Verdict? It’s All About Nostalgia
The definitive Terminator score – dun dun dun dun dun – is back! Music is no doubt the easiest route to the audience’s heart. Shadowing earlier films, the trailer culminates in the legendary stomp and throws in a bunch of massive in-your-face throwbacks.
Drawing parallels between old and new, the series’ most iconic lines are also shoehorned into this tight preview. “I’ll be back,” says Arnie. “Come with me if you want to live,” Sarah shouts at a frightened Kyle.
The relationship with the supposedly romantic couple we’ve grown to love from the first instalment is also somewhat different here. Instead of Kyle’s commanding, stern tone, he’s reduced to a bit of a damp squib. Clarke’s the badass here. Completing the role reversal, she’s the one giving him the rundown on events as they hurtle through the grimy L.A. streets – much like he did to her in the older, original timeline.
Couple this with a shot of the T-1000 leaping from a police car to the back of an open truck, from which Sarah and Kyle blast away, the helicopter scene, the bus chase, heck, there’s even a flash of a fight scene around a vending machine… and there’s plenty of echoes to James Cameron’s first two movies.
With many months to go, it’s likely we’ll see more trailers and clips to fill in the gaps and answer the many, many questions this first preview has invoked. Namely – where is Matt Smith? He cropped up in EW’s exclusive photo shoot alongside the resistance fighters. Could Taylor have something bigger in store for him? Or could he be the new type of Terminator that’s gonna blow everyone’s minds?
What of Sarah’s past tragedy? Will we see what happened to her parents? In a tiny sliver of a shot we see a young girl carried away by a Terminator, resting a cannon over its other shoulder. Broken panels of wood scattered at their feet suggests that there’s probably been a bit of a punch-up. This adds another shift away from the original, as Sarah’s parents are killed much later by the T-800.
All in all, the first trailer for Terminator: Genisys has packed in enough novelty (it’s a new timeline!) with sufficient tropes from the earlier movies to lure in those who aren’t total aficionados. There’s cyborgs, fighting, time-travel… throw in a little romance and we might be looking at the best Terminator film since T2.
Maybe.