The runtime for Terminator: Dark Fate has been confirmed, and it’s actually one of the longer movies in the series.
Dark Fate does indeed represent something of a return to the original Terminator formula after recent sequels arguably lost their way, but the movie’s runtime indicates that it’s not quite as tight as Cameron’s franchise-launching film. As reported by BBFC, Dark Fate runs exactly 128 minutes and 3 seconds – making it the second-longest movie in the Terminator series.
The movie will ignore the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and every other sequel that has come after, rebooting the timeline after Judgment Day. Director Tim Miller spoke about the importance of focusing on Sarah Connor’s role in the franchise during an interview with Fandango.
“I always looked at it as examining the consequences of the choices she makes,” said Miller. “And this movie has a time travel aspect, of course, but all of us kind of faced the same problem where you make decisions in your life that will have big consequences in the future based on the path you pick and the decisions you make, and sometimes you have to make those decisions without a complete understanding of the implications of those decisions. And it’s something, I think, that everybody can relate to, and often, as I’m sure we’ve all experienced, sometimes those decisions don’t work out well. So I think that this movie was about Sarah examining the implications of those decisions.”
Like the original 1984 Terminator, Dark Fate concerns an average young woman who finds herself being stalked by a cybernetic organism sent back in time to kill her. In this case, the woman is a Mexico City waitress named Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), and the Terminator (Gabriel Luna) is a new model called a Rev-9 that has the terrifying ability to separate itself into two fully autonomous units. And as in the original Terminator, there’s also a soldier from the future who has been sent back to protect Ramos, in this case a human/cyborg hybrid named Grace (Mackenzie Davis). Joining the new characters in Dark Fate are franchise stalwarts Arnold Schwarzenegger as Carl, an old Terminator who has integrated into human society, as well as Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, who is back to make one more stand against the machines and prevent Judgment Day.
Terminator: Dark Fate premieres in theaters on November 1st.
