Terminator is back to blood and F-bombs in a newly released red band extended TV spot from the R-rated Terminator: Dark Fate. Rated R for violence throughout, language and brief nudity — the franchise’s first R rating since 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines — Dark Fate follows Terminator-hunting Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) on a high-stakes mission to help enhanced human Grace (Mackenzie Davis) and Terminator “Carl” (Arnold Schwarzenegger) protect Dani (Natalia Reyes) from a newly modified liquid Terminator (Gabriel Luna), described as the most lethal killer robot ever created. “If we don’t win this one,” warns Hamilton’s weathered warrior, “it’s all over.”
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“I always looked at it as examining the consequences of the choices [Sarah] makes,” director Tim Miller recently told Fandango. “And this movie has a time travel aspect, of course, but all of us kind of faced the same problem where you make decisions in your life that will have big consequences in the future based on the path you pick and the decisions you make, and sometimes you have to make those decisions without a complete understanding of the implications of those decisions. And it’s something, I think, that everybody can relate to, and often, as I’m sure we’ve all experienced, sometimes those decisions don’t work out well. So I think that this movie was about Sarah examining the implications of those decisions.”
Ignoring every film past the James Cameron-directed The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Dark Fate spins out of the film that ended with Sarah Connor hopeful for the future.
“And it’s almost like Jim set it up for a sequel, even though you didn’t feel like you were waiting for a sequel at the end of Terminator 2,” added Miller. “When Sarah says, ‘I don’t know what the future holds, but for the first time I’ve faced it with hope.’ Turns out she was wrong. But it does feel like there needs to be a further explanation of it because she said, ‘I did some sh-t here and I don’t know what happens next.’ That’s where we come in and say, ‘Well, this is what happens next.’”
Cameron, who returns to the franchise as producer, envisioned Dark Fate as the first in a three-movie arc.
“We spent several weeks breaking story and figuring out what type of story we wanted to tell so we would have something to pitch Linda,” Cameron previously told Deadline. “We rolled up our sleeves and started to break out the story and when we got a handle on something we looked at it as a three-film arc, so there is a greater there to be told. If we get fortunate enough to make some money with Dark Fate we know exactly where we can go with the subsequent films.”
Linda Hamilton (Sarah Connor) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (T-800) return in their iconic roles in Terminator: Dark Fate, directed by Tim Miller (Deadpool) and produced by visionary filmmaker James Cameron and David Ellison. Following the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator: Dark Fate also stars Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, and Diego Boneta.
Terminator: Dark Fate opens November 1.
