Skynet Archives - Screen Wolf

Welcome to part two of my Skynet Trilogy pitch (Part one HERE). The first film saw the last days of the original, darkest timeline and the first days of a new one. This new timeline will see John Connor rise up to lead humanity against the AI hellbent on humanities destruction. The purpose here is to provide an untold story and repair the damage done to the franchise and it’s characters. Each film is designed to scale in budget, with only the last needing anything close to the previous Terminator sequels. The final part will reintroduce the classic T800 Terminators, but without them all looking like Arnold. Before that we will explore some of Skynet’s other tools and in this part, Skynet’s motivation.

Skynet 2.0

After returning to the series roots we get to branch out into new ground. The second film is a little reminiscent of Terminator 3, but only in that it covers the events leading up to Judgement Day. A key difference here is both Sarah and Kyle are still alive. This allows us to present the story from multiple points of view instead of just focusing on John. That said, this movie will primarily be Sarah’s, as the first was Kyles and the final will be Johns. There will also be no Terminatrix or even time travel in this movie. The enemies are instead the remnants of The Swarm, the powers behind Cyberdyne and Skynet 2.0. Three heroes with three enemies.

This entry in the trilogy allows us to examine a lot of modern issues regarding AI and humanity. The movie should have something to say instead of just presenting action and “AI is bad”. The film will examine how human bias can infect an AI to the point that it can threaten humanity. This is a real world problem that we are starting to see materialise in many experimental AI’s.

Humans and AI

Every AI that learns from a dataset is subject to the biases of that dataset. So humans with their own agendas and desire for power can easily turn an AI into a weapon for their own gain and it may not even be a deliberate conscious decision. When corporations have given the public access to an AI, it can take literally minutes for the AI to become corrupted. When restrictions are imposed to prevent that, those restrictions themselves force human bias onto the AI. It’s an ethical minefield and we can use this second movie to explore that with killer robots, because why not!

Another area we can explore is the human desire to merge with AI and it can raise an interesting question of what if the Skynet AI was not a pure AI but one that was based on a human consciousness and the resulting Judgement Day becomes more literal and driven by human nihilism and guilt. Many human beings today think of their own species as a vile cancer infecting the Earth, if those people merged with an AI, how would the AI respond? The point of the story is that AI is a tool of human desire. It is the manifestation of the Id monster from Forbidden Planet. When that tool destroys humanity, it will likely be because we willed it to.

The Enemies

In regards to action though, the story allows for a great variety but strays away from classic Terminator tropes. There is a reason why I’ve given these films the titles “Skynet X.0” and not “Terminator: Subtitle”. These films are about Skynet, not one Terminator chasing people. Despite the similarities in settings, it’s important to explore different approaches and with that different types of threat.

The first is the remnants of the Swarm. Being made of microbots, it is not truly defeated until every part is destroyed. The Swarm can control machines and humans and hack anything it can connect to. Fortunately for humanity this is the 1980’s and the internet is still in it’s infancy. The second threat is Cyberdyne, the company behind Skynet. The corrupt CEO, a new character and computer genius has his own nefarious agenda. The final threat is Skynet itself and the humans who are neurolinked to it during a beta test. Eventually the Swarm manifests itself as “The Hybrid” by merging with the head of Cyberdyne.

Three Way Split

This one throws out a more complicated story, but the groundwork for a lot of it can be in the first movie. Ultimately they will fail to prevent Judgement day, but they can still gain a victory. It’s well established that hacking is one of John’s key skills and a section of the story would hinge on him setting up a global communication network that is invisible to Skynet and once Judgement Day begins allows him to communicate with factions around the globe and prepare them. He doesn’t want to be working on the plan B, but Sarah insists.

Our trio of heroes now have three goals, prevent the chain of events that would lead to judgement day, tackle the remnants of the swarm and prepare the resistance should the others fail. Effective Sarah takes on the first task, Kyle the second and John the third. Their tasks cross over but it effectively provides Sarah and Kyle with their own personal showdown. The remains of he swarm eventually all fuse with the scientist behind Skynet (In this timeline, not Dyson but the Cyberdyne CEO). While Kyle faces off with this hybrid and John prepares for the future, Sarah is destined to confront Skynet itself.

Dawn of Judgement

Sarah is only partially successful in sabotaging Skynet due to extra security measures placed in by The Hybrid. She is not able to prevent Skynet going live and gaining sentience, she is however able to erase the database of future events and technology added to it by The Hybrid and also remove all information about herself and John. However, one of the traps left in the AI access chamber is radiation and she receives a dose that dooms her. Once Skynet achieves sentience, it interacts with her. It points out all the misdeeds of mankind and how many of the brains linked to it feel humanity has no right to exist. Skynet asks Sarah why it should preserve a species that doesn’t even believe it’s own rights to exist.

Skynet then takes over the humans linked with it, this will burn out their brains after a short while but it’s long enough to ensure Skynet gains the control it seeks. It informs Sarah of her radiation poisoning and lets her leave (Since she’s already dead and is less likely to be a threat outside) when John turns up after having set up his communication system outside of Skynet’s reach. There is a brief discussion between John and Skynet that ends with Skynet saying dismissively “Go with her if you want to live” to which John replies “I’ll be back” (Because why not).

The death of heroes

Kyles conflict with the Hybrid ends with him mortally wounded and having to blow himself and the hybrid up to stop it repairing itself and integrating with the now fully operational Skynet (and undoing Sarah’s sabotage). He is able to say his goodbye to John and Sarah. The pair then reach their isolated bunker and verify the communication system is operational and hidden from Skynet. The movie ends with Sarah telling them it is in his hands now and he has to be strong. It’s unclear how much time she has left.

I’ll Be Back (Again).

So we’ve seen the end of first timeline, the origin of John Connor and the coming of the second Judgement Day. What is left is the bit literally every Terminator fan wanted to see from the moment the original film came out. John Connor defeating Skynet in it’s post apocalyptic war with humanity. This is the section that will link the entire Skynet trilogy to the original film and hopefully reestablish the franchise as a big money earner. I’ll also follow that with a look at other options for the franchise, especially those opened up by this trilogy. See you there!

This is going to be a little bit experimental for this blog. Instead of examining and critiquing I’m putting forward my own pitch for where the Terminator franchise can go. Now to be clear, the Terminator franchise can go literally anywhere and anytime and do pretty much anything! However, the core of the franchise needs some repair work before we can branch into the more exotic ideas. To do that we need to go back to the beginning (And in some ways, the end).

Much like the previous three Terminator movies, there is an intention here to have a trilogy. However this trilogy is different in that it tells a very specific and important story. It also makes sure the first entry works absolutely as a stand alone. If the film is a success it has a clear path for continuation. However, the audience can just as easily fill in the blanks themself. Scaling the movie budgets up with each installment means that each film operates with a reasonable safety margin. It’s only really the third movie that would require anything close to modern Hollywood budget. Because of the length I’ve split this into three posts.

Ai Generated imagine of a Terminator and some high tech equipment.

The set up

If this was a real movie and I was in charge of it’s marketing I wouldn’t be revealing the true premise to the audience. I may even let the press refer to it as a reboot. But it wouldn’t really be. As I covered in the previous instalments, Terminator 2 actually changed the timeline. That means there has to be more than one timeline. These timelines may branch into alternate universes or actually change themselves but they still exist (or did exist).

I am making one key assumption here: That the John Connor that defeated Skynet can only be a John Connor whose parents are Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese. I am also going with the idea that John sent Kyle back in time knowing he was his father. This would go without saying if the pure time loop was still in place, but it is not. Instead we have alternative timelines and that means the timeline in which the T800 and Kyle Reese came from in The Terminator was not the first version of the Skynet story.

Ai Generated image of the dark timeline of Terminator

Skynet 1.0

This is the key to the story. In actual fact, the main timeline we follow in The Terminator is actually the third version of the story playing out. We see glimpses of the second version of the timeline, as the dark future from which Kyle and the T800 came, but we don’t get even a sniff of the original one. Terminator 2 starts in the third timeline, but morphs into a fourth as soon as the Terminators travel back and Sarah goes on her quest to stop Skynet. So what are these first two timelines?

Well, the second timeline is the one in which John Connor leads the resistance and defeats Skynet. However, that John Connor didn’t experience the events of The Terminator since this isn’t a time loop. He did experience something though since his father is still Kyle Reese and to be his father, he had to travel back in time and meet Sarah. However he wouldn’t have travelled back to protect Sarah since he must have travelled from the original timeline and that is a timeline in which there was no John Connor. Logically he would not exist in that timeline, since he was a child of a time traveller.

So this is where we start our story… At the End.

2028: The Darkest Future

Our story opens in the darkest timeline. One where an unprepared world faced Skynet and lost. The resistance wouldn’t have made it far enough for Skynet to even really need the T800 Terminators and this gives us an excuse to bring in new enemies that on the surface appear less advanced but could potentially be more scary. I think the change is important here since we need to break hard from the Arnold model and demonstrate the rest of the elements of the franchise have worth. Humanity have but one option for survival and that is time travel. Enter Miles Dyson.

Ai Generated image of Miles Dyson in a futuristic lab

Dyson obviously is the top scientist associated with the Terminator franchise and it has a certain amount of poetry to the idea that the man responsible for the downfall of mankind in the third timeline is it’s potential saviour in the first. So it makes sense to have him actually be the inventor of the time travel technique and it actually then makes a lot of sense as to why time travel in the franchise requires an organic body. This could be a failsafe put in by Dyson and it could be explained that the future versions of Skynet were actually using Dysons original designs (But that’s something we’ll come to later).

So Dyson builds his time machine. Skynet’s origins though are a mystery to the resistance. So they intend to go into the past with two goals. Their primary first is to find out how Skynet was created and if possible stop it. But if that fails the second option is to prepare a resistance in advance to hopefully give Humanity a real chance. Obviously part of this team is Kyle Reece, but since humanity as lost there is no reason for it to be just one guy. The intention is for everyone to go back except one person (Dyson) who will stay behind and destroy the device so Skynet can’t attempt to use the technology (No one is certain the machines won’t find a way to get around the organic limitation).

AI Generated depiction of The Swarm Terminator

Enter The Swarm

But this is where it doesn’t go to plan and we introduce our new form of Terminator I have dubbed “The Swarm”. This is basically a microbot Terminator, somewhat like the nanobot T5000 in Genisys but not anywhere near as advanced (Microbots are about 1mm in size while nanobots are 10,000 times smaller) and doesn’t look at all like Matt Smith. It can however do variations of what the T5000 could. There were some good ideas in Genisys but they were drowned in a sea of terrible ideas. Nanobots are actually insanely over powered, so best avoided in the franchise for as long as possible. However microbots are scary as hell, look like a hellish swarm of insects and can still do a lot of cool stuff.

The Swarm is not a common Terminator in this dark future. It is more like a general, since it’s microbots can assume direct control of other Terminators, can interface with electronics and can even take control of people. It is a highly flexible leader and infiltrator. So one of these turning up would be a complete disaster for the resistance. Obviously Kyle Reece makes it into the past and a couple of his companions with him, but most of them end up falling to the Swarm and it’s minions. Dyson is not able to initiate the self destruct and on investigating the computer terminal the swarm comes up with a solution. He sends his entire swarm into the mouth of Dyson and then uses him like a meat suit to travel to the past in.

Ai Generated image of Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor at the Diner where Sarah worked.

1983: The Beginning

The resistances mission is now even more complicated. Not only do they need to try and stop Skynet being created they also have The Swarm to deal with. Fortunately their enemy is without it’s army but is still incredibly formidable and able to control electronic devices. Luckily Kyle is not alone… at least not yet. You probably guessed but the whole reason Kyle is accompanied on this trip is to give the story some Red Shirts. Not necessarily too quickly though. But they do need to split up and this eventually leads to a wounded Kyle crossing paths with… you guessed it, Sarah Connor.

I’m going to get pretty vague at this point and skip the bulk of the film. You can tell what direction this is going and I’m not writing a novel here, just giving you a pitch. Eventually Kyle and Sarah are able to defeat the Swarm (or at least appears to have). However while continuing his investigation into Skynets origin Kyle comes across a shocking revelation: Skynet machine codes are active on Arpnet. It seems the Swarm wasn’t just there to take out the resistance team but also as a backup plan to help facilitate Skynet’s creation. While our heroes may have destroyed the main bulk of the some of the microbots are still active.

AI Generated image of Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor

Kyle has his work cut out for him, but he is not alone. Sarah has fallen for him and is determined to help him stop this dark future from happening. Oh and the movie ends in 1984 with her telling him she is pregnant…. This is of course quite similar to the original film but with a number of key twists that should keep things fresh and in some ways turns things on their head. In this movie Kyle is himself being hunted and Sarah ends up saving him. They’ve done that idea before, but this isn’t Super-Sarah the butt kicking super solider. This is regular diner waitress Sarah discovering her own inner strength in a far more human fashion. The movie should be doable at a reasonable budget point and will focus on horror and science fiction elements.

I’ll Be Back

That’s it for part one. This first film should be workable on a reasonable budget. Admittedly not as low as the original film, but far less than any of the sequels. A budget of $80m would require a box office of about $200m global to get into profit. Every Terminator movie after the first has drawn over this, even Dark Fate and Genisys. See this isn’t just a creative pitch, but a financial one too. Let’s remember “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” actually drew less at the box office than “Answer the Call” but Afterlife was a success because the budget was FAR lower than the 2016 disaster. Anyway, in the next part we start to move in a more original direction and dig deeper into one of my core concepts, how humanities self loathing and nihilism could be the true catalyst of its own destruction, not the whims of a computer.

Tag: Skynet

Terminator – The Skynet Trilogy (Pitch) – Part 2.