This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #28, on the subject of A Terminator Vision.

I just spent probably more than a month trying to unravel all the timelines that are impacted by Terminator Genisys, and if you’re a temporal anomalies fan you’ve probably already seen that analysis.  At the end of it, and probably the last part I wrote (it doesn’t always work that way), I suggested that if the Terminator series wants to move forward from here, they’ll need new heroes–but maybe they could have the new hero be Sarah Conner’s second child.  That got things moving in the back of my mind, and I’ve envisioned some thoughts for a future direction for the Terminator series.  I don’t know if anyone in Hollywood takes me seriously (someone once commented that Terminator 3:  Rise of the Machines seemed to get some of its ideas from my analysis of the first two films, but the similarities seem to me to be superficial), but I think these ideas might be workable.

Termnator Genisys dropped Sarah Conner and Kyle Reese in 2017, where as far as they know Skynet has been stopped; we of course know better, partly because we were shown the surviving Genisys core in the rubble beneath Cyberdyne, and partly because if there is no future Skynet time unravels entirely.  It appears that they are going to fall in love, and that John Conner will be born.  Of course, John Conner can no longer be the hero–in 2029 he was compromised by what some have identified as a T-5000 and converted into what we’re calling “T-John”.  If we want a future, we need new heroes.

However, there is no reason why Sarah and Kyle wouldn’t give them to us.  They’re settling down to raise a child somewhere in California, but there’s no reason they would not raise several children, to create and prepare a small army against the seemingly inevitable assault of the machines.

I see them raising four children.  The eldest, of course, is John Conner (California law permits parents to give a child any name of their choosing, as long as it is not done with intent to commit fraud), and takes his place in the stories (although he’s a bit young in 2029, if he’s born in 2018 he might just fit the bill).  They give him the Conner surname because they know that he is going to matter to the resistance at least in its early days.  I envision the second child as a daughter, and they’ll name her after her mother, Sarah Reese.  The third child is a bit quiet and withdrawn, overshadowed by his to-be-famous brother but named for his father Kyle; eventually he’ll take his mother’s maiden name to be known as Kyle Conner, so that people know he is brother and son in the famous family.  Improbably, the family breaks boy-girl-boy-girl, and the youngest I’ll name Madolyn–because I like the notion of “Mad Reese” as the wild child renegade freedom fighter, who will be our new hero.

That’s the future; the present is where our story is set–or the near future present.  Sarah Conner gave birth to John Conner sometime in 2018, and she, along with Kyle and Pops, has been raising him.  In 2020, John now two, Sarah gives birth to Sarah (Reese), so now she has a toddler and an infant–and just about that time our movie begins.  A terminator arrives–it should be something different, but not one of the “T-5000” nanite types.  Its mission is to kill Sarah Reese and prevent the births of Kyle and Maddie.  (From the perspective of an analyst, I’m thinking that Sarah Reese must have been killed in this timeline, so that Maddie has a reason to save someone but did not lose her parents or eldest brother.)  From the future, Maddie sends help.  Of course, Maddie is an impulsive type.  She knows that Pops is there, and she could send another terminator to work with him (and gee, if she sends a repurposed T-1000 and it survives, they can replace the actor in the next film because of course the T-1000 can look like anyone), but I’m thinking she sends a person with knowledge of the weaknesses of terminators–or maybe she sends herself.  That would be interesting–“Mom, Dad, I haven’t been born yet, but I’ve come back from the future to keep you alive so that I will be.”  That might be interesting.  It creates a fascinating dynamic–what parent would let his kid die to save him, but what if the kid will never be born if the parent dies?

These ideas do not in any way save the problems in Terminator Genisys, but they do provide a potential future direction for the series.  So I’ve floated the idea, let’s see if anyone notices.

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