The brand new Terminator Genisys trailer is out, and you're not going to believe all the insanity we found when we went through it frame by frame. Start up the HK-Aerials — we're going to the future, or past, or both, who knows?
The trailer opens on Los Angeles. With three HK-Aerials scooting around the sky. SKYNET HAS THE UPPER HAND.
Compare these HK-Aerials to past HK-Aerials, on the left is Terminator and on the right is T2.
This isn't the first time we've seen the Hollywood sign wrecked in a Terminator movie. Behold Terminator Salvation, now, immediately try to erase any memory of said Salvation movie.
Also glad to see that future wasteland LA has returned to its blue-hued look over the previous "dirty brown" style (image from 1984 Terminator).
Meanwhile in the secret human base, John Connor threw a post apocalyptic party, and it looks like he invited everyone he knew. So we can assume this is after August 29th, 1997 (Judgement Day)?
Super Duper Future Scar.
For comparison purposes:
John Connor from Terminator 2 (Michael Edwards), John Connor from Terminator 3 (Nick Stahl), and John Connor from Terminator Salvation (Christian Bale).
Connor speaks, "I look at you and I see the marks of this long and terrible war," (ahem, face scar). Cut to an assemblage of man vs. machine scenes.
Terrible war stuff. Are those plasma weapons?
Endoskeleton with a gun!
Is this an HK-Centurion? Hello that's neat.
John Connor continues, "If we die tonight, mankind dies with us." And then we see a shot of ... Judgement Day Part 2? Original Judgement Day?
Cut to a fridge of dangling legs. Note, all the legs look very gigantic and similar. We're going to jump out on a limb here and assume that these are the original Terminator's legs. Those are Arnold Schwarzenegger's legs. And they look cold.
First HUGE reveal. This is (what we're assuming) is THE time machine that the machines use to send the Terminator back in time to kill Sarah Connor. This has never been seen before. The time machine was just there and it sent people or terminators back in time naked. And as you can see here, this looks like a very Arnold figure heading into the machine. I wonder if that's why he was defrosted in the previous image?
Yep, that's Arnold.
Cut to John Connor giving a speech about how the machines sent a terminator back in time to kill his mother (WE KNOW). J/k, John — your speech is good, keep going. But more importantly — holy shit, look who has control of the time machine now. Or maybe the humans made their own time machine. Maybe the future is just lousy with time machines. We don't have all the answers yet.
Also when John Connor says, "My Mother," the trailer cuts to the Khaleesi! Sarah Connor will be played by the Mother of Dragons, Emilia Clarke.
John Connor is understandably upset that the machines are going back in time to kill his mother. Also it's kind of fun to watch this movie set up everything leading to the original Terminator, that's neat. Ten points to Terminator Genisys. And, of course, the new Kyle Reese (played by Jai Courtney) is all "I Volunteer as Tribute!"
Kyle Reese takes off all his clothes and has a very odd handshake with this living legend. John says, "What you're doing right now, this is the end of the war." No, this is just weird. Jesus, they're even making the handshake weird.
Another shot of the time machine, OK clearly this is the machines' time machine, and the humans have taken over — note the wires and boxes. The whole thing looks like it's been hacked. This probably explains the very important attack that they were preparing for earlier in the film.
Now it's Kyle Reese's turn to go back in time, and apparently that means floating!
Time travel ball that can cut through anything, even pavement. So it floating like this makes sense.
And now we're back to 1984. Hey, a pool hall! Also, looks like someone tipped off the cops to Kyle's arrival.
The department store where Kyle gets his kicks. He's being chased by the cop.
Meanwhile John Connor's voice says, "The time you're going back to, she [Sarah] will be scared and weak. Take care of her for me, Kyle." NOPE. In plows an armored car that nails the cop — and whammo, it's not-weak Sarah Connor. She yells, "Come with me if you want to live." And just to reinforce this, she yells, "NOW SOLDIER." That part was awesome. *Thumbs up, Khaleesi*
The cop is a T-1000! No one is surprised — but hey, fun. Also what are T-1000s doing in 1984? Black is white! White is black! EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED.
Fan service, fan service everywhere! Also this T-1000 recovers way faster than the Robert Patrick version (or maybe that's just the trailer).
Sarah Connor takes Kyle to her underground arsenal. THIS IS NOT CANON.
Kyle is just as upset as we are, "this is all wrong, John sent me back here to save you." New Sarah Connor is all "WE GOT THIS, OK." And by "we" she means ANOTHER FUCKING TERMINATOR. Remember the original T-800 Terminator, this guy?
Well he lands in the trailer, presumably at the same time the T-800 landed in the first Terminator movie (at 1:52 AM on May 13, 1984 at the Griffith Observatory). And hey look, the Observatory even makes a cameo in the trailer.
But guess whose waiting and ready for him, an older Terminator. So the older Terminator kills the T-800. It's Arnold versus Arnold! And it's great, but it also totally negates your favorite movie ever made ever. Swallow that.
Older Arnold blows up the new CG Young Arnold with a shotgun. He's wearing a hoodie. It's weird. But if Arnold wants to be the Terminator again, I'm not going to fucking stop him. Having him back is awesome. However the older Terminator's knowledge of said arrival date of the T-800 would imply that someone from the future sent him back with this knowledge. Someone like John Connor. So how many terminators does John Connor eventually wind up sending back in time?
UPDATE: And here is a shot of the old/new T-800. It's new because it's CG-ed, or rotoscoped or something. The T-800 has an odd sheen all over his body. Like a purple goo.
UPDATE: Here's a screenshot of the original T-800 from the Terminator trailer. And I've decided to CHANGE my opinion on the CG T-800 from Genisys looking so much like hell. Maybe I'm being a bit nitpicky? The sheen still bothers me, but I'll get over it. It's really not that bad on comparison, just weird.
New T-1000 shows up and says, "Hey rememeber when the old T-1000 did this?"
Another time machine, y'all. You know what that means, MORE TIME TRAVELING. This is creating additional timelines on top of the timelines already created by the Terminator that went back in time to raise Sarah, and new Kyle Reese. Is this, yet another, timeline we're jumping to? Are we going to be able to keep all this shit straight? Someone call Doc Brown, I need a chalkboard explainer.
And now the part we have the most problem with — a Terminator holding the young Sarah Connor. No.
NO.
However, Terminator hands are great. So, counterpoint.
New T-1000 is also a car/riding on a car.
Sarah Connor says, "we can stop Judgement Day from happening." Lady, we've heard this one before. Also is this Cyberdyne?
Something tries to punch through the door, I suspect it's a Terminator.
Someone punches another someone through a wall.
See!
Terminator on a motorcycle on top of a bus!
The bus flips!
But the Terminator saves the day. And I'm satisfied that there's at least one GIGANTIC action sequence in this film. As it should be.
Oh and one last thing, before the trailer ends the Terminator says "I'll be back" and jumps into a helicopter, causing it to explode.
UPDATE: And about that "I'll be back," Terminator, he has silver hair. The pervious Terminator (who killed the first T-800) had brown hair. The whole point of TG is that this Terminator has been aging with Sarah, but this jump looks like he's the only one aging. As opposed to thinking this is two different Terminators, I'm more likely to believe that this is the same Terminator in a different point in time. We already saw the additional (less fancy) time machine. Does Sarah Connor travel in time? Are we OK with that?
Overall, I liked it. It has the mandatory things I need from a Terminator movie (minus the Terminator Dad stuff). Even the poster is totally weird and ridiculous. Why is Sarah Connor in a wheat field, forget about it, it's Terminator town. This looks big and silly and as long as it's not big and stupid (like Terminator Salvation) I'm still going to have fun with it.