Simon and Jim finish their journey through the Terminator franchise with Tim Miller's TERMINATOR: DARK FATE. They get into whether the film is actually good or if they've just been down in the Terminator mines too long, the film's positioning in dialogue with TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY, Linda Hamilton as a rare example of a female 'geriaction' star and the film's depiction of female aging, the film's refreshingly contemporary representation of Mexico and the politics of the US-Mexico border, Arnold Schwarzenegger's great performance when he's actually given an interesting arc for his character, and how the controversy around the film's opening scene links to THE LAST JEDI.

Content warnings: nuclear war and apocalyptic destruction; murder and violent death including the shooting of children; body horror and removal of skin; xenophobia and border control violence; mental illness and substance abuse.

Our theme song is Terminator Theme Song (32Stitches Remix) by 32Stitches available on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/32stitches/terminator-32stitches-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/W5YPVM4F/collection

Simon and Jim enter the modern era of Terminator films with TERMINATOR GENISYS directed by Alan Taylor, a film with a promising start that goes on to absolutely fall off a cliff. They discuss the producers' ambition for a new Terminator Cinematic Universe off the back of this film and the perils of planning for a trilogy without making a successful film first, the interesting way that this film recontextualises and subverts the original film and creates a blank slate for a new direction, the uninteresting way that the film just goes in the same direction as the previous entries in the franchise, digital de-aging and the "mummification" of cinema, the transformation of Skynet into a consumer tech product and how that impacts the politics of the narrative, and why 'Genisys' is spelled that way.

Content warnings: nuclear war and apocalyptic destruction; murder and violent death; patriarchy and forced procreation; body horror and removal of skin.

Our theme song is Terminator Theme Song (32Stitches Remix) by 32Stitches available on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/32stitches/terminator-32stitches-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/EIRIF9WS/collection

Simon and Jim discuss TERMINATOR SALVATION directed by McG. They discuss the film's disappointing turn from the franchise's anti-war themes towards working directly with the US military and parroting establishment narratives, the dour over-saturated (by design!) late-2000s colour palette of the film, what specific voice Christian Bale is doing as John Connor, how the film represents (or doesn't) the nuclear and the horror of nuclear weaponry, the odd allusions to other films like THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION and MAD MAX, the interesting work that could be done tracing the production rights to this franchise and how that impacts the texts themselves, and Jim tells us about his legendary Worst Day of Cinema.

Content warnings: incarceration and capital punishment; misogyny and patriarchy; nuclear war and apocalyptic destruction; militarisation and civilian casualties; murder and violent death; body horror and removal of skin; steroid abuse; heart surgery.

Our theme song is Terminator Theme Song (32Stitches Remix) by 32Stitches available on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/32stitches/terminator-32stitches-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/J4XVRVSM/collection

Simon and Jim discuss Jonathan Mostow's TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES, a pivot from interesting and distinctive Terminator films towards generic early 2000s action films. They discuss this film's wild tonal whiplash and the great disservice it does to the film's more ambitious plot points, the casual laddish misogyny and voyeurism expressed through the T-X and the Kate Brewster characters, how terrible and generic the film looks including a stunt superficially similar to the famous truck flip from THE DARK KNIGHT, Arnold's small distraction during this film of running for Governor of California, and the naming conventions of blockbuster franchises after the third film.

Content warnings: misogyny and patriarchy; nuclear war and apocalyptic destruction; casual homophobia; murder and violent death including the shooting of children; body horror and removal of skin.

Our theme song is Terminator Theme Song (32Stitches Remix) by 32Stitches available on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/32stitches/terminator-32stitches-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/MA22Y4VE/collection

We continue our Terminator series with one of the most successful films ever made, TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY. Simon and Jim discuss what this film does to develop as a sequel, the film's production through some very James Cameron stories, the many various readings of this film in the research literature including some dubious political and racialised readings, modernism and postmodernism as embodied in the two Terminators, the shifting of genre and tone between this film and the first film, how masculinity and femininity are presented and subverted through the characters of Sarah Connor and the T-800, how the film represents and undermines authority figures, and what it means to make a violent film about peace and the value of human life.

Content warnings: casual homophobia; carceral psychiatry and mental health issues; US police and institutional racism; murder and violent death; misogyny, patriarchy, and sexual assault; racism and Orientalism; nuclear war and apocalyptic destruction; body horror and removal of skin.

Our theme song is Terminator Theme Song (32Stitches Remix) by 32Stitches available on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/32stitches/terminator-32stitches-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/QJSNUUXT/collection

TAKE ONE Presents... is back for a new series covering the Terminator franchise. In this first episode, Simon and Jim discuss James Cameron's THE TERMINATOR. We talk about how the film came about through Cameron's dogged and occasionally dickish persistence, "tech-noir" as a genre, the film's situatedness in the 1980s and how that lends the film an interesting sense of temporality, how this film is a great example of good pacing and immediacy, sexual politics and the representation of feminism through action heroines, and nuclear anxiety against AGI anxiety.

Content warnings: murder and violent death; nuclear war and apocalyptic destruction; body horror and removal of skin and eye stuff; the Holocaust; abortion; pessimism about the future.

Our theme song is Terminator Theme Song (32Stitches Remix) by 32Stitches available on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/32stitches/terminator-32stitches-remix

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/KFB8CEB2/collection

Simon and Jim wrap up The Impossipod series with a discussion about the overall trajectory of the Mission: Impossible franchise, what the directors of these films went on to do, the politics of these films, their rankings of every film in the franchise, and some thoughts about how this ties into their wider thoughts on blockbuster franchise filmmaking.

Our Letterboxd rankings for Mission: Impossible are available at https://boxd.it/nUsNA and https://boxd.it/EIfj2$bq018RHfaf81ior5

Content warnings: sexual abuse in the context of Harvey Weinstein; American neo-fascism and militarism; cult leadership and the Church of Scientology; misogyny.

Our theme song is Star - X - Impossible Mission (Mission Impossible Theme PsyTrance Remix) by EDM Non-Stop (https://soundcloud.com/edm-non-stop/star-x-impossible-mission) licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.

Simon and Jim reach the end of the Mission: Impossible franchise with 2025's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - THE FINAL RECKONING. They discuss the film's shockingly shoddy first half, the disconnect between the dialogue's apocalyptic exposition and what we're actually shown on screen of the world, how the film continues DEAD RECKONING's attempt to grapple with themes around AI and post-truth but never manages to do so successfully, what a shame it is that they separate Ethan Hunt from the rest of the team for such long stretches of the film, the emotional core that emerges towards the middle of the film from a surprising source, and how the film builds to a decent climax but unfortunately it's the same climax they already did in FALLOUT.

Content warnings: the COVID-19 pandemic; cult leadership and the Church of Scientology; violent deaths including murder and assassination; terrorist bombings and nuclear weaponry; submersibles and drowning; aviation disasters and parachuting.

Our theme song is Star - X - Impossible Mission (Mission Impossible Theme PsyTrance Remix) by EDM Non-Stop (https://soundcloud.com/edm-non-stop/star-x-impossible-mission) licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.

Full references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/FUI8ZJF4