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Countless articles are now appearing online with embedded tweets from industry critics and reviewers; classing them as ‘Terminator Fans’ who attended a fan screening of Terminator 2: Judgment Day at the Alamo Drafthouse, which was supposed to have a 20 minute preview for Terminator: Dark Fate but actually turned out to be be the full movie.
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton introduced the screening to attendees…
Terminator 2 and The Terminator / double feature screenings have been put on by 20th Century Fox in order to build some positive buzz and encouragement to watch Terminator: Dark Fate.
The first two movies are, of course, great movies and who wouldn’t want to watch the next proclaimed chapter in the Terminator story, especially if Rise of the Machines failed to win you over in 2003… ?
The T2 / surprise Terminator: Dark Fate screenings brought with them a gush of positivity but were they to mask the reviews coming in from France? France being where the review embargo was lifted first – though France is a country which brings with it a language barrier for the rest of the world and does somewhat limit the potential for non-French speaking countries to understand the reviews (even with the aid of Google translate).
Despite French mainstream movie/critic websites generally giving many blockbuster movies favorable reviews (a practice which is not just exclusive to France) we got hold of some reviews which sounded more balanced in regards to the Pros and Cons of Terminator: Dark Fate.
Youtuber and fan ‘Dark Moonlight Entertainment’, who was expecting to see Terminator 2: Judgment Day (a film he had never seen on the big screen) was at the surprise Dark Fate fan screening and this is what he thought…
If he didn’t want to watch the movie / or enjoy it maybe this guy should ask for a refund… ?
We surprised a bunch of Terminator fans with seeing the FULL @Terminator DARK FATE movie early. Here’s what they thought. pic.twitter.com/PmHuiPWmbp
— Alamo Drafthouse (@alamodrafthouse) October 22, 2019
Why does this ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE promotional video remind us of something we’ve seen before… ?
Collider’s “Frosty” hailed Terminator: Dark Fate as being the best Terminator movie since T2… but he also said the same of Terminator Genisys…
The embargo will lift for the rest of the world today (the 22nd of October), forums and discussions we’ve seen have shown that people thought the studios had a lack of confidence in Dark Fate, otherwise the embargo would have been lifted sooner than the day before release of the movie in the UK: the pre-orders have been taken in most cases and tickets booked by this point.
Fan screenings have also been taking place in Korea as part of the world tour which recently kicked off to promote the movie.
The tour features the movie’s lead cast travelling from country to country, thanking fans and encouraging them to go see Terminator: Dark Fate; encouraging positive word of mouth and giving out prizes.
In fact, mentioning prizes, we’ve never seen a movie so ready to give out cash prizes,- there had been a marked lack of interest from mainstream movie-goers in regards to watching Terminator: Dark Fate, bar the core fan base that have been wanting a Real Terminator 3 from James Cameron since 1991 but with the introduction of cash incentives and plane tickets / hotel stays; soon the world was editing their own Dark Fate trailers and making their own ‘fan’ posters to flood social media. The amount of free posters and signed posters that the movie screenings / world tour events have been handing out is also pretty crazy.
Yesterday we ran a video on early french reviews, which are a mix of positive and negative – the more “negative” ones are concerning, as they ring more true and match what we’ve seen so far and heard via the leaks.
Links to French Reviews of T:DF:
Cloneweb – “Review: Dark Fate Terminator”
FilmsActu – “Dark Fate Terminator: we saw the real Terminator 3! – critical”
EcranLarge – “Terminator: Dark Fate – Imperfect Future Critic”
U.S Film Critic “Fan” Reviews:
EW: “Terminator: Dark Fate first reactions from surprise fan screenings”
Thanks again to Eklecty-City – Pop Culture for pointing us to the French reviews.
Our video discussing the First Reviews of Terminator: Dark Fate…
Final Thoughts
Well, does it look good for Terminator: Dark Fate… ? We plan to watch the movie at the weekend and give our opinion and of course we will be honest about it but in a world of big media websites and journalists giving out reviews based on a financial bias… trust yourself! We aren’t going to tell you what to love or what to hate but for us, and others like us, who weren’t impressed by the Terminator: Dark Fate trailers, the humanised Terminators or shoddy CGI… our hopes are definitely on the shaky side.
Leave a comment…
7 Comments
For me…I can tell you right now that if John Connor is dead! The saga dies with him!
What were you expecting, golden reviews for a James Cameron masterpiece? This isn’t it and was never going to be. It was always going to be a different movie than the first two, and shouldn’t really be compared to them or any other movie for that matter. Instead, you should be focusing on if the changes (rev series, possible dead john, etc) make sense and are a natural progression of the story. You’ve clearly already made up your mind(s) long before the leaks and trailers dropped…
So what if there’s a ‘new John Connor’ ? Yeah we all wanted to see the future where he leads etc but obviously the timeline changed and that doesn’t happen anymore. Instead, you have someone else taking up the mantle as leader and other different things. Tech gets left behind, people die, stuff is destroyed and the original Skynet is never made.
I personally think it will all be explained and will make sense, but a lot of the fans won’t ‘get it’ because all they want is John Connor and the future war we saw in the first two movies. My only gripe is the T-800 design, I miss the old one but the new (formerly known as the genisys design) design is pretty cool.
Anyway, so long as this is a natural progression of the story and makes sense, I’ll be happy.
Thanks for all your hard work. It’s nice to have real, dedicated fans checking the studio plants and manufactured buzz around yet another overhyped Terminator movie. I’m starting to feel the same apathy I felt during Terminator: Genisys, even as I read and responded to studio plants and shills online.
We truly appreciate your support. We too are tired of media bias, plants and the distortion of fandom by studios.
Nah… Its marketing. Basically they paid for coverage and gave them some positive comments. There wasnt only positve reactions. Even Geminy Man have better first reactions.
On Imdb – rating is bad and revievs from Metacritics too. Looks like another iteration of Genysis.
Well the rating on Rotten Tomatoes at this current point in time is at 67% which is much better then Genisys 27% and the positive comments outweigh the negative, so far.
I’ve yet to see this film but i ain’t joining the club on disliking a film prior to viewing myself.
Were never going to get a Terminator film like T1 again unfortunately, neither including the horror elements servery missing from the franchise since that film, however as a fan we’ve come as close we were ever going to get to a hell of a better T3 then Rise of the Machines ever was and were just lucky Linda Hamilton decided to play Sarah one last time.
Hello. Long time reader of this site. Just walked out of the screening in Manchester, England where they have been running hourly previews throughout the day. I was at the 3pm BST show. Seen it, managed to avoid some spoilers & won’t spoil anything here. Overall it’s the closest we’ll have to a true T2 sequel as too much time has passed to fairly pick up where we where back then. No-one would pay to see a movie that doesn’t reflect the reality we now live in. It’s somewhat emotional. There is a concern and sense of fear/dread which you need in a film like this (Hunter/Hunted) in some of the characters and there’s plenty of action and some surprise and shock. Linda and Arnold are as good as ever, Linda in particular. It doesn’t drag either considering it runtime, I do wish though you were more emotionally invested in newer characters, it just doesn’t quite land with some. Narratively it makes sense and is easy to follow so won’t put off anyone looking for a popcorn film. I’d rate it B on a scale of A+ to F-. It’s a movie to see in a cinema and it ticks plenty of Terminator tick boxes.