17 Years Later, This Is Still the Terminator Franchise’s Biggest Missed Opportunity

The Terminator is one of the most iconic sci-fi franchises of all time, which is why it’s such a shame that it missed a major opportunity 17 years ago. James Cameron’s original The Terminator movie helped launch the career of one of the most influential filmmakers of all time, with it quickly becoming an icon of pop culture. Things got bigger and better with its sequel, 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which helped flesh out the lore and world of the franchise.

While Terminator 2 is considered to be one of the best action movies of all time, things took a turn for the worse soon after. 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was a major disappointment compared to its predecessors, with it telling a far less compelling story and losing the directorial talents of Cameron. After Rise of the Machines, the franchise knew that it had to do something exciting, leading to a major gamble: a movie centered on Terminator‘s biggest untold story.

Terminator: Salvation Is Terminator’s Biggest Missed Opportunity

After a brief hiatus, the franchise came back with the release of 2009’s Terminator Salvation. The fourth Terminator film was set to finally tell the story that the franchise had been teasing since the very beginning: the Future War. John Connor’s War Against the Machines is why the Terminator was sent back in time in the first place, with the post-apocalyptic battle against Skynet being incredibly exciting. Salvation was finally going to fully explore this story, with it following John Connor as the resistance leader that he was always meant to be.

Outside of this story, Terminator Salvation still had a lot going for it. The film cast Christian Bale as John Connor, which was the franchise’s biggest-name new casting yet. The film was set to release in 2009, meaning that Bale was fresh off the success of 2008’s The Dark Knight. Plus, while the Terminator franchise is tainted now, at the time, two of the series’ three movies were beloved. So, Terminator Salvation wasn’t immediately written off as a bad movie, even if that’s what it ended up becoming.

Tragically, Terminator Salvation didn’t live up to the hype despite all of its potential. As of the writing of this article, the film has 33% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it was considered to be far worse than Rise of the Machines at the time of its release. The film was panned for its lazy storytelling, with it lacking the emotion and fun of the first two Terminator movies. The movie is predictable, generic, and doesn’t offer much beyond its CGI action. Plus, the lack of Arnold Schwarzenegger really hurt the film.

On top of the film’s critical failings, it was also a commercial disappointment. Terminator Salvation was the first film in the franchise not to open at number one. By the end of its run, Salvation only grossed $371.4 million on a $200 million budget, meaning that it may not have made its money back after marketing and distribution costs.

To make matters worse, Salvation was originally meant to be the start of a new Terminator trilogy. The film was originally planned to tell a much larger story than it did, but after the commercial failure and behind-the-scenes troubles that Salvation faced, these plans were scrapped. Instead, the Terminator franchise reverted to a more traditional story with the release of Terminator Genisys in 2015, which wasn’t very good either. Nowadays, Terminator Salvation is rarely talked about, with it being nothing more than one of the many forgettable sequels to the original two Terminator movies.

The Future War Is Terminator’s Hardest Story To Tell

While fans were excited for Terminator Salvation to properly explore the Future War, this saga is Terminator‘s hardest story to tell. This is because the Future War completely loses the concept that made the original two films appealing. In the original Terminator, the future storyline of John Connor was only a plot device used to explore the hook of a robot from the future hunting an average woman in the modern day. Even though Sarah Connor was knowledgeable about the Future War in the sequel, John Connor was an everyday kid, maintaining the premise of the original film.

Once the Terminator franchise moved away from clueless characters being hunted by killer robots, the series lost its appeal. By telling a story focused on the Future War, audiences lose this hook and a point of view character. Rather than having a relatable everyman as the protagonist, Salvation causes audiences to become alienated from the story by focusing on a character who is up to speed on Skynet, the Future War, and the battle against the machines. So, in order for a Future War story to work, the Terminator franchise will have to find the emotional human core at the center of the massive time travel battle.

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