One major problem is the writing. The dialog is some of the worst I’ve ever heard. It’s petulant. Particularly when it comes to Dani and Grace. There is no actor alive who could deliver some of these lines in a believable way.

But the main issue is obviously the cold and lazy attempt to replace John Connor. I’ve spoken about it before, so I won’t repeat myself, except to say that it doesn’t matter how good or bad the replacement is. When it comes to the Terminator franchise, the whole game, the whole story question, revolves around whether or not Sarah Connor saves her son.

Even in Terminator Salvation, John is still looking to Sarah Connor for guidance. If Sarah doesn’t save her son, the story is over. The game is over. The movie ends. She is terminated. And since the Terminator franchise has killed that story twice now, I feel confident saying that the franchise is destroyed and will never recover, not unless the creators admit that they’ve made some mistakes. And I’d be surprised if that happened. Don’t watch this movie. It’s a waste of time, and if you have any emotional investment in this franchise at all, it will only depress you. I’ll discuss my thoughts on the franchise as a whole next Saturday.

Here are the first five parts of my extended review:

Terminator Dark Fate: Not as bad as Genisys but close. Here in Part 1, we also look at rumors of a new Terminator project in the works. Could some of the mistakes that plagued earlier films be avoided? The actors are quite good and if their performances seemed canned at times, I blame the dialogue. They can’t draw blood from a stone.

Terminator Dark Fate: Welcome to the new future. Which turns out to be the same as the old one. Here’s Part 2 of my review. The writers seem to have run out of ideas for new Terminators. They’re recycling the concept and adding new abilities — without thinking them through.

Terminator Dark Fate: Just too many “Johns” now. How multiverses and time travel can doom a story.
There are plenty of dumb errors in movies, but Dark Fate made the most obvious mistake I’ve ever seen.

Terminator Dark Fate: We meet the sender of the mystery texts. At this point in the story, our characters clash with Border Patrol and discover a Terminator with a conscience. With SkyNet dead, it’s not clear where the T-800’s newfound conscience came from.

and

Terminator Dark Fate: The “family” robot Part 5: The idea that the robot Carl mechanically evolves a conscience is introduced but never explained. The mimicry-to-genuine humanity process can only work as a creative tool if the robot understands that humanity is an ideal to chase.