TERMINATOR: the GREAT REPLACEMENT—One More Franchise Gets Woke, Goes Broke

in #steempress5 years ago


Ed.'s note: "I'll be back." Yeah, we bet you will.

Box Office Bomb: 'Terminator: Dark Fate' Could Lose Over $100 Million

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Source: The Unz Review

By PAUL KERSEY • NOVEMBER 10, 2019 • 28 COMMENTS

Producer James Cameron and director Tim Miller have, in the latest Terminator epic Terminator: Dark Fate, taken another billion dollar entertainment franchise and driven it into the ground in the name of Social Justice, Hollywood-Style. Here’s how it happened.

The message of the first two Terminator films is in a line from Judgement Day, sequel to the 1984 original: "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." Heroine Sarah Connor utters that line in a powerful but regrettably deleted scene from the first film, and delivers this message: We have the power to change the present. The future is unwritten. Unfortunately, the latest installment of the franchise delivers a less optimistic message: You, white man, are doomed. Indeed, Terminator: Dark Fate might well be called Terminator: The Great Replacement.

The Marvel superhero films have been pushing that message as well, and now the latest Terminator adds its voice. Dark Fate, a direct sequel to James Cameron's ground-breaking Judgement Day in 1991, literally pretends that the events in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation, and Terminator Genisys never occurred. What viewers get instead is a myth more in tune with our anti-white, anti-male present [‘Terminator: Dark Fate’'Director: Why Mackenzie Davis Will 'Scare the F— Out of’ Misogynists, by Matt Donnelly, Variety, July 10, 2019].

That message still doesn’t work well. Empty theaters and $29 million in receipts greeted the new Terminator's in its opening weekend. Losses for 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Skydance Media might exceed $130 million ['Terminator: Dark Fate' Puts Franchise on Ice, Faces $120M-Plus Loss, by Pamela McCintock, Hollywood Reporter, November 3, 2019].

My advice: Avoid this bomb, which one would hope kills the franchise before it gets any more preachy and ridiculous. For the record, the first two films and Rise of the Machines are an underrated trilogy.

But if you plan to see it, here’s your spoiler alert.

Set three years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the saviors of humanity—Sarah and John Connor—live in peace. They didn't know another T-800 Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegge's character that broke the mold 35 years ago, was sent back in time with the mission to murder John, the resistance leader in the post-apocalyptic future.

The second T-800 dispatches John with a shotgun before most viewers have a chance to grab their first handful of popcorn or sip their soda. It's shocking, and not just because John Connor is killed. Rather, in just a few minutes, the storyline of the first two films is erased.

But that’s what allows director Tim Miller to retune and bring the franchise into harmony with post-white America.

The heroine for mankind’s future is a Mexican named Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes). Sarah Connor—no longer the mother of the messianic John Connor—shows up to protect her from an advanced Rev 9 Terminator (Gabriel Luna). In this John Connor-less timeline, we learn a form of artificial intelligence was designed to fight cyberwarfare, but took control from humans. Nuclear holocaust was the result. Meanwhile, a white woman named Grace (MacKenzie Davis), cybernetically enhanced by humans in the future, is sent back in time to defend the Hispanic Ramos.

Replacement message: White John Connor becomes Mexican Dani Ramos; Schwarzenegger's white T800 becomes an nearly androgynous white woman. On that note, by the way, Slate.com's Christina Cauterucci [Tweet her] enthusiastically reported that "when photos from the set of Terminator: Dark Fate showed Mackenzie Davis sporting a fashion bowl cut, grimy tank top, and massive deltoids, lesbian Twitter lost its mind" [Terminator: Dark Fate Is the Gayest Terminator Yet, by, November 1, 2019].

"From the get-go," one reviewer noted, "this new film is all about diversity: Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor gets to say 'I'll be back'; there's a new politicized trans-human lady Terminator, plus a Latina hero and her Latino Terminator nemesis" [Terminator: Dark Fate—Arnie’s back, but he should have stayed away: Review: All the diversity window dressing can't hide Dark Fate’s inconsequentiality, by Tara Brady, Irish Times, October 24, 2019].

Get it? Not just a lady Terminator, but a "trans-human lady Terminator."

Anyway, the message in the removal of John Connor and his replacement by a Hispanic woman isn’t what one would call subtle. We're supposed to hear it, loud and clear.

Please go to The Unz Review to read the great article.



Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://www.abeldanger.org/terminator-the-great-replacement-one-more-franchise-gets-woke-goes-broke/

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