8 Bad Movie Franchises And How To Fix Them

What's The Problem? Let's be honest and say that there were only ever two great Terminator films.

Ever since Terminator 2: Judgement Day, sequels, soft reboots and a spin-off TV series have failed to capture the essence James Cameron made almost 30 years ago.

Every film after T2 ties itself in knots as it works to justify new reasons for the rise of Skynet, and for John Connor to once again send Arnie back in time. Weaving time travel into a film can always be a risky step when telling a story, and it seems movie studios haven't learnt their lesson, since Genysis and Dark Fate have both tried and failed to undermine the first two films (you know, the good ones!).

What's The Solution? This might sound controversial, but hear me out. Maybe make a Terminator film that doesn't have Arnold Schwarzenegger, any of the Connor family, and zero time-travelling?

Instead, why not map out a movie focusing on the future war against the machines. Yes, Terminator: Salvation took place during the aforementioned war, but that film still had the burden of chaining itself to the John Connor narrative.

Salvation had snippets of a good film; but what could have been guerrilla warfare-style fights between humans and machines, instead boiled down to a lot of scenes where the film tried to set up John Connor and Kyle Reese' eventual meet-cute.

I say, give the future war another shot but this time- exclusively on a band of new characters on a mission. No fate, no scarred John Connor, and no re-writing the past. Just good, old fashioned flesh on metal skirmishes.