Terminator: Dark Fate is a 2019 American science fiction action film that is the sixth installment in the Terminator franchise and a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), ignoring the events of Rise of the Machines (2003), Salvation (2009), and Genisys (2015). The film stars Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Sarah Connor and the T-800 Terminator, respectively, reuniting the actors after 23 years. It is directed by Tim Miller and written by David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes, and Billy Ray from a story by James Cameron, Charles H. Eglee, Josh Friedman, Goyer, and Rhodes. Cameron also produced the film with David Ellison.
It introduces Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna and Diego Boneta as new characters. Set 25 years after the events of Terminator 2, the film sees the machines sending an advanced Terminator (Luna), designated Rev-9, back in time to 2020 to kill Dani Ramos (Reyes), whose fate is connected to the future. The Resistance also sends Grace (Davis), an augmented soldier, back in time to defend Dani, while they are joined by Sarah Connor and Skynet's T-800.
Principal photography took place from June to November 2018 in Hungary, Spain and the United States. Distributed by Paramount Pictures in North America and 20th Century Fox in other territories, the film was released theatrically in the United States on November 1, 2019. It received mixed reviews from critics who considered it a slight improvement over recent predecessors. However, it only grossed $261.1 million worldwide and lost $122.6 million, making it a big box-office bomb. As a result, initial plans for future films were later canceled.
Plot
In 1998, three years after destroying Cyberdyne Systems, Sarah and John Connor have retired to Livingston, Guatemala. They are suddenly ambushed by a T-800 Terminator, one of several sent back through time by Skynet, which kills John despite Sarah's attempts to stop it.
In 2020, an advanced Terminator, the Rev-9, is sent back in time to Mexico City to murder Dani Ramos, while a cybernetically enhanced soldier, Grace, is sent from 2042 to protect her. The Rev-9, disguised as Dani's father, infiltrates the automobile assembly plant where Dani and her brother Diego work, but is thwarted by Grace, who escapes with the siblings. The Rev-9, using its ability to split into its cybernetic endoskeleton and shape-shifting liquid metal exterior, pursues them, killing Diego and cornering Grace and Dani. However, Sarah arrives and temporarily disables both forms of the entity using military-grade weaponry.
Dani, Grace, and Sarah retreat to a motel. Sarah reveals that she found them because in the years since John's death she has received encrypted messages detailing the locations of arriving Terminators, each ending with "For John", allowing her to destroy them before they become threats. Grace notes that Skynet and John do not exist in her future, meaning Sarah succeeded in destroying the former after Cyberdyne went defunct. However, humanity's future is threatened by another AI called Legion, originally developed for cyberwarfare, which was built in Skynet's place. When Legion became a threat to humans, an attempt was made to neutralize it with nuclear weapons, resulting in a nuclear holocaust and the AI creating a global network of machines to terminate the human survivors, who organized a resistance movement to counter Legion's onslaughts, and Dani's destiny is linked to their war against it.
Grace traces the source of Sarah's messages to Laredo, Texas. Barely evading the Rev-9 and the authorities while crossing the Mexico–United States border, they arrive at their source, where they discover the same T-800 that had killed John. Having fulfilled his mission and with Skynet no longer existing, the T-800 was left aimless. Over time and through his adaptability, he became self-aware, learned from humanity, and developed a conscience, taking the name "Carl" and adopting a human family. After learning how his actions affected Sarah and being able to detect the location of temporal displacements, Carl began to forewarn her of them to give her a purpose to make amends. Carl offers to join them against the Rev-9 and they prepare to destroy it, with Sarah begrudgingly agreeing to work together for Dani's sake. Anticipating the Rev-9's arrival, Carl bids his family farewell and tells them to escape.