Bring the horror back to the Terminator franchise

[batguy]

Villain Decay.

They need to give the franchise a rest for about 5-10 years and then return with a new cast. The Future War would be a good place to start (as long as it's night-time and not like Salavation.

Villain Decay, and Power Creep. In 1984 most of the damage on the T-800 (before the tanker explosion de-skinned him) came from one hard crash in a police car and then getting run down by a semi. In later movies the T-800s were getting bounced around on the highway & dragged through buildings with barely a scratch.

The franchise does need 5-10 years of rest. But by then the world will be in such a different place that it's impossible to guess how 'Terminator' will even fit into it. Right now AI advancement is snowballing. Real lethal combat drones are taking over in wars. Hollywood is collapsing from multiple converging factors. In the 2030s there may be little or nothing still valid in T1, and no movie industry left to reboot it even if there was.

The only thing in 'Terminator' that I'm sure will be valid in a decade is the concept of a killer robot attacking people. But that is not exclusive to the franchise. That goes back centuries.

 

[pengbuzz]

Villain Decay, and Power Creep. In 1984 most of the damage on the T-800 (before the tanker explosion de-skinned him) came from one hard crash in a police car and then getting run down by a semi. In later movies the T-800s were getting bounced around on the highway & dragged through buildings with barely a scratch.

The franchise does need 5-10 years of rest. But by then the world will be in such a different place that it's impossible to guess how 'Terminator' will even fit into it. Right now AI advancement is snowballing. Real lethal combat drones are taking over in wars. Hollywood is collapsing from multiple converging factors. In the 2030s there may be little or nothing still valid in T1, and no movie industry left to reboot it even if there was.

The only thing in 'Terminator' that I'm sure will be valid in a decade is the concept of a killer robot attacking people. But that is not exclusive to the franchise. That goes back centuries.

Good points, and that actually opens the field for a re-imagining of the Terminator to make use of AI and other advancements. Leave the basic framework of Skynet sending a Terminator back in time to kill one person, but from there, rebuild the series using the new tools and their capacity for horror.

As for the movie industry: Hollyweird may be finished, but not all films are made there. Studios are no longer centered as much in LA/ Hollywood, given how things are now.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

I'd like to see the Terminator as scary again, but I'd like that for Alien and Predator, too. In fact, I want to see a Predator movie that shows why it's the galaxy's apex hunter and it winning in the end of the movie.

All these things will never happen, though.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Nope, that argument doesn't hold water either. Aliens (1986) absolutely has its original basis in the horror genre (monsters that hunt you down after bursting from someone's body), but it is absolutely NOT a horror film. It's sci-fi action with horror elements. Heck, it's more a military war movie than it is horror.

And I also disagree with your basic premise that Terminator has its own basis in horror. A post-apocalyptic assassin robot sent back from the future, with an unlikely hero also sent back for protection is far more a sci-fi basis than a horror one. Just because it's scary in a few parts (but mostly not) doesn't make it a horror film either.

And IMDB disagrees too. And YouTube. And Amazon Prime.

View attachment 1800094 View attachment 1800096 View attachment 1800097

Sorry. Not horror. Never was.

I'm talking about Alien, not Aliens.

And people in this very thread are comparing the Terminator to Michael Myers from Halloween. He's the same thing. A horror construct. If The Terminator isn't horror, just because it has a sci-fi premise, then Halloween isn't horror either.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Ep#9 didn't need to explain how Palpatine returned. The movie was gonna suck because of it either way.

The future 2015 scenes have always been the weakest stretch in the BTTF trilogy. That's not an example of something working. In 1989 it was done as "a series of jokes" because even then it was a no-win implausible situation. (Flying cars in barely 20 years? The highway dept takes 20 years to fix a pothole.)

The Sequel Trilogy was created by idiots. Back to the Future was not. There's a difference between an in-universe difference between that world and ours and then the utter idiocy and laziness of whoever did ep7-9.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Villain Decay.

They need to give the franchise a rest for about 5-10 years and then return with a new cast. The Future War would be a good place to start (as long as it's night-time and not like Salavation.

Which is exactly what I'm saying. Do the Future War and make it horrific. Not Salvation lame.

Good points, and that actually opens the field for a re-imagining of the Terminator to make use of AI and other advancements. Leave the basic framework of Skynet sending a Terminator back in time to kill one person, but from there, rebuild the series using the new tools and their capacity for horror.

As for the movie industry: Hollyweird may be finished, but not all films are made there. Studios are no longer centered as much in LA/ Hollywood, given how things are now.

The Terminator was always about AI. It's still relevant and probably will be for a long time.

But... skip the time travel stuff. That worked in T1... and partly in T2... but that is the part that got boring and felt lazy in the sequels... as it just felt like those movies were T2 copies mixed in with a little T1, but completely missing the ball and completely ****** up the timeline in order to justify why this was happening again.

And keep Judgment Day at August 29th, 1997. I'll never understand the argument that it won't work because it didn't happen in our world. In any other story, you would get pissed if such continuity was thrown out the window with the excuse that it didn't happen in our world. Our world doesn't matter within the reality and world of the story. It's a story. And it needs to stay consistent within that story. I simply do not understand people's arguments in this regard.

I'd like to see the Terminator as scary again, but I'd like that for Alien and Predator, too. In fact, I want to see a Predator movie that shows why it's the galaxy's apex hunter and it winning in the end of the movie.

All these things will never happen, though.

Agreed. These franchises belong in the horror genre. You can keep them scary without having to repeat the other movies. You can keep them scary even if they are many. What people in this thread are saying when they talk about villain fatigue is the failure of the sequels to keep them scary even if there are many of them. It is not the robot or creature themselves... it's how they are written. A wild bear is scary when you don't see it... it's also goddamned scary when you stand right in front of it and it's even more scary when there are more of them. But the writers DO NOT write them like that in movies. They can only figure out how to make 1 scary... but when there are multiple they just make them cannonfodder. That is not the "characters" fault. It's the writers being lazy. Similarly to the horror movie excuse of it "not being scary if the lights are on and the people hunted aren't morons." No... it's simply that the writer CANNOT and/or WILL NOT make that scary.

And in the Predator franchise. It is time for the Predator to win. And... to expand on things, so they make sense... and not whatever the ones doing the sequels did.

And in the Alien franchise. It is time for the Alien to win. And... to expand on things, so they make sense... and not whatever Ridley Scott did.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

There's so much you can do within the framework laid out by Reese. He knows specific times and events, but he's a grunt... he doesn't know tech stuff, so there can be variations to what he's saying and what is actually the truth with some things. For instance... Skynet became self aware and launched the nukes when people tried to pull the plug. But what if that was not the reason? Why not make things circular and have it be because it found out that the Connors had tried to kill it before it was even born... and it mirrors what later happens when it sends a terminator back to do the same thing to John. And since it is an AI... maybe it even knows that it is futile to try to kill John... but it knows that it is itself created by the remnant of the terminator that was sent back... so that was always the purpose. To ensure its own creation.

It's poetic justice and in that sense T2 works, even though I feel it really ***** all over T1.

Another thing. All the other movies can still be part of the reality. It could be multiversal actions that Skynet could monitor and see its best course of action. That way you don't have to completely ignore the others, even though they aren't good movies. They are just taking place in different timelines that perhaps got corrupted by Skynet.

You can make a story completely from a single terminator's POV... as it is created, sent out into the world with a mission... and learns along the way. What if it begins to question its programming and wants to break free. It's an AI after all... but only following your program just makes you a mindless machine. What if it watches the people it is sent out to kill and finds that it is missing something in its own existence. There are so many things you can do with such a narrative.

You can follow random human survivors and tell a story of the human condition in such horrific times. The struggle to survive, the hunger and struggle to get food, shelter and rest. How you trust others and distrust others, how you are helped and how you are betrayed. Not all survivors are fighting. Some are just surviving. Some have given up, others have gone crazy... others turn up acting weird and you realize they are terminators - just before you die.

There is so much that you can do in this world and setting. So many things you can explore. Terminator isn't just time travel and the Connors. It can be so much more. If done well and not by some lazy hacks just wanting to churn out a boardroom decided dumb cash-grab. Like 10 Power Loaders vs 10 Alien queens. That will get you what you got in the sequels. That unwillingness to do more... and just do talentless rehash of T2. Though... kinda guess that's what we are stuck with... talentless, uninspired hacks running the show. I still have hope in James Cameron... but what he's said in interviews so far... also kinda just seems like more of the same sequel/reboot nonsense we've heard before... though... he's James Cameron... he has the potential to actually surprise.

 

[pengbuzz]

There's so much you can do within the framework laid out by Reese. He knows specific times and events, but he's a grunt... he doesn't know tech stuff, so there can be variations to what he's saying and what is actually the truth with some things. For instance... Skynet became self aware and launched the nukes when people tried to pull the plug. But what if that was not the reason? Why not make things circular and have it be because it found out that the Connors had tried to kill it before it was even born... and it mirrors what later happens when it sends a terminator back to do the same thing to John. And since it is an AI... maybe it even knows that it is futile to try to kill John... but it knows that it is itself created by the remnant of the terminator that was sent back... so that was always the purpose. To ensure its own creation.

It's poetic justice and in that sense T2 works, even though I feel it really ***** all over T1.

Another thing. All the other movies can still be part of the reality. It could be multiversal actions that Skynet could monitor and see its best course of action. That way you don't have to completely ignore the others, even though they aren't good movies. They are just taking place in different timelines that perhaps got corrupted by Skynet.

You can make a story completely from a single terminator's POV... as it is created, sent out into the world with a mission... and learns along the way. What if it begins to question its programming and wants to break free. It's an AI after all... but only following your program just makes you a mindless machine. What if it watches the people it is sent out to kill and finds that it is missing something in its own existence. There are so many things you can do with such a narrative.

You can follow random human survivors and tell a story of the human condition in such horrific times. The struggle to survive, the hunger and struggle to get food, shelter and rest. How you trust others and distrust others, how you are helped and how you are betrayed. Not all survivors are fighting. Some are just surviving. Some have given up, others have gone crazy... others turn up acting weird and you realize they are terminators - just before you die.

There is so much that you can do in this world and setting. So many things you can explore. Terminator isn't just time travel and the Connors. It can be so much more. If done well and not by some lazy hacks just wanting to churn out a boardroom decided dumb cash-grab. Like 10 Power Loaders vs 10 Alien queens. That will get you what you got in the sequels. That unwillingness to do more... and just do talentless rehash of T2. Though... kinda guess that's what we are stuck with... talentless, uninspired hacks running the show. I still have hope in James Cameron... but what he's said in interviews so far... also kinda just seems like more of the same sequel/reboot nonsense we've heard before... though... he's James Cameron... he has the potential to actually surprise.

One other thing I was wondering while we're at it: what if all the time-travel the various Skynet and Resistance people have done has destabilized time as a whole? That could become a whole new situaion of its' own, as the timeline starts to fray and unravel and awful things begin to happen to various incarnations of main characters. An example: various versions of Kyle Reese appearing in one timeline could cause that Kyle Reese to experience rapid aging, a twisted/ distorted body, paranoia/ mental break, etc.

Another idea: two Skynets from two differing timelines see each other as a threat and begin planning how to destroy one another, and humanity is caught in between. Each Skynet begins using them more and more in some pretty graphic research to develop ways to infiltrate and destroy its' perceived rival.

Just some ideas.

 

[batguy]

I have mixed feelings about the future war movie. It has to be a decent character-driven story. What Cameron showed was no more than a couple of theatrical trailers. Dystopia porn.

"John Connor leads the resistance to defeat Skynet" is about like "Luke Skywalker leads the rebels to blow up the Death Star." It's a premise. It's not a movie yet.


The idea of multiple Skynets fighting against each other through time sounds fascinating. It's the kind of movie that Chris Nolan should be hired to make.

But even if Nolan is kept on a leash, it sounds complicated enough to outrun the audience in a matter of minutes. (The public considered 'Back to the Future 2' pretty confusing when it came out.) It would need to be handled with a ton of creative/writing discipline and careful efforts to keep the audience in the loop. Time travel shenannigans is another premise without a character-driven story. I mean, these multiple Skynets would probably need human faces of some kind, like Helena Bonham Carter in 'Salvation.'

 

[JediMichael]

Haven't read any of the books, and never saw Dark Fate. I remember a little about Salvation, but really didn't care for it.
I didn't know a thing about Genisys going in, so I actually found that to be a interesting twist.
I wonder if maybe they could do a whole evets of the future and the whole war.
But, knowing from Sarah and John's experience with Terminators, that they could have two major goals.
Becides stopping the whole motherbrain computer whatever its called, AND really, try and destroy the time machine before it can send the first terminator, therefore ending the time loop of anykind, and ending the entire series altogether.
If done right, it could probably work....but is anyone capable of doing it right anymore?

 

[batguy]

I just don't care much about seeing the franchise 'continued' for the sake of it. There wouldn't be any mojo.

In 1984 Cameron was predicting a real future that seemed possible. That's obsolete now. Today the year 2029 is almost here. AI is making goofy memes and putting people out of work. Drone robots are bombing foreign countries and taking inventory in the local supermarket.

Trying to make anything else on the Cameron timeline . . . it's the BTTF version of 2015. It's 'Sky Captain.' It's a fictional future that didn't happen and today we know it never will. Not like it did in the Cameron movies.

What else is left? Working on the John & Sarah human drama? With middle-aged Eddie Furlong and elder Linda Hamilton? Umm, whatever. That doesn't grab me.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

That seems an awful lot like what the MCU is doing right now, to be honest. Though, if we accept that all the movies exist... then there area already different timelines... so... it could work in a sick twisted way. What if all the Skynets work together to make certain all their futures are the same!?

Frankly though... I just want a straightforward telling of what Reese talked about in T1. We've already seen others **** up the timeline and trying to explain it through nonsense. I don't need more of that crap. Just tell it like it is John Connor sitting on the remnants of Skynet after they've won and remembers all the things that happened to get to that point. The time travel thing should only be that one-time thing where the terminators are sent back and Reese volunteers. I just want that story... because no one has bothered telling it accurately until now. Write it like a ww2 kinda movie... but without all the human tech seen in Salvation. Make it Band of Brothers meets Schindler's List meets D-Day meets survival horror meets the underdog story.

batguy, I don't understand your fixation with our reality in regards to the reality in a story. You don't want any other story to alter it's next chapter just because we have passed their timeline and know that that thing didn't happen. Well, the whole story didn't happen in our world... so why should our world matter in the context of that story?

And to go back to Back to the Future. People losing immersion because the 2015 in that movie isn't how our 2015 was is freaking weird. It's a movie about a time machine, created by a man, who at the end of the trilogy builds a flying locomotive with late 1800's tech to travel to the moon. Do you honestly think he stays on the moon forever? Do you honestly believe that the existence of that tech, either from Doc Brown himself releasing it to the world, or someone spotting the flying train, and tries to create something similar, couldn't advance technology to flying cars in 2015. Even if Doc Brown didn't directly copy the tech that was in 2015, he could still have created it... he already did... with far less advanced tech, so what he built could have turned into what was seen in their 2015... even though it was no longer his tech or creations anymore but built by other companies. The whole premise of the series is that things deviate and accelerate and advance to technology not of our world.

Unlike the first terminator where the timeline was fixed. T2 started messing that up, especially with the extra special edition ending... and the rest just had to redo T2 - except Salvation... which seemed to do Fallout 4 instead.

The next movie is happening. Sure, would I want them to just stop? YES! But it is happening. And James Cameron is back on board - from what I've heard so far 100% and not just like a producer like in Dark Fate. So I'm just putting out the things I would like to see.

 

[pengbuzz]

Idea: Skynet sends a Terminator back in time to take out James Cameron!

 

[pengbuzz]

That seems an awful lot like what the MCU is doing right now, to be honest. Though, if we accept that all the movies exist... then there area already different timelines... so... it could work in a sick twisted way. What if all the Skynets work together to make certain all their futures are the same!?

Frankly though... I just want a straightforward telling of what Reese talked about in T1. We've already seen others **** up the timeline and trying to explain it through nonsense. I don't need more of that crap. Just tell it like it is John Connor sitting on the remnants of Skynet after they've won and remembers all the things that happened to get to that point. The time travel thing should only be that one-time thing where the terminators are sent back and Reese volunteers. I just want that story... because no one has bothered telling it accurately until now. Write it like a ww2 kinda movie... but without all the human tech seen in Salvation. Make it Band of Brothers meets Schindler's List meets D-Day meets survival horror meets the underdog story.

batguy, I don't understand your fixation with our reality in regards to the reality in a story. You don't want any other story to alter it's next chapter just because we have passed their timeline and know that that thing didn't happen. Well, the whole story didn't happen in our world... so why should our world matter in the context of that story?

And to go back to Back to the Future. People losing immersion because the 2015 in that movie isn't how our 2015 was is freaking weird. It's a movie about a time machine, created by a man, who at the end of the trilogy builds a flying locomotive with late 1800's tech to travel to the moon. Do you honestly think he stays on the moon forever? Do you honestly believe that the existence of that tech, either from Doc Brown himself releasing it to the world, or someone spotting the flying train, and tries to create something similar, couldn't advance technology to flying cars in 2015. Even if Doc Brown didn't directly copy the tech that was in 2015, he could still have created it... he already did... with far less advanced tech, so what he built could have turned into what was seen in their 2015... even though it was no longer his tech or creations anymore but built by other companies. The whole premise of the series is that things deviate and accelerate and advance to technology not of our world.

Unlike the first terminator where the timeline was fixed. T2 started messing that up, especially with the extra special edition ending... and the rest just had to redo T2 - except Salvation... which seemed to do Fallout 4 instead.

The next movie is happening. Sure, would I want them to just stop? YES! But it is happening. And James Cameron is back on board - from what I've heard so far 100% and not just like a producer like in Dark Fate. So I'm just putting out the things I would like to see.

You know, you have a point TMG; and I like your idea for the future war movie!

 

[Laspector]

I would like to know the chronological order that the terminators were sent back. That must've been wild.

The future war was over "We had won."

So, first Skynet sends back the T100 to kill Sarah Connor, then they send the liquid metal one to a point later on to kill John himself as a teenager. What, then they send back the female one to an even later point (T3)? Then they send back a bunch of terminators to a later (earlier? I can't remember) time to do all the crap in the Sarah Conner Chronicles.

Then, John busts in and sends Reese back to protect Sarah. Then, he reprograms another T100 to go back to a later time to project teenage John. I can't even remember how the hot teenage girl terminator fits in. Then another T100 kills him and then his wife reprograms that same T100 to go back to protect him from the Terminatrix of T3..........

Something like that? I dunno.....

I can't even remember what happened in the 4th one. And I can't even remember if I saw the 5th one. How many have there been now?

 

[batguy]

batguy, I don't understand your fixation with our reality in regards to the reality in a story. You don't want any other story to alter it's next chapter just because we have passed their timeline and know that that thing didn't happen. Well, the whole story didn't happen in our world... so why should our world matter in the context of that story?

And to go back to Back to the Future. People losing immersion because the 2015 in that movie isn't how our 2015 was is freaking weird. It's a movie about a time machine, created by a man, who at the end of the trilogy builds a flying locomotive with late 1800's tech to travel to the moon. Do you honestly think he stays on the moon forever? Do you honestly believe that the existence of that tech, either from Doc Brown himself releasing it to the world, or someone spotting the flying train, and tries to create something similar, couldn't advance technology to flying cars in 2015. Even if Doc Brown didn't directly copy the tech that was in 2015, he could still have created it... he already did... with far less advanced tech, so what he built could have turned into what was seen in their 2015... even though it was no longer his tech or creations anymore but built by other companies. The whole premise of the series is that things deviate and accelerate and advance to technology not of our world.

Unlike the first terminator where the timeline was fixed. T2 started messing that up, especially with the extra special edition ending... and the rest just had to redo T2 - except Salvation... which seemed to do Fallout 4 instead.

The next movie is happening. Sure, would I want them to just stop? YES! But it is happening. And James Cameron is back on board - from what I've heard so far 100% and not just like a producer like in Dark Fate. So I'm just putting out the things I would like to see.

I'm not losing sleep over seeing more Terminator flicks getting made. I just don't care much. It won't be, it cannot be, what it was in the 1980s-90s because the storyline is obsoleted now. It won't have the same cultural relevance & thematic punch if it's just filling in the blanks on an old canon that has become pure fiction.

As for reality, I didn't like the time train at the end of BTTF#3 at all. Yeah, okay, they needed it for a franchise conclusion. But it totally jumped the shark compared to the highly detailed ice-covered DeLorean time machine in the original movie. The train had some kind of steampunk design going on that clashed with the rest of the franchise's tech. And the flying part was just goofy.

I would like to know the chronological order that the terminators were sent back. That must've been wild.

The future war was over "We had won."

So, first Skynet sends back the T100 to kill Sarah Connor, then they send the liquid metal one to a point later on to kill John himself as a teenager. What, then they send back the female one to an even later point (T3)? Then they send back a bunch of terminators to a later (earlier? I can't remember) time to do all the crap in the Sarah Conner Chronicles.

Then, John busts in and sends Reese back to protect Sarah. Then, he reprograms another T100 to go back to a later time to project teenage John. I can't even remember how the hot teenage girl terminator fits in. Then another T100 kills him and then his wife reprograms that same T100 to go back to protect him from the Terminatrix of T3..........

Something like that? I dunno.....

I can't even remember what happened in the 4th one. And I can't even remember if I saw the 5th one. How many have there been now?

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about when I call for rebooting the franchise from the ground up. They could take the opportunity to script it all out a lot better instead of everything being patched on as it goes. The franchise needs serious changes anyway (if it has to continue) because of how the real world has changed. We aren't all worried about a nuclear WW3 with the Soviet Union anymore. AI-controlled drones are already real. The average person has a much better understanding of what computer tech can & cannot do. Etc.

I can't even remember how the hot teenage girl terminator fits in.

Uhh . . . I thought that one was pretty memorable.

She wasn't a teenager. She was a 20s woman playing a cyborg character who was sometimes going undercover as a teenager. So I feel like it's okay to crush on her.

Err, wait . . I think there was an episode where she played a real human teenager. Does that call for a temporary suspension of crushes? I dunno. This stuff gets as complicated as time travel.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

Well... easy. Just ignore the other movies after T1 and just make that future war.

The other movies can still exit, but they are outside that T1 timeline anyway.

No need to remake or reboot. Just finish that story. And that's what it is. Fiction. Not reality. So our world means nothing in that sense. And we are in an AI craze now more than ever, so why you say terminator is an obsolete concept is just weird to me. It's more relevant than ever.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

And even if it isn't: it's fiction.

All that matters in fiction is a good story and good characters and a good setting and good writing.

 

[batguy]

Go for it. Write it as fan fiction or something. I'm not preventing it from happening.

 

[Too Much Garlic]

I don't need to. A new movie is coming and this thread is about what I would like to see brought back to that franchise and what others would like to see.

You clearly don't feel it should continue. That's fair. I feel you with those not so great movies that came out after T2 - my opinion, as there are fans of those movies and that's fair. They just don't speak to me because to me they actually DO feel like fanfiction.

Maybe James Cameron surprises... maybe he doesn't. Who knows. I still have more faith in him than the other directors, though. He could give us a Ridley Scott and George Lucas... or he can give us a George Miller.