Have you SEEN this new boy?
The trailer for Terminator Genisys, was released on Thursday following months of anticipation. The film, the fifth in the hit dystopian sci-fi franchise, stars returning actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, 67, in his iconic title role as the T-800 cyborg and newcomers Jai Courtney, a 28-year-old Aussie hottie recently seen as bad boy Eric in Divergent, as Kyle Reese and 27-year-old British star Emilia Clarke, best known as platinum blonde dragon mom and would-be queen Daenerys Targaryen, as heroine Sarah Connor.
Courtney appears shirtless several times in the trailer, which also features plenty of sweet action scenes, (say, that's a nice bike…dropping on a train?!), some Terminator nostalgia (Oh, hey, T-1000), and as for Emilia, well, if you think the "mother of dragons" is badass...and she even gets to utter an iconic Terminator line. No, not that one. But yes, there IS that one.
In the original 1984 movie The Terminator, Schwarzenegger's character is sent back in time from the year 2029 and is programmed to kill Sarah, because her future son, John Connor, ends up leading a resistance moment against Skynet, an artificial intelligence defense network aimed at exterminating the human race in his post-apocalyptic world.
Also sent back in time, to ensure Sarah's life is spared, is Reese, a human resistance fighter. He falls in love with her and she gives birth to his son...John. In the fourth Terminator movie, Terminator Salvation, which is set in the year 2018, Anton Yelchin plays a teenage version of Reese. That film was released in 2009 and was the only movie in the franchise that did not feature Schwarzenegger, who was Governor of California at the time and had concentrated on his political career.
Terminator Genisys is basically a reboot, pun intended. As the humans battle Skynet cyborgs in the post-apocalyptic world, Courtney's Reese talks to John and volunteers to go back in time to save his mother (fuelling a decades-long paradox often discussed by fans regarding the logic behind John's family history).
When he arrives, he meets up with Sarah as planned, but is astonished to find Schwarzenegger's character is already there and doesn't seem intent on killing her. Another Terminator, however, most certainly seems so.
Hasta la vista, timeline. As the trailer states, the "rules have been reset." Entertainment Weekly reported in a Terminator Genisys cover story that in the new movie, Sarah's parents were killed by an evil Terminator and she was actually raised by Schwarzenegger's Terminator, who she calls "Pops" and who is programmed to guard her.
Terminator Genisys is set for release on July 1, 2015.