Greetings my fellow cinematic cyborgs of Winchester!

I hope the Great Pumpkin visited all you good little girls and boys this Halloween.

If so, you can bask in the festivities and traditions of All Saints Day, All Souls Day and Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) this weekend. The latter is a Mexican holiday stemming from the Aztecs, where families welcome the souls of their deceased relatives for a brief reunion to honor the departed.

It is fitting Hollyweird would use this post-Halloween weekend to release a film that returns with another entry to its franchise where the whole premise is death and the prevention of in “Terminator: Dark Fate.”

New to the series? Let’s start at the beginning.

Released in 1984, James “Titanic” Cameron’s “The Terminator” is the sci-fi tale of a T-1000 cyborg, Arnold “Commando” Schwarzenegger, traveling back in time from 2029 to 1984 to assassinate Sarah Connor played by Linda “Beauty and the Beast” Hamilton because her unborn son, John Connor, will be a savior-esque soldier of a futuristic war against the sentient machines.

Sarah, of course, knows none of this but learns of her fate by human soldier, Kyle Reese (Michael “Tombstone” Biehn) as he was sent from the future to protect Sarah and the fate of the world.

In “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” (1991) Schwarzenegger returns as an identical robot this time to protect Sarah’s teenage son, John Connor (Edward “Brainscan” Furlong) from a more advanced and powerful liquid metal cyborg, T-1000, played by Robert “The Faculty” Patrick.

T2 was a successful big-budgeted box office blockbuster upon its release that was more of an action-packed sci-fi Hollywood film versus the original’s lower budget dark sci-fi/horror feel. Both are fun, enjoyable films and their successes birthed the pop culture with memorable one-liners, merchandise, video games, actions figures (odd for a rated R release), solid soundtrack and sequels. Yes, more sequels.

Arnold did say, “I’ll be back.”

“Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” (2003) reunites the viewer with Schwarzenegger as he travels back from a post-apocalyptic future to protect the now 20-something John Connor (Nick “Disturbing Behavior” Stahl) and his future wife (Claire “Homeland” Danes) from a most advanced robotic T-X assassin to ensure they survive a nuclear attack.

“Terminator Salvation” (2009) sans Schwarzenegger, sees John Connor (Christian “Dark Knight” Bale) in the year 2018 having to interact with a new weapon, half-human and half-machine on the eve of a resistance attack on Skynet and their killer robots. “Terminator Genisys” (2015) sees the return of Arnie to the tale as John Connor (Jason “Pet Sematary” Clarke) sends Sgt. Reese back to 1984 to protect mankind and his mother Sarah (Emilia “Game of Thrones” Clarke) and creates a fracture in the timeline of their fates. He should have listened to Doc Brown from “Back to the Future” on how to time travel.

Released this week, “Terminator: Dark Fate” sees the return of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor as she teams with a hybrid cyborg human soldier Grace (Mackenzie “Blade Runner 2049” Davis) and some extra fire support from our favorite buff battle bot, Arnie, to protect a young girl from a newly-modified liquid Terminator sent from the future … again.

“Dark Fate” is being lauded as a solid and enjoyable film which falls in line more as a sequel to the first two installments and dismisses the other sequels as creator Jim Cameron has returned. If you are a fan of the first two, then you should be somewhat pleased with this heavy CGI popcorn movie as you do the cinematic time warp again.

If you are new to the franchise, dig up the first two for a view and decide how far you want to travel in this sci-fi saga. Your cinematic viewing future is in your hands.

Hasta la vista baby and have a film-tastic day! 

Rick Baldwin is a writer, filmmaker and film/music historian. He is president of the Winchester-Clark County Film Society. Find more from Rick on Facebook. He is on Twitter @rickbaldwin79  and can be reached by email at rickbaldwiniii@hotmail.com.