I was watching a recap of the whole franchise and the most prevalent comment was that the Terminator series should have stopped after T2. However, as we know, that only happens in an alternate timeline that Skynet has closed off. So here we are, with four post T2 movies in existence and none of them have managed to match the glory that is Judgment day. (Disclaimer: I have personally enjoyed all of the films and the TV show.)
Unfortunately, since we don’t have a time displacement device, we can only go forward. So assuming you were personally in control of the Terminator franchise what would you do to make a seventh film (or second TV series) worthy of the franchise?
Personally, I would ditch Arnie. Through the films and TV series we have seen a variety of iconic Terminators. It’s not like you can’t sell the idea of a cyborg assassin being portrayed by someone else - there are non-Arnie Terminators in T1 and T2. It’s increasingly silly to have an up-aged T-800 saving the day when facing off against newer, more powerful models. Having said that, I did like how the Rev-9 in Dark Fate is defeated because it has no idea what the T-800 is: Big Dumb Skynet crushes the fragile Sophisticated Skynet when the fight goes to the ground.
I’d probably also turn the focus away from John Connor, Kyle Reese, etc. I think a Rogue One type of story could work. The Resistance should be worldwide so there would be a variety of stories to tell if you stick with the Future War era. I have seen a story idea involving a flood of Terminators invading the present day and I think that could be fun if done right.
In any case, I think there are a lot of ways a good Terminator movie or show could be made. How would you do it?
I will say there is something about the noir tone of the first two movies with the music and dread they just have a darker tone to them even in the 2nd one being more of a traditional blockbuster there was some very bleak stuff and it felt like there was a real risk of everything falling apart.
I’m not sure how they can recapture that but I think it would be better to go back to a small story like the first movie, definitely feel like you said something like a rogue one type thing, different characters, a kind of side-story thing. I think they could do some cool things, like how many humans could a lone terminator hold off in hand-to-hand combat, watching it wade through 50 people might be a cool sight to see but an older terminator doing it, not a fancy liquid metal one.
Well, correct me if I"m wrong (haven’t seen them all not by a long shot) but generally speaking the time travel has always been from future to the past, yes?
It’s time to send a Terminator forward into the future.
I would play it straight. I’d reboot back to the end of T2 yet again, and then watch John Connor’s future unfold sans Skynet. Have him be a prepper verging on sovereign citizen, but have him end up in a confrontation with some full-blown sovereign citizens, and have him see just how batshit they are, and let that be the thing that brings him back from the brink and into society. Obviously there would be a violent confrontation with the sovereign twits (provoked by them) in which John would get a chance to make it an action movie. Maybe he could save someone, in an echo of what his father did for his mother and what Arnold and his mother did for him.
It could be like a redemption arc. Being redeemed from the alt-right, conspiracy theorists, and sovereign citizens. Make it relevant to our time.
Terminator 3, the one with Claire Danes in, was a lot better than people give it credit for. It certainly wasn’t James Camerony enough, but it still told a good story with some great performances from her and Nick Stahl.
Anyway, the point where it ended, with them entering a bunker, was I thought a great way to lead into a follow-up. I wanted to see them form the Resistance, argue over its inevitability, and somehow turn John Connor into something resembling the heroic figure we see in the flash-forwards in T2.
It’s a shame nobody else saw that story potential, I guess they just wanted Arnie in it somehow so had to leap over that “boring bit” to get to him.
I think there were hints in the SCC that Skynet androids from different futures were operating the the same timeline, some of them, (Shirley Manson) might actually be good guys.
So, make the movie overstuffed. Numerous terminators from many different futures all interacting. Terminators fighting terminators. Futuristic weapons that were brought back in time. The entire weight of the US military brought to bear! Epic battles! Some places get nuked! It looks like Skynet is going to win/always wins/wins again. And then…
The (in)famous time machine is discovered in some crazy old man’s garage. (Skynet never invented it - they found it. It explains why they never used it properly - Skynet can’t “think” in time travel terms.) The crazy scientist is truly a genius and he figures out what no one else could. Destroying the time machine is the actual solution. So he sends himself back in time and kills his younger self, destroys all evidence of his research, and “salts the earth” by using the rest of his life in the past to make sure no one else discovers time travel. And does everything he can to get people to not make Skynet. (Starting a movement to get every AI scientist to watch Colossus: The Forbin Project is a great start!)
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'And the final scene of the movie is a 20 year old Sarah Connor quietly doing the things she was doing at the beginning of the first movie, and nothing happens. She goes about her life as she did whatever was the zeroeth iteration of the timeline (the one we never saw that happened before the first movie). She probably has a son named John but Kyle isn’t the father. Or not. Actually, having that might let the audience think there other movie did/will/still can happen. So strike that - no John.
At the end, the movies are done. The future is safe from Skynet, terminators, and time travel. All is well.
I agree. I was pretty critical when it came out, but having rewatched it recently, I think it’s pretty good. Not as good as 1 and 2, but solid. I think the last two were pretty good too, and the nice thing about a time travel story universe is that you can reboot and remix as much as you want and not really care much about canon. We’re just in another branching timeline.
The only movie that I think is really bad is the 4th, and honestly I don’t even remember it, so maybe I should give it another try. It does suggest that straying from the formula is harder to do.
I like ASL’s idea, but I think you gotta have a Terminator involved. Maybe one could embed with the sovcits and be working on riling up society enough to lead to nuclear conflict. It’d be interesting to see Skynet move beyond just smash and kill and into manipulating human psychology.
You know, that could actually be really interesting. Set it several decades after John defeats Skynet. The world is starting to return to normal. John’s an old man with a family, maybe grandkids. Skynet, at the same time it sent a Terminator to the past, sent one to the future, just in case it failed. It’s goal is to wait until humans become complacent and then restart Skynet. You could have it “resurrecting” old scrapped Terminators.
That’s exactly what “Terminator: Dark Fate” did. In fact, it tied off the Arnold, Sarah and John Connor format permanently. John Connor was already dead but, because of the changing of the time line, a different (much younger) woman is now the mother of a different child who is destined to stop Skynet. Arnold was finished off and will not appear again.
I would continue the franchise with the new format.
To slow to edit: Also, maybe the Terminator has to get to some specific place to get the whole thing going. So you switch the story up. Instead of the Terminator hunting the humans, the humans are hunting the Terminator.
To me, the interesting part of the franchise is the future and how we get there, not the time travel and the present day stuff. So most of the post T3 stuff hasn’t been terribly interesting, save maybe Terminator: Salvation, which was not exactly good, but wasn’t big on the confusing time travel stuff.
I very much liked the visuals and atmosphere of Terminator Salvation I just didn’t care for the story. It’s such an interesting world to explore I don’t think you have to make a movie set in that world that is exclusively about John Connor or even the main resistance.
Mostly but not entirely - Terminator Genisys had humans jumping forward in time. One of the problems is that present times don’t have the technology for time travel, so in Genisys it’s accomplished by the T-800 Pops scavenging bits from other terminators in order to pull it off as a one-shot.
Can’t recall any other instances of forward time travel, though.
