10 Reasons Terminator Genisys Isn't As Bad As You Think

If nothing else, Terminator: Genisys was not another attempt to simply recreate T2, which is exactly what T3 was. It avoided much of the cheese of that movie, yet also avoided going the overly serious route, which ham-stringed Terminator: Salvation when the original ending fell through.

In short, it set its own tone. It would have actually been a decent ending to the series (at least had they not added in a post-credits tease showing Matt Smith's embodiment of Skynet still alive and kicking). It was a love story, something which Schwarzenegger has claimed all along, only not between Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor. That story was told in 1984's The Terminator. No, the love story in Terminator: Genisys was much more subtle. It was the father/daughter story between Pops and Sarah, who managed to make a machine that cannot feel care for her.

It might have been a little more meaningful had Pops actually died at the end, rather than being "upgraded" into a T-1000 or some sort of hybrid, but regardless, the film went out on its own and told a story that Terminator films to date had not. In doing so, it made Sarah Connor far more human, and turned out to be a better movie than most fans seem to realize.