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“Terminator: Genisys” Gets Photos, Synopsis and Is Viciously Trashed on Twitter

Fans can’t find anything to be excited about with the reboot

Oct 30, 2014 10:29 GMT  ·  By
“Terminator: Genisys” gets alternate EW covers but zero love from the fans online
   “Terminator: Genisys” gets alternate EW covers but zero love from the fans online

This week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly comes with 2 separate covers and a story that should have gotten fans all excited about the 2015 “Terminator: Genisys” and thus help to reboot the “Terminator” franchise, which is meant to be a trilogy.

The exact opposite is happening right now on social media. On Twitter, in particular, “Genisys” is getting a proper trashing from fans and movie bloggers who are not just underwhelmed by what’s in store, but actually shocked this is the best the studio could come up with, after all these years.

Everything from the EW covers to the plot twist revealed in the online preview issue is getting on fans’ nerves, with most saying that “Genisys” will probably be a bigger flop than its ill-advised predecessor “Terminator: Salvation.”

“Genisys” got off to a bad PR start, and it’s still not faring well

Fans of the original “Terminator” trilogy, which remains a staple in modern cinema from the way it included VFX in the story to the strong female character and the iconic OST, have hated “Genisys” almost from the get-go, but not because they were opposed in any way to the idea of rebooting the franchise.

If anything, they were the ones who were most excited about this plan, especially when director Alan Taylor (“Thor”) managed to get Arnold Schwarzenegger back on board, reprising his T role.  

They hated it because PR for the movie was bad from the onset, starting with the many leaks and ending with the film’s name, which the studio could have explained better, to prevent jokes from how it was actually just a typo that no one corrected.

The latest round in the “Genisys” hate campaign is proof that no improvement is in sight yet. Attached to this article you will find the two alternate EW covers: the one with Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney has a very distinctive ‘90s vibe (and assurances were offered that “Genisys” would stand on its own feet and not ride the coattails of the originals), while the one with Matt Smith and Jason Clark also features a T-800 which, you’re not mistaken, is grinning at the camera.    

Sarah Connor is whose (adoptive) daughter?!

But that’s not even the worst part of it. In the online preview issue, EW promises that “Genisys” will reboot the “Terminator” franchise by adding several surprising and smart twists, but also by drawing on the existing mythology a bit, as expected.

So, we will get to see John Connor send Kyle Reese back in time to protect his mother, Sarah Connor, and thus make it possible for him to be born and fight Skynet. The twist is that the Sarah Connor Reese finds is not the one we’ve seen in the original film, as played by Linda Hamilton.

Cue to EW: “The mother of humanity’s messiah was orphaned by a Terminator at age 9. Since then, she’s been raised by (brace yourself) Schwarzenegger’s Terminator – an older T-800 she calls ‘Pops’ – who is programmed to guard rather than to kill. 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.”

In other words: Arnold’s Terminator is Sarah’s adoptive “pops.” The Terminator that tried to kill her in James Cameron’s “The Terminator” in 1984 is now reading bedtime stories to her and tucking her in at night.

You have to admit, on paper, this sounds very bad, bad enough to prompt fans to say that they could have come up with a much better story than this. And they would have probably done it for free, just for the heck of it.

You will find some of the tweets on “Genisys” embedded below. Fans are definitely not buying into it.

“Terminator” is a popular franchise, but it must be handled with the utmost care

The lesson so far, regardless of whether “Genisys” turns out to be a box office bomb or not, is that, with a franchise as old and as popular (and wonderfully executed) as “Terminator,” every little detail must be handled with the utmost care, from the story to the actual production and every stage in the marketing process.

One misstep and you risk alienating the original fanbase, which you probably want in theaters more than you want newbies. If you can’t pull all of this to perfection, it’s best not to get involved at all – and that’s a very valuable lesson “Genisys” could have learned from “Salvation.”