2015’s franchise reboot Terminator Genisys recast Sarah Connor despite bringing back Arnold Schwarzenegger’s original T-800, but the Terminator sequel had a reason for this strange creative choice. A lot went wrong with 2015’s Terminator Genisys. The reboot’s screenplay came from Patrick Lussier and Laeta Kalogridi, who reportedly turned down the chance to pen a Terminator sequel twice before finally relenting. While the Terminator franchise’s timeline wasn’t easy to navigate before the events of Genisys, the reboot’s story was still needlessly convoluted.

Terminator: Genisys’s plot took place in a different version of the Terminator timeline, with new takes on Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese to match. The complex story saw John Connor send Kyle Reese back in time to save Sarah Connor, only for Kyle and Sarah to then travel forward in time to a version of 2017 where a rogue AI threatened the future of the world. While none of the Terminator reboots worked, Terminator Genisys was the worst case of the series getting bogged down in its labyrinthine, time-twisting plotting.

Sarah Connor & Kyle Reese Are From Different Timelines From The Ones We Knew

Emilia Clarke’s Sarah Connor Is A Different Version of The Character

To make matters worse, Terminator Genisys confused viewers by recasting both Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor with Jai Courtney and Emilia Clarke respectively. Both blockbuster stars were H๏τ properties when the reboot was released, as Clarke was starring in Game of Thrones and Courtney had recently appeared as John McClane’s son in A Good Day to Die Hard. However, the recasting was a resounding failure. Terminator Genisys performed below expectations financially despite earning over $440 million upon release and was a critical catastrophe.

Recasting Reese and Connor was the start of the sequel’s woes, but Terminator Genisys did have a solid justification for the change. The versions of Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese seen in Terminator Genisys are from an alternative timeline to the events of the original 1984 movie, one where another, reprogrammed T-800 was sent back in time to protect Sarah when she was a child in 1973. As such, Clarke’s version of Sarah Connor and Courtney’s version of Reese are new takes on the existing characters, thus justifying their recasting.

Terminator Genisys Needed Younger Versions Of Sarah Connor & Kyle Reese

The Franchise Reboot Takes Place In Tandem With The Terminator

While Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles had no such justification when the TV show spinoff recast Linda Hamilton’s original Sarah Connor with Lena Headey, that series still managed to earn more positive critical feedback than Terminator: Genisys. After all, the spinoff’s story felt a lot less redundant. The reason that Terminator Genisys needed younger versions of Sarah and Kyle was that its story overlapped a lot with the story of The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which resulted in a plot that felt both confusing and a little pointless.

Terminator Genisys revisited many events from The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day in a slightly altered timeline, resulting in a movie that felt like both a remake and a sequel at the same time. This wasn’t a positive attribute, as most of Terminator Genisys’s storyline was overly familiar thanks to earlier outings. If Terminator 7 happens, the sequel will need to find a way to make the franchise feel fresh again instead of rehashing old plot points like this 2015 reboot. Seeing new actors take on existing scenes and established roles wasn’t enough to make Terminator Genisys exciting.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 Was Still The Face Of The Franchise

Schwarzenegger’s T-800 Couldn’t Be Recast In The Reboot

To make matters worse, Terminator Genisys didn’t recast Arnold Schwarzenegger’s original T-800 despite offering viewers new versions of Connor and Reese. On the one hand, this was an understandable decision. Schwarzenegger remains the face of the franchise and its most famous character, so recasting the T-800 could have alienated viewers who weren’t all that familiar with the story of the series. On the other hand, the plot of Terminator Genisys was already reliant on viewers having a fairly exhaustive knowledge of the franchise’s lore.

Like its later sequel Terminator: Dark Fate, the storyline of Terminator Genisys wouldn’t have made much sense to viewers who didn’t have working knowledge of the first two Terminator movies. As such, recasting the T-800 wouldn’t have been a major problem, and might even have helped the movie’s case. Terminator Genisys would have felt more like a full-blown reboot with a new actor playing the T-800 but, as it was, recasting the human characters and keeping the T-800’s actor the same made it feel like the reboot was unsure of what to change and what to preserve.

As if to make up for this misstep, Terminator: Dark Fate brought back Linda Hamilton’s original Sarah Connor after the failure of Terminator Genisys. Since Terminator Dark Fate was supposed to be a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day that ignored every later franchise installment, bringing Hamilton back made sense. Terminator Dark Fate didn’t introduce a new timeline, but instead continued the existing timeline that had been established decades earlier with the events of the first two movies.

Why Terminator: Dark Fate Brought Back Linda Hamilton As Sarah Connor

Terminator: Dark Fate Went Back To The Original Series Timeline

While this was a reasonable approach, Terminator Dark Fate’s Schwarzenegger return was arguably even worse than Terminator Genisys bringing back the original T-800. In the oddly sentimental story of Terminator Genisys, the T-800 was recast as “Pops,” a protective paternal figure who took care of Emilia Clarke’s version of Sarah Connor since she was a child. This was a far cry from the ruthless killer that pursued Hamilton’s original Sarah throughout The Terminator, but it was at least an interesting new idea for the series to pursue.

In contrast, Terminator Dark Fate’s T-800 “Carl” was a bizarre retired hitman who gave up his life of violence after killing John Connor and sought out a new purpose after fulfilling his mission. This T-800 in search of a soul sounds intriguing. However, the storyline felt like a transparent attempt to graft some humanity onto a character who was literally not human in the first place.

The spectacle of Schwarzenegger’s T-800 struggling with the moral weight of his actions was more than a little silly. Sadly, Terminator Dark Fate’s T-800 subplot proved that the series still didn’t know how to make its тιтle character relevant again despite years of trying. Thus, Terminator Genisys recasting Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese wasn’t the last time the Terminator franchise struggled to give its iconic characters a new purpose.