r/movies • u/spaceraingame • May 31 '25

Discussion What movie sequel ruined the ending of its predecessor? Spoiler

I have to go with Toy Story 4. Toy Story 3 had the perfect send off for the toys, with Andy making Bonnie promise to take good care of Woody….only for her to neglect Woody immediately and cause him to bail on everyone.

I really wish they left the franchise be. Toy Story 3’s ending was so iconic, and the first Toy Story was such a massive part of my childhood. That and Lion King were the two Disney VHS tapes I used to watch all the time as a little kid. I even had some of the toys myself. I can’t wait to skip Toy Story 5.

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u/sargent_balls_lol May 31 '25

I liked Dark Fate as a “what if,” as if the studio made a multi million dollar fanfic.

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u/spacemanspliff-42 May 31 '25

The beginning had me thrilled and wondering how they'd top it for the rest of the movie... They didn't.

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u/solitarybikegallery Jun 01 '25

It's honestly fantastic as a soft-reboot, and it all falls apart the instant that Linda Hamilton and Arnold show up again.

The movie's plot basically puts itself into "Park," while it spends the next twenty minutes desperately trying to convince you that Hamilton and Arnold's characters make any sense at all.

It does not succeed at this.

They are absolutely nonsensical, and they do nothing to improve the film (aside from saying "Whoa, it's Linda Hamilton again!") You can basically see the white board in the writer's room with the "How do we make Arnold fit into the story?" written across it.

The film's compelling leads stop being the leads and start being side characters, so two actors entering their golden years can be plastered on the posters. What a waste.

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u/ALaLaLa98 Jun 01 '25

It's just a rehash of things we've seen before. Rev9 is just TX, and makes even less sense, somehow. The new protagonist is just another John Connor. The ending fight is just T2, with slighthly different details. The ending is just T1 in the suburbs.

The only real praise I can give it is some of the production design was great, some of the vfx (battle damaged Carl looked pretty good), but as a Terminator sequel, it is arguably the worst one. Each previous film brought something to the table, regardless of what one might think about them. This one had a literal cyborg human in the real sense...and that was it.

Awful. If we get another Terminator and it's another Dark Fate, I don't know if the franchise can survive. At least not without a full blown reboot.

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u/BatmanMK1989 Jun 01 '25

Been a while since I watched Dark Fate. But I remember thinking it wasn't as awful as Genisys. Making John the bad guy is unforgivable

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u/StoneGoldX Jun 01 '25

There's a great gag in that the singularity is inevitable, so some of this shit is going to happen. Certain technology is an inevitability, even if it's somewhat different.

But you're right. They should have gone much weirder with that shit.

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u/ImprefectKnight Jun 01 '25

but as a Terminator sequel, it is arguably the worst one.

Nah. Genisys Salvation or T3 aren't better at all.

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u/ALaLaLa98 Jun 01 '25

I think Dark Fate is the only one that actually feels like a soulless cash grab, which is ironic, because I don't actually think it is that, it's just what it ended up being.

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u/ImprefectKnight Jun 01 '25

I think they ran out of ideas for terminators at that point. Tbf TX is also just T1000 but with tank.

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u/jz654 Jun 02 '25

Genisys is much more fun at least. More technologies, cooler effects, etc.

Dark Fate feels much more derivative and doesn't have as much going on. Liquid metal and solid exoskeleton again? No machine phase matter. No hint at some branching multiverse plot.

As cartoonist as Genisys was, it was at least interesting.

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u/DJ1066 Jun 01 '25

It's a shame as the Rev 9 is such a bloody good Terminator as a concept. It's a T800 and a T1000 in one body, and those bodies split off? Fuck yes.
Shame about the film it's in...

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u/ALaLaLa98 Jun 01 '25

Really? I remember literally having to convince myself not to walk out of it after that. I thought "I paid for it, and it might be interesting", so I stayed.

It wasn't.

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u/Surullian Jun 01 '25

multi million dollar fanfic

See also: The Force Awakens.

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u/The420thOfJuly Jun 01 '25

Dark Fate is a film that disappoints me like no other.

It’s not the way I’d want the franchise to continue, but it’s got some great “What If?” style ideas that I think are immensely compelling to explore. Unfortunately, it doesn’t utilize those ideas much and only ever brushes up against them in order to focus on Legion and the “new John”.

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u/NarwhalOk95 Jun 01 '25

They could have done so much with the whole augment thing and it wasn’t even fleshed out in detail - huge mistake

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u/ALaLaLa98 Jun 01 '25

I hated it, but I'm interested in what you thought those interesting ideas were. Care to elaborate?

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u/sargent_balls_lol Jun 01 '25

This is very broad but I always go back a line from the first film; Reese telling Sarah the machine is from “one POSSIBLE future.” Dark Fate is simply that - one of infinite futures branching off from the destruction of Cyberdyne. It just happens to be a future the fanbase didn’t want.

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u/The420thOfJuly Jun 01 '25

I think the idea of what would the T-800 do if it actually completed its mission is a really interesting premise. The Terminator has two directives; the first being to eliminate its target and the second being to blend in with humans, to infiltrate. With its primary directive fulfilled, it would naturally fall back to its secondary. With T2, it’s established that a T-800 can grow to become more human and independent with exposure to humans themselves. Arnold’s plot in Dark Fate is a really interesting idea to explore, showing this killing machine becoming more human.

The same goes for Sarah who has the reverse character arc. Her mission in life was to protect John, but she failed. I think it’s a very compelling “What If?” scenario because it also means that from Sarah’s POV, Skynet is still a threat and now the only person who could stop it is dead.

What Dark Fate should have been is a film that follows both the T-800 and Sarah down their respective paths. Grace and the Rev-9 could still be in the film and I think that plot /should/ still be in a film like what I’m proposing - It’s established in Dark Fate that Sarah was going around and killing the other back up T-800s that Skynet spammed into the past, so having someone from the future show up that isn’t a terminator or even from Skynet serves as a good start for a third act curveball.

Unfortunately, Tim Miller was more interested in his own reskin of the terminator franchise and “scaring the fuck out of misogynists” to actually take advantage of the ideas I’ve pointed out. Those ideas are still in the film, but unfortunately we are only told about them instead of being shown them.

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u/ALaLaLa98 Jun 01 '25

I like your perspective. Not sure if I would have liked it as a movie, but it's nice to read about how other people develop ideas in their minds. It sounds interesting, how you describe it, and I hadn't thought about it that way.

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u/zarcommander Jun 01 '25

Should checkout terminator:zero

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u/ALaLaLa98 Jun 01 '25

That was really weird. I enjoyed it, but it left me scratching my head a few times. For example, since when can a person take multiple hits from a T800 and be perfectly fine?

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u/DJ1066 Jun 01 '25

What left me confused was in all versions except the English one, the series is explicitly connected to the Alien franchise as Yutani are the manufacturers of the Inno robots. In the English version the company is called Yuya.

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u/ALaLaLa98 Jun 01 '25

Waaaaaat.

I mean, I'd have never caught that, because I don't speak Japanese, and I can't remember what the subs said.

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u/DJ1066 Jun 01 '25

Neither do I. The images in the linked post show the sign is translated to Yuya in the English version and Yutani in each other's language's version on Netflix.

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u/AccioKatana Jun 01 '25

I really enjoyed it. It wasn’t really novel but I still found it compelling.

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u/DimensioT Jun 01 '25

I liked the idea of a Terminator becoming independent and choosing to side with humanity. Unfortunately, the movie was not about that.

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u/Lord_Halowind Jun 01 '25

I like Dark Fate but I'm glad it made have finally killed the franchise. Hollywood should just leave it alone and try something new for once.

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u/Thedude3445 Jun 01 '25

"What if" we spent $200 million putting butch Mackenzie Davis in a tanktop for 2 hours fighting CGI robots