Summary SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT The Terminator movies are a staple of the sci-fi and action genres, which have established a handful of overt or subtle things that happen in every movie. The series’ story has always, to a degree, revolved around Skynet and the resistance battling to preserve or destroy the Connor family, to allegedly save or doom humanity.
9 A Terminator Tries To Kill John Connor John Connor is almost always Skynet's number-one enemy. Close The inciting incident of the franchise is that Skynet sends a Terminator back in time to kill John Connor to ensure its victory over humanity in the future. It first tries to preeminently kill John by killing Sarah before John is ever born. Different Terminators are sent to kill John as a child in Judgment Day and as an adult in Rise of the Machines.
Rise of the Machines is an exception, where the T-850 shuts himself down while his face is still intact, leaving it up to Schwarzenegger's performance to convey what is happening. Meanwhile, red eyes go out left and right in Salvation, which takes place at the height of the war when there are Terminators everywhere. In this case, they tend to be a lot easier to kill because the movie can’t waste time on an extended battle with every Terminator present.
Furthermore, a couple of movies try to raise the stakes by having the character asked to drive have limited experience. Marcus tells Kyle to drive in Salvation, only for Kyle to shout at him that he’s never done it before; Grace asks Dani if she can drive, and she says no, so her brother Diego manages to climb over her in the front seat and take over. It appears to be a standard way for the Terminator movies to ramp up the danger in what is already a life-or-death situation.
New Terminators with new abilities are introduced in every movie. The T-1000 is the first liquid metal Terminator, while the T-X makes the T-850 “obsolete.” The T-5000 and Rev-9 are simply deadlier, more durable Terminators, while human-robotic hybrids also begin to appear. It is standard for the filmmakers to want to raise the stakes with each sequel, making a new Terminator an inevitability. Additionally, every Terminator model contributes to the tone of their respective movie.
They only delay Judgment Day, which eventually happens in Rise of the Machines. There are some inconsistencies between what Kyle describes as the future in The Terminator and what is seen in Salvation, but this could be due to a slightly altered timeline. Genisys and Dark Fate then each present alternate timelines, leaving it up for debate how much, if any, of the original timeline still happened.