There! I Fixed It!

How I’d Fix The Terminator Franchise If I Was in Charge

There are six The Terminator movies. Two of them are good and worth watching. The other four are “meh.” I’m not going to bag on the movies. As my friend Larry Lasky says, “No one sets out to make a bad movie.” Along with Alien, Predator, Godzilla, The Terminator is one of my favorite movie series. 

And, I think I’ve figured out how to revitalize the franchise while keeping all of the movies in canon.

So, here’s my pitch…

Judgement Day is inevitable. It is a fixed point in time that will always happen. You can’t stop it, no matter what you do. It seems hopeless. Why fight if Judgement Day occurs no matter what you do?

But it’s not as hopeless as things seem. Part of Skynet’s strategy is to send Terminators into the past to eliminate John Connor and other potential threats to its continued existence. In doing so, Skynet has created thousands of alternate timelines where John Conner lives, John dies, Sarah Conner lives, Sarah dies. There are timelines where Skynet successfully eliminates all human life, and there are timelines where Skynet is defeated and humankind manages to survive and rebuild.

My theory or fan fiction centers around the idea of moving away from preventing Judgement Day and the rise of Skynet. As I mentioned earlier, Judgement is a fixed point in time. It can be moved up or down the timeline, but it’s going to happen.

But, what if, just what if, the survivors of Judgement Day decided instead of going back in time to protect Sarah and John Conner, they went back in time and eliminated the person who came up with and developed the time travel technology Skynet uses to send Terminators into the past?

Reese and John Connor discuss changing the strategy and realize they’re going to need more help than sending one person into the past. While they debate this new idea, a man appears in a time bubble. At first, the humans think he’s a Terminator because he looks just like them except older. The man is Arnold Schwartzenegger, and he’s the scientist who invented the technology for time travel. He’s been traveling different timelines trying to fix all the divergent realities and bring everything into one timeline.

After a brief fight based on mistaken identity, Arnold’s character explains Judgement Day is going to happen. They can’t prevent it. However, they can prevent Skynet from sending Terminators back in time by eliminating time travel technology. Without the technology, Skynet won’t be able to access the past. It’ll be defeated, and any chance to preserve itself will be removed.

Everyone thinks it’s a great idea, but they realize they’re going to need more help than what they have, so a team consisting of Reese, Arnold’s scientist character, and different time versions of Sarah and John Conor team up to stop time travel.

As they travel into the time stream, they’re initially successful in eliminating time travel, but for some reason Terminators are still appearing. The team discovers there is a Skynet Prime, a singular artificial consciousness that has managed to plug itself into every time stream and influence events. Even though the team has stopped time travel in a couple of timelines, they can’t stop time travel in every single time line. All it takes for Skynet to continue operations is one timeline where the technology still exists.

It’s at this point, the team realizes the only way to stop everything is to destroy Skynet Prime and eliminate the person who developed the technology for traveling through time - Arnold’s character. They determine that it’s not enough to just kill him as an adult, they have to make sure he’s never even born. 

The team goes back in time to eliminate the parents of Arnold’s character, but they discover Skynet has anticipated this action and sent Terminators back to the past to ensure the survival of the parents. However, the plan falls apart in the ensuing fight between humans and Terminators. The parents aren’t killed, but they are prevented from meeting each other and their lives take radically different routes. They never meet. They never marry. They never have kids.

Meanwhile, a team has been assembled of all of the various John Conners, Sarah Conners, and other versions of characters from the other movies attack Skynet Prime and attempt to remove its influence across the different time streams and realities. Ultimately, they’re successful and Skynet is defeated and removed. Time travel technology ceases to be. All the divergent timelines meld together into a singular cohesive timeline.

After Skynet is defeated, John Conner, Sarah Conner, and Reese are in the future (their present). There’s a sense something has been altered. They’re not sure what it is and dismiss it as fatigue and relief from finally ending the war between humans and machines. 

Meanwhile, in the past, there’s a horrible car accident. A man and woman are killed in the wreck, but their child survives. It’s the baby version of Arnold’s character. It’s then revealed that the baby would later be adopted and grow up to be the character Arnold portrays in the film. 

The film would then cut to the future, where Arnold’s character cracks the math on time travel. The final scene would dissolve to black with a Terminator skull with red eyes replacing Arnold’s character. The implication would be that time travel is a fixed event. Instead of eliminating the threat, the humans just managed to delay it. Their mission continues.

What do you think? Good idea? Horrible idea? Sound off on our Facebook page and share how you would revamp The Terminator.