Terminator: Dark Fate parents guide

Terminator: Dark Fate Parent Guide

Fans of the franchise will have a fun time with this one, since it’s the first Terminator movie since 1991 to feel as fun and dangerous as it should. Hopefully, it’s also the last one...

Overall C

Dani Ramos lives a quiet life with her family in Mexico City - until, that is, a highly advanced new model of Terminator comes from the future to murder her. Her life is now in the hands of Grace, a super-soldier who is also from the future, and the legendary Sarah Connor.

Release date November 1, 2019

Violence D+
Sexual Content B
Profanity D
Substance Use B+

Why is Terminator: Dark Fate rated R? The MPAA rated Terminator: Dark Fate R for violence throughout, language and brief nudity.

Run Time: 128 minutes

Official Movie Site

Parent Movie Review

Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) lives a quiet life in Mexico City until a time-travelling killer robot (Diego Boneta) from the future shows up at her job wearing her father’s face and tries to kill her. Saved by Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a cybernetically enhanced super-soldier from the same future as the Terminator, the duo go on the run. With the Terminator hot on their tails and options running out, they find help in an unlikely place - aging hero (and wanted fugitive) Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). With Sarah’s help, Dani and Grace now have to find a way to stop the Terminator and save the future.

In the most merciful act of retroactive continuity in recent memory, Terminator: Dark Fate ignores the existence of Terminator 3:Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation, and Terminator: Genisys, and functions solely as a sequel to 1991’s Terminator 2. I say this is a mercy because T2 was the last enjoyable movie in the franchise. I still wish studios would make the effort to come up with new ideas, but if they’re going to keep flogging the dead robotic-future-horse of this series, I’m glad they’re taking the time to make the new films halfway good.

And Terminator: Dark Fate manages to be halfway good. Linda Hamilton is crazy fun, playing everyone’s traumatized, mad-as-heck, and heavily armed aunt as she guides them through life on the run. The action is fast and interesting, and the stunts are insane. The writing alternates between funny and expository (which is both awkward and clunky), but what more can you ask from a dumb action movie? Personally, I would have asked for a better use of the CGI budget. Most of the film looks awesome, but a lot of the shots of the new Terminator (called the Rev-9) look plastic-y.

Paramount has given up on trying to bring this franchise in at a PG-13 and accepted that you can’t have killer robots from the future without some mess. That said, the violence is much less explicit than it could have been (although it is ubiquitous), and the non-sexual nudity associated with time travel is tastefully shot so as not to expose very much skin (or nanobots, as the case may be). The profanity is really where the film earns its “R” rating, with twenty uses of the sexual expletive by my count.

Fans of the franchise will have a fun time with this one, since it’s the first Terminator movie since 1991 to feel as fun and dangerous as it should. Hopefully, it’s also the last one, because the older Arnie gets, the harder it gets to convince anyone that he’s just “living tissue over a metal endoskeleton” and not an aging ex-politician whose bodybuilding days are further in the past than they used to be.

Directed by Tim MIller. Starring Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.. Running time: 128 minutes. Theatrical release November 1, 2019. Updated

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Terminator: Dark Fate
Rating & Content Info

Why is Terminator: Dark Fate rated R? Terminator: Dark Fate is rated R by the MPAA for violence throughout, language and brief nudity.

Violence: The movie is chock-full of violent content. Individuals (and killer robots) are shot, stabbed, beaten to death or unconsciousness, run over, thrown out of airplanes, impaled, and set on fire. An individual is shown relocating a dislocated shoulder.
Sexual Content: No sexual content is shown. Two characters are briefly shown naked, but careful editing means you don’t see much more than their buttocks.
Profanity: There are 20 uses of the sexual expletive, 18 uses of scatological curses, and infrequent use of terms of deity and mild to moderate profanity.
Alcohol / Drug Use: Adult characters are occasionally shown drinking a beer together. None are depicted as intoxicated.

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Terminator: Dark Fate Parents' Guide

Automation and globalization have resulted in countless job losses. What do you think the positive results have been? What have the negative results been? Does the good outweigh the bad? What do you think the ramifications of increasing automation will be on the global economy?

Sarah Connor has a long and difficult past with the T-101. How does their relationship change over the course of the film? What steps do each of these characters take to make those changes possible?

Home Video

The most recent home video release of Terminator: Dark Fate movie is January 28, 2020. Here are some details…

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The Terminator and Terminator 2 are the only direct prequels to this film, and have very similar energy. Other fun 80s-90s action films include Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Last Action Hero, and Aliens.