As Terminator: Genisys looms on the horizon, one wonders how much further this franchise can go. Based on the trailers, much of the original franchise has been retconned, even to the degree that we have old Arnold pulling a shotgun on young Arnold. The fact is that The Terminator is not structured as a franchise – while it opens the possibilities, it does not demand a sequel on the level of films like Star Wars, which were evidently conceived as part of a larger whole.
We can put down Genisys to Hollywood’s desire to either reboot, remake, or ret-con every successful property made in the past fifty years, yet there is something a trifle more troubling than that going on. It is a rewriting of the past, literally writing over the films that established the very franchise and the names on which the film plans to trade.
As the old T-800 falls to the onslaught of the new T-800 (or is it the other way around?), we wonder if Kyle Reese will ever meet Sarah Connor, or if John Connor will ever be born. Will Sarah simply live a long and happy life, devoid of badass robots in sunglasses bearing down upon her? Will Skynet ever rise, or fall? Have those films, and their plots and lines and images, so iconic and so memorable, suddenly become obsolete?
I’m not sure what the timeline is any more, but I wonder if and when the Terminator will arrive, or if his glory will remain obscure and perhaps forgotten in the strange machinations of these alternate universes. Will he be back, or is it time that he never come back at all?