Terminator 5 Fucks up everything.

I was very skeptical about Terminator Salvation. One might go so far as to say I was pissed off that Warner Bros would continue to shit all over the franchise that James Cameron created. To put it simply Terminator 3 did not inspire confidence in the future of the franchise. However, when I found out Christian Bale had signed on to play John Connor, a seed of hope was planted in me. When I found out Jonah Nolan was brought on to work on the script, that seed began to grow. Then the trailers have made me very excited to see this film. There appears to be some solid action and interesting ideas and themes that are going to be explored.

Today, I found out what McG has planned for Terminator 5 and that seed was uprooted. He wants to make a movie where John Connor goes back in time to 2011 and tries to warn the world about Judgement Day. But the machines send an army back after him and all hell breaks loose. In essence Judgement Day begins.

This creates problems galore. First of all, by all current accounts (Terminator 3, the Terminator Salvation production notes) Judgement Day happens in 2004. So why would John be going to 2011 to prevent it? Also, now Judgement Day is a robot invasion and not Skynet becoming self-aware. Now an alien force invades our domain. We don't create our own destruction. What the fuck McG?

And this is my problem with this new trilogy on a fundamental level. The more films that get made, the further we get from the point that James Cameron was trying to make with the original Terminator movies. The original message was our quest for advancement will be our downfall. However, our paths are not predtermined. "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." Terminator 3 spat in the face of that, saying that the future is inevitable - we can't do anything to change it. And Terminator 5 looks to say that our downfall is not our fault, that outside forces overpower us.

My point: Terminator Salvation looks good, but tread lightly McG. Tread fucking lightly.