I say "spoiler" but of course the likelihood is that film rights will not be taken up and my ideas will not be in a cinema near you by the time Avatar 97 comes out. Nevertheless I am what you could call pissed off about the diminishing returns of the never ending Terminator / Alien / Predator sequels. I would like to own the rights to all of them then make my versions with a 25 year exclusion zone around them.
So, here I will go into my ideas for combining the 3 elements above, giving them all the respect they deserve, and returning some prestige to them all. I hope. I mean can I do any worse? I should point out that my original plan for an ending was a clusterfuck on a battlefield on Earth, with the remains of the resistance - more on that later - a bunch of Predators, an Alien Queen and her offspring (toyed with the sometimes mooted Alien King but decided against it) and of course a shitload of cyborgs and maybe Skynet in some form itself - but better than Matt Smith although that wasn't his fault.
However, I took too long and indeed I'm probably too late now. While various sequels came out I had somehow got away with my innate laziness, both annoyed and relieved that they were all utter shite - I'll give Predators an exemption from that, I thought it was pretty cool, Prey and Badlands too. The Xenomorph and Cyborg crews really dropped the ball though (Alien Earth an exception, maybe Romulus). It was actually something away from this arena that pissed on my chips and that film was Avengers Endgame. The last properly good Marvel cinematic work although I am lagging behind a bit.
Anyway, the ending? A clusterfuck on a battlefield on earth more or less how I'd imagined my TAP would conclude. A random ship would crash land in the middle of the carnage leading to the Alien Queen reveal. Until then only predators (with reinforcements?), humans and terminators would be in battle, slow mo action, maybe black and white, with body parts from all denominations flying around. The Queen and her babies flood out of the ship and acid blood spurts everywhere. How did they get there? Who knows? Who's side are they on? Who knows? I'm guessing that they'd behave like Ezekiel's tiger in The Walking Dead who somehow innately knew whose heads it should bite off. By the way, I'm not actually guessing.
So here I am starting to get some writing momentum going and looking at this all again. I think my plans are still good but you'll be able to judge as I populate those pages in the coming weeks and months. The Endgame setback I've come to realise is a good thing too. I want something cleverer than a CGI kill fest to bring things to a conclusion. What that is I'm not entirely sure yet but doing something different and interesting is what motivates me. Everything, Everywhere All At Once reminded me that we have the scope to do absolutely anything we want. There are no rules - or fate, but what we make for ourselves. Just because most films are generic sequels these days doesn't mean that I have to follow. I want to fuck things up, freak people out.
There's an amazing scene in The Wire when Brother sends his associate into a gay bar to try and get a lead on Omar. At the end of the episode we see one of the Police Chiefs in there quietly having a beer and it never gets mentioned again. It's a really cool moment, inconsequential but massive at the same time. Maybe we could see Keyser Soze getting a coffee somewhere, maybe we could see him getting a coffee with the Joker? Maybe he is the fucking Joker? Might be losing my thread here a little but fuck it. Anything goes, anything is possible. I'm gonna smash these buttons on my keyboard and see how I get on.
THIS IS A WAR THAT CAN NEVER BE WON
The deeply excellent tune above gave me the idea that with so much tinkering in time the future war could not be won (by humanity). Information and technology getting dispersed in the past would move dates forward and help Skynet get stronger earlier. Also, as we've seen with Covid, an epidemic or pandemic targeting us deliberately would probably do its job fairly efficiently. Credit to the Sarah Connor Chronicles for considering that option - that show would also be excluded from the bullshit I mentioned above. I should also give praise to the short film starring the original future John Connor from T2 - well worth a watch, and you can below.
Which brings us to John Connor not really being John Connor. There are better descriptions if you look for them but this is my take. Timeline one, or maybe zero, is where Sarah meets a nice guy and they hug each other very tight and God puts a baby in her stomach. They call the baby John, Judgement Day happens and Sarah's innate battling qualities along with the skills John's father pass on lead to him becoming resistance leader and winning the war. He sends Kyle Reese back in time to preserve Sarah's life and the victory over the machines which he does. Job done, war over.
Except, Kyle has gazumped John's original daddy and fathered a child with Sarah, now also called John because she has been told that's his name. So who's Daddy one? Well on the day that the T-800 tries to eliminate the whole Sarah Connor posse she was supposed to go on a date with a guy who owned a Porsche - Stan Morski. He cancels, as you well might if you hear that everyone with the same name as your girlfriend is getting assassinated.
Stan owning a Porsche and being anywhere near Sarah's age tells me one thing. He's smart, probably works in tech, could he work for Cyberdyne? That gives him the money he needs and the knowledge John needs to help defeat Skynet during the war. When those genes are removed from the equation the inner strength and strategical skills awakened by Kyle in Sarah are what allow John to win in timeline one or two, but as I say by then robotic arms and chips have been discovered which mean that eventually, after a couple more cycles, the balance inexorably - thanks Mr Architect - tips in Skynet's favour - apropos, vis a vis etc.
Unless, of course, unless, Stan has a kid too who carries his skill set into the war after all. This brings us to Jen Morski, in my head Jen Morski is Gina Carano. Someone who brings huge physicality and strength but has her father's knowledge and talents into this war. In my mind he's on the spectrum, married to a military woman. This DNA mix, fitness, military intelligence and technological qualifications make someone a potentially better leader. We need to forget about John, he's past it, he's lost it, he's a fabled Messiah turned loser who told the whole world he'd crush the machines. What a fucking joke. For "reasons" Jen isn't available when she would be most needed, which brings us to our Predatory friends.
Now I think it's generally accepted that the Predators turn up on Earth once a decade or so to hone their hunting skills, some kind of rites of passage scenario. When you factor in Prey this has been happening for centuries maybe. According to Fishburne in Predators there are always 3. I'm going to go with that because there's plenty of hunting to go around on Earth for that number. Well there normally would be. The problem they find of course is that there's hardly anyone home anymore, because Skynet's almost wiped us all out.
When one of them encounters a Terminator is when shit gets interesting. Like Fury v Joshua if it ever happens, two proper heavyweights duking it out. I can't say who would win but it'll be a lot of fun finding out. While on that subject I want to lay out some ground rules. Salvation is probably the worst for this. When the T-800 appears it throws people around a lot rather than the T1 version that just ripped your heart out. (I'm choosing to ignore the decent fight Sarah's housemate's boyfriend put up there because it contradicts my point but well played that guy anyway).
What I'm saying is, and it was addressed in TSCC, is that if you're close enough to being touched by a Terminator, (Predator or Alien) you are fucked. You cease to exist, you are an ex-parrot. The WWE was more believable when they had Rey Mysterio beat the Big Show. Encounters with these entities will result in a swift death, not a fair fight, not a casual flight across the room when you're at their mercy. F U C K E D. I will not allow any level of Plot Armour to protect you, not even Stone Cold Steve Austin with a steel chair.
So we have the humans, what's left of them, any number of Terminators of different shapes and sizes, and now the Predators too. Predators who turn up expecting a rumble and can't find anyone, then get a lot fucking more than they ever expected. I should probably add here another reason why we are doomed to lose the war. Depending on our moral flexibility it would take us 14-20 years to create a human soldier, maybe 14-20 hours to create a cyborg. Rolling off the supply line and ready to go, no training, no sleep, no food and no water needed. Killers from the second they step out. We just can't compete with that.
So, last but very not least are the Xenomorphs but I can't give you everything just like that. They'll be there in Cyberdyne II, just you fucking wait. And if it comes to it they or anyone else won't just keep moving forward if something's about to land on top of them and crush them. They'll move sideways because they're not fucking brain-dead :).
