Terminator: Dark Fate Reveals a Shocking New Ending to Terminator 2

Terminator: Dark Fate is now out in theaters, and with it the Terminator franchise enters a bold new era for fans to experience. However, in order to open the doors to a new Terminator story and continuity, Dark Fate also has to tie-off the story of the franchise's past installments (The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day). As promised by the filmmakers, Terminator: Dark Fate doesn't erase the storylines of James Cameron's groundbreaking film, but it definitely does imagine a much different ending to that tale, by offering viewers what amounts to a shocking post-credits scene epilogue to T2.

Get the full details below, but be warned, this is a MASSIVE SPOILER for Terminator: Dark Fate!

The opening of Terminator: Dark Fate, takes us back to the era of T2 (1998), complete with impressive de-aged versions of both Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor, and Eddie Furlong's young John Connor. The scene is set on a South American beach, where Sarah is actually starting to relax and enjoy life with her son, years after ending the threat of Skynet for good. However, just as Sarah let's go of the pain and paranoia of being the mother of mankind's savior, fate intervenes with a tragic hand.

It turns out that Skynet sent several Terminators back to target young John Connor, and even though the T-1000 failed in its mission, an older T-800 model manages to eventually track Sarah and John down and finish the job. Sarah is too slow to stop the machine from gunning young John down in cold blood The cruel twist of fate is that in stopping Skynet, Sarah inevitably created a future in which John Connor is no longer the architect of humanity's fate, and fate in turn cements that change in direction by wiping John off the gameboard. Needless to say, John's death shatters Sarah Connor, leaving her with just one final purpose in life: hunting down and killing any new Terminators sent back through time, until her dying breath.

Obviously, killing off John Connor is a massive shakeup to the entire Terminator mythos - one that is likely going to be divisive for years and years to come. On the one hand, Dark Fate makes this massive change without upending the sanctity of Cameron's films like previous installments did (see Terminator Salvation and Genisys), but this T2 epilogue also adds a somewhat cheap turn to the very poignant and emotional ending to Judgement Day.

We'll leave it to you: What did you think of this big change to Terminator 2: Judgement Day's ending? Let us know in the comments!

Terminator: Dark Fate is now in theaters.