Arnie’s junk returns with Terminator: Dark Fate
Is there free will? It’s an idea that’s been tormenting humanity since we came down from the trees. It’s also a question that rattles around time-travel thriller Terminator: Dark Fate (now playing).
“I don’t think fate works any differently in the Terminator universe than it does in real life,” says director Tim Miller, calling the Georgia Straight from Toronto.
“Personally, I believe that there’s no such thing as destiny and the choices we make have ramifications down the road. The future was changed in the last movie, so clearly it can be done, but now the characters are becoming aware of the ouroboros, and they can make the choice to break out of the cycle.”
Although the story of a killer robot from the future has been told before, Miller ups the ante this time by bringing back original stars Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“You can’t keep Arnold away from a Terminator movie,” Miller says, laughing. “I think if he was in a car accident and lost all of his limbs, he would find a way to roll onto the Terminator set. But Linda was a different matter. She’d resisted coming back before…but now so much time has passed she believed she could make this character something different from what it was. And she did.”
Dark Fate also stars Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, and Vancouver native Mackenzie Davis, who plays a bioengineered future human here to save humanity.
With Terminator creator James Cameron now back after an almost 30-year absence—he produced Dark Fate—it raises the question: what’s it like to fill his shoes as director?
“I have a surfeit of courage and stupidity, so I always feel like I’m going to do a good job because my heart’s in the right place. And I’ve learned that there’s such a huge group of really talented people around you that if you ask for help, they will not let you fail.”
For the most part, Cameron gave Miller free rein, although he did press some of the finer points.
“The Terminator—does it have a functional penis or not? Jim was very adamant about it. He’s like, ‘You see his junk in Terminator 1. So why wouldn’t he have a working penis?’ ”
Fully functional or not, a real-life robot uprising doesn’t seem much of a worry for Miller. When asked about the theme of technology versus humanity, however, he does turn serious.
“I think the danger is more insidious, in that we’ll gradually give up more of our free will…eventually humans will find that AI can make decisions better than they can themselves, and we’ll stop trying. We’ll become a world full of sheep, and the gradual erosion of autonomy will lead us to something that could be worse than nuclear fire. That’s what I fear.”