*Definition of Canon: “In fiction, canon is the material accepted as officially part of the story in the fictional universe of that story.”
Back in 2017 James Cameron and Tim Miller sat down to discuss the future of the Terminator franchise, the event, hosted by The Hollywood Reporter, gave the Terminator creator and the Deadpool director a chance to lay their cards on the table about plans for a sixth installment in the legendary science fiction saga.
What the event gave to fans was the news that Terminator 3: ROTM, Terminator Salvation and Terminator Genisys were set to be ignored by the new movie; a movie which would pick up directly after Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
James Cameron told THR at the event that:
“This is a continuation of the story from Terminator 1 and Terminator 2. And we’re pretending the other films were a bad dream. Or an alternate timeline, which is permissible in our multi-verse.”
James Cameron told THR
This decision seemed to be somewhat of a blessing, both to the creatives behind Terminator: Dark Fate and to Terminator Fans, as it afforded the latest installment a modicum of freedom based on the opportunity to avoid, and ignore, aspects of the previous sequels which couldn’t be easily explained away; would create more messy continuity issues in future and might prevent the resurrection of beloved characters.
James Cameron stated:
“So when David Ellison came to me and said, “Let’s do another one,” I said, “All right, but I don’t want to have to deal with reconciling all this [stuff] that happened in between. Can we just go back to ‘Terminator 2’ and carry on that timeline?” He said, “Yeah, that sounds great.”’
James Cameron to NYT
It does sound nice, doesn’t it? All the bits you might not like, simply erased from the timeline and removed from canon…
Even if you liked one of those previous installments – did you like it enough to muster up some anger at that decision?
Maybe you liked them all. Did you like them enough to resent Terminator 6 for wiping them away? The answer was a resounding no, and who would have blamed you? The return of James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger AND Linda Hamilton… I mean, whew! That’s some good sh*t.
James Cameron, Tim Miller, and (Skydance Media head honcho) David Ellison, had created the first real bubbles of anticipation within the entire Terminator fanbase (and the prospective movie-going audience at large) for a very long time. Though, that manoeuvre, that very act of cherry-picking what to keep or throw away, may in fact have created something which will haunt the Terminator franchise forever.
There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.
Hello petard – this is your hoist calling…
Say what you will about Terminator 3, it very much intended to be a sequel to Terminator 2. The same could be said of Terminator Salvation; it fully intended to be a sequel to Terminator 3.
The problems began with Terminator Genisys – the reboot in reboot’s clothing. Terminator Genisys chose to, almost completely, replicate scenes from the first two movies, all whilst claiming not to be a remake. It cherry-picked the iconic moments as if discarding what came before it. As if trying on The Terminator’s clothes for size.
Terminator Genisys (a Skydance and Paramount project) actively ignored Terminator 3 and Salvation. Yet in its imitation of the first two movies it rewrote the lore of the franchise – before Dark Fate was even an idea. In the timeline of Genisys Terminator 2 and beyond, never happened.
When the fifth installment in the Terminator franchise lost its footing, with fans and critics alike, the two movie studios had to regroup, Genisys 2.0 wasn’t going to happen, there simply wasn’t enough of an audience for it.
Back in October 2015, Terminator Genisys producer Dana Goldberg stated of the future of the Genisys trilogy, that:
“I wouldn’t say on hold, so much as re-adjusting,”
Dana Goldberg told The Wrap
… which takes us back to the THR event back in 2017, and the promise of ignorant bliss which started the ball really a’rolling…
Tim Miller on the last three Terminator movies (3,4 & 5):
“The last movie was not good. Wait, I shouldn’t say that. There have been some… misfires,”
Tim Miller told Total Film
The logic behind the promise, behind the – looking down on the movies which followed the first glorious two – is that it’s subjective, and placatory, it’s intended as a sales pitch on one hand, and the other… ?
James Cameron doesn’t like three, four and five. Tim Miller doesn’t like three, four and five. The fans are split on three, four and five… therefore, for the sake of expedient productivity – delete them. NOW!
‘Ahh‘, you ask, ‘but what about time travel and alternate timelines?‘ – at SDCC 2019, Tim Miller stated:
“I feel like time travel with multiple realities loses some stakes. If you can change time and it can be anything and it can be multiple or alternate timelines, I feel like you lose a little bit of the dramatic stakes. So in the Terminator universe, there is only one timeline. If you change something in the past, the time wave rolls forward and changes the future.
Tim Miller told SDCC
The decanonization of the three movies brings about the opportunity to simply throw away, or erase, any installment that doesn’t fit the current narrative or social agenda (it’s okay to acknowledge that agendas exist without becoming a ‘go woke go broke’r or an SJW – don’t panic) – anything which doesn’t work within the chosen rebooted framework can effectively now be removed.
Past, present, future. Good, bad, indifferent. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…
As Terminator Fans, haven’t we all been choosing, person to person, whether certain movies are canon in our own version of the franchise… ? Well, now the studios will be determining that for us.
Didn’t we all ask for this? Wasn’t this what we all wanted?
Tim Miller told TIFF back in 2019:
“This is, in theory, the direct sequel to Terminator 2 – I know all those other movies are swimming around in your head… forget them. They didn’t happen. They’re gone.”
Tim Miller told TIFF | Transcribed by TheTerminatorFans.com
So, by the very logic given to us by Skydance Media and Paramount Pictures etc… Terminator: Dark Fate doesn’t exist – because it wasn’t successful with its intended audience. It failed domestically. It bombed at the box office and the fans are divided over it…
Result: It isn’t canon because, now, it’s all disposable.
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