Pop Culture Happy Hour, Small Batch Edition: 'Terminator Genisys'

Faithful Pop Culture Happy Hour listeners know that contributor Chris Klimek is a lifelong action-movie enthusiast, but they may not know that he is, in particular, a Terminator movie connoisseur. Which is why, for this Small Batch edition, I asked him to Skype in from the Connecticut coastline, where he is estivating while on a prestigious writing fellowship, to talk about the fifth film in the Terminator series, the enervatingly spelled Terminator Genisys.

We talk about the film's lackluster opening weekend box office, and why it may not matter. We talk about the previous films in the series (about which Chris wrote a handy primer), and why they definitely don't matter, given this latest installment's soft-reboot approach to the established mythology.

We talk about how the film balances a fannish desire to evoke that old mythology, and its need to tell a fresh story. We talk about where the series can go from here. And we talk about the lead actors, and their accents.

Speaking of: know that we manage to get through this entire episode without either one of us busting out a lame Schwarzenegger impression. Because that's how much we love you.