'Terminator: Dark Fate' director explains John Connor twist
Mark Daniell
Published:
November 6, 2019
Updated:
November 6, 2019 12:52 PM EST
When Tim Miller was given the keys to the Terminator franchise to help steer a new series of stories that would jump off of 1991’s: Terminator 2: Judgment Day he knew he had to kill one of that film’s most beloved characters: John Connor.
When Edward Furlong’s reappearance as the hero was announced at last summer’s Comic-Con in San Diego, the response was met with fan enthusiasm.
But an opening scene dispatches with Furlong’s de-aged John mere moments into Terminator: Dark Fate, which is in theatres now.
'Terminator: Dark Fate' is an 'R-rated f—ing movie,' Tim Miller says
She's back, baby: 'Terminator: Dark Fate' star Linda Hamilton says sequel a cut above
Terminator first look: Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor is back
'Terminator: Dark Fate' review: New sequel will please franchise fans
'Terminator: Dark Fate' director Tim Miller hits reset on beloved sci-franchise
Relaxing on a beach, the future saviour of mankind is gunned down by a T-800 Terminator (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent from a future that never happened to kill him.
“I think if you track the decision from a storytelling standpoint, it absolutely had to be done this way,” Miller says.
Story continues below
In Judgment Day, Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor — joined by her son John and a reprogrammed T-800 terminator — stopped a machine-led apocalypse by destroying Skynet, the company that in a future first imagined by writer-director James Cameron created an artificial intelligence that wipes out most of mankind.
With Skynet erased, a new AI threat emerges in our future known as Legion and a new heroine, Natalia Reyes’ Dani Ramos. Of course, there’s an even more deadly new terminator, Gabriel Luna’s shape-shifting Rev-9, and a new protector from the future, Mackenzie Davis’ enhanced super-soldier Grace.
The hero John Connor of Cameron’s imagining was irrelevant in this fresh storyline.
“Sarah changed the past, which changed the future. So that future where John was the leader of humanity no longer happens. He’s just this man who has missed his moment in history. What are you going to do? Is he going to be an accountant? Is he going to be working in a bank?
“Any of those is unsatisfying when his real destiny was to be this super soldier who leads humanity. So all those reasons led us to do what we did.”
Miller also said he and Cameron, who returns as executive producer and story consultant, decided to move on from John because his possible story had already been explored in other Terminator sequels.
“The non-Jim movies followed John’s journey. They were about John and what he became. So I felt the myth of John Connor had been pretty well explored. But I always thought the Terminator story has been Sarah’s story… she’s a character that is fuelled by pathos and what better fuel for that than the death of her son? What is going to turn her into this vengeance-filled, broken character? You need that kind of tragedy to give rocket fuel to that character.”
'Terminator: Dark Fate' is an 'R-rated f—ing movie,' Tim Miller says
She's back, baby: 'Terminator: Dark Fate' star Linda Hamilton says sequel a cut above
Terminator first look: Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor is back
'Terminator: Dark Fate' review: New sequel will please franchise fans
'Terminator: Dark Fate' director Tim Miller hits reset on beloved sci-franchise
http://paramount.com/movies/terminator-dark-fate
http://torontosun.com/entertainment/movies/terminator-dark-fate-director-explains-john-connor-twist
Mark Daniell
Published:
November 6, 2019
Updated:
November 6, 2019 12:52 PM EST
When Tim Miller was given the keys to the Terminator franchise to help steer a new series of stories that would jump off of 1991’s: Terminator 2: Judgment Day he knew he had to kill one of that film’s most beloved characters: John Connor.
When Edward Furlong’s reappearance as the hero was announced at last summer’s Comic-Con in San Diego, the response was met with fan enthusiasm.
But an opening scene dispatches with Furlong’s de-aged John mere moments into Terminator: Dark Fate, which is in theatres now.
'Terminator: Dark Fate' is an 'R-rated f—ing movie,' Tim Miller says
She's back, baby: 'Terminator: Dark Fate' star Linda Hamilton says sequel a cut above
Terminator first look: Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor is back
'Terminator: Dark Fate' review: New sequel will please franchise fans
'Terminator: Dark Fate' director Tim Miller hits reset on beloved sci-franchise
Relaxing on a beach, the future saviour of mankind is gunned down by a T-800 Terminator (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent from a future that never happened to kill him.
“I think if you track the decision from a storytelling standpoint, it absolutely had to be done this way,” Miller says.
Story continues below
In Judgment Day, Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor — joined by her son John and a reprogrammed T-800 terminator — stopped a machine-led apocalypse by destroying Skynet, the company that in a future first imagined by writer-director James Cameron created an artificial intelligence that wipes out most of mankind.
With Skynet erased, a new AI threat emerges in our future known as Legion and a new heroine, Natalia Reyes’ Dani Ramos. Of course, there’s an even more deadly new terminator, Gabriel Luna’s shape-shifting Rev-9, and a new protector from the future, Mackenzie Davis’ enhanced super-soldier Grace.
The hero John Connor of Cameron’s imagining was irrelevant in this fresh storyline.
“Sarah changed the past, which changed the future. So that future where John was the leader of humanity no longer happens. He’s just this man who has missed his moment in history. What are you going to do? Is he going to be an accountant? Is he going to be working in a bank?
“Any of those is unsatisfying when his real destiny was to be this super soldier who leads humanity. So all those reasons led us to do what we did.”
Miller also said he and Cameron, who returns as executive producer and story consultant, decided to move on from John because his possible story had already been explored in other Terminator sequels.
“The non-Jim movies followed John’s journey. They were about John and what he became. So I felt the myth of John Connor had been pretty well explored. But I always thought the Terminator story has been Sarah’s story… she’s a character that is fuelled by pathos and what better fuel for that than the death of her son? What is going to turn her into this vengeance-filled, broken character? You need that kind of tragedy to give rocket fuel to that character.”
'Terminator: Dark Fate' is an 'R-rated f—ing movie,' Tim Miller says
She's back, baby: 'Terminator: Dark Fate' star Linda Hamilton says sequel a cut above
Terminator first look: Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor is back
'Terminator: Dark Fate' review: New sequel will please franchise fans
'Terminator: Dark Fate' director Tim Miller hits reset on beloved sci-franchise
http://paramount.com/movies/terminator-dark-fate
http://torontosun.com/entertainment/movies/terminator-dark-fate-director-explains-john-connor-twist