STACK #184 Feb 2020

FEATURE FILM

“We considered things like whether it should take place in the present, the past or the future. Should it focus on Sarah; should it be John? We all felt strongly that the film should be in some way a handoff to new characters, but we wanted to continue the structure of the ‘trinity’ consisting of hunters, protectors, and prey.” Terminator: Dark Fate is set two decades after Sarah Connor prevented Judgment Day and finds a young Mexico City factory worker, Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), targeted for termination by a lethal new model of machine assassin, the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna). Her survival depends upon a future protector, super-soldier Grace (Mackenzie Davis), the battle-hardened Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), and a rather familiar T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Cameron stresses his role was producer, not director, entrusting the film to Deadpool director Tim Miller, with whom he worked on the shooting script. “I believe utterly in the sanctity of the director’s creative process with the actors, the cinematographer, the production designer and so on. My job was to tee this up, set it in motion and let them do their thing.” As a fan of Deadpool , Ellison was supportive of the choice of Miller to direct. “I thought the action and world he created with that film was brilliant. Tim was able to craft a movie that reinvented not just the superhero genre, but the R-rated action genre as well, which is exactly the kind of director we needed for Terminator: Dark Fate ,” he says.

Key to the narrative of Terminator: Dark Fate is revealing what happened to Sarah Connor in the decades following the events of T2: Judgment Day . It was also a further incentive for Tim Miller to sign on as director. “As a fan myself, I wondered how I would feel about another Terminator movie,” he says. “I might think, ‘Is

Director Tim Miller and Linda Hamilton

this needed?’ Until I heard Linda is back and we’re going to finish the story of Sarah Connor. That’s a reason to show up. And for me as a director, that’s the reason to make the movie. No offense to other actors who have played her in other films, but to me there’s only one Sarah Connor and it is Linda Hamilton.” For Hamilton, the idea of returning to the role after so long was intriguing. “After T2 , I felt I had worked a very complete character arc from a nobody to a warrior woman,” she explains. “At that point I didn’t want to just keep doing it without the ability to add something new. But the last 28 years have changed Sarah dramatically and I was ready to explore that. “When this film begins, she is lost, broken and rootless. She learns that, after all her sacrifices, the future hasn’t changed in the way she had hoped. That pretty much destroys her. The only thing she has left is her loathing of technology, the future and machines. She goes on another journey to try to reach that last little kernel of humanity inside herself.” Reuniting with Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the big highlights of shooting Terminator: Dark Fate , she adds. “I don’t really think in terms of how iconic all this is, although I know many people do. I was just happy to see Arnold. In fact, I didn’t know how happy I was going to be until he showed up on set.”

• Terminator: Dark Fate is out Feb 12

Miller’s guiding principle was to stay true to the fundamentals of the Terminator franchise, while putting his own unique stamp on the film.

he’s been thinking about it for years. Even though he had never planned to make this movie, his thoughts about AI have continued to evolve, and he never lost his connection to the story.” Cameron believes that the initial goal to create a direct sequel to The Terminator and T2 has been accomplished, in both tone and narrative. “It’s gritty, it’s fast, it’s intense, and it’s linear. The whole story takes place in 36 hours and is a white-knuckle ride through a kind of techno-hell that arrives in our present day.” Miller hopes his Terminator film will be a worthy successor to the first two movies. “It’s Linda Hamilton’s return, Arnold’s back, Jim’s here and we have a really great infusion of new ideas and new blood as well,” he says. “You care about every one of these characters. Each of them has moments that I hope will make the audience cry and cheer. There are amazing action set pieces that will get the blood pumping and a plot that will have the audience constantly wondering what happens next. Hopefully, it all adds up to a great time...

“I never thought, ‘I’m going to make the movie just like Jim Cameron would,’” he says. “But I knew from his films that the secret to making a great Terminator film is character,

character, character. Jim is particularly good at the details that make you feel you’re watching real people going through extraordinary events.” The director adds that Cameron’s involvement from the very beginning was crucial to the process. “He knows the material like nobody else and

“With Dark Fate , I tried to honour what we all love about the original films,” he concludes. “My hope is that Terminator fans will feel the same way and that the film can introduce a new generation to the world and characters Jim created.”

REV-9 Terminator: Dark Fate

TX Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

T-3000 Terminator: Genisys

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