Terminator: Dark Fate Trailer Reactions - 6 Ups & 6 Downs

4. It's Not Working Hard To Stress The Difference

To its eternal credit, the Halloween reboot/sequel mash-up marketed itself perfectly as a palate-cleanser designed to wipe the insufferably bad sequels out of existence. Sure, it killed off a couple of decent follow-ups, but by making it clear, front and centre that it was a follow-up only to the original, it scored extra points with fans who had grown disillusioned with the franchise.

It would be fair to say that Dark Fate had the same duty and the same opportunity. We've already been told that it's following on from the timeline of Terminator 2 and ignoring everything else (it has to, because otherwise Sarah Connor would be dead), but the trailer basically ignores that huge marketing opportunity. Other than Sarah Connor appearing, there's no allusion to it at all.

In essence, what you get is a sequel that still feels like the sixth film in the series rather than the third (and a soft reboot). And given how awful Genisys was, this film needed to SCREAM its status as a fixer/reboot a hell of a lot louder than this, because this just doesn't make it clear enough organically.