We had one film release this past weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.

Terminator Genisys

With the exception of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, this franchise has been completely avoided by Oscar voters. It was expected with the original in 1984 when it was considered merely a throw-away genre piece. However, after the second film took home four of the six Oscars for which it was nominated in 1991, it should have been more likely the franchise received Oscar consideration, not less. None of its sequels were on Oscar’s radar and only the television series got any awards recognition with four Emmy nominations, all of which it lost.

It was nominated for Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects. An sci-fi action blockbuster to earn that much consideration from the Academy was something of a shock at that time. Long gone were the days of films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark making such headway. Most of the blockbusters of the 1980’s made an occasional appearance as Best Original Screenplay, but were seldom seen in other categories.

Yet, Terminator 2 seemed to be a one-off in that era. Not until The Sixth Sense, did a genre-heavy blockbuster earn so much consideration from voters (The Fugitive, and its seven Oscar nominations, had a lot of action in it, but I wouldn’t consider it much of a genre picture comparatively. And would Apollo 13‘s 9 nominations count? It’s sci-fi, but it’s more of a historical biopic.), not even the acclaimed Spielberg actioner Jurassic Park, which only received 3 nods. Since then, however, genre films have been doing much better with the Academy, but sequels have not. Even an acclaimed film like Rise of the Planet of the Apes couldn’t get much traction from Oscar voters, losing a once-thought-certain Best Visual Effects win into an also-ran loss.

Terminator Genisys doesn’t even compare favorably with that film, failing to earn enough respectable reviews and sizable box office to gain much attention. ultimately, I could see the film making an appearance in the Big Three Tech categories (Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and Visual Effects), but those are far from guaranteed and the picture itself is definitely out of the running anywhere else.