(There is a newer, edited, and more readable version of this article. Available here.)

There’s been some talk recently about James Cameron writing a new Terminator script and I am, immediately, on board. I loved Terminator as a kid and the thought of a new one does really excite me. I know the franchise went downhill, but I am still holding out hope. And if anyone can make a great sequel, James Cameron can. I’ve been thinking, on and off, about how to make a new Terminator for a while, I actually wrote most of this before learning that he was doing one, and I wanted to get some of those thoughts down. The Terminator films, as said, did get a bit odd. The original James Cameron films, Terminator 1 and 2, are amazing. The next two films – Rise of the Machines and Salvation – have all the markings of a studio mandate (especially Rise of the Machines, there’s a flash forward in that film which shows hundreds of bad CGI terminators attacking at the same time and it’s really stuck in my mind. I reckon it was only included after a movie executive demanded a spectacle to outdo Terminator 2 or something – though I can’t prove this). But, despite this, 3 and 4 are a logical continuation. Terminator 3 depicts the outbreak of the war and, well, the rise of the machines (they nailed that title huh) and Terminator 4 was intended to be the early years of the war – John Connor’s rise to leadership – and the start of a new trilogy. I think its unmade sequels were going to gradually evolve the technology and aesthetic to be more like the future war scenes of the original films (complete with phased Plasma Rifles in the 40-watt range). I always enjoyed 3 and 4, especially as a kid. They’re not amazing, but I liked them (though I admit I haven’t seen either in a long time). Then Genisys happened…

Terminator 3 and 4 might not have been the best and they pretty much ignored the ending of Terminator 2, but again they were logical continuations of the story. Studio mandates, sure, but logical and coherent studio mandates. I have no idea what happened with Genisys. I remember thinking the first few minutes were good, but it deteriorated very quickly and I am not sure what the studio was thinking. I’m aware there was some behind-the-scenes drama on Salvation, but I doubt that was the cause of Genisys. Did the rights change hands? I don’t know, I recall something like that, and I guess the new owners wanted to ‘get back to the routes’ or something, but still. The film just defies all logic. But this post is not about Genisys, so I’ll cut myself off there. It’s bad, is the point.

But then James Cameron regained some rights. The director of Deadpool was hired, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton returned, and I got very excited at the prospect.

Terminator: Dark Fate came out and… it’s fine. All respect to those who made it. It’s not bad or anything. But it wasn’t particularly memorable; to my mind, it felt like a remake of the original Terminator. Albeit one, like a lot of the above-mentioned films, that actively ignored and sought to undo Terminator 2. I remember sitting at the bus stop, after seeing it in the cinema. I enjoyed the experience for what it was, but I felt kind of disappointed that it was re-treading old ground (I suspect that was also a factor in its box office numbers).

The bus was late that day, so I had a lot of time to think about it. If I could make a Terminator film, what would I do? Is there a way to reinject some life into this series? The following occurs to me. First, Terminator 2 is the end of the story. They stopped the war from ever happening and there’s even a deleted scene from an alternative peaceful future in which John Connor becomes a senator. As such, I think any film set overtly after Terminator 2 is likely to feel a bit unnecessary. It’s not impossible to do a follow-up (no bad ideas, only bad execution; no fate but what we make) but I think it would add some needless difficulty. Instead, the next Terminator film should be a prequel. Something I and I think a lot of Terminator fans want to see is a future war movie. Salvation did do this, but I mean a film with the original flash-forward aesthetic. The use of time travel in the original films would make it fairly easy to present such a film (set in the future) as a prequel. It would just be what happened before anyone got sent back in time – does that make sense? Second, I probably wouldn’t call it a Terminator film. I would call it something like Future War. Partly because (after Dark Fate struggled) I’m not sure that there’s much audience faith in the Terminator franchise. But more than that, I’m not sure I would have many conventional Terminators in it. To my mind, a Terminator robot is primarily an infiltration unit. Skynet ordinarily relies on gigantic HK drones and robotic tanks – it only starts deploying Terminators on the battlefield, as in T2, when the humans have pretty much won and it’s running out of options. Moreover, why limit yourself to Terminators and HK drones? In a ‘Future War’ movie, you could have all kinds of robotic monstrosities. Off the top of my head, there could be robots designed to look like wreckage which unsuspecting survivors try to hide in or a hoard of robot spiders that swarm through underground tunnels. You could even have machines that exist to psychologically taunt and terrify people, reducing their morale. For sure, have some Terminators in it (probably the rubber skinned T- 600s, which sound pretty creepy in their own right – I’m imagining a silhouette lumbering forward through the fog, seeming human at a distance and then, up close when it’s too late, becoming an obvious imposter), there are loads of horrifying machines you could create and use. That brings me to my main thought.

Most of the Terminator films have been action movies, but the first Terminator has always felt more like a horror film to me. I recall it being said (it might have been Honest Trailers) that the basic premise of James Cameron’s Aliens sequel, was that he turned a horror movie into a war movie. So, my thinking is that a ‘Future War’ prequel should do the opposite. It should turn an action movie/war movie into a horror movie. To that end, I think it should have an entirely new cast of characters, all on a relatively equal billing, such that none of them have any plot armour and a lot of them can be killed off. I also think it should have a relatively straightforward story. Perhaps a group of humans escape from a Skynet research facility and it decides to hunt them down. As for John Connor, I wouldn’t have him appear until the very end and in a very limited capacity – if at all. I think the problem with John, generally, is that he’s too big a character to ever properly use in a starring role. You can show him as a kid, before he’s become this legendary leader of humanity, but outside of a few brief cameos, I don’t think you can ever focus on adult John without diminishing the character in some way. No on-screen depiction of adult John can ever live up to the way he’s talked about and described in the other films, nor to the way an audience imagines him. Terminator 3 and 4 (and Genisys to a lesser and weird extent) depict him as an action hero who uses his foreknowledge of the future to ‘cheat’. But, again, I think that diminishes him. The idea that he’s just cheating seems, to my mind, a bit contrived (did the Terminators who came back describe every moment of the war?). Personally, I always imagined adult John as a cold, calculating and ever-inspiring strategic genius who doesn’t typically fight in person but can if he needs to. But that’s just how I imagine him. By keeping John a constant but unseen presence with only an occasional cameo, you can preserve the ‘Myth of John Connor’. Moreover, I think it would better serve the horror movie approach. John has a lot of plot armour; he’s not going to be in any danger. So, it should be entirely new characters, most of whom wouldn’t survive. That said, I would be tempted to end the film with a relatively young, though already battle-hardened John, questioning the surviving characters about the research facility they escaped and the defences he can expect. And I’d show no more than that.

– Dexter.