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Plot details about next year’s Terminator: Genisys have been released, and they apparently confirm that the movie will reboot the entire franchise — but unlike 2009’s Star Trek, it’s a reboot that isn’t attempting to return to a previous status quo.
Entertainment Weekly reveals that the Sarah Connor in Genisys will be revealed to have been orphaned — by a Terminator, of course — as a child, and “since then, she’s been raised by (brace yourself) [Arnold Schwarzenegger]’s Terminator — an older T-800 she calls ‘Pops’ — who is programmed to guard rather than to kill.” The magazine continues, “As a result, Sarah is a highly trained antisocial recluse who’s great with a sniper rifle but not so skilled at the nuances of human emotion.”
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Well, that’s different.
Read more New ‘Terminator’ Reboot Is a “Love Story,” Says J.K. Simmons
It’s not altogether unfamiliar, however; an “antisocial recluse” could describe John Connor in Terminator: Rise of the Machines, while the protective Terminator has made appearances in both Terminator 2: Judgment Day and the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles television series. (Also, a heroine who’s “great with a sniper rifle but not so skilled at the nuances of human emotion” — it’s like she’s a machine herself! I see what you did there, filmmakers.)
Whether this change in the franchise’s mythology will be revealed to be in-story tinkering with the established history of the previous movies, or simply the new status quo without any explanation, remains to be seen; the EW story does mention that the time-traveling Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) will be surprised by Emilia Clarke‘s Sarah Connor when they meet in 1984, which suggests some level of time-travel shenanigans behind the change.
If nothing else, this is a rare occasion when fans are likely to embrace such a change in a long-standing property. After all, it’s not as if The Terminator isn’t explicitly based on the idea of changing history and seeing what happens afterward …
Read more ‘Terminator Genisys’ Is “Not a Sequel or Reboot,” Says Star
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