New Terminator: Dark Fate Trailer Showcases The Action

Judgment Day may have passed, but Sarah Connor and company are still looking to change their Dark Fate.

Universal has released a new trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate, and while the studio certainly isn't giving away too many plot details, there seems to be renewed focus on serious storytelling and intense action. The previous two entries in the Terminator franchise disappointed fans by being rated PG-13, effectively ending the brutal violence that has been a showcase of the series since its inception with 1984's The Terminator. The newest film in the decades-long sci-fi series, Terminator: Dark Fate, will rebuke that trend and hit theaters with an R-rating. 

There aren't too many more story beats hit in this trailer versus the first trailer that dropped a few months ago (it does use a lot of the same footage), but it does give fans a look at more of the film's gunplay as well as some elaborate action scenes relying on impressive CGI to create the series' popular enhanced humanoids.

In a move that's sure to please fans after the truly lackluster entries in the film series over the past few decades, Terminator: Dark Fate will return to the franchise's roots as it directly follows the 1991 juggernaut Terminator 2: Judgement Day. (You can officially erase 2003's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, 2009's Terminator: Salvation, and 2017's Terminator Genisys from your memory.) The upcoming film is set 27 years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and centers around a new, modified liquid metal Terminator (Gabriel Luna) that's sent from the future by franchise baddies Skynet in order to terminate Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) for a yet-unknown reason. A hybrid cyborg-human named Grace (Mackenzie Davis) makes it her mission to protect Ramos, and both Sarah Connor and the original Terminator come to their aid in a fight for the future. Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and James Cameron are all returning to the franchise that changed their lives back in the mid-80s, and they all seem sincerely excited to get the faltering IP back on track.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hamilton said, "I was very pleased that all of the years had passed, because I could fill the years up with so much backstory and inner life that could power the character. I thought there were a lot of crayons in that box that I can color with." 

Seeing Cameron return to Terminator is probably most surprising, as his career since leaving the franchise in 1991 has been nothing but a massive success — with his gargantuan films like Titanic and Avatar breaking every box office record there is upon their respective releases. Though Cameron's return to nurture his original sci-fi baby is a little baffling, he's so bullish on Dark Fate that he's hoping for a new trilogy. Cameron once told Deadline, "We rolled up our sleeves and started to break out the story and when we got a handle on something we looked at it as a three-film arc, so there is a greater story there to be told. If we get fortunate enough to make some money with Dark Fate, we know exactly where we can go with the subsequent films." 

Here's hoping the production team can get the series back on track, as Terminator 2: Judgment Day still holds up as one of the best action films of all time to this day. Those are some big boots to fill.

Terminator: Dark Fate will be released in theaters on November 1.