Terminator tries again ... again

The cinematic landscape is littered with failed Terminator reboots.

Okay, there are only two. But if Terminator: Dark Fate does not do well, three could constitute a proper littering.

I can’t think of another series that reboots itself so frequently, that needs to reboot itself so frequently as a result of repeated failures. Spider-Man is an obvious answer, but in each case of Spider-Man rebooting, at least the initial reboot was a success. No Spider-Man series to date has had fewer than two films, and you don’t make a second film using the same actors unless the first one is a success, by whatever standards you measure that success.

I’m sure that each time Terminator has rebooted, they expected to make anywhere from two to five more movies in that timeline, but never have they been able to make a single one more.

At least with Terminator: Salvation – which, for the record, is the worst Terminator movie we’ve gotten – they tried to jump ahead into the future, Star Wars style. It was a clear continuation of the story that had been hinted at in the first three Terminator movies. I kind of think that’s the way to go. But it didn’t work. Boy, did it not work. A friend of mine and I still joke about the clumsiness of the “What are you???” scene. I won’t get into it now.

Then when Terminator Genisys came along in 2015, it was billed as a “true sequel” to Terminator 2, forgetting the fact that Terminator 3 had occurred at all. Okay fine, but some of us thought Rise of the Machines was actually good. Not many of us thought Terminator Genisys was very good, even with the return of Arnie and the potentially promising series debut of Emilia Clarke.

Now, if I’m not mistaken, Terminator: Dark Fate is also being billed as a true sequel to T2, and as proof has both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton returning in front of the camera, and James Cameron behind it (as writer and producer, anyway). Even though any “true” sequel to T2 would know that Arnold Schwarzenegger was melted down and should not still be around, nor should he have whiskers on his face. (They’ll explain it in a satisfactory enough way I’m sure.)

As various Terminator re-interpreters blame the wrong victim, Terminator 3, we should probably also acknowledge that Terminator 3 itself was a reboot of sorts, as it came a full 12 years after the last movie and featured a different actor as John Connor. I’m sure Edward Furlong would have done it, but it wasn’t meant to take place 12 years after the last movie, so he would have been too old.  

Will this finally be the movie that gets it right? And if so, will it be just in time for the key performers to be way too old to keep making movies?

I’ve long since stopped trying to establish a reliable “use by” date for Schwarzenegger, and I kind of thought Hamilton’s had already passed, since I haven’t seen her in anything in ages. I guess I’ve just been looking in the wrong places, as she has approaching 20 credits in the past ten years. Point is, even at ages 63 and 72 they could probably be in three more Terminator movies each if that’s the way they want to go. And if not, they can try to make Mackenzie Davis the Rey of this series and launch off of her growing star power.

As cynical as I'm being about the history of these movies, though, I'm still as hopeful about the prospects for a new Terminator movie as I have ever been. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is still among my top 25 films of all time, and if a new movie can be even a third that good, it's worth showing up for. 

Multiple reincarnations

The truly iconic characters in our collective cultural history have a way of continuing to pop up over and over again. You can't keep them down. We seem to have an insatiable appetite to revisit them every couple years, to look at them in a new way.

Superman. Robin Hood. James Bond.

La Femme Nikita?

Sure seems like that. The character created by Luc Besson for his 1990 film La Femme Nikita -- a junkie convict made over as an elegant government assassin -- is about to get reincarnated for the third time. Those four incarnations include twice at the movies, and now, with this fall's Nikita set to premiere September 9th on the CW, twice on TV.

The arresting billboards of Maggie Q in a slinky red dress (not pictured), lying on her left side next to a sniper's rifle that runs almost the length of her body, have started to multiply in the last week or two, and they've certainly caught my attention. At first I thought "That's a smart idea, to make a weekly hour-long drama based on La Femme Nikita." And then I thought, "Wait, they've already made a weekly hour-long drama based on La Femme Nikita."

Who would have guessed that this Nikita character had such ongoing perceived relevance in the zeitgeist?

She first appeared, of course, in Nikita (released in the U.S. as La Femme Nikita, and most commonly known that way), the film that put Luc Besson on the map. Anne Parillaud originated the character, and French treasure Tcheky Karyo co-starred as her handler. The film was an international hit, and though it was not Besson's first feature, it definitely seems like a key to the direction his career took after that. Besson went on to make several prominent films with tough female characters, such as Leon (a.k.a. The Professional), The Fifth Element and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.

Even back then, it was perhaps inevitable that La Femme Nikita would get remade in Hollywood. That remake materialized in 1993 and starred Bridget Fonda, dropping the word "Nikita" from the marketing in favor of the highly generic title Point of No Return. Opposite Fonda was Gabriel Byrne. Simply put, I hated this film. I'll never sit through it again to rediscover what I found so objectionable about it, but let's just say the hatred was palpable. In fact, it's the only review I've ever written for my website that they've taken down and not replaced with another writer's work. I never found out why this happened, preferring to chalk it up to an anomaly, but I suspect that the extreme vitriol in my review had something to do with it.

Nikita was back for a third round in the form of her first television incarnation, which restored the original French title -- or, I should say, the American adjustment of the original French title -- in 1997. La Femme Nikita starred Peta Wilson, with Roy Dupuis stepping into the handler role. It's hard to believe, but this show ran on USA Network for parts of five seasons -- this was back when fringe networks could stick with their programming forever because they had so few viewers, relative to the other networks. I only saw one part of one episode, but it was enough to solidify in my mind the idea that Wilson was smoking hot.

The 2010 version of La Femme Nikita, called just Nikita, makes the character a non-white for the first time -- or not totally white, anyway. (Maggie Q was born in Hawaii to a father of Polish, French Canadian and Irish descent, and a mother of Vietnamese descent.) I guess that's a good sign of our ethnically diverse times. As another sign of our times, it's chronologically separate enough from the first three incarnations -- which were all more or less in the 1990s (Wilson's show went off the air in 2001) -- that it qualifies as sort of a reboot. It would appear that she'll have her most youthful mentor yet in the form of Shane West, who is only 32. Gotta get those kids interested.

As I said earlier, I'm captivated by the posters -- they tap into some deep-seated idea of our primal notions of sex and death. But will I watch the show? Heck no.

The big difference between now and 20 years ago was that the idea that chicks can kick ass was actually something of a new notion in 1990. Yeah, there had been Wonder Woman and Charlie's Angels and a couple other instances of women in pop culture beating the crap out of people (or aliens, thanks to Sigourney Weaver), but many of those instances were steeped in camp.

Now? We see a chick who can kick ass every five minutes in the movies or on TV. And while I think that's an excellent step forward in feminism, I also think it's a little boring -- especially because they're still presenting it as though it's a highly fascinating, highly clever "twist" on a male-dominated paradigm.

Need some examples? How much time have you got?

Let's see, in no particular order ... there was Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman in Batman Returns, Halle Berry's Catwoman in Catwoman, Jennifer Garner's Sydney Bristow on Alias, Carrie Anne Moss' Trinity in the Matrix movies, Angelina Jolie's Lara Craft in the Tomb Raider movies, Charlize Theron's Aeon Flux in Aeon Flux, Kate Beckinsale's Selene in the Underworld movies, Milla Jovovich's Alice in the Resident Evil movies (and one more still to come), Michelle Ryan's Jaime Sommers on The Bionic Woman, Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Lena Headey's Sarah Connor on The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Yvonne Starhovski's Sarah Walker on Chuck, Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jennifer Garner again as Elektra in Daredevil and Elektra, Milla Jovovich again as Violet in Ultraviolet, Angelina Jolie again as Mrs. Smith in Mr. & Mrs. Smith (and as Evelyn Salt in Salt, and as Fox in Wanted), Halle Berry again as Storm in the X-Men movies, Jessica Alba as Sue Storm (slight difference) in The Fantastic Four movies, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in Iron Man 2, Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II in Watchmen, Uma Thurman as The Bride in the Kill Bill movies, the trio of women in the two Charlie's Angels movies, Jessica Biel as Abigail Whistler in Blade: Trinity, Chloe Grace Moretz as Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass, Sigourney Weaver twice more as Ripley in two more Alien sequels, the heroines of the three Besson movies mentioned above, and eventually, a long-awaited big screen version of Wonder Woman, starring TBA. (I could go on, but when I asked how much time you had, I should have mentioned that my time is finite as well.)

Like I said, I'm all for the gender equality. But what it means is that just trying to hook us with the idea of a female assassin isn't really going to get you anywhere in 2010 ... even one as sultry looking as Maggie Q looks in the promotions.

But should they try? Sure, why not? We all know how far name recognition gets you. I just find it interesting to realize that "Nikita" is now a name that has such recognition. She's not Cinderella, nor Cleopatra, nor Snow White, nor Rapunzel, nor Joan of Arc, nor some other famous female in either the non-fiction or fiction universe, who has been familiar to us for centuries. She's an anarchy-loving punk in a modest little French film, who got arrested for shooting a cop in the face, then was made over into a sophisticated woman and lethal weapon. And she's now in her fourth pop culture incarnation.

More power to her.

The weekend of problematic horror titles

Scared of the end of summer?

Hollywood is banking on the fact that you are, which is why two studios are releasing high-profile horror sequels this weekend, opposite each other.

What else do these movies have in common? They both have titles that should make you scratch your head, at least for a moment.

First let's take Halloween II. This is supposedly the film that "completes Rob Zombie's vision" for his Halloween remakes, the first of which was released on the same weekend two years ago. (As a personal aside, this is one of only a few movies I returned to the store unwatched. I rented it while my wife was out of town on business, knowing she didn't have much interest. It didn't get watched, and I couldn't be bothered to make the time to watch it after she got back, so I just returned it.)

Now, we all get the idea of rebooting a series, and then naming the new movie the same as the first movie in the original series. Other recent examples include Friday the 13th and The Hills Have Eyes.

But doesn't it get a little conceptually goofy when the sequel in the rebooted franchise has the same name as the sequel in the original series? Halloween II (1981), meet Halloween II (2009).

So in a sense, I guess you could consider this Halloween II ... II.

When the sequel to the new The Hills Have Eyes came out, at least they had the decency to give it a different name than the original sequel. Even if it was only slightly different: The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1985) vs. The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007). (The word Part has fallen out of titular fashion these days, as understood as the missing o in the contract don't).

In theory, it shouldn't be that much harder to digest than having two movies called Halloween. IMDB will list the year in the parentheses, and you'll click on the appropriate link.

So I'm trying to analyze why it isn't sitting with me as well, this Halloween II. And I think it's because we're new enough into the rebooting/remaking game that a lot of series have had the original remade, but not yet the sequel. (The Hills Have Eyes and several other prominent examples not withstanding). We're okay in theory with a classic being updated, even keeping more or less the exact same story, with a few modern details to keep things fresh.

But I don't think we're that interested in seeing an entire series play out the same way. Halloween II calling itself Halloween II makes us think that there could then be a Halloween III, which would essentially be a remake of Halloween III, and then a Halloween IV, which would essentially be a remake of Halloween IV. Even though, as mentioned above, this "completes Rob Zombie's vision," the vision of the studio heads may not feel complete if this weekend's box office is good. Then again, those potential future titles would pretty much have to diverge, because the full title for Halloween III was Halloween III: Season of the Witch, and the full title for Halloween IV (they ditched the Roman numerals at this point) was Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. I doubt we'd be quite so "surprised" by the return of Michael Myers this time around.

Of course, there were two more Halloween movies before we even got to the first attempt to reboot/revisit the series, Halloween: H20, which came out in 1998 on the 20th anniversary of the first. If I see Halloween: H20 II, or Halloween: H40, come out in 2018, I'll be really concerned.

Okay, let's move on to the second movie, about which I have considerably less to say.

It's The Final Destination, the fourth in the Final Destination series, making this series an infant compared to Halloween, which today offered up its (gasp) ninth.

The most obvious problem rests there in that definite article in the title.

We won't worry about confusing search engines, which sometimes drop the word "the," considering it a superfluous term that could get numerous false hits. (Just for fun, I googled the word "the" just now, and it returned 1.2 billion hits -- which suggests to me that's probably the most hits the algorithm can handle). In one sense, this is essentially the same trick that The Fast and the Furious pulled when it rebooted/produced the fourth in its series (the debate is still open) with Fast and Furious early this year. (Check here for a complete discussion).

Except that The actually could have a different function here. It could be a reboot, yeah -- an idea supported by that that they're returning IN 3-D! (Capitalization, italics and excess enthusiasm are mine).

But it could also mean that this is THE final destination -- the ultimate destination, the last in the series. All those other ones were final destinations, sort of -- but this is THE final destination.

Kind of robs the word "final" of some of its prior power, doesn't it?

Of course, it serves the producers of this movie to be ambiguous. Hey, they've got their minds on their summer homes just like the rest of us. (For most of us, on the theoretical summer homes we one day theoretically will have). "Vision" always gives way to the chance to make more money. Ambiguity prevents them from having to commit to this really being the last chapter. Pending this weekend's box office, of course.

So will I be adding to the box office of either this weekend?

Halloween II, possibly; The Final Destination, no, but I will be in a couple weekends.

Halloween II is one of the movies playing at the drive-in this weekend. We may or may not be there tomorrow night, depending on a number of complicating factors, not the least of which are the health of my car and the health of my own person. (I'm still trying to cough out the rest of the residual phlegm). There are eight movies playing, four double features, and we aren't planning to see Zombie's movie, but you never know how things will turn out at the drive-in -- one of its chief thrills.

In a weird kind of preparation for potentially seeing it, actually, I borrowed the original Halloween from the library, which my wife hasn't seen. We may watch it tonight. I figure if we end up seeing the sequel to the movie neither of us has seen, at least we'll both have seen the original, and in that sense will have some basis for understanding what we're seeing. (How much backstory you actually need in a horror movie is, of course, debatable).

As for TFD, I have a date to see it in a couple weekends with the same friend who saw at least the second in the series, and possibly the third, with me. I'm a sucker for that 3-D. (Except when, sometimes, I'm not).

Yeah, I can attack the semantics of these movies' titles with the best of them. But do I back it up by depriving them my money?

Nah.

Lean & Mean

Here, let me publicize a question we've all asked each other at one point or another in the last couple months:

Does dropping two instances of the definite article really constitute a new title?

Oh but wait, they also turned that ungainly "and" into an ampersand. Which is much longer to type out as a word, but two characters shorter as a symbol.

Fast & Furious is, of course, a sequel/reboot/reimagining/reheating of The Fast and the Furious, which came out in 2001. In between there has been 2 Fast 2 Furious (one of my favorite titles of all time) and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

The latest title invites some jokes, but we shouldn't be surprised. Here you are seeing brand recognition at its finest. Whether it really is a sequel or a reboot doesn't matter. The tagline is purposefully ambiguous about the answer to that question: "New Model. Original Parts." What matters is that this lean and mean new title allows you to imagine it as either. Subconsciously, it tells you that the product is back to some pure, undiluted version of itself.

You see, the third title in this series is what studios are trying to fight these days. Having a colon in your title was all the rage a couple years ago, but nowadays, it gives people a bad case of sequelitis. "Wait, so this third movie is now set in Tokyo? And there are none of the same characters? How far have we moved away from our original concept?" It's no surprise that Tokyo Drift earned only $62 million domestically, less than half of the $127 million made by its predecessor. Meanwhile, 2 Fast 2 Furious dropped only $17 million from the $144 million taken in by the original. Maybe it was that awesome title.

So with Fast & Furious, Universal is telling us, "Hey, this is the closest you're going to get to that first movie you loved." (Which wasn't really all that great, let's be honest.) Having Vin Diesel reappear for the first time certainly helps, but the title is what really drives it home. It says, "Let's get back to the basics. Only, a bit more rad."

Reboots have done this for a number of years now. Just think of last year's Rambo. Not surprisingly, it is the shortest title in the series, though Rambo III misses that by a mere three lean and mean roman numerals. (Nowadays, we would never see a movie called Rambo: First Blood Part II). Rambo basically says to you, "Forget all you think you know about John Rambo. This is the essential John Rambo, as that brief and memorable five-letter title will tell you." Sylvester Stallone seems to like that stuff. Rocky Balboa followed a similar idea, with the addition of the last name adding an authenticity that told you you were getting the real deal with this one. (Though I'm kind of shooting my point in the foot here, since the title Rocky Balboa actually has more letters than any other title in the series).

Star Trek is on board for this too. Even the original movie wasn't called Star Trek, it was Star Trek: The Motion Picture. (Talk about something you'll never seen again in a title). This Star Trek is making a conscious play for non-Trekkies, who get confused by concepts like "Wrath" and "Khan" and "The Undiscovered Country" in titles. It says, "Forget all that static, that Search for Spock, that Insurrection, that Nemesis. This is all you need to know and will ever need to know about Star Trek." We'll just have to see how they title the inevitable sequel.

The other thing the leanness and meanness of Fast & Furious does is it makes the title more vulgar, more pedestrian, more mainstream. If you think about it, the original title was highly poetic for a commercial action movie, almost literary. Or at the very least, it calls to mind other things entirely. It was very close to the title The Filth and the Fury, a 2000 documentary about the Sex Pistols. Other titles coming to mind: The Quick and the Dead, The Falcon and the Snowman (okay, that's different) and The Slow and the Dim-Witted (okay, I just made that up). Anyway, the point is, there's a certain high-brow quality, a certain intellect, to titles patterned The Blank and the Blank. The very phrasing is an embrace of abstractions. There are many things a movie about drag racing wants to be, but intellectual is not one of them.

But even if it were the exact same title, that's hardly something we should be surprised about either. Reboots go by the exact same title all the time, just as remakes do. The goal is not to make it easier to find in IMDB. They give you the year in parentheses if you want to do that. No, the goal is to put asses in the seats. And I can guarantee you Friday the 13th sold a lot more tickets with that title than it would have if it had been called Friday the 13th Part XII: Jason Joins Facebook.

The question is, will I see it? Nah. If I didn't even see 2 Fast 2 Furious, it's clear that no title is enough in itself to put my ass in that seat.