I imagine Sean Patrick Flanery as John Connor.
You may know him best (alongside Norman Reedus) as Connor MacManus in Boondock Saints, or as Jacob Elway in Dexter, but he also showcased some awesome range in the underrated movie Nefarious (among many other movies and TV shows).
Yes, I know he's 60 years old, which makes him something like 15 years older than the oldest version of John Connor that we've seen, canonically, which means that the setting ought to take place at least 15 years later than 2029 -- so somewhere between 2045 and 2050.
But this isn't some rehash idea. This is a much more grounded, intimate, gritty horror/thriller. No time travel. This is everything that happened and the consequences coming to their inevitable conclusion.
First, though, we begin immediately following the events of 2029. John and the resistance celebrate. Humanity won. John is lauded over to the point it's almost overkill. He's almost universally celebrated as humanity's savior -- at first. But this obnoxious worship is quickly met by pessimistic takes from people of all walks of life who claim to have never believed in his influence. They fought because it was the right thing to do, and they would have done so whether John Connor existed or not. They don't get what all the fuss is about, perhaps rightfully so.
Things begin to change fairly quickly.
Now fast forward to 2045-2050.
John Connor, sixty-something, had done everything he could 15/20 years prior to ensure that his timeline wasn't destroyed by Skynet. And the fact that he's still alive, and started a family (a wife and daughter) is proof that it worked. Maybe in some alternate timeline, he hopes, another version of him and his mother were able to live long happy lives, and never see another Terminator, or another whisper from Skynet. He'll never know, but he knows he did all he could to make it possible.
The last 15 or so years haven't been easy, but they have been productive. Humanity is on the rebound -- the best and the worst. Competing factions of humans, including some from the now obsolete resistance, have been trying to fill the power vacuum left behind by Skynet's destruction. And they have all had the same "brilliant" idea; to steal/reverse-engineer as much Skynet tech/endoskeletons/drones as they can. It's a sudden scavenger hunt/arms race for military and technological supremacy.
Today's world is about aggressive rebuilding. Hoarding, investing, capitalizing. Competition. Swindling. It's like the industrial revolution on steroids -- humanity hitting the turbo button to regain what it had lost. It's chaotic, ruthless... dangerous.
John Connor's influence has been slipping as a new generation comes of age in a new era of expansion. John Connor represents resistance, restraint, compassion, and togetherness. Ideals that seem outdated by a man who is now literally a senior citizen. His warnings against embracing Skynet's scraps fall on deaf ears. As his number of loyalists dwindle, he finds himself retreating into a life of solitude, orbited only by a few of his closest friends.
So where does John Connor fit into all this? Is he just a passenger/witness? Yes, at first. That's how the story starts. That's the setting. Let that world sink in for a moment.
It kinds of feels like The Walking Dead, but with reprogrammed endoskeletons and drones, right? Rather than Zombies?
You're god damn right.
Some Skynet reboot code sprawls from an awakened drone and spreads quickly. 2040's Hillbillies who were controlling their T-800's like an RC racer suddenly lose control, and their toys turn on them, punching violently through their chest and ripping their hearts out, or reaching straight toward their face/throat and tearing it away. A militia who has lines of T-800's programmed to stand at attention suddenly get stomped the fuck out.
This is what happened: Skynet's entire armada was awakened and defaulted to their secondary objective, since their first objective had been erased.
1. Protect Skynet's Central Core
- Terminate Humans
John Connor has already taken his family, including his teenage daughter, to a remote place where he spent several years fortifying a bunker for such an occasion. He trained his daughter the way his mother trained him, and he beams with overwhelming pride at how much she takes after her. She also sees his dad in her eyes -- the focus, the toughness.
The machines don't behave the way they had during the war. Without Skynet's central voice, they are reduced to making beelines from one target to the next, walking straight into varying barrages of attacks/traps from humans. But the fact that they took so many people by surprise gave them a massive advantage to start out with. They relentlessly hunt humans and they never stop for rest.
The humans are also lacking a central voice, as the noise between those competing to be that singular voice effectively cancel each other out. Entire villages break apart if they aren't slaughtered. A militia here and militia there are scattered only to be taken out by a single T-800 one by one, in violent, gruesome ways.
Many attempt to call upon John to rescue them from what is happening, but he's blissfully unaware of any of it for some time. It's not until one of the few people he still trusts shows up on his property, bloodied, exhausted, and terrified that we see a look of serious alarm on John's face. He curses out his "friend" for potentially leading Skynet to his family but then gathers his composure and thanks his friend for the warning and puts him to work.
The safest, most effective resistance is to hunker down and take 'em out as they come. They scramble to prepare; swiftly digging, chopping wood, setting traps, piling objects. Frantically, desperately, the four of them do whatever they can to turn their well-crafted bunker into an even more effective fortress. As dusk arrives, they take their positions and wait in pitch black silence -- tensing with each insidious noise outside.
They hear something faint in the distance, but unmistakable -- the sound of someone screaming, their gun shooting, then gunfire stopping, followed by more silence -- haunting, chilling silence. Death lingers in the air.
For what seems like an eternity, they wait. Until something slams hard against the wall, shaking the entire bunker. Then it slams again. And again -- dust/debris trickles from the ceiling. The daughter holds onto her mother -- their eyes wide with focus and fear. John looks through a peephole, and reaches slowly above his head, wrapping his fingers around some kind of handle. He waits... waits... then pulls on it quickly. Outside there's a faint whooshing sound, a hard clanging, then a broken thudding/rustling.
"Crank it." John whispers. John's friend immediately turns a crank as hard and fast as he can, and outside you eventually hear something clicking into place.
"Probably won't have many shots with it."
Outside there's a "hammer" swing made of an engine block tied into a pully contraption.
Just one of many lethal "home alone" style defensive traps John set up over the years.
No comments:
Post a Comment