This movie apparently did poorly at the box office. It was released in 2014 and critical parts of it are set in 2017 with Genisys being an operating system to connect your phone to your laptop to your car and serving as a Trojan Horse for Skynet to take over the world.
This probably hit a nerve for people and was likely a factor in its lukewarm reception. That and it was a bit too intellectual and over the heads of a lot of audience members with inadequate explanations for scientific bits like the trap that melts the T-1000, presumably with acid but it's never really said what happened there.
I like the movie. It ends on a note of Sarah Connor finally putting her past behind her and getting to theoretically live happily ever after with the love of her life -- Kyle Reese -- instead of him heroically dying to save her for love immediately after getting her knocked up the one and only time the relationship was consummated.
As someone who spent my youth feeling like my life was a Greek Tragedy where the harder I tried to escape my fate, the more stuck I was, and who left a marriage in part because I was having bad dreams that I felt predicted his death, I would like the movie for that detail alone even if it had nothing else to offer.
Arnold does some great acting, including a terrifying "friendly smile" as an aging Terminator reprogrammed to protect Sarah and trying to learn to blend in. I probably like that detail a lot in part because I have two Aspie-ish sons and in part because I'm missing a bunch of teeth, which caused nerve damage to one side of my face, and at one time trying to intentionally smile had a similar ghoulish effect for me.
I might not remember the fact that I used to have so much trouble smiling except it played a shockingly important role in office politics back when I had a corporate job. I managed to pull off a smile on purpose and under pressure that had big social consequences for me.
I was in a lot of pain and very socially impaired while I had a corporate job. This helped lead to an HR investigation when efforts to smooth things over, then walk things back, led to unexpected friction with a coworker.
One of the few people I did get along with well was an executive in the department who was never in my chain of command. His office happened to be near my desk and he was polite and friendly and I was a clueless ninny who did not initially realize he had "a corner office" and this meant something.
To be fair, I continued to be a clueless ninny well after I figured out who the executives were and executives who expected kowtowing didn't like me because I do that "Christian" thing of trying to be equally polite and respectful to everyone I meet simply because they are human. Ordinary Joes who don't get much of that tend to like me. People with power who get a lot of that because of who they are tend to interpret that as me being their bitch and this tends to foster conflict when I turn out to have self respect and fail to grovel.
He was not that kind of executive and it's lonely at the top. One Saturday when they served pizza for people working overtime because the cafeteria was not open, he sat by himself in the breakroom while all other tables were full.
No one would sit with Mr. Big. Too scary.
I asked if he minded if I joined him and we made polite small talk. After that, he was always warm to me. I treated him like a person, not Mr. Big.
So at some later date, some low level middle manager type got fired. The rumor mill suggested it was either sexual harassment or an illicit affair with another employee.
This led to a conversation with a former teammate about why I got transferred to another team when he took over ours and I told her the backstory about him calling me "Doll" and "Babe" and me bringing this up with our then current boss days before he was to take over the team. Our current boss was younger than me and spazzing and I was like "Dude, he has so far done NOTHING wrong. I don't work with him. Just talk to him. Worst case scenario, I get quietly transferred and never work for him." and that's exactly how that went down.
Anyway, two days after this guy's desk was cleaned out, leaving much of the department in SHOCK as he was very popular and widely seen as a Golden Boy, while I suppressed my urge to pass out kazoos and dance in the aisles, we unrelatedly had a brief department meeting called somewhat impromptu as it occurred in a large foyer/stairwell area rather than a meeting room.
And as roughly 500 people, most of them still in shock and with the firing fresh on their minds, began to gather and mill around, Mr. Big made a beeline for me, obviously happy to see me and ready to be all warm and friendly.
I did not do well with big meetings. I was running a fever and red in the face and yadda. I was like "Shit. People are going to think we are flirting and I am crushing on him and this is like THE WORST timing EVER." so I averted my eyes and turned away slightly and he didn't miss a beat and kept walking, not stopping to talk to me.
Okay, potential disaster averted, but now I had a new problem: One of the most powerful people in the department thought I was mad at him "or something" and there would never be any opportunity to explain my reasons.
The next time I passed him in the hall, I managed to smile at him in spite of my nerve damage and limited time frame etc. He said "Excuse me" and clearly got the memo that there was no issue between us.
After that, he was warm and friendly and chatty when there were few people around and was very professional towards me in departmental meetings. And he also ended up being the person who was able to fix my problem when I won a departmental award and no one had any idea who had the authority to actually get my document added to the internal documents.
Presumably your takeaways from the movie will be somewhat different from mine. Most people likely don't have my history of smiling challenges.
This probably hit a nerve for people and was likely a factor in its lukewarm reception. That and it was a bit too intellectual and over the heads of a lot of audience members with inadequate explanations for scientific bits like the trap that melts the T-1000, presumably with acid but it's never really said what happened there.
I like the movie. It ends on a note of Sarah Connor finally putting her past behind her and getting to theoretically live happily ever after with the love of her life -- Kyle Reese -- instead of him heroically dying to save her for love immediately after getting her knocked up the one and only time the relationship was consummated.
As someone who spent my youth feeling like my life was a Greek Tragedy where the harder I tried to escape my fate, the more stuck I was, and who left a marriage in part because I was having bad dreams that I felt predicted his death, I would like the movie for that detail alone even if it had nothing else to offer.
Arnold does some great acting, including a terrifying "friendly smile" as an aging Terminator reprogrammed to protect Sarah and trying to learn to blend in. I probably like that detail a lot in part because I have two Aspie-ish sons and in part because I'm missing a bunch of teeth, which caused nerve damage to one side of my face, and at one time trying to intentionally smile had a similar ghoulish effect for me.
I might not remember the fact that I used to have so much trouble smiling except it played a shockingly important role in office politics back when I had a corporate job. I managed to pull off a smile on purpose and under pressure that had big social consequences for me.
I was in a lot of pain and very socially impaired while I had a corporate job. This helped lead to an HR investigation when efforts to smooth things over, then walk things back, led to unexpected friction with a coworker.
One of the few people I did get along with well was an executive in the department who was never in my chain of command. His office happened to be near my desk and he was polite and friendly and I was a clueless ninny who did not initially realize he had "a corner office" and this meant something.
To be fair, I continued to be a clueless ninny well after I figured out who the executives were and executives who expected kowtowing didn't like me because I do that "Christian" thing of trying to be equally polite and respectful to everyone I meet simply because they are human. Ordinary Joes who don't get much of that tend to like me. People with power who get a lot of that because of who they are tend to interpret that as me being their bitch and this tends to foster conflict when I turn out to have self respect and fail to grovel.
He was not that kind of executive and it's lonely at the top. One Saturday when they served pizza for people working overtime because the cafeteria was not open, he sat by himself in the breakroom while all other tables were full.
No one would sit with Mr. Big. Too scary.
I asked if he minded if I joined him and we made polite small talk. After that, he was always warm to me. I treated him like a person, not Mr. Big.
So at some later date, some low level middle manager type got fired. The rumor mill suggested it was either sexual harassment or an illicit affair with another employee.
This led to a conversation with a former teammate about why I got transferred to another team when he took over ours and I told her the backstory about him calling me "Doll" and "Babe" and me bringing this up with our then current boss days before he was to take over the team. Our current boss was younger than me and spazzing and I was like "Dude, he has so far done NOTHING wrong. I don't work with him. Just talk to him. Worst case scenario, I get quietly transferred and never work for him." and that's exactly how that went down.
Anyway, two days after this guy's desk was cleaned out, leaving much of the department in SHOCK as he was very popular and widely seen as a Golden Boy, while I suppressed my urge to pass out kazoos and dance in the aisles, we unrelatedly had a brief department meeting called somewhat impromptu as it occurred in a large foyer/stairwell area rather than a meeting room.
And as roughly 500 people, most of them still in shock and with the firing fresh on their minds, began to gather and mill around, Mr. Big made a beeline for me, obviously happy to see me and ready to be all warm and friendly.
I did not do well with big meetings. I was running a fever and red in the face and yadda. I was like "Shit. People are going to think we are flirting and I am crushing on him and this is like THE WORST timing EVER." so I averted my eyes and turned away slightly and he didn't miss a beat and kept walking, not stopping to talk to me.
Okay, potential disaster averted, but now I had a new problem: One of the most powerful people in the department thought I was mad at him "or something" and there would never be any opportunity to explain my reasons.
The next time I passed him in the hall, I managed to smile at him in spite of my nerve damage and limited time frame etc. He said "Excuse me" and clearly got the memo that there was no issue between us.
After that, he was warm and friendly and chatty when there were few people around and was very professional towards me in departmental meetings. And he also ended up being the person who was able to fix my problem when I won a departmental award and no one had any idea who had the authority to actually get my document added to the internal documents.
Presumably your takeaways from the movie will be somewhat different from mine. Most people likely don't have my history of smiling challenges.