TERMINATOR: GENISYS – The Future is Now in the First Full Trailer

December 4, 2014

Originally posted on Agents of Geek:

This holiday season, Hollywood has been extremely generous as it pertains to 2015. In the past 90 days, we’ve gotten teasers, trailers, and announcements from Marvel regarding their Phase 3, DC’s attempt at a cinematic universe, the next installments of Star Wars, Jurassic World, and James Bond 007. It’s a holiday smorgasbord for nostalgic movie buffs alike. That being said, the trend is ever continuing, this time with the newest rendition of the classic Terminator franchise.

To bring everyone up to speed, the series began in 1984 with The Terminator (distributed by now defunct Orion Pictures), directed by Avatar’s James Cameron and produced by Walking Dead’s Gale Anne Hurd (both of which also wrote the screenplay). While the first film was rather good, it was the 1991 sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (also distributed by a semi-defunct but kind of owned by Sony, Tri-Star Pictures), that brought prominence to Cameron as well as star, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As well renowned as the series had become, since then it has been marred by rights issues, jumping from production company to production company. 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (admittedly, the worst of the franchise thusfar) was distributed by Warner Bros, who along with C2 (formerly Carolco) also produced the brilliantly cancelled Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series on FOX.

After TSCC was canned, C2 sold the rights to the franchise over to The Halcyon Company who then along with Warner, produced 2009’s Terminator Salvation, starring Christian Bale. While the movie was vastly different and better than 3, outside of some nostalgic T2 nods and an infamous method acting-driven tirade by Bale, Hollywood deemed the movie “panned.” Despite promising a follow-up to Salvation, Halcyon filed for bankruptcy shortly after, and the franchise remained in limbo for a couple of years.

Despite rumors of a fifth film for the past couple of years, none had seemed to materialize and it seemed as though Terminator had been deactivated for good… at least until Paramount announced that they were developing a new trilogy with Skydance Productions producing. Among the cast announced for the film (Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor, Divergent’s Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese, as well as Doctor Who’s Matt Smith and Law & Order’s J.K. Simmons), the now retired Governator/Terminator mainstay Schwarzenegger was also announced.

The film began as Terminator: Genesis (later retitled Genisys for some reason… whether it’s the film’s MacGuffin or the studio thought a Y was cooler remains to be seen), and trickles of plot made the film seem like an unnecessary reboot (but hey, when has that ever stopped Hollywood? Karate Kid, RoboCop, and Total Recall anyone)? Add in a pretty “meh” cover shot on EW with the stars (sans Arnold), and Genisys seemed like it was headed into Rise of the Machines territory. Until today.

Suffice to say, the words John Connor uttered in Judgment Day ring true with Genisys: “The Future is Not Set.” While the film is clearly a reboot and retcons a lof of plotline from Rise, Salvation, and even Judgment Day, fans have already compared it with the “alternate timeline” story done previous by J.J. Abrams on 2009’s Star Trek. On top of it, the trailer showcases plenty of Terminator staples such as futuristic Terminators, Hunter-Killer Drones, Time-Travel Devices, and (of course) plenty of Arnold.

Without further ado, here is the trailer. Terminator: Genisys ends with “Coming Soon,” although Paramount slated the film for July 1, 2015. You can make your own assessment on how Genisys looks. But as far as I’m concerned. He’s back. (Also, he got to a CHOPPAH)!