Warning! Spoilers for Terminator #8 ahead! 1p313t

The Terminator franchise is one of the single most iconic science fiction film series of all time, but is unfortunately littered with plot holes that are difficult to justify. Starting with James Cameron's original The Terminator, the story of the artificial intelligence Skynet's war for the future with humanity has ran the gamut of filmmaking, from one of the greatest action movies ever made to a sad shadow of its former glory. Even if the quality of the films are far from consistent, the number of plot holes in the stories certainly are.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines may have been a disappointment compared to the James Cameron movies, but it still contains one of the most bruising action sequences of the franchise. The Terminator movies have varied massively in of quality - from the heights of Judgment Day to the despairs of Genisys - but they can almost always be relied upon for solid action. Creator James Cameron pushes the boundaries of technology to their very edge with the first two movies, and even the underwhelming likes of Salvation have a couple of great setpieces.

The Terminator franchise wasted one of its most powerful villains with Dark Fate's Rev-9, and I'm still annoyed by it. For me, The Terminator movies peaked with the second entry, Judgment Day, and every sequel since has been disappointing in its own way. Terminator 3 was like a reheated version of Judgment Day, while Genisys was an embarrassing, convoluted mess. I hoped Dark Fate would turn that around; it featured the return of Arnie, Linda Hamilton, and James Cameron, and promised to be the true third movie.

For years, fans have debated which entry in the Terminator franchise should be considered the real Terminator 2 sequel. After Terminator 2: Judgment Day changed the game with its groundbreaking effects and emotionally charged story, every follow-up has struggled to capture the same magic. That includes the 2019 movie Terminator: Dark Fate, which had James Cameron’s involvement and promised a return to form. But while Dark Fate might have been the franchise’s official attempt to follow up T2, there’s another installment that quietly did it better - and it didn’t even hit the big screen.

Filmmaker James Cameron has never been shy about sharing his thoughts, and he even has insights about why he thinks the Terminatorfranchise has faltered. One of the pioneering figures in the post-New Hollywood movement in the 1980s, James Cameron became a household name with the release of the gritty sci-fi action hit, The Terminator. Deftly combining its two genres with a dash of horror thrown in for good measure, Cameron's vision of a bleak dystopian future dominated by machines was enough to make the first film a success and a franchise soon followed.

Although only one Terminator movie features John Connor as the leader of the human resistance against Skynet, Terminator Salvation is sadly also the franchise’s weakest outing. The Terminator franchise’s timeline is incredibly confusing, and this is largely due to the constant retcons featured throughout the series. Every movie after Terminator 2: Judgment Day changes the date of the Terminator franchise’s Judgement Day, while the series recast Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor not once, but twice with Lena Headey in The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Emilia Clarke in Terminator Genisys.

Terminator may be an incredibly popular franchise with six movies, a TV series, and other interactive elements, but the timeline is also incredibly messy. Considering the central premise in the films deals with time travel and people in the future attempting to alter history, it makes sense that the franchise has been fragmented into various timelines. Both The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day were written and directed by James Cameron, who appeared to have a consistent vision for his films. It was after T2 that things started to get more confusing.

Time travel is one of the pillars of the Terminator series, but the rules of going back in time are not quite easy to understand, given the number of retcons that have happened throughout the franchise. While James Cameron’s The Terminator was not defined by its time travel element, we cannot deny that time machines and alternate timelines are part of the franchise’s DNA. A large portion of Terminator’s lore is built on time travel, including a couple of intentional paradoxes that would forever affect the franchise and its most important heroes.

Matt Smith's confusing Terminator Genisys character marked a franchise first and was apparently supposed to play a bigger role in the sequels that never happened. The Terminator saga has course-corrected several times by now, with Terminator Genisys being one of many attempts to relaunch the franchise. With a stellar cast led by Emilia Clarke and promising to reinvent Terminator for a new generation, Genisys sounded great on paper, but it failed to deliver on its fun new concepts.