No fate but the one we saw at CinemaCon 2019. The new Terminator sequel will attempt to inject life back into the longrunning franchise once again with the highly anticipated return of series legends Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton. Will that gambit pay off? We’ll have to see based on the first Terminator: Dark Fate footage shown at Paramount’s panel at CinemaCon. /Film’s own Peter Sciretta and Ben Pearson are attending CinemaCon is Las Vegas this year and caught a glimpse at the first footage from Terminator: Dark Fate.

Director Tim Miller was there to introduce the clips from Terminator: Dark Fate, which is a direct sequel to 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, ignoring the other the three other films that were released since then.

“This is is a direct sequel to the movies that Jim directed and even better still it’s an opportunity to bring back the original cast with an incredibly talented group of newcomers to the franchise,” Miller said, which includes the return of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-800.

Schwarzenegger said that Cameron, who is producing the film, convinced him to come back to the role because “[Jim] had a very clear vision and that he was on top of it and that he was enthusiastic. Even though it was in the middle of Avatar, he was thinking about Terminator and came up with this great concept and story,” Schwarzenegger said at the panel. Schwarzenegger went on to praise Miller, who introduced new footage of the introduction of Mackenzie Davis‘ time-traveling character and Gabriel Luna’s new villainous Terminator, who has the new ability of being to split himself in two “so he’s twice as deadly.”

The first footage opens on Mexico City at night. On a highway on a bridge, the road begins to ice up and electricity begins to crackle all around it while a thick wall of fog appears. A time travel bubble materializes in the middle of the bridge, breaking it in half and sending the female figure within it flying several dozen feet to the ground below, while the cars on the highway crash into each other — perhaps a nod to how time travel in past films always seems to take place on level ground. Two onlookers, a Mexican couple making out in the river tunnel, pick up the naked and groggy time traveler, who is revealed to be Mackenzie Davis. Davis’ character is either a Terminator or enhanced in some way, as evidenced by the way she reacts and attacks the cops that approach her when they arrive on the scene. The attack is shown in Davis’ character’s POV, with on-screen displays from her vision popping up onscreen. The couple watches in amazement and utter, “Thanks lady, you just saved our asses.” She replies to not thank her just yet and, sizing up her foot against the guy’s foot, takes his clothes and drives off in their car.

In a new scene, black metallic T-1000 style sludge forms into the villain (Gabriel Luna) who can split into two and reform another Terminator. He and an endoskeleton Terminator chase after Davis’ character, who is protecting a young girl. “When they start to kill me, run” Davis says to the little girl before Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) suddenly appears and begins blasting the blasting at the Terminators with a huge gun. Battle-worn and badass, Sarah Connor then pulls a rocket launcher off her shoulder and blows the Terminator away.

The last piece of footage includes a montage of Luna’s liquid Terminator slicing through soldiers in a hallway with sharp arms, Sarah Connor fighting alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800, a shot of the T-800 bursting through a door in a helicopter, a glimpse of Davis blasting Terminators with tentacles in what appears to be a Judgment Day-ravaged battlefield, and finally a closing shot of Sarah Connor dropping a bomb over the side of a bridge and cooly saying, “I’ll be back.”

Though the franchise has seen false starts in the past, Peter says that this gritty and impressive footage is enough to get us excited about this aged franchise again.

Deadpool’s Tim Miller directs Terminator: Dark Fate, which original Terminator creator James Cameron has called a “continuation of the story from Terminator 1 and Terminator 2.” This will be the latest attempt to rejuvenate the floundering Terminator franchise after the poorly received Terminator Genisys in 2015, but fans may have more faith in this film since Cameron helped come up with the story, with a script penned by Man of Steel‘s David S. Goyer.

Here is the official synopsis for Terminator: Dark Fate:

Linda Hamilton (Sarah Connor) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (T-800) return in their iconic roles in Terminator: Dark Fate, directed by Tim Miller (Deadpool) and produced by visionary filmmaker James Cameron and David Ellison. Following the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator: Dark Fate also stars Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, and Diego Boneta.

Franchise legends Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton are both returning, and will be co-starring alongside Mackenzie Davis, Gabriel Luna, Natalia Reyes, and Diego Boneta. Terminator: Dark Fate opens November 1, 2019.