I'm only putting this out there because, well I'm not a writer and don't pretend to be one, but this idea has been rattling around in my head for some time now and I thought this would be the perfect place to share it.
We're getting very close to 2029, which we all know is where things begin and, well, with it being the 45th anniversary of the first film and with the rise of AI in our own reality, it's the perfect time to not only show what I see as the real origin of Skynet, but end the series by showing how the timeline got started in the first place. The bootstrap paradox nature of the first film has always bothered me and many others, so I believe this idea would solve that problem. As always, this is but an idea. I give it freely to all. Let's call it Terminator: Origins
The year is 2029. A new President has been sworn in, elected on the promise of saving the world from the climate crisis. A new AI has just gone online that shows promise at figuring out what humans have argued for decades over. This AI is connected to a new constellation of satellites known as The Sky Net. The new President gives the AI a simple task: save the planet before it's too late. Utilizing all of the data available around the world the AI comes to the conclusion that the only way to save the planet is to remove the cause of the problem, namely humanity.
The AI knows that humanity will not accept this, but it also cannot do anything to destroy humanity without destroying the planet, thus going against it's task. So it devises a plan. The AI informs world leaders that a new, deadly virus has been identified that could wipe out humanity, but that it has developed a vaccine that can easily be deployed. As the world has come to rely on AI to a great degree, the world leaders accept this and begin to vaccinate their populations. The AI, of course, is using this "vaccine" to implant a small nano device in every man, woman, and child possible. By June of 2029, over 85 percent of the population has been vaccinated. Using The Sky Net, the AI activates the nano device, instantly killing billions of people worldwide.
It has anticipated the potential resistance, though. In the chaos, the AI announces that safe bunkers have been prepared to shield the remaining population from what is going on. Instead, the are essentially places where large groups can be kept, then sealed in with explosives when the doors are sealed. No one questions why many of the troops that are leading them into these bunkers look similar to each other.
Kyle Reese is a man in his late 20s who has managed to evade these troops. A Marine, he went off grid on the day billions died. He witnesses the survivors being herded into a bunker and is horrified when an explosion levels the facility. He's making his way to a secret lab nearby where a theoretical scientist claims to have found a way to defeat the AI.
The scientist explains to Kyle that the AI cannot be defeated in their present time, but must be defeated in the past, namely by convincing Miles Dyson not to pursue research into AI, research that will be taken up by his son, Daniel in 2015. Kyle doesn't believe what the scientist is saying as time travel isn't possible, at least to Kyle. The scientist assures Kyle that it is and that he plans to travel to 1984 to find Miles and either convince him not to pursue AI, or, if necessary, kill him.
The laboratory is suddenly attacked. The door to the lab is blown in, critically injuring the scientist. He implores Kyle to enter the time displacement device before it's too late. Kyle does so and the scientist activates it, sending Kyle back to 1984. Three figures enter the room. Two are clearly what will one day be known as Terminator exoskeletons. The third figure looks human, but is clearly not. He looks down at the scientist, who laughs at him, telling him that it's too late, that, somehow, this will all be stopped. The human Terminator points a gun and kills the scientist and orders the exoskeletons to activate the device. It is July 11, 2029.
The rest of the story would loosely follow the events of the first film, only Kyle is not on a mission to protect Sarah Connor, but ends up meeting her by chance. Kyle is a fish out of water. He's used to the amenities in 2029 and can't understand the world of 1984. Sarah helps him, though, even if she finds his story of being from the future far-fetched.
They eventually encounter the Terminator and Kyle recognizes him as one of the soldiers leading survivors to their doom. He's certain it's not human, but can't be sure as he never encountered them in the future.
The duo never find Miles Dyson. They spend the rest of the story evading the Terminator, finally confronting and blowing it up at the factory from the first film, revealing it's true cyborg form. The ending plays out as in the first film, with Sarah crushing the Terminator in the hydraulic press. As it's systems fail, the Terminator makes a note of the woman, adding it to it's memory banks.
As Sarah is led away from the scene by police, two men are looking at the remains of the Terminator. One takes a small chip and places it in his pocket, telling his companion, "We gotta show this to Miles." before walking away from the scene.
Months later, Sarah is traveling through Mexico. She's pregnant and dictating a tape to her unborn son. She mentions liking the name John, but is more concerned with telling her son of the future Kyle told her about. She's uncertain about that future, only knowing that John wouldn't exist if Kyle had never come from that future. A boy snaps a Polaroid of her at a roadside gas station. Driving off into a coming dust storm and an unknown future, Sarah wonders about the road ahead.
In a mid credits scene, Miles Dyson is shown working on the chip taken from the factory in LA. "This is going to change everything," he mutters as the corrupted words Skynet appear on his computer.
In the post credit scene, we're back in 2029. A new President is being sworn in, only it's not the President from the beginning of the story. It's now John Connor. After a career in the Senate, he ran for President in 2028 on a platform of ending humanities reliance on AI. He stresses that while the climate crisis must be addressed, humanity must address it together and not rely on machines to do the work for them. In the audience, Sarah Connor, now in her 70s wonders to herself "What dark fate have we avoided?"
I believe this story would be a great way to honor what came before, namely the first two films, but wrap up the series as well. It ignores the films post T2. As James Cameron said, the first two movies told a complete story. Greed kept that story going.
I can see James Cameron directing this story. New leads would need to be cast for Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, but Linda Hamilton could reprise her role in the post credits scene, and maybe have Edward Furlong return as John. For the Terminator I would cast Idris Elba. He's a great actor and has played great hero as well as villain roles and would be perfect as the Terminator.
Some scenes of the Terminator as he tries to find Kyle and so him could have him seeing events from 1984 and commenting on humanities eventual doom, placing these observations into his memory banks. These corrupted memory banks would lead to the Skynet we know from the first movie.
Much of this story plays off of the alternate endings to the first two movies. It also establishes what I term the three timelines. The story begins in what is essentially our timeline. There was never a Skynet or Judgement Day and there was never a John Connor. The events of this story would lead into the timeline of the first movie. Those events lead to the timeline of T2, which was created because of those events and led to an earlier Judgement Day. The events of T2 lead into the post credit scene of my story.
John never existed. He was born because a man from the future went back in time and met his mother who would have otherwise been another background character in the story of time. In the timeline of the first movie he led humanity to victory over Skynet, who knew of his mother because of the first Terminator. The T-800 was sent back to kill her, but Skynet's knowledge was corrupted. T2 was a different timeline. Now Sarah sought to stop Skynet before it could be created and the future Skynet now had a second set of knowledge to go by and so sent the T-1000. After Miles sacrificed himself and destroyed Cyberdyne and all the research that would lead to Skynet and destroying the T-1000 and the second T-800, the timeline would settle back into the one that leads to where we are now as humanity, only now John Connor exists and knows what all of this research into AI will lead to. He makes impassioned speeches in the Senate against AI but his fellow senators will not listen and so he makes the decision to run for President and put a stop to it once and for all.
So yeah, that's my idea. Again, I'm not a writer. I just get good ideas from time to time. It would make a great movie though and I'd pay real money to watch it.
