With Genisys, the Terminator franchise was literally taken back to square one, to the same year and setting as the original, and featuring the old familiar characters for a 'different' take on James Cameron's 1984 movie. You can only speculate as to why Terminator Genisys bombed, but lazily repeating whole storylines and concepts from the first film certainly can't have helped. Movie sequels always benefit from trying to change the formula, by refusing to be tied down to the original film and attempting to forge their own path. Unfortunately, the Terminator producers don't seem to want to take this approach - they're much happier to keep repeating the same lines and same action beats for each subsequent 'new' package. Salvation could have heralded in a different kind of Terminator movie - there was a whole Future War trilogy planned - but after that film didn't perform as well as was hoped, the studios balked and went back to the drawing board. What they came up with was Terminator Genisys, a reboot with nary an original thought in its head.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
