Not that anyone has necessarily been clamoring for this after the failures of Terminator: Salvation and the Sarah Connor Chronicles, but we’re getting a new Terminator film, Terminator: Genesis, released over the 2015 Fourth of July holiday. It aims to reboot the franchise, set up a new trilogy, and exist concurrent to a companion TV show which will take place in the same continuity as the films (ala Agents of SHIELD for Marvel). Thor: The Dark World‘s Alan Taylor is directing, and Paramount is distributing. The primary cast is now in place with Arnold Schwarzenegger back as the Terminator joined by Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor (originally played by Linda Hamilton), Jason Clarke as John Connor (previously played by Edward Furlong, Nick Stahl, Thomas Dekker, Christian Bale), and Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese (originally Michael Biehn).
Now, it’s time to figure out what the heck this thing will even be about. To this point, we’d heard they were going to mimic the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot methodology whereby you use one original cast member to bridge the gap between before and now, honoring the before by contextualizing the new material as existing in an alternate timeline. So, Schwarzenegger would be to Genesis what Leonard Nimoy’s Spock was to Abrams’ Star Trek. A new rumor suggests it goes deeper than that. They’re about to go straight up Back to the Future 2 on our asses by using the alternate timeline concept and the series’ inherent time travel mechanism to actually recreate key events from Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).
RUMOR:
“Firstly, the ‘Terminator’ from the future will arrive on earth, attack some punks (keen to see who they get to play Bill Paxton), and then slaughter his way through a bunch of Sarah Connors until he finds the correct target. All the characters that appeared in the Cameron original, like Detective Hal Vukovich (originally played by Lance Henriksen), Lieutenant Ed Traxler (originally played by Paul Winfield), Sarah’s roomie Ginger (originally Bess Motta) and, yep, even Pugsley the Iguana, return. We’ll likely get to see Schwarzenegger back in the leather jacket and cool sunglasses he wore in the original. Of course, Kyle Reese (Courtney) volunteers to go back to 1984 and save Sarah – just as he did first time around. But don’t expect everything to work out like it did in the original.. something is going to play out different.
Secondly, the scene where the T-1000 (played by Robert Patrick in Terminator 2 : Judgment Day), posing as a cop, visiting John Connor’s home, where he meets – and subsequently kills – foster parents Todd (Xander Berkeley) and Janelle (Jenette Goldstein), is in there. As are several other key T2 moments.
Lastly, we’ll be going back to moments we haven’t seen on film before – such as scenes with young Sarah and her parents.
As is usually the case with a film using the alternate timeline device, obviously something hasn’t gone right (maybe the Terminator succeeds in killing Sarah this time, around? I don’t know – just guessing) or something that happened in the past has greatly changed the future, meaning Connor’s resistance crew from the future have to go back again.”
So, basically, if the people making Genesis had been behind Abrams’ Star Trek instead of using an entirely original plot to establish an alternate timeline as he did they would have simply recreated the events of a famous Star Trek episode or film but with new actors and something at a crucial point going very differently than it had before.
The rumor does not actually specify whether for the original roles they’ll cast the same actors where possible or simply use the same characters played by completely different actors. Due to the simple fact of 30 years having passed since the first Terminator, one would assume they’d need to cast new actors, e.g., shouldn’t Sarah Connor’s roommate be young and lively and not a woman now in her 40s/50s?
SOURCE: MovieHole.com, who cite an unnamed insider “who is in the position – stress the word ‘position’ – to know” and has given them reliable information in the past
ARE THEY RELIABLE SOURCE?: Maybe; I can’t lie – this is the first I’ve heard of MovieHole, although based on their website they’re a legit source of movie news, reviews, and interviews who are right as often as they’re wrong about rumors.
OUR REACTION: My earliest memory of seeing a film in theaters is being the first in line of an opening night screening of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (I was way too young to even be there), a position I used to strangely secure an aisle seat toward the back while the kids in line behind me all rushed to the front row. I distinctly recall walking away from the film wanting my own pet terminator ala the one Edward Furlong got to boss around in Judgment Day. Ever since then, I’ve been a lifelong Terminator fan, even though Judgment Day clearly represents the franchise’s high water mark creatively. As such, I’ve been observing news of this Terminator: Genesis reboot from afar, struggling to completely understand how it was going to work having Arnold back but joined by a trio of new actors playing Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese, and John Connor.
Frankly, with as good as he looks for his age in recent films like Escape Plan and Last Stand I still think Schwarzenegger is too old to play the Terminator again. Skynet designing the T-800 models to look like Schwarzenegger in his prime makes sense, but it won’t make sense for the terminator to look like older, flabbier Schwarzenegger unless they are going to argue the living tissue covering the metal exoskeleton for the terminator can actually age just like a normal human (even that is an iffy explanation). I remain more on board with the notion of Dwayne Johnson starring as the main terminator of the film, a rumor the internet has yet to will into reality.
However, the only reason this movie is being made is its brand recognition. In fact, they have to make this film right now because after 2015 the rights revert back to James Cameron. The Terminator brand is uniquely tied to Schwarzenegger’s unique visage. The one film they did without him (beyond a CGI cameo) is the franchise’s lowest grossing sequel, and the Sarah Connor Chronicles proved the limits on how far you can stretch the Terminator brand. So, I can understand the fiscal sense in having him back.
I also see where this rumor about the plot makes sense. A straight remake with a clean slate might be the best creative direction to go, but that didn’t work out so well for Total Recall or RoboCop (at least domestically). By reusing key plot points from the original films but with new, key deviations you could be hooking older audiences with something unique while fresh, new audiences might just be pulled in on the strength of the story. Then again, this plot might generate a “you need to have seen the originals to get it” mentality which would alienate new viewers. Plus, you should also never fuck with the original, and that’s very well what they could be doing by giving longtime fans familiar scenes and characters played out by different actors to slightly different results. If done poorly the net effect of Genesis might simply be that some of us will want to go home and re-watch T2 where everything went down exactly as it was supposed to. We’d never care to see whatever sequel Genesis might generate..
VERDICT: The storyline implications of this rumor are unclear. If Genesis is establishing an alternate timeline will there actually be anyone who knows that? For example, if something goes differently than before will Schwarzenegger’s Terminator actually notice the change? Or will this simply be a remake which to feel fresh and give audiences something new takes some liberties with the original story? That last part feels most true – that Genesis will feature a similar but uniquely different plot than the original films. However, given our honest lack of familiarity with MovieHole we can’t completely get behind this rumor or dismiss it at this point. For now, file it away, and come back to it once they start filming in New Orleans in April at which more plot rumors are likely to emerge from on-set photos.
How Terminator Should Have Ended:
Terminator: Genesis is currently due out in the US and Canada on July 1, 2015.
