It is not just your imagination, the Terminator series does keep changing the date of the franchise’s Judgment Day and there is a canonical justification for this. The Terminator timeline is incredibly confusing, thanks in large part to the time-twisting premise of the sci-fi series. The original movie sees its heroine Sarah Connor pursued by the eponymous android ᴀssᴀssin, sent from the future to ensure her son John Connor is never born. John will grow up to become the leader of the human resistance against Skynet, an evil AI that takes over the world on the franchise’s infamous Judgment Day.
Judgment Day is the day that Skynet’s AI becomes self-aware and starts a nuclear war that annihilates most of the planet’s population, leaving only a small human resistance led by John Connor alive. Although Sarah Connor’s fate changes depending on the Terminator sequel, reboot, or show viewers are watching, she and John are both consistently portrayed as a pivotal part of humanity’s attempts to stop Skynet’s takeover of the planet. Confusingly, the question of when this takeover is scheduled to occur isn’t particularly consistent throughout the Terminator series.
The Terminator Introduced Judgment Day (But Didn’t Give Us A Date)
1984’s The Terminator Doesn’t Specify The Date of Judgment Day
In 1984’s original The Terminator, the concept of Judgement Day is referenced for the first time. However, no one tells Sarah exactly when Judgment Day will happen. This kind of makes sense, since John Connor has not even been born at the stage in the timeline. While it might only be a few decades away, the arrival of Judgment Day is still far away enough for the date to remain unspecified in The Terminator. This excuse wouldn’t hold water later in the franchise, as Sarah Connor grew up and John Connor’s teenage self was introduced.
Terminator 2 Established August 29, 1997, As The Date Of Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgment Day Gave Viewers A Date For The Pivotal Event
However, credit where it is due, Terminator 2: Judgment Day addressed this issue. Terminator 2: Judgment Day states that Judgment Day occurs on August 29, 1997, giving a definitive timeline to the franchise’s series of events. Unfortunately, this timeline also gave the story of the franchise a pretty obvious expiration date. Much like 1990’s Predator 2 depicted 1997 Los Angeles as an almost apocalyptic crime-infested wasteland, Terminator 2: Judgment Day guaranteed that the world would effectively end in 1997 without taking into consideration how long the franchise’s next movie would take to arrive.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines explained that Judgment Day may not have occurred on August 29, 1997, but clarified that it would still inevitably happen eventually.
Thus, 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines had some explaining to do. In the first of many, many retcons throughout the series, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines explained that Judgment Day may not have occurred on August 29, 1997, but clarified that it would still inevitably happen eventually. Turning Judgment Day into a canon event that can always be rescheduled but could never be avoided proved a popular idea in the Terminator franchise’s subsequent sequels, all of which altered the event’s arrival.
Terminator 3 Revealed Judgment Day Couldn’t Be Avoided (Only Postponed)
Rise of the Machines Introduced The Possibility Of Changing Judgment Day
In the continuity of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Judgment Day occurs on-screen in the movie’s shockingly bleak ending. Although Terminator: Genisys, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Terminator: Dark Fate all retconned this event, the idea that Judgment Day could be rescheduled but not avoided outright became something the franchise has embraced throughout its many incarnations. Terminator: Salvation is the lone outing that takes place after Judgment Day, making its specific date irrelevant in that particular sequel’s story.
In contrast, the TV spinoff The Sarah Connor Chronicles makes the countdown to Judgment Day a pivotal part of its plot. In that show, Sarah and John constantly try to outsmart Skynet and avoid its android ᴀssᴀssins while working with the human resistance to delay Judgment Day. In the bizarre storyline of Terminator: Genisys, the human resistance manages to send a reprogrammed T-800 back to Sarah Connor during her childhood, and this robot acts as a sort of mentor figure who protecrs her until she grows up and eventually gives birth to John.
|
Terminator Movies/TV Shows |
Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score |
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score |
|---|---|---|
|
The Terminator |
100% |
89% |
|
Terminator 2: Judgment Day |
91% |
95% |
|
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines |
70% |
46% |
|
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles |
85% |
86% |
|
Terminator: Salvation |
33% |
54% |
|
Terminator: Genisys |
26% |
52% |
|
Terminator Dark Fate |
70% |
82% |
|
Terminator Zero |
86% |
79% |
At least four different dates are referred to as Judgment Day in the Terminator franchise, and all of them tend to repeat the same basic mistake from Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In every instance, these dates occur shortly after the show or movie is released. Like the Terminator series bringing back Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 with every new iteration of the franchise, the creators seemingly can’t stop telling viewers that Judgment Day is right around the corner, but never quite here just yet.
Other Judgment Day Dates In The Terminator Franchise
At Least Four Different Judgment Days Are Referenced Throughout The Series
In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which ran from 2008 until 2009, Judgment Day is set to occur on April 21, 2011. In 2015’s Terminator: Genisys, the pivotal event is conveniently delayed until 2017. 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate is even more egregious, promising that Judgment Day will occur only a year after the movie was released at some point in 2020. To be fair to the franchise, 2024’s acclaimed Netflix anime spinoff Terminator Zero brought the event back to August 29, 1997, as the show followed embattled software engineer Malcolm Lee’s attempts to save his family from Skynet.
It is telling that Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Genisys, and Terminator: Dark Fate all felt the need to postpone Judgment Day instead of returning to the franchise’s original date.
Although the eventual inevitable recasting of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 in Terminator 7 tends to dominate conversations about the franchise’s future, the shifting timing of Judgment Day underlines a bigger issue with the series as a whole. Although every new Terminator movie has posited itself as a daring new take on the story of the series, it is telling that Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Genisys, and Terminator: Dark Fate all felt the need to postpone Judgment Day instead of returning to the franchise’s original date.
In every instance, the franchise’s creators attempted to revisit the thrilling shared story of The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day by creating new realities where Judgment Day had not yet occurred. This meant all of these movies were chase thrillers instead of post-apocalyptic war movies, allowing them to copy the formula of the first two movies in the series. For the Terminator series to produce a sequel that feels truly fresh and original, the next movie should embrace the original Judgment Day and envision a reality where Skynet’s threat came to pᴀss instead of perpetually delaying the inevitable.
