With a few changes, the T2: Judgment Day. James Cameron's 1984 The Terminator spawned a fictional universe full of action, horror, and sci-fi elements that remain iconic to this day. Then, Terminator 2: Judgment Day improved the first movie's formula with the introduction of Robert Patrick's T-1000 and Edward Furlong's John Connor, plus the drastic evolution of both Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 and Sarah Connor. But after T2, no Terminator sequel has completely captured the magic of the original two films.
Sarah Connor's successful attempt to avert Judgment Day proved that "There's no fate but what we make for ourselves", making it difficult for any other sequel to justify its existence. That didn't stop Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator's Judgment Day seems like the biggest obstacle for any Terminator sequel, there is a hidden supply of untapped potential that the Terminator franchise could have taken advantage of, but didn't.
A sequel trilogy released after Terminator 2: Judgment Day could have moved away from John and Sarah Connor. The hypothetical Terminator 3 would explore the beginning of the post-apocalyptic future, which could go from the original Judgment Day to the rise of the Resistance. Terminator 4 would follow the Resistance's efforts to overthrow Skynet, and most importantly, show the original John Connor in all his glory as the leader of the Resistance. Then, the Terminator sequel trilogy's logical conclusion would end with the Resistance's final attack on Skynet, with John Connor sending Kyle Reese to 1984, and Skynet's counterattack by sending the original T-800 after him.
Terminator’s Wasted Trilogy Would Have Avoided The Sequels’ Mistakes
The actual Terminator sequels doubled down on tearing apart the first two movies. Besides ruining Sarah Connor's legacy (and killing her off-screen), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines made Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator a full-blown comedy relief character and wasted a more powerful model of the robot, the T-X. Years later, both Terminator Genysis and Terminator: Dark Fate continued to change Skynet's apocalyptic future and the rules of time travel. On top of that, Terminator: Genysis turned John into a robotic villain, and Terminator: Dark Fate killed off John Connor unceremoniously during the opening scene.
The hypothetical Terminator sequel trilogy set in the far future would have done all the opposite. It would have respected the events of the first two movies, avoided overusing Arnold Schwarzenegger, shown a new side of Kyle Reese, develop Skynet, and put into perspective what could have happened had Sarah, John, and Kyle failed to stop Judgment Day. Moreover, it would have followed a very different adult John Connor and fleshed out his relationship with the man who would later become his father. And as a bonus, the cyclical nature of time travel would have allowed audiences to watch this trilogy right after the first two movies, or think of it as a prequel trilogy that expands the Terminator lore.
The closest any Terminator sequel got to this was the unique Terminator Salvation. Salvation detached itself from the Terminator's typical structure, and it explored part of the franchise's dystopian future. But alone as it stands, it still seems like the middle part of an untold story, with John Connor neither rising as a leader nor changing the past. There's a whole Terminator trilogy hiding in the original movies' flashback scenes. Unfortunately, the only way to watch it is through Kyle Reese's nightmarish memories of the future, as the concept was ultimately a wasted one.
