Saw this last night and I will agree it's the best film since and a true sequel to T2, however i can't exactly say it's the story I wanted to be told...
The first 5mins threw me a bit and I took a while to warm back to the plot. It's a bit simple in itself (as was T3), which i suppose does make it easy to follow, but after the time looping complexity of Genisys i suppose i was expecting a little more science fiction here than a simple 'lets jump 30yrs on from T2 and see what happens'. It was often a basic bare bones action flick reshaping key elements of T1 & 2, just without the finesse, originality or a single plot twist in sight.
I know genisys is hated on, there's to much cheese and it's a bit messy, but i liked the idea of it all and the intended twist, even if it's execution was flawed. Arnie's inclusion and write into the plot was much more purposeful and enjoyable than it was in Dark Fate, at least for me anyway. It was nice to have him there, but his arc wasn't exactly storytelling gold nor was it really integral to the plot. I did enjoy seeing Sarah again and the character development of Dani in particular was great. The attacking 'terminator' was completely uninspired though, brought nothing new to the table, just a rehash of T2. Grace was a little hollow as well, felt like she was one half of a whole character and arnie was the other.
Not that i was expecting anything else, but there's absolutely no way in your mind you can try to tie this in with 3, 4 & 5, which does annoy me. At least with 5 you could kind of say it came after 4 and looped back round to 1 (or after 3 if you view salvation as a prequel to the original), giving you some sense of a complete story arc. Where as Dark Fate can only be viewed as an 'instead of' T3, bringing you into a future where Genisys couldn't possibly have taken place. Some loose tie in or at least not total ignorance of the others would have sat better with me for a series that's 6 films into it's franchise! Even the slightest wisp of x-men days of future past wouldn't have exactly killed them
Technically it looked and sounded great, except for an abundance of dark scenes, that hopefully fair better on UHD at home. The acting, editing and effects where all solid and what plot it had, was paced well. I tried to appreciate it for what it was, a 3rd film, but ended up resenting it for not accepting the wider franchise that came before it.
It isn't a story that needed to be told now. It is perhaps the story that should have been told in 2003.