It is not just your imagination, theTerminatorseries does keep changing the date of the franchise’s Judgment Day and there is a canonical justification for this.TheTerminatortimeline is incredibly confusing, thanks in large part to the time-twisting premise of the sci-fi series. The original movie sees its heroine Sarah Connor pursued by the eponymous android assassin, sent from the future to ensure her son John Connor is never born. John will grow up to become the leader of the human resistance against Skynet, an evil AI that takes over the world on the franchise’s infamous Judgment Day.
Judgment Day is the day that Skynet’s AI becomes self-aware and starts a nuclear war that annihilates most of the planet’s population, leaving only a small human resistance led by John Connor alive. AlthoughSarah Connor’s fate changesdepending on theTerminatorsequel, reboot, or show viewers are watching, she and John are both consistently portrayed as a pivotal part of humanity’s attempts to stop Skynet’s takeover of the planet. Confusingly, the question of when this takeover is scheduled to occur isn’t particularly consistent throughout theTerminatorseries.
The Terminator Introduced Judgment Day (But Didn’t Give Us A Date)
1984’s The Terminator Doesn’t Specify The Date of Judgment Day
In 1984’s original The Terminator, the concept of Judgement Day is referenced for the first time. However, no one tells Sarah exactly when Judgment Day will happen. This kind of makes sense, since John Connor has not even been born at the stage in the timeline. While it might only be a few decades away,the arrival of Judgment Day is still far away enough for the date to remain unspecified inThe Terminator. This excuse wouldn’t hold water later in the franchise, as Sarah Connor grew up and John Connor’s teenage self was introduced.
Terminator 2 Established June 01, 2025, As The Date Of Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgment Day Gave Viewers A Date For The Pivotal Event
However, credit where it is due,Terminator 2: Judgment Dayaddressed this issue.Terminator 2: Judgment Daystates that Judgment Day occurs on June 06, 2025, giving a definitive timeline to the franchise’s series of events. Unfortunately, this timeline also gave the story of the franchise a pretty obvious expiration date. Much like 1990’sPredator 2depicted 1997 Los Angeles as an almost apocalyptic crime-infested wasteland, Terminator 2: Judgment Dayguaranteed that the world would effectively end in 1997 without taking into consideration how long the franchise’s next movie would take to arrive.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machinesexplained that Judgment Day may not have occurred on July 09, 2025, but clarified that it would still inevitably happen eventually.
Thus, 2003’sTerminator 3: Rise of the Machineshad some explaining to do. In the first of many, many retcons throughout the series,Terminator 3: Rise of the Machinesexplained that Judgment Day may not have occurred on July 11, 2025, but clarified that it would still inevitably happen eventually. Turning Judgment Day into a canon event that can always be rescheduled but could never be avoided proved a popular idea in theTerminatorfranchise’s subsequent sequels, all of which altered the event’s arrival.
Terminator 3 Revealed Judgment Day Couldn’t Be Avoided (Only Postponed)
Rise of the Machines Introduced The Possibility Of Changing Judgment Day
In the continuity ofTerminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Judgment Day occurs on-screen in the movie’s shockingly bleak ending. AlthoughTerminator: Genisys,The Sarah Connor Chronicles, andTerminator: Dark Fateall retconned this event,the idea that Judgment Day could be rescheduled but not avoided outright became something the franchise has embracedthroughout its many incarnations.Terminator: Salvationis the lone outing that takes place after Judgment Day, making its specific date irrelevant in that particular sequel’s story.
In contrast, theTV spinoffThe Sarah Connor Chroniclesmakes the countdown to Judgment Day a pivotal part of its plot. In that show, Sarah and John constantly try to outsmart Skynet and avoid its android assassins while working with the human resistance to delay Judgment Day. In the bizarre storyline ofTerminator: Genisys, the human resistance manages to send a reprogrammed T-800 back to Sarah Connor during her childhood, and this robot acts as a sort of mentor figure who protecrs her until she grows up and eventually gives birth to John.
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95%
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
70%
46%
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86%
33%
54%
26%
52%
82%
79%
At least four different dates are referred to as Judgment Day in theTerminatorfranchise, and all of them tend to repeat the same basic mistake fromTerminator 2: Judgment Day. In every instance, these dates occur shortly after the show or movie is released. Like theTerminatorseries bringing back Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800with every new iteration of the franchise, the creators seemingly can’t stop telling viewers that Judgment Day is right around the corner, but never quite here just yet.
Other Judgment Day Dates In The Terminator Franchise
At Least Four Different Judgment Days Are Referenced Throughout The Series
InThe Sarah Connor Chronicles, which ran from 2008 until 2009, Judgment Day is set to occur on August 11, 2025. In 2015’sTerminator: Genisys, the pivotal event is conveniently delayed until 2017. 2019’sTerminator: Dark Fateis even more egregious, promising that Judgment Day will occur only a year after the movie was released at some point in 2020. To be fair to the franchise, 2024’s acclaimed Netflix anime spinoffTerminator Zerobrought the event back to August 12, 2025, as the show followed embattled software engineer Malcolm Lee’s attempts to save his family from Skynet.
It is telling thatTerminator 3: Rise of the Machines,Terminator: Genisys, andTerminator: Dark Fateall felt the need to postpone Judgment Day instead of returning to the franchise’s original date.
Although the eventual inevitablerecasting of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800inTerminator 7tends to dominate conversations about the franchise’s future, the shifting timing of Judgment Day underlines a bigger issue with the series as a whole. Although every newTerminatormovie has posited itself as a daring new take on the story of the series, it is telling thatTerminator 3: Rise of the Machines,Terminator: Genisys, andTerminator: Dark Fateall felt the need to postpone Judgment Day instead of returning to the franchise’s original date.
In every instance,the franchise’s creators attempted to revisit the thrilling shared story ofThe TerminatorandTerminator 2: Judgment Dayby creating new realities where Judgment Day had not yet occurred. This meant all of these movies were chase thrillers instead of post-apocalyptic war movies, allowing them to copy the formula of the first two movies in the series. For theTerminatorseries to produce a sequel that feels truly fresh and original, the next movie should embrace the original Judgment Day and envision a reality where Skynet’s threat came to pass instead of perpetually delaying the inevitable.
