Write your OWN terminator story here!
What would you write for a terminator movie?
For me, my story would be a horror reboot, small scale, low budget beginning with the future war between SkyNet and the human resistance. It would keep legendary things in tact still, such as names, family tree, important events etc.
This would serve to be the FIRST TIMELINE, not an already looped timeline which T1 suggests.
It begins in the year 2023, when it shows a squad of resistance fighters assaulting a SkyNet weapons laboratory discovering crates upon crates of plasma rifles. They steal the weapons, evening the odds against the newly created T800's appearing more and more on the hopeless battlefields.
I would then show a scene showing Connor established as the leader of the resistance. During the meeting, a Terminator disguised as human infiltrates, severely wounding Connor, giving him the facial scar we all know. The T800 is destroyed and Connor gets medical attention.
Skip a year later and the human resistance are fully aware of several things now: terminators infiltrate disguised as humans; they use human slaves for the skin and that SkyNet is up to something deep in the mountains on the outskirts of L.A.
Despite a few scenes here and there depicting rescuing slaves from all over the US mainland, Connor and his men plan to assault the mountainous base to find out what SkyNet is up to. They assault successfully and discover a Time Machine, with co-ordinates set for almost 80 years in the past: 1957. His comm unit hacks the time machine computer, discovering that a T800 had been sent through but they are unsure of the robot's mission due to it's top secret nature and that the location is New York, U.S.A.
Connor; aware of SkyNet's personal hatred against him for creating a resistance, puts two and two together, theorizing that SkyNet has sent back a Terminator to possibly hunt down his ancestors: his grandparents James and Jona Connor, who were living in New York up until the 80's (something he remembers his mother, Sarah telling him when he was a young boy living amongst the ruins of the apocalyptic land.)
John, viewed as a Messiah by most, is not short of offers from his men who wish to go through the time machine to hunt down the Terminator and destroy it. After all, if what Connor theorizes is true, then this machine is aiming to kill his grandparents, therefore killing Connor before he is even born (something which the soldiers themselves question if killing Connor's grandparents would even affect the future Connor).
Taking no chances, one soldier called Lance Benson, offers to go back. Benson, being his best man which Connor is aware off, is sent back to 1957.
I'm not too fussed right now to continue the rough story idea, but it would technically begin as a all out sci fi action war epic (like depicted in T1 and T2) and once both men go back in time, it would become a claustrophobic horror story with the T800 eventually killing the grandfather while Benson dies whilst destroying the T800. The grandmother (3 months pregnant with Sarah) would live on protecting Sarah until possibly in the future, another Terminator would target Sarah in the 80s blah blah blah
Really, there is nowhere for this franchise to go... the time travel element is so done and boring now... I think they should just make a future war movie and thats it.