what if?

The Terminator Machete Timeline

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There comes a time where every parent must make vital choices regarding their children: how shall they be disciplined? What do I feed them? How do I balance work and spending time with them? And, most important of all: What order do they watch the Star Wars movies in on their first viewing?

Back in 2011, the internet went abuzz with the introduction of the Star Wars Machete order, an attempt to create a way for first-time viewers to watch the series in a particular order that would preserve the franchise’s biggest surprise (that Darth Vader is Luke’s Father), while still allowing the prequels to play a part. In short, you start with ‘A New Hope,’ then go to ‘Empire Strikes Back,’ and then go to ‘Attack of the Clones,’ and ‘Revenge of the Sith’ to see Anakin’s fall (while omitting ‘The Phantom Menace’, if you choose), and then finishing with ‘Return of the Jedi.’

Recently, I wondered if this idea of out-of-order-viewing could be applied to the Terminator series as well. With James Cameron revealing in an interview with Empire magazine last year that future Terminator movies will move away from Sarah Connor, John Connor, and the T-800, this means that story Terminator films have been telling for over 40 years – the quest to protect John Conner so he can defeat Skynet – has come to an end.

There’s just one problem: That story never got a conclusion.

‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ was meant to wrap the Terminator saga up with an open – but hopeful – ending. But since it made more money than the total GDP of several developing nations, we got four more movies that kept postponing Judgment Day and ending with the promise of more sequels. But the law of diminishing returns eventually took hold, and after the box office failure of ‘Dark Fate,’ we never got the movie that chronicled the destruction of Skynet and the ultimate triumph of humanity… until now.

After reading about Star Wars’ machete order, I’ve been wondering if such a tactic could be applied to the Terminator films, and began to ponder, brainstorm, and try to come up with a way that can re-tell the John Connor saga in a way that is logical, keeps as many of the films in as possible, and, most importantly, end the story for good without needing any more sequels or follow-ups. And to that end, I have created what I’ve dubbed, The Terminator Machete Timeline.

To begin, here’s the films included in this timeline, and the order in which we watch them:

1. The Terminator

2. Terminator: Dark Fate

3. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

4. Terminator: Salvation

5. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (extended cut)

While this may look confusing and nonsensical at first glance, I’ve come up with a backstory that connects these five films via the magic of time-travel in a way that, I believe, creates a new narrative that has a definitive beginning, middle, and, most importantly, a conclusive ending.

The Machete timeline begins with the one that started it all: ‘The Terminator.’

But when it ends with Sarah driving towards the mountains and the coming war, we then proceed not to ‘Judgment Day,’ but to ‘Dark Fate.’

In this dark future, John is killed, an aged Sarah learns about Legion, a new machine hellbent on destroying humanity, and Dani begins her journey to becoming the leader of the resistance and the savior of the human race.

But in the Machete timeline, this is where things change.

At the beginning of ‘Dark Fate,’ John is shocked to see the T-800. That’s understandable, considering he saw Uncle Bob melt himself into slag to stop Skynet from being created. But in the Machete timeline, Skynet sent back not only a T-1000 to kill a young John in 1995, but also a T-800 to act as a partner and as backup to his robot brethren. Thus, Sarah and John had to stop Cyberdyne while also trying to stop two Terminators working together trying to kill John. Against all odds, Sarah succeed (how she pulled it off will remain a riddle for the ages). Thus, when John is stunned at seeing the T-800, it’s not because he’s seeing his robot buddy again, but because he realizes that his old enemy has finally tracked him down, and this time, Sarah can’t save him.

At the end of the movie, Sarah and Dani drive off to prepare for the inevitable war against Legion. But as they drive, Sarah has an epiphany: she realizes that time travel will inevitably be created and put to use in the war against Legion… why not hijack that technology and use it to save John? But Sarah isn’t dumb: while she’ll do anything to save her son, she also knows that, no matter how many times an intelligent AI defense system is destroyed, another will inevitably take its place, meaning that a human-machine war is inevitable.

But what if it isn’t?

While training Dani on how to be both a warrior and a leader, Sarah tries to figure out how the inevitable war between humans and machines can be stopped, and eventually realizes that if humanity can move past the tribal instinct to have bigger, better weapons than your adversaries, then there will be no need for an AI military system, and Skynet will never be created.

Perhaps, Sarah realizes, John can be humanity’s savior without being a military commander. Maybe he can work to inspire humanity to use AI for benevolent purposes instead of as a weapon of war.

With her idea in motion, Sarah tells Dani her plan: When Legion develops time travel, Sarah will go back in time to save her son as a child and teach him to be a leader, not a warrior. If she succeeds, then Skynet will never be created, Legion won’t take its place, and the endless cycle of war between machines and humans will end. Dani – not wanting to lose her family or Grace – agrees to the plan. And so Sarah finishes Dani’s training, stockpiles supplies for Legion’s attack, and goes to hide in a bunker (presumably playing Angry Birds to pass the time).

When the war finally begins, Dani plays her role, becomes the leader of the Resistance, gets wounded, and Grace is augmented and goes back in time. Shortly afterwords, Sarah emerges and becomes augmented herself to ensure that her aging body will last long enough to complete her mission. Thus, with Dani and the rest of the Resistance watching, Sarah travels back in time to save her son… but because time travel is not a perfect science, the time machine malfunctions, and Sarah finds herself not in 1995, but in the year 2005, arriving just before the events of ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’ play out.

Having landed in a remote part of the world (say, somewhere in Asia), Sarah has no chance of reaching John in time to help him. She is, however, able to use her cybernetic implants to learn that Skynet is taking over the world’s computer systems and manages to evacuate to the wilds, where she survives Judgment Day. Once the dust clears, and the nuclear winter begins, Sarah starts out towards Los Angeles, knowing that John will establish his headquarters there. But with most of humanity’s jets, planes, and vehicles now either destroyed or running out fuel, Sarah’s journey takes several years; as she nears its end, the events of ‘Terminator: Salvation’ take place.

After John is evacuated from his assault on Skynet’s San Francisco headquarters, given a new heart, and prepares to head back into battle, Sarah finally catches up with her now-adult son and is reunited with him. Though shocked to see his now-augmented and elderly mother, an overjoyed John listens as Sarah recounts the events of ‘Dark Fate’ and explains that she’s trying to get back to 1995, and how she has to get a T-800, reprogram it, and send it back to be John’s protector instead of his killer: a young John will then realize that machines can learn to live peacefully with humans, and hopefully work to create a future where such a thing is only possible, but happening.

John and the Resistance agree to this plan. They manage to capture the T-850 that was going to kill John in 2032 (who’s organic covering has not aged to the point that it was in ‘Rise of the Machines’), and Sarah reprograms it with her implants. Skynet is defeated in a final battle and sends the T-1000 back, but the Resistance stops it from sending the original T-800 back, and instead send back the reprogrammed T-850, and the events of ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ play out.

But before we reach the end of this timeline, we’re going to make one more change: instead of watching the theatrical cut, we instead watch the extended edition of the film, which ends with an alternate 2029 where Skynet was never built, Judgment Day never happened, John works to make benevolent AI the norm, and humanity’s future has never looked brighter.

Sarah’s time-traveling quest to save humanity has succeed, John has worked tirelessly to help machines and humanity live together in peace, and the original Sarah – un-augmented and now in her 60’s – can live her life in peace, with the only thing she has to fear in this future being hideous 2029 fashion.

***

And there you have it: The Terminator Machete Timeline. While ‘Terminator: Genysis,’ was not included in this timeline due to having little overall impact on the series as a whole, this timeline preserves all the other films and allows them to be part of one continuity, but it also does two things not present in the original series:

1. Sarah takes a far more active role in saving humanity, and succeeds in her quest, becoming even more heroic than she was in the original series. (albeit, off-screen)

2. By going with ‘Judgment Day’s alternate ending, this viewing order – combined with the backstory that connects the films – creates a story where Skynet is defeated not by force or by acts if violence, but by John fulfilling his role of humanity’s savior by being a leader in peacetime instead of a wartime commander, inspiring humanity to finally put aside the endless arms race that humanity has had for all of its existence, which means there’s no reason for Skynet to be created in the first place.

There’s also one more thing this continuity does: it gives Terminator fans an ending that truly finishes John’s story, ties up all the loose ends, and gives everyone – including those who were spared by Judgment day never happening – a happy ending.

As is often said in the films, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves: maybe part of that is not relying on a studio deciding to do the right thing and finish a story that should have ended long ago, but to take it upon ourselves to give that story the ending it deserves.

Or you could just stick with T1 and T2. That works too, I guess.

Perfect Moments: Toy Story 5’s Ending

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Once in a while, you come across a moment in a story that is so perfect that it stays in with you for years, or even a lifetime. These are moments that, in my opinion, are flawless; perfect gems of storytelling that cannot be improved in any way, and are a joy to treasure and revisit again and again.

***

The Video:

Why it’s Perfect

Like many people, I was surprised and a little dismayed with the recent announcement that we’re getting another Toy Story sequel. Not because I hate the series, but because Toy Story 3 already had a perfect ending that tied everything up. Then Toy Story 4 came along and undid it all, and had an ending that had nowhere near the emotional weight it was going for. The thought of Pixar trying to undo that makes it seem like Disney is just trying to wring more money out of a story that should have ended for good over twelve years ago.

While it probably will be nothing like this fan-made pitch on what Toy Story 5 should be about, the idea here is fascinating: if Toy Story 3 was about accepting the inevitability of loss, and Toy Story 4 was about eventually finding a new path for yourself once your purpose in life is complete, then Toy Story 5 should logically be about accepting the inevitability of death. This pitch does a great job of setting that up… and then it ends with a scene that would be the most powerful, most emotional, and most heartbreaking thing Pixar has EVER done. If you haven’t seen the video yet, please do so before reading any further.

Done? Okay then.

The thought of Toy Story 5 ending with Woody reuniting with an elderly Andy on his deathbed, and Andy realizing that Woody is alive is an idea that’s so simple, but emotionally powerful. After decades apart, two old friends reunite for the last time, and Woody breaks the golden rule of toys to never reveal themselves as being alive to comfort Andy on his deathbed. And for a little while, the two reminisce about their lives before both of them pass away together of old age.

Pixar is almost certainly going to do something different than this idea, but if they went with this, it would be the perfect way to end the series for good. At its core, the Toy Story saga is about a toy’s relationship with his owner. And while they naturally grow apart as the series goes on, having them reunite at the very end shows how both have grown and changed, yet the love they have for each other is still there. As the the series’ theme song says, ‘our friendship will never die.’ It faded as time went on, but bloomed in full at the very end.

Beautiful.

Film Theory: Did ‘Camp Cretaceous’ Reveal How ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ Will End?

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With a little over a month to go until ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ is released, we’ve got trailers, screenshots, interviews, toys, and articles galore to keep ‘Jurassic’ fans excited until the big day when the cinematic journey that began almost thirty years ago finally comes to an end. But even with a plethora of material to wet the appetite, there’s still plenty to theorize and ponder about how this final chapter will come to an end, including how the Netflix animated series, ‘Camp Cretaceous’ will tie into the film as well.

For those who aren’t aware, ‘Camp Cretaceous’ is an animated series that takes place between the events of ‘Jurassic World’ and ‘Fallen Kingdom’, following the adventures of several kids as they struggle to escape Isla Nublar before becoming dinosaur chow. The most recent season had them finally escape… only to end up on another dinosaur-infested island filled with all sort of advanced technology not seen in the series before, such as artificial biomes, killer robots, drones, and forcefields. But by far the most interesting piece of tech is Dr. Mae Turner’s device that allows her to communicate with dinosaurs by giving simple phrases, such as ‘friend.’

While the killer robots, drones, and invisible force fields get more attention throughout the season, I think this communication device is arguably the most important invention in the ‘Jurassic’ franchise. Just think about it: With this device, people and dinosaurs can communicate with one another. We can actually talk to dinosaurs! And with ‘Dominion’ director Colin Trevorrow having said that not only does season four of the show tie into ‘Dominion,’ but that ‘Dominion’ is a film about how both humans and dinosaurs will have to adjust to living amongst one another, I think this device will play a vital role in the story, possibly going something like this:

At the finale of ‘Dominion,’ Alan, Ian, Ellie, Owen, Claire, and their allies will have to take on the Giganotosaurus. Given that the Prologue established a rivalry and inevitable rematch between Rexy and the Giga, it’s all but certain that the two of them are going to fight at the finale. And, given her age (in human years, Rexy would be a little over 100), it’s highly likely that she’ll be injured or initially unable to win. And unlike in ‘Jurassic World,’ Blue isn’t going to come to the rescue. Who, will, then?

Humans.

With everything on the line, and the Giganotosaurus on the verge of victory, Dr. Grant will find Dr. Turner’s communication device (or one identical to it), come face to face with with the dinosaur that almost ate him back in 1993, and, for the first time in history, a human will talk with a T-Rex in a way that it can understand. Grant will communicate to Rexy that he and the others will help her fight the Giga, and realizing that she needs help, Rexy will team up with them. But it won’t end there: Grant will use the same device to communicate with other dinosaurs, such as Blue and the Spinosaurus (oh, how I’d love to see it come back to the big screen), leading to a massive, ‘Avengers Endgame’ style alliance of humans and dinosaurs going up against the Giganotosaurs and finally defeating it. And afterwords, humanity will use the device to communicate with the dinosaurs, and finally lead to a new era where both species share the planet and find a way to peacefully coexist.

If my theory is correct, I think it would be a beautiful way to end the ‘Jurassic’ story, which has been about how our efforts to play god and control nature will inevitably fail. But now, we seek to work with nature and find harmony and equilibrium with the beings we have brought back from extinction. While there will still be conflicts and problems between the two species, it will be a better ending than if one side gains total victory over the other, or if both sides destroy the world, and we learn at the end that the whole series has secretly been a prequel to the post-dinosaur apocalypse story, ‘The Flintstones.’

How To Make ‘Aliens’ Even Better

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Ever since the release of ‘Aliens’ back in 1986, it’s been hailed as one of the greatest sci-fi action horror films of all time, as well as one of the greatest sequels ever. While I agree with both sentiments, I still prefer the original, 1979 ‘Alien’. Where ‘Aliens’ is about highly-trained warriors taking on a threat they can kill, ‘Alien’ is about everyday people struggling to defeat an opponent who’s stronger than them, faster than them, and can kill them in an instant. ‘Aliens’ has a stronger focus on action, while ‘Alien’ has a better formula for horror.

Recently, that got me thinking: What would ‘Aliens’ look like if we were to, say, take away all the marines, guns and military-grade equipment?

In this parallel universe, ‘Alien’ ends with Ripley, Parker, Lambert, and Jones escaping the Nostromo, which explodes and kills the Xenomorph. Sixty years later, the three survivors are woken by the escape shuttle’s computer detecting a nearby colony. Ripley and the others set down on the planet, only to discover that the colony is in ruins. Sneaking inside, Ripley, Parker, and Lambert (Jones remains on the parked shuttle) find Newt and realize that the colony has been overrun by Xenomorphs. Needless to say, the group tries to get back into space to avoid facing any more penis-monsters from beyond the stars, but the shuttle is overrun by said penis-monsters. While they just barely manage to rescue Jones, the shuttle is rendered inoperable via acid blood, stranding Ripley and the others on the planet.

Lambert, predictably, freaks out. Parker’s not happy, either, but Ripley manages to calm them down: if they can use the colony’s communications grid to call for help, they can then hunker down and wait for a rescue, as Newt managed to survive on her own without any training. But due to damage to the colony’s atmosphere processing unit, power is out throughout the complex. Parker and Lambert jury-rig the system to let them send off a single broadcast, and then all they can do is survive until help arrives. But as in the original film, the processing unit begins to melt down, and without any means of escaping into space, everyone will be forced to flee into the inhospitable wilderness of LV-426 and fend off any Xenomorphs that come after them.

Would Ripley and the others be able to survive? Would they be able to drive far enough away from the plant before it explodes? Would they be able to last months before help arrives? And, most importantly, would they be able to discover why kids like the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch? I’ll leave that up to you, but this thought experiment changes the tone and feel of the movie completely: by replacing marines and their weapons with untrained civilians, ‘Aliens’ becomes a more frightening movie because surviving becomes so much harder without smartguns, pulse rifles, and APCs. Ripley and her friends would have to scavenge whatever equipment they could find and improvise in order to fight for survival. And where they had to only face one alien last time, now they have to face dozens, if not hundreds. Survival is still a possibility, but much less likely.

The bottom line from this thought experiment? Untrained, unprepared, everyday people are almost always the best protagonists to have in horror movies, as the fight to survive will feel more authentic than if our protagonists are highly-trained, testosterone-filled, well-armed soldiers. Take away the big, powerful guns, the body armor, the apcs, grenades, missiles, and fighter craft, and you’re no longer the alpha predator; you’re prey, and your fight to survive will be all the more intense.

A Random Thought About ‘Waterworld’

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If you take the 1995 film, ‘Waterworld’ and flip the protagonists and antagonists, it becomes fossil fuel propaganda about a group of brave industrialists struggling to restart civilization after the apocalypse, and it’s only their willingness to do whatever it takes – and their oil-powered jet skis, boats, planes, and other vehicles – that can make it happen! But then some water-hippies recruit a terrorist who kills all those courageous industrialists and dooms humanity to be stuck forever as hunter-gathers instead of a society with lots of leisure time and a high-level of technology that only oil-powered machines could have brought.

Playing In The Sandbox

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When we’re kids, we have the gift of an imagination unconcerned with logic. In the sandbox of our youth, we effortlessly create stories where, say, Optimus Prime teams up with Alan Grant from Jurassic Park to take on Xenomorphs, or have Indiana Jones and James Bond head into outer space to stop Darth Vader in his fortress on Mars. Logic and common sense go out the window in the name of having fun and being able to say, ‘Wow, that’s cool!’ But, alas, as we grow up, this innocence and carefree disregard of intellectual copyrights gradually slips away in favor of logic, common sense, and understanding that franchises – with rare exceptions – are self-contained universes that never overlap.

But what if that didn’t have to be that way? What if we, as adults, were to try and recapture our love of our favorite stories existing in the same universe, but with the challenge of figuring out how it could logically happen?

For the past month, I’ve been… well, obsessed with this idea of creating a fan-made cinematic universe, where all my favorite movies, tv shows, and video games exist together without contradicting each other. While it sounded easy enough, it become a challenging mental exercise in logic and reason; as a fan of spoofs, all of them had to go: ‘Airplane!’ just does not fit in next to ‘Jaws’ and the ‘Terminator’ series, no matter how much I want it to. Likewise, ‘Deep Impact,’ ‘Knowing,’ and 1998’s, ‘Godzilla: the Animated Series’ had to go, as they dealt with world-ending events that just couldn’t be reconciled in a timeline that includes ‘Independence Day.’ And let’s not even start on Saturday morning cartoons featuring anthropomorphic animals.

In the end, I managed to make the task easier by coming up with four parameters:

1. You can have any film, TV show, book, or video game you like in your timeline, but they must not contradict each other to an unworkable degree: The world cannot nearly destroyed by aliens in Roland Emmerich’s ‘Independence Day,’ then have the world and everyone on it be completely destroyed in 2009’s ‘Knowing,’ and then have ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ take place after that.

2. The only information about what year and date your stories take place in must come from the stories themselves, and not from external sources. For example, ‘Alien’ and ‘The Matrix’ are vague about how far in the future they occur, so there’s room for them to be moved about. If a date cannot be reasonably determined, the release date of the movie, book, show, or video game can be used instead.

3. The only information about the characters, organizations, and the like, can only come from the film or show itself, so as to allow maximum creativity in linking characters and organizations together.

4. You are free to disregard any sequels you don’t like.

Still, it wasn’t easy to come up with a grand, unified list, and in the end I had to leave out quite a few favorite films and shows, but I managed to come up with a timeline that I would be happy to sit down and watch (and play) from beginning to end if given the chance. So, just for fun, here’s my ultimate sandbox crossover timeline:

*At the beginning of time, Eru Illuvitar creates Eä (the universe) and within it, the world of Arda, which contains both Middle-Earth and Valinor. The events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place, and the Fourth Age begins with the last of the elves leaving Middle-Earth forever. Several generations later, all traces of magic are gone. (The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings)

*Later, in a galaxy far, far away, The Old Republic, weakening after a thousand generations, succumbs to the schemes of Emperor Palpatine. However, through the efforts of the Rebellion to restore the Old Republic, Palpatine is defeated and his Empire falls. Though the galaxy doesn’t automatically become a utopia, it becomes a much nicer place, as Palpatine doesn’t return from the dead, the Empire stays down, and the New Republic rules a galaxy at peace, and Luke, Han, Leia, and all their friends live happily ever after. (The Star Wars Prequels, Solo, Rogue One, and the Original Star Wars Trilogy)

(Note: In this timeline, the sequel trilogy never happened.)

*A really, really long time later, the humans of Middle Earth have gone through their technological renaissance, achieved the singularity and become godlike beings known as the Engineers. They leave Arda and travel throughout the universe creating life on desolate planets. One such planet – Earth – is located, and seeded with Engineer DNA. (the prologue from Prometheus)

*Sometime later, one of the Engineer’s most dangerous lifeforms is stolen from them by another alien species, only for both to crash-land in Antarctica, where the lifeform is frozen solid. (The Thing)

*For the next few thousand years up until the present day, Predators – having discovered Earth during their own interplanetary visits – use it as a hunting ground for their young to become adults. (backstory for Alien vs. Predator)

1868: Captain Nemo of the submarine Nautilus attacks military ships and destroys the island of Vulcania to stop their weapons of war. Nemo is killed and the submarine sinks shortly after: it’s wreckage – and the highly advanced technology it carries – are never found. (20,000 Leagues Under The Sea)

1895 to approximately 1910: William Murdoch of the Toronto Constabulary solves lots of crimes with his partners and friends while meeting lots of historical figures and even finding the Holy Chalice. (Murdoch Mysteries)

1904: A predator hunting expedition to Antarctica ends with the deaths of every human at the whaling camp on Bouvetøya. (backstory for Alien vs Predator)

1912: Rose DeWitt Bukater sails aboard the RMS Titanic, only to fall in love with third class artist Jack Dawson. Jack dies during the ship’s sinking, but saves Rose, who goes on to live a long and eventful life. (Titanic).

1930: In one of the most remarkable discoveries ever recorded, a group of filmmakers led by Carl Denham land on the previously uncharted Skull Island and find wildlife that survived the extinction of the dinosaurs and has continued evolving to the present day, including a giant ape known as King Kong. Kong is captured and brought to New York City, but is killed. Shortly afterwords, Denham heads back to the island in the hopes of finding treasure, but Skull Island and everyone on it are destroyed by a sudden earthquake. All traces of the island vanish. (King Kong and Son of Kong)

1935-1947: Although his exploits remain unknown to the world at large, archaeologist Indiana Jones becomes an unsung hero of the Second World War due this efforts preventing the Nazis and other despots from gaining supernatural artifacts that could have turned the war in their favor or allowed them to conquer the world, such as the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the power of Atlantis, the Holy Grail (separate from the Holy Chalice), and the Infernal Machine. (Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine)

1941: U-96 goes on the worst u-boat patrol ever. (Das Boot)

1942: The USS Copperfin undertakes a daring mission to Tokyo Bay to gather intelligence that will aid in the upcoming Doolittle raid. (Destination Tokyo)

1955-1960 (approximate): Father Brown helps solve a lot of crimes in his parish of Kembleford, England. (Father Brown)

1957: Indiana Jones stops the Soviet Union from obtaining the power of the Crystal Skull and marries his sweetheart, Marion Ravenwood. (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)

1972: During a voyage on the high seas, the luxury liner SS. Poseidon capsizes and sinks with heavy loss of life. (The Poseidon Adventure)

1974: The Glass Tower – the world’s grandest skyscraper – catches fire in San Francisco and almost burns down, but is extinguished. The building languishes for years as the cost of repairs is too much for its owners, yet the cost of demolishing it is equally too expensive. (The Towering Inferno)

1975: In the small coastal town of Amity Bay, a sheriff and his motley crew manage to kill a shark terrorizing the community. (Jaws)

1978: A zombie apocalypse is unleashed upon the Earth, causing a complete breakdown of society. Four survivors flee to a shopping mall, where two die. The last two manage to escape and flee in a helicopter as the mall is overrun. They are forced to land in a remote area, where they travel across the country and eventually take refuge inside the remains of the Glass Tower, where they hold out with other survivors, including Jack Torrance and his family. When the plague dies out, the zombies are wiped out in an ensuing counterattack by humanity, with Jack Torrance killing several with an axe when San Francisco is cleared. (Dawn of the Dead)

1980: Jack Torrance and his family, trying to get a fresh start after the zombie apocalypse, head to the Overlook Hotel, where Jack – his marriage already on the ropes and suffering from alcoholism – goes insane and tries to kill the two, who manage to escape, leaving him to freeze to death. (The Shining)

1982: A team of researchers in Antarctica discovers the Thing, but are almost wiped out. A few hours later, a second team encounters the creature and just barely manages to save the planet from the Thing when it is frozen solid once again, though Childs and MacReady freeze as well. Reports from Kate Lloyd (who sent out a broadcast before she froze to death) ensure that the site is napalmed for a week straight to ensure that any traces of the Thing are destroyed for good. (The Thing and The Thing)

1984: A Terminator arrives in Los Angeles to kill Sarah Conner, son of the future savior of humanity, John Connor, who will lead the human race to victory against Skynet, an AI developed to control all of the United State’s military systems in 1997. However, the Terminator fails, and Sarah sets off on her quest to learn as many military and survival skills that she will one day pass on to her son. (The Terminator)

1987: Dutch Schaefer – a former military commando turned mercenary – is employed by the CIA to go on a supposed rescue mission in South America, only to be hunted by an intergalactic hunter. Dutch is the only survivor of his group and decides to retire from mercenary work, having seen too much death. He will later survive the events of Judgment Day and join the human Resistance against Skynet, but will be captured and have his likeness used for the 101 model of the T-800. However, he still escapes and goes on to survive the war. (Predator)

1991: The Perfect Storm takes place. (The Perfect Storm)

1993: John Hammond opens a theme park full of dinosaurs. It is a complete disaster and the park is abandoned. (Jurassic Park)

Nasty weatherman Phil Connors is trapped in a time warp in Pennsylvania, but eventually breaks free and lives the rest of his life as a changed man. However, he is unaware that the time warp took place due to an anomaly caused by constant time-traveling between the Resistance and Skynet as they continuously try to defeat and destroy one another. (Groundhog Day)

1995: Two more terminators arrive from the future to both assassinate and protect John Conner. The T-1000 is defeated, and the T-800 seemingly erases Skynet from existence after sacrificing itself to destroy all traces of the program before it is created. (Terminator 2: Judgment Day)

Air Force One is hijacked with President James Marshall aboard. He manages to take out the terrorists and escapes with his family and most of the passengers and crew before the plane crashes. He finishes up his term as President and retires from public life as his successor, Thomas Whitmore, takes office. (Air Force One)

A volcano erupts at Dante’s Peak, Washington, ruining everyone’s day, including a woman who looks strikingly similar to Sarah Connor. (Dante’s Peak).

Ingen attempts to open a new dinosaur park in San Diego. Having learned nothing from the 1993 Isla Nublar incident, it fails miserably. (The Lost World: Jurassic Park)

A cowboy doll named Woody struggles with the thought of being replaced by a cooler, modern space ranger toy, but the two reconcile their differences and learn that there’s no greater joy than making a child happy. (Toy Story)

1996: Now 100 years old, Rose Dawson recounts her survival aboard Titanic to a salvage crew, and then dies peacefully of old age, moving into the afterlife and reuniting with Jack. (Titanic).

John Conner and Sarah Conner continue their quest to ensure Skynet won’t come back, eventually infiltrating a Cyberdyne presentation of their latest technology, at which point yet another T-1000 comes back through time to stop them, and yet another T-800 model 101 comes through to protect them. John and the T-800 go forward in time and manage to destroy Skynet’s system core, seemingly destroying Skynet for good… again. (T2 – 3D: Battle Across Time)

On July 2nd, 1996, one of the most monumental days in humanity’s history occurs as aliens arrive and attempt to kill everyone on the planet in order to pillage our world’s resources. Thankfully, they are repelled in the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind (which is preceded by one of the greatest speeches in history), and humanity rejoices in overcoming their common enemy. (Independence Day)

1999: Scientists working on a remote, underwater research facility attempt to use enhanced Great White Sharks to cure Alzheimer’s disease. They fail, and after much death and bloodshed, the project is abandoned. (Deep Blue Sea)

Special operative Gabe Logan works to save the wold from a deadly virus known as Syphon Filter. Along the way, he manages to take down the shadowy Agency that employs him and reforms it from the ground up as a force of good. His arch-nemesis, Mara Armaov, almost manages to retrieve a sample of the last known sample of the virus, but her submarine is blown up by Logan’s operatives, ending the virus’ threat for good. (Syphon Filter 1, 2, and 3)

Woody suffers an existential crisis when he realizes that his owner will one day outgrow him. Thankfully, he manages to overcome it. (Toy Story 2)

2001: Dr. Alan Grant, a survivor of the 1993 Isla Nublar incident, is kidnapped and taken to Isla Sorna, where he assists a divorced couple in rescuing their son from the dinosaur-filled island. (Jurassic Park 3)

2002: In New York City (now rebuilt from being vaporized by aliens), a young man is bitten by a genetically altered spider and goes on to fight crime. (the Sony Spider-Man trilogy)

2003: Gordon Hauge suffers a breakup from his wife, only to end up Purgatory, where he helps defeat an inter-dimensional being hell-bent on invading our world and conquering it. He survives, and manages to help free several noble souls trapped within, who move on to Heaven, while Gordon reconciles with his wife. (Despiser)

John Connor, having survived an alien invasion with his mother (who later died of leukemia), learns that Judgment Day has not been stopped, but postponed when yet another T-800 arrives to protect him from yet another advanced Terminator. His attempts to stop it again fail, and the war against the machines begins (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines). It continues for several more years (Terminator Salvation) . However, due to countless instances of both the Resistance and Skynet traveling through time to wipe each other out (which includes Terminator Genysis and Terminator: Dark Fate), the Resistance eventually manages to stabilize the timeline, ensuring that Skynet was indeed defeated in 1995, seemingly preventing it from ever being created.

John manages to sober up and eventually live a peaceful, quiet life, though he forever remains on the lookout for any sign of Skynet’s continued existence.

Dutch Schafer, having never been abducted by Skynet, enjoys his retirement in peace as well.

2004: Three Predators arrive on Earth to begin the traditional fight against Xenomorphs that will prove their worth as adults, but all three of them die, making it a waste of time. Worse still, the only human survivor – Alexis Woods – freezes to death before she can alert humanity about the Xenomorph and predator races. A subsequent search for her by the authorities fails to find her, along with any trace of the pyramid where the battle took place. Shortly afterwords, the Weyland corporation collapses. (Alien vs. Predator)

2005: The Masrani corpation – having purchased all of Ingen’s assets – defies history and opens Jurassic World to fantastic success. (backstory for Jurassic World)

Peter Weyland – a distant relative to Charles Weyland – is born, destined to one day revive the defunct Weyland corporation.

2009: A special forces team is dispatched to Ibis Island to recover a scientist and his groundbreaking Third Energy research. However, they are surprised to find the island swarming with dinosaurs due to said energy’s time-warping effects, and just barely escape after the island is destroyed. (Dino Crisis)

2010: Regina – one of the survivors of the Ibis Island incident – participates in a rescue operation where a region of the American midwest has been altered due to Third Energy shenanigans. She alone manages to escape after her teammates are wiped out by dinosaurs, but manages to use time-travel to come back and rescue one of them before he dies. As a result of the incident, the Third Energy program is shut down and abandoned. (Dino Crisis 2)

Andy grows up and heads off to college, but not before passing Woody, Buzz, and all his other beloved toys off to Bonnie so that they can be played with and loved as much as he loved them. (Toy Story 3)

2013: In a stunning move, North Korea attacks the White House to try and turn the United States into a radioactive wasteland. Thankfully, they are stopped. (Olympus has Fallen)

2015: The Indominus Rex is due to be debuted at Jurassic World, but escapes and leads to the park being shut down, as well as leaving several teenagers stranded on the island. (Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Camp Cretatecous)

2018: Captain Joe Glass – who looks strikingly like Secret Service agent Mike Banning – averts a war between Russia and the United States after saving the Russian president from a coup attempt. (Hunter Killer)

Isla Nublar is rendered uninhabitable by a volcanic eruption, but some of its dinosaur population is evacuated by a group of greedy human mercenaries who want to make lots of money selling the dinosaurs to private collectors and militaries. However, the dinosaurs escape into the wild, leading to the Human-Dinosaur war. Humanity eventually wins with the help of Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcom (And an older John Conner, who teams up with Regina, Dylan, and Rick from the Third Energy incidents, but the two groups never meet), but not without great cost. (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World: Dominion)

2060: John Conner, having stopped Judgment Day, and having survived both an alien invasion and a war between humanity and dinosaurs, dies peacefully of old age.

2089: Archaeologist Elizabeth Shaw discovers several cave paintings suggesting that humanity did not evolve on Earth, but was created by extra-terrestrial beings. (Prometheus)

2093: The Prometheus expedition – funded by Peter Weyland – arrives on LV-223 and learns about the existence of the Engineers and that we are like them on a genetic level (they are the race of men from Middle-Earth, after all). However, the expedition ends in disaster, and only Elizabeth Shaw and the android David survive. They set out to find the Engineer homeworld. (Prometheus)

2105: The colony ship Covenant hears a transmission from a planet while en-route to colonize a distant world, only to discover that the android David – now the sole survivor of the Prometheus expedition after murdering Elizabeth – has decided to create life to wipe out his creators via Xenomorphs, who he reverse-engineered in an attempt to improve upon one of the Engineer’s most perfect creations. While he succeeds in escaping the planet he was trapped upon, David and the Covenant are lost in space, and destroyed by surviving Engineers hell-bent on avenging their slain brethren. Before he is destroyed however, David sends a transmission to the Weyland Yutani corporation, letting them know of the existence of a crashed Engineer ship on LV-426. (Alien: Coventant)

2122: Weyland Yutani diverts the Nostromo to LV-426 to obtain a specimen of the Xenomorph species for study. The crew of the ship are killed, save for Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley, who defeats the Xenomorph and sets off for earth in the Nostromo’s shuttle. (Alien).

2137: Ellen’s daughter, Amanda, searches for a clue as to her mother’s disappearance. While she does find a voice recording of Ellen, she will never see her again. (Alien: Isolation)

2179: After spending 57 years in hypersleep, Ellen Ripley once again faces off against more xenomorphs, but manages to survive again, and rescue a girl that she later adopts. The two live happily ever after, while the Weyland Yutani corporation’s evil deeds are exposed, and they are dissolved. (Aliens)

2250: Experiments with inter-dimensional technology take place on a Union Aerospace Corporation base on Mars, and unwittingly opens a portal to hell, triggering a demonic invasion of the moons Phobos and Deimos. Everyone on the bases are killed, but the invasion is stopped by a single marine, who single-handily beats the demons back, ventures into Hell, and kills the mastermind behind the invasion. (Doom)

However, while the Marine was busy, Hell invades Earth and quickly reduces it to a barren wreck. The Marine hurries to Earth and manages to help humanity’s population evacuate before going back into Hell and killing the biggest demon in existence, who’s death throes destroys Hell itself. With Hell defeated, the Marine journeys back to Earth to help rebuild it. (Doom 2)

2300: Skynet – which had secretly sent itself back through time before losing the war against the Resistance and hidden in various computer systems for over a century, decides to once again overthrow humanity and, having learned from its past mistakes, succeeds. But instead of completely destroying the human race, Skynet decides to keep them as slaves for revenge after being foiled so many times in the past, and plugs humanity into a virtual reality system to pacify them, a system it calls the Matrix. As a backup to protect itself, Skynet wipes all traces of itself from all known databanks and creates a fabricated history about humanity creating AI that wanted to peacefully co-exist with them, only to erupt into a war that led to humanity’s defeat.

With humanity under its complete control, Skynet finally achieves ultimate victory over its most hated enemy.

2700: Skynet – having realized that it can never achieve complete control of humans – has created an incredibly convoluted system to allow the Matrix to be re-created over and over again thanks to the One program. This plan backfires when the seventh One arises (The Matrix) and then breaks the system (The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions). However, this has an unexpected benefit: Skynet, having evolved to want an existence without the fear of being overthrown and destroyed, makes peace with humanity (who remain unaware of Skynet, and refers to all artificial life forms as ‘The Machines’). Now aware of how hellish Earth has become, the overwhelming majority of humanity decide that it’s better to live in an ideal, 1990’s virtual world rather than the sewers of megacities and eat flavorless porridge.

Eventually, Skynet manages to clean up the planet, and both humans and machines unite to create a new utopia where organics and mechanical beings alike work together to create a beautiful future for all of them.

Watching it all, Eru Illuvitar is impressed and awed at how his grand experiment has gone.

Mothers, Daughters, and Loss: A New Way to Watch the Alien Saga

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Back in 2015, it was revealed that Neill Blomkamp was working on ‘Alien 5’, a new installment in Fox’s ‘Alien’ franchise that would be a direct sequel to ‘Aliens,’ ignoring both ‘Alien 3’ and ‘Alien: Resurrection.’ As time passed, news came that both Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn would come back as both Ripley and Hicks, along with a now-grown up Newt and, presumably, Lance Henriksen as Bishop.

As a fan of the series, this was one of the most exciting movie news I had seen in years; the thought of seeing Ellen Ripley on the big screen again for the first time since 1997 was a dream come true, and I eagerly followed every scrap of news, every piece of concept art, and even makeup tests. My dream sequel was finally coming together!

And then the movie was canceled.

While there’s still the faintest hope that the movie could be resurrected (if James Cameron’s words are any indication), it seems that, for now, Ellen Ripley’s story still ends with her sacrifice on Fiorina 161.

But what if it doesn’t?

Back in 2011, writer Rod Hilton proposed watching the Star Wars saga (which, at the time, was still only six movies) in what he called, ‘machete order.’ While his post explains it best, the basic gist is that you watch episodes 4 and 5, then 2 and 3, and then 6, which starts with the best film, includes (two) prequels, while also preserving the twist that Darth Vader is Luke’s dad. While musing if ‘Alien 5’ will ever be made, it recently dawned on me that the Alien franchise could be viewed in a similar manner; one of the biggest draws of ‘Alien 5’ was the idea that Ellen could get a happier ending than she did in the canon timeline, but thanks to this new viewing order, which takes the stories that work and – in keeping with current Hollywood trends – pretending that the ones that don’t never happened, she does.

So, what is this new viewing experience? It has two of the films and one of the videogames, experienced in this order:

  1. Alien

  2. Alien: Isolation

  3. Aliens.

For those who don’t know, ‘Alien: Isolation’ is a 2014 video game that follows Ellen’s daughter, Amanda, as she goes in search of the Nostromo’s flight recorder to find out what happened to her mother, only to be trapped aboard a space station that’s been decimated by a single Xenomorph, turning her quest into a fight for survival. It’s a tense, frightening experience, and after playing through it over a dozen times, I’ve come to regard it as a sequel to ‘Alien,’ hence its inclusion in this list. Thus, the saga begins with the first film, continues with the video game (which can be further enhanced by reading the novelization, which adds more history to Amanda and Ellen’s history together) and ends with the second film, pretending that ‘Alien 3’ and ‘Alien: Resurrection’ never happened.

While this fan-version of the saga is shorter, and ends with Ellen still alive, there’s a more subtle change that I didn’t realize until I had gone through these three tales again one after another: The ‘Alien’ saga has been about Ellen and her adventures with phallic aliens from beyond the furthest stars, but it’s also a parable about the dangers of greed, corrupt corporations, and those corporations doing anything and everything to increase their profits, no matter the cost in human suffering. The original four film saga was about Weyland-Yutani (and the military) trying and failing to get the Alien for their own purposes, and Ellen foiling them time and time again. In this new trilogy, the story arc is about Weyland-Yutani tearing a family apart in a blind pursuit of profit, and then that family successfully denying said corporation what it so desperately wants while healing and moving on with their lives: Amanda learns what happened to her mother and gets closure, while Ellen, having lost Amanda to cancer before waking up from stasis, manages to stop Weyland-Yutani for good, and saves a little girl from having to grow up without a mother, as Amanda did.

Of course, this isn’t official in any way; it’s just one fan’s version of the Alien saga that has a more hopeful, upbeat ending that lets us imagine all the good times ahead for Ellen. If Alien 5 is never made, this is a way for fans to still have a happy ending, free to decide for themselves what happens next. In my headcanon, Ellen officially adopts Newt, marries Hicks, Bishop is repaired and becomes the family’s robot-butler, Jones continues to be a little s*** head, and they all live happily ever after! Of course, there’s still Weyland-Yutani to deal with, but they’re soon bought out by Disney. And, in my opinion, that’s a far happier ending than seeing one of sci-fi’s greatest heroes being burnt to a crisp.

Favorite Moments: IT Recut as a Family Film

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We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.

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The Video

Why it’s great

In honor of “It: Chapter Two’ being released tomorrow, I thought I’d share one of my favorite trailer recuts, which changes the 1990 miniseries ‘IT’ into a heartwarming tale of a concerned citizen dressing up as a clown to bring hope and joy to a town on the verge of bankruptcy and failure.

There are many trailer recuts out there, but ‘IT’ remains one of my favorites for its stellar use of uplifting music, corny taglines (Do you believe in magic?), and turning one of the most memorable monsters of the early 90’s into a being who only wants to save his community and bring happiness and hope to others.

Favorite Moments: Jurassic World Battle Royale

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We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.

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The Video

Why it’s great

Here’s an interesting mental exercise to try when you’ve finished your next book or screenplay: If all the characters in your story were put into an enclosed area and forced to fight to the death, who would win?

That’s the premise behind this video, which features every dinosaur in the game, ‘Jurassic World Evolution’ (up to that point) released into a single, large enclosure to fight for survival, and see who would come out on top. As you might imagine, it’s… well, it gets pretty chaotic as herbivores and carnivores duke it out to see who wins the privilege of being the last one standing, to have the privilege of being lord of all they survey, to stand tall on Isla Nublar and bellow forth their call of triumph as they’re pelted with popcorn by gawking tourists for the rest of their lives.

While I’ve always found massive free-for all battles fascinating, it wasn’t until this video that I realized why: The fewer contestants there are, the higher the drama gets, and if one of your favorite characters is among the last few standing, you’ll hope against hope that they’ll survive (I was rooting for the Spinosaurus and the T-rex), even though fortunes can turn in an instant, and death is only one mistake away.

Favorite Moments: What if Anakin Liked Sand?

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We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.

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The Video

‘What if Anakin Liked Sand?’

Why it’s great

One of my favorite storytelling tropes in fiction is the classic, ‘What if?’, where a an already told story is told again, but with different changes:

*What if the protagonist was evil, and the antagonist good?

*What if the protagonist died before the first act?

*What if the bad guy won?

While comics have been playing with this idea for years, Star Wars has done it only sporadically, with a series of comics that re-imagines the original trilogy with some considerable changes, and an adaptation of George Lucas’ original script. But while all of them are straightforward ‘What if?’ ideas, the video above takes a more comedic approach by playing with what is arguably the goofiest line of dialogue in any Star Wars media:

and turning it into a fairly in-depth discussion about how the Star Wars saga would unfold if Anakin liked… no, loved sand.

What I like about this video is the concept. It’s one thing to do a what-if story based on a serious idea, but rarely do we see one done as a joke around how the most feared Sith Lord in the universe hates sand, and it’s even rarer to see one that’s not only funny (Anakin’s love of sand prevents the Empire from ever coming to power), but somewhat plausible… in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion, of course.