Sayaka and I went to see Terminator 3 on the recommendation of two of our friends. It was pretty much what I expected. After the movie Sayaka had an interesting idea for a Terminator 4 (which the movie sets up nicely) which amounts to a rather unusual twist on the cult success Left Behind which is a series of Christian books and movies that spawned a whole genre of biblically inspired science fiction.
The “Left Behind” series, which I was able to get a taste of through the B-Movie of that name, tells the story of unbelievers who are “left behind” after faithful Christians are suddenly removed from the world. A perceptive group among the survivors realize that they have erred in their lack of faith, become reborn Christians and try to spread word that the world has plunged into the heart of the Bible’s Revelations. They uncover the identity of the Anti-Christ (who is none other than the secretary-general of the UN) and battle against his evil blue-helmeted UN troops. In addition, they discover a range of diabolical plans for things like a unified world currency, world government, an end to starvation, and, God forbid, peace among religions.
Sayaka’s interesting twist to this idea, which I think would make for a great Terminator 4 came initially from her question of who John Conner (future leader of the “free” post-apocalyptic world in the movie’s prophecies) is suddenly in radio contact with when the world has been largely destroyed by the nuclear cataclysm launched by the “cybernetic organism” Skynet…
She wondered if perhaps the only other survivors in addition to John Conner and his future wife were the Mormons. At first I tried to tell her I didn’t hear mention of the Mormons but that the radio in the movie said something about the Montana civil defense but then I realized she was really on to something!
Terminator 4 could be about John Conner and his motley crew of hardened post-apocalyptic Mormon warriors! There is also, of course, plenty of room for a crack corps made up of the Jehovah Witnesses (perhaps manning a watch tower somewhere on the frontier) and other elite units corresponding to each religious group that is well prepared for the worst. They could all get their own uniforms, insignias, and wage major battles against the machines.
I’m not sure if the respective religious groups could be brought on board without a little work from the marketing department. Among other things, they might not like the idea of John Conner, a young punk, leading their respective religious factions in messiah-like fashion. However, the idea is definitely not without potential.
On a another only slightly less silly note, the Terminator series shows that, despite a valiant attempt in the third movie to account for the “software” and “internet” elements of a dark future, it is thoroughly “old school” science fiction compared, for example, to the Matrix, which incorporates some elements of a new generation of writers. The “dark future” genre has a long history full of continuities, but a comparison between the two basic stories of Terminator and Matrix (which has undoubtedly been done across the net in the past year) reveals a considerable shift away from a dark future which primarily places emphasis on a) material destruction, usually in the form of a nuclear holocaust b) a return to small communities, barbaric feuding, and a mix of traditional community values with pioneer individualism and c) in many cases a single enemy in the form of an evil post-apocalyptic empire, race of aliens, or machines. The Terminator series (along with Mad Max, Water World, The Post Man, etc.) exemplifies all of these, even though we will have to wait until a fourth release before the series actually reaches the dark future it predicts.
The Matrix series, including the second movie that destroyed much of its simple and elegant thematic backdrop, contains much of what is above. There is material destruction in its vision of the near future, as well as a devolution into earlier civilizational modes, and there is also a single enemy in the form of a race of machines. However, the movie also introduces to the big screen some elements of the new “cyberpunk” science fiction in which the focus is just as much on the influences that a completely wired future might have on perception, identity, experience, human relationships, and rationality in general. It is a shift, though not complete, from a dark future which focuses on mechanization and unparalleled physical pain and destruction to a future where the biggest casualty is perhaps our sanity. While not the first and definitely not the best movies to attempt this (Strange Days and the horrible Johnny Mnemonic are other examples), they are the newest additions to reach the screen.