The Terminator/machine roles of Terminator: Dark Fate are going to go into different territory by making them more human than we’ve ever seen before.
Is that something fans actually want, or will this new style of humanised Terminators have the audience crying out for return to the roots of the cold hard machines in the future?
Could it leave fans feeling totally alienated by the change that could just be adapting to allow more comedy to prevail? EW has the details…
Grace (Augmented Super Soldier Assassin/Hybrid) played by Mackenzie Davis
Grace is a human soldier that has been ‘augmented’ in the future to be part machine. So far, we know her upgrades include a HUD, boosted agility/strength and an internal armor/mesh under her flesh; this allows Grace to take more damage than your average human but she is still human and that will make her more vulnerable than the other machines in Terminator: Dark Fate.
Tim Miller on Grace:
“It would be easy to go, ‘Okay, you’re going to get some woman who’s an ex-MMA fighter or all about fitness and fighting, but I knew that she [Mackenzie] really had to connect. Because Sarah in a lot of ways is broken, and I knew that the audience would relate a lot to what had happened to humanity’s future, and as you’ll see in the film, the audience has to really feel for Grace by the end of it. And so I knew first and foremost, she had to be a great actor and Mackenzie is definitely that.”
Tim Miller told EW
Linda Hamilton on Mackenzie’s physical transformation:
“I was very happy to see Mackenzie take the mantle of turning her body into a fighting machine, hopefully she will get all the attention that I got in 1991 for what she has done to make herself ready, to make herself a warrior.”
Linda Hamilton told EW
REV-9 (Split in two Terminator Unit) played by Gabriel Luna
Tim Miller has stated to EW that Gabriel Luna’s performance as REV-9 is “fantastic” and that he is more human than other Terminators have been…
“This Terminator is a lot more human than a regular Terminator has been, which makes sense because computers are human, they understand us more every day,”
Tim Miller told EW
“We did some facial motion capture, you know occasionally you do a face replacement for a particularly difficult stunt; Gabriel did a lot of his own stunts but every once in a while you don’t, so we do facial motion capture – you reference it, you go, “So okay, do the ‘angry’ Terminator face” – Gabe does it. “Now do the ‘hunting’ Terminator face” – and it changes like a micro-fraction. Because the Terminator really is… it doesn’t feel those emotions, unless he wants to, and then he’s very human.”
Tim Miller said at REDDIT AMA (post SDCC 2019)
AGED T-800 (CSM-101) played by Arnold Schwarzenegger
“I don’t think people will be ready for what Arnold has become either, because it’s very different.”
Tim Miller told EW
What do you think about Terminators with more human behaviour, qualities and the ability to “feel”? Are you ready for it?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: EW and REDDIT AMA