TERMINATOR GENISYS vs. TRON LEGACY: How Hollywood Reboots
We have all heard it a thousand times: Hollywood loves a good reboot. It’s far less risky to take an already-beloved IP and update it for a modern audience than make something brand spanking new. We recently posted an article on why the big studio executives choose not to make new material, but what is it about reboots that are so appealing? Despite the internet’s distaste for them, we still keep going time and again. (2015 has basically become the year of rebooting ‘80s and ‘90s classics.) Some reboots do things right, like the record breaking spectacle that was Jurassic World. Others do it horribly wrong, like the dreaded Kingdom of the Crystal Skull release we still haven't found it in our hearts to forgive Lucas and Spielberg for. But some release in a way that gets the movie hammered by critics, yet it still ends up with a huge fan base. That last group is what this article is about, and it’s a fan base I find myself in on a regular basis. Our points of discussion? Disney’s 2010 revisit to the Grid in TRON: Legacy and this summer’s alternate timeline version of James Cameron’s classic in Terminator Genisys.
Terminator Genisys — Fans Like It, Critics Hate It
A lot of us here at GeekTyrant often get accused of going too easy on movies. The truth of it all is, we genuinely enjoy most movies. I definitely fall in the group of writers on the site that is way more forgiving of the medium than others. Bottom line: if I’m entertained from start to finish, then I enjoyed the movie. Terminator Genisys is obviously not without its flaws, but as a whole, I really enjoyed it! The Terminator franchise is one I grew up on, and T2: Judgment Day is one of the reasons I wanted to get involved in the world of movies. I felt like Genisys did a great job of paying appropriate homage to the original franchise without being too in-your-face with “Hey, remember this famous line? Eh?! EH?!” It felt like a good attempt at bringing this beloved IP into a new generation that may not have seen the originals, while still helping those who grew up on the films feel more at home.
TRON: Legacy — Critically Mediocre Film with HUGE Cult Following
TRON fans are die-hard. When you’re a member of the Users you don’t just like TRON, you live to be on the Grid. I know, because I’m one of those fans. Disney made the original TRON in order to compete in a growing science fiction market that was capped by Star Wars. Eventually, Disney won the game by just buying Star Wars, but TRON was their first attempt to corner the market. Even the classic, while it wowed audiences with its new special effects, was more of a cult classic than an actual critically acclaimed masterpiece. When TRON: Legacy came out 28 years later, most fans were happy to see a return to the digital world. While the new film didn’t perform as well as Disney had hoped, they were willing to back this newly rebooted franchise. We saw an okay-ish movie tie-in video game and a super solid animated prequel to the film. Sadly the animated series was canceled after only one season, but it had a great star studded cast and a huge cult following all its own! And when Disney saw that original IPs just weren’t doing as hot as they wanted, this year they pulled the plug on TRON 3. (Which, of course, launched a fan petition to bring the series back that went crazy amounts of viral.)
What Does This Mean About Terminator's Future?
The release of Terminator Genisys has so many parallels to that of TRON: Legacy (not to mention when you break it down, they’re almost identical movies, but that’s another article altogether), but what kind of future can the Connor family expect? Disney pulled the plug even after they knew there was demand for another film in their franchise. Will low critic scores, a weak opening weekend, and a divided audience opinion influence whether or not the studio moves forward with their two new sequels in this timeline? Or is Terminator going to fall by the wayside like TRON did? Personally, I think this is just the beginning of what we’re going to see from this new Terminator and that excites me. Terminator and T2 weren’t just cult hits, they were big summer movie blockbusters. An audience for more Terminator movies is much broader than TRON was from the get-go. Because of that, I would be surprised if we don’t see at least one more film in the promised new trilogy. I love the Terminator films, and even give the bad ones a little extra leeway simply because I love the lore of the films so much! What kind of future do you see for the Terminator crew?