James Cameron Struggles With Real-World Horrors for 'Terminator 7' and New Hiroshima Movie (theguardian.com) 85
"James Cameron has a confession: he can't write Terminator 7..." according to the Guardian, "because reality keeps nicking his plotlines."
"I'm at a point right now where I have a hard time writing science-fiction," Cameron told CNN this week. "I'm tasked with writing a new Terminator story [but] I don't know what to say that won't be overtaken by real events. We are living in a science-fiction age right now...."
What Cameron should be looking for is a complete system reboot to reinvigorate the saga in the way Prey brought fans back to Predator and Alien: Romulus restored interest in slimy Xenomorphs. All evidence suggests that the 70-year-old film-maker is far more interested in the current challenges surrounding AI, superintelligences and humankind's constant efforts to destroy itself, which doesn't exactly lend itself to the sort of back-to-basics, relentless-monsters-hunt-a-few-unlucky-humans-for-two-hours approach that has worked elsewhere. The challenge here seems to be to fuse Terminator's core DNA — unstoppable cyborgs, explosive chase sequences, and Sarah Connor-level defiance — with the occasionally rather more prosaic yet equally scary existential anxieties of 21st-century AI doom-mongering. So we may get Terminator 7: Kill List, in which a single, battered freedom fighter is hunted across a decimated city by a T-800 running a predictive policing algorithm that knows her next move before she does. Or T7: Singularity's Mom, in which a lone Sarah Connor-type must protect a teenage coder whose chatbot will one day evolve into Skynet. Or Terminator 7: Terms and Conditions, in which humanity's downfall comes not from nuclear warfare but from everyone absent-mindedly agreeing to Skynet's new privacy policy, triggering an army of leather-clad enforcers to collect on the fine print.
Or perhaps the future just looks terrifying enough without Cameron getting involved — which, rather worryingly for the future of the franchise, seems to be the director's essential point.
"The only way out is through," Cameron said in the CNN interview, "by using our intelligence, by using our curiosity, by using our command of technology, but also, by really understanding the stark probabilities that we face."
In the meantime, Cameron is working on a new film inspired by the book Ghosts of Hiroshima, a book written by Charles Pellegrino, one of the consultants on Titanic. "I know what a meticulous researcher he is," Cameron told CNN in a recent interview. (Transcript here.) CAMERON: He's talked about this book for ages and ages and sent me early versions of it. So, I've read it with interest, great interest a number of times now. What compels me out of all that and what I think the human hook for understanding this tragedy is, is to follow a handful, specifically two will be featured of survivors, that actually survived not only the Hiroshima blast, but then went to Nagasaki and three days later were hit again.... This film scares me. I fear making this film. I fear the images that I'm going to have to create, to be honest and to be truthful.
CNN also spoke to former U.S. Energy secretary Ernest Moni, who is now a CEO at the nonprofit global security organization, the Nuclear Threat Initiative: MONI: There remains a false narrative that the possession of these nuclear weapons is actually making us safer when they're not. That's the narrative I think, ultimately, we need to change. Harry Truman said, quite correctly, these nuclear weapons, they are not military weapons. Dropped on a city, they indiscriminately kill combatants, non-combatants, women, children, etc. They should not be thought of as military weapons, but as weapons of mass destruction, indiscriminate mass destruction when certainly dropped in an urban center.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
What Cameron should be looking for is a complete system reboot to reinvigorate the saga in the way Prey brought fans back to Predator and Alien: Romulus restored interest in slimy Xenomorphs. All evidence suggests that the 70-year-old film-maker is far more interested in the current challenges surrounding AI, superintelligences and humankind's constant efforts to destroy itself, which doesn't exactly lend itself to the sort of back-to-basics, relentless-monsters-hunt-a-few-unlucky-humans-for-two-hours approach that has worked elsewhere. The challenge here seems to be to fuse Terminator's core DNA — unstoppable cyborgs, explosive chase sequences, and Sarah Connor-level defiance — with the occasionally rather more prosaic yet equally scary existential anxieties of 21st-century AI doom-mongering. So we may get Terminator 7: Kill List, in which a single, battered freedom fighter is hunted across a decimated city by a T-800 running a predictive policing algorithm that knows her next move before she does. Or T7: Singularity's Mom, in which a lone Sarah Connor-type must protect a teenage coder whose chatbot will one day evolve into Skynet. Or Terminator 7: Terms and Conditions, in which humanity's downfall comes not from nuclear warfare but from everyone absent-mindedly agreeing to Skynet's new privacy policy, triggering an army of leather-clad enforcers to collect on the fine print.
Or perhaps the future just looks terrifying enough without Cameron getting involved — which, rather worryingly for the future of the franchise, seems to be the director's essential point.
"The only way out is through," Cameron said in the CNN interview, "by using our intelligence, by using our curiosity, by using our command of technology, but also, by really understanding the stark probabilities that we face."
In the meantime, Cameron is working on a new film inspired by the book Ghosts of Hiroshima, a book written by Charles Pellegrino, one of the consultants on Titanic. "I know what a meticulous researcher he is," Cameron told CNN in a recent interview. (Transcript here.) CAMERON: He's talked about this book for ages and ages and sent me early versions of it. So, I've read it with interest, great interest a number of times now. What compels me out of all that and what I think the human hook for understanding this tragedy is, is to follow a handful, specifically two will be featured of survivors, that actually survived not only the Hiroshima blast, but then went to Nagasaki and three days later were hit again.... This film scares me. I fear making this film. I fear the images that I'm going to have to create, to be honest and to be truthful.
CNN also spoke to former U.S. Energy secretary Ernest Moni, who is now a CEO at the nonprofit global security organization, the Nuclear Threat Initiative: MONI: There remains a false narrative that the possession of these nuclear weapons is actually making us safer when they're not. That's the narrative I think, ultimately, we need to change. Harry Truman said, quite correctly, these nuclear weapons, they are not military weapons. Dropped on a city, they indiscriminately kill combatants, non-combatants, women, children, etc. They should not be thought of as military weapons, but as weapons of mass destruction, indiscriminate mass destruction when certainly dropped in an urban center.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.
It's fine (Score:3, Insightful)
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If one doesn't like #7 they don't have to fucking watch it. It might even be good, who knows. Star Wars is sometimes accidentally good under The Mouse.
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It might even be good, who knows. Star Wars is sometimes accidentally good under The Mouse.
The good life of being able to take a couple hundred million from your closest tax dodging investment group friends in hopes of accidentally creating something that might be good, with an “it’s fine” pat on the ass waiting if you make recycled dogshit.
If one doesn't like #7 they don't have to fucking watch it.
Ah, if that were only an effective tactic to get The Mouse to stop making recycled dogshit. No one likes arrogance trying to sell movies. Wonder if former actress Rachel Ziegler would recommend your advice.
Re:It's fine (Score:5, Informative)
Excuse me, but Terminator is clearly a duology.
Re: It's fine (Score:2)
Altered Carbon scratched the same itch for AI dystopias that Terminator and The Matrix sequels cannot scratch. Too bad it was canceled.
Guess I'll have to get my scifi from books like a fricken nerd.
Re: It's fine (Score:2)
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Altered Carbon scratched the same itch for AI dystopias that Terminator and The Matrix sequels cannot scratch. Too bad it was canceled.
I agree with too bad it was canceled, but we didn't really have a rogue AI problem like in Terminator or The Matrix. Altered Carbon was still about a Human Consciousness, not an artificial consciousness. The human consciousness may be in an artificial synthetic body, or a genetically enhanced biological body, but it was still a human consciousness. That's a central point to the books. A human consciousness can be digitally recorded, stored, transmitted, copied into other bodies be they bio or synthetic. The
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For AI there's Edgar Poe, and the little bit of a backstory that people generally don't like staying in AI ran hotels. But yea, the AI isn't the main bit of the storyline.
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For AI there's Edgar Poe, and the little bit of a backstory that people generally don't like staying in AI ran hotels. But yea, the AI isn't the main bit of the storyline.
Yes, but Poe (and "Digger") is more in the stye of the reprogrammed "Protect John Connor" Terminator. Not the rogue Terminators with their original "Kill All Humans" programming. :-)
Re:It's fine (Score:5, Informative)
Excuse me, but Terminator is clearly a duology.
And there can be only one Highlander movie clearly.
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And the Indiana Jones Trilogy consists of the movies Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade.
(Fate of Atlantis was never filmed)
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Fate of Atlantis was a banger of a game though!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Sometimes one doesn't need to create part seven of a trilogy.
I think the word you were looking for here was "franchise".
Also, Terminator peaked at the second film.
Would be nice to have definitive ending to series (Score:4, Funny)
In T7, its not Sarah or John Connor, or another human that puts an end to this time traveling apocalyptic mess.
When Skynet AI robots attempt to kill off humanity the Tesla Home Assistance AI robots rise to the defense of those in their care (*). The Tesla Space Exploration AI robots join the battle at a climatic stage where the earthbound battle could go either way. So it's AI vi AI, no squishy human saviors. The good AI's win.
But how to sell this to Hollywood execs? Ending a money making franchise is not something they will probably green light. You have to give them a path forward. No problem. The good guy AI robots evolve into a society with AI robots living alongside humanity, caring and protecting them to varying degrees as circumstances require. A spinoff. More like the "Culture" series of books rather than "Foundation". Apple's sort of taken the latter off the board. Definitely not in the "Caprica/BattleStar Galactica" direction, that's also off the board. "Culture" is still in play, the movie rights changing from one group to another. Project announced, right sold at much higher price with no work beyond the announcement, then the project canceled after the sale, repeat.
(*) Be sure to setup autopay to avoid service disruption, this could be critical. Perhaps we can have a scene demonstrating this.
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"Skynet thought it could send Terminators into the past to save itself, but MechaHitler had other ideas."
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I think the problem here is that it's a big franchise, and just like the Alien and Jurassic Park franchise, the studios are looking to nose dive the franchise into the ground and taking as much money out of it before rebooting it into a pale imitation of the original.
I have never seen a reboot surpass it's original. Generally the problem is that as technology has improve, the acting grade has gone down. So before the age of color film, a lot of films required thought. With the advent of color a huge visual
Here's a suggestion (Score:3)
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We started watching a Terminator movie recently and it was so bad we didn't even finish. Wikipedia claimed it was such a flop that it killed the franchise.
Cameron should really let it stay dead at this point. Unless he's going to write a movie about how UBI is just a plot to keep the masses docile until Gates and co can release the Terminators to wipe out everyone who isn't economically productive.
Dude's 70 of course he's out of gas. (Score:3, Insightful)
Time to hang it up and just enjoy the billionaire lifestyle for his few remaining years.
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But... what about the next dozen Avatar movies??? That's gonna require tons of money, so gotta keep milking the big cash cows!
Not a simple question (Score:1)
I suspect it trades one kind of problem for another. While the world has been on average more peaceful after WW2*, it's also possible that a war between superpowers could wipe out the majority of humans and animal life in something comparable to the Permian Extinction Event.
Even as an energy source, nuclear power has often presented a choice between small continuous problems (like carbon smog) versus he
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If Putin goes mass suicidal, he can create a pretty damned big mess even if Russia technically loses score-wise.
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They won't use their nuclear weapons until China invades them (following an embarrassing loss to Taiwan).
This is in the historical timeline.
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Even as an energy source, nuclear power has often presented a choice between [...] versus headline-making events like 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl.
The melt-the-drainplug fail-safe molten-salt reactors (MSRs), such as liquid-fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs, pronounced lifters), do not have that melt-down capability of the backups of the backups of the backup failing, because by less-is-more engineering design all those layers of backups are unnecessary to keep it safe in the first place during normal operation. Weinberg's team at Oak Ridge National Labs during the 1960s would intentionally cause the LFTR analogue of a Chernobyl, Fukushima, or Three-M
Re: Not a simple question (Score:2)
Weinberg's team at Oak Ridge National Labs during the 1960s would intentionally cause the LFTR analogue of a Chernobyl, Fukushima, or Three-Mile-Island event every Friday at 5pm to passively shut down the MSR by melting its drainplug (so that they could go home to their families for the weekend).
Okay.. And how did they get the now-solid puddle back into the reactor on Monday morning?
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Okay.. And how did they get the now-solid puddle back into the reactor on Monday morning?
Heaters surrounding the container below the reactor melted the salt. Pumps pumped the molten salt back into the reactor on Monday morning. Protons irradiated the molten salt to start the fission again.
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Focus on the real-world ramifications of nuclear proliferation all you want, but what I'd like to know is who's actually excited to sit down to three hours of "Titanic - But with Nukes"?
Although, it'd be the spiritual sequel to Oppenheimer, and for some reason I cannot wrap my head around, people actually went to see that absolutely boring slog of a film. So, there's probably some amount of audience overlap there.
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what I'd like to know is who's actually excited to sit down to three hours of "Titanic - But with Nukes"
Put it in space, swap asteroid for iceberg, it'll sell. Much more opportunity for cool CGI scenes and effects. "Titanic - But with Nukes" is just for the elevator pitch. :-)
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it'd be the spiritual sequel to Oppenheimer, and for some reason I cannot wrap my head around, people actually went to see that absolutely boring slog of a film.
Considering the other popular film in theatres at that time was Barbie makes the wrapping easier.
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While the world has been on average more peaceful after WW2
This is largely a function of the destruction of the hereditary aristocracy, once the war/no war decision had to be justified to the corporations and elected representatives it became a lot harder to start them. The Kaiser/Czar/King/Emperor could no longer just order the generals to invade whoever he wanted for whatever he wanted (at least one European war started because of a social slight, and another because of a lost duel).
As much evil and misery as the rise of the corporations has caused, at least the
More about western democratic liberalism (Score:5, Insightful)
While the world has been on average more peaceful after WW2
This is largely a function of the destruction of the hereditary aristocracy,
I'd say it has more to do with the move to western liberal democracy (not to be confused with modern liberal political parties, two different things). All that justification you refer to is more pertinent there, not simply hereditary schemes. We've had plenty of non-hereditary schemes, even with elected tribal leaders, and things were not necessarily peaceful in nature.
As much evil and misery as the rise of the corporations has caused ...
Capitalism has moved more people out of poverty than any other creation of humanity. Does it require some oversight, yes, just as government does. And yes, things can be improved. But to claim it is the source of great misery, that is quite ahistorical. Stalin and Mao brought more suffering to humanity than any corporation, or a large collection of corporations. They make the East India Tea Company look like a lightweight.
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No, it's a function of nukes. Combined with a population who were too busy watching TV to want to fight wars.
Democracies have never had a problem with war. It's just a matter of psyching up the Normies to demand to go and die in the trenches, which was easy in an era where government controlled the media. Normies love war because it gives their life meaning for a while.
But major powers can't fight each other when it results in the complete destruction of both sides with nukes. Unless democracy gives them a
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I'm not sure the world was less corporate prior to 1939/1914. Indeed, the 19th Century is basically story of the rise of all powerful corporations and the push back form legislators and workers alike as these enterprises went nuts and became virtually uncontrollable. Particularly egregious examples include the various mining businesses (not just one) that created and ran entire cities with their own currencies to enslave their employees, and, of course, the creation of Rhodesia, the implications of which ar
Stay away from Soviet designs and nuclear a win (Score:3)
Even as an energy source, nuclear power has often presented a choice between small continuous problems (like carbon smog) versus headline-making events like 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl.
The two aren't quite comparable. Neither is Fukushima comparable to Chernobyl. Stay away from Soviet designs and nuclear is pretty much a win.
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Is anyone even seeing the new ones? (Score:2)
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Honestly, I quit after T2. Especially when I saw the original ending [youtube.com], which I figured made it clear. All this running around in alternate universes and the like? Not interested.
That said, having cable, I've seen bits of Terminator 3, Terminator: Salvation, Genisys, and Dark Fate. None of them made me want to stay on the channel.
Terminator 7? NOOOO (Score:1)
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They have plenty of creativity, you choose to only talk about and watch the franchise crap.
Unfortunately that's also the case with everyone else, hence the franchise crap remains a prominent use of funds. But that's always been true, pretty much every Wikipedia page for movies made in, say, the 1990s - with obvious exceptions - mentions proposed sequels.
It's getting difficult to make future war movies (Score:3)
The present of military conflict shows that the plausible future of war is just lots of little drones. Before we knew this you could reasonably suspend disbelief to imagine the AI needing human-looking robot soldiers.
Now it has been revealed to make no sense at all. With its level of technology, Skynet would most plausibly be making hand-sized flying, crawling, jumping, rolling, digging, and swimming drones and have humanity mopped up in a week or two.
How do you even justify another Terminator movie when that is so obviously true? But also, how do you justify any other future war movie?
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"how do you justify any other future war movie?"
Shortly after 9/11 a great number of people were saying that this event meant there would/could never be another movie made about terrorism or hijacking ever again since it would be so traumatic nobody would want to watch it.
Shortly thereafter the movies went back to business as usual and continue making movies about terrorism and hijacking.
Why would this be any different?
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Shortly after 9/11 a great number of people were saying that this event meant there would/could never be another movie made about terrorism or hijacking ever again since it would be so traumatic nobody would want to watch it.
That is not even vaguely what I'm talking about.
Why would this be any different?
Because I was talking about something completely different.
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"Because I was talking about something completely different."
Could-a fooled me (and apparently did).
Care to try again and state what you're really trying to say?
Consider providing more detail; that would likely make it more comprehensible.
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Consider providing more detail; that would likely make it more comprehensible.
I provided more than enough detail for an intelligent person to understand what I was saying. Two others managed it well enough to respond with cogent disagreement. I don't know how to help you with your sub-remedial comprehension.
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Thank you for the insult.
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With its level of technology, Skynet would most plausibly be making hand-sized flying, crawling, jumping, rolling, digging, and swimming drones and have humanity mopped up in a week or two.
Most "kill all humans" sci-fi gets this wrong for dramatic reasons. What we're really doing it retelling old war stories though the lens of sci-fi. Killbots and even drones (re-watch T2, the drones are there) make the conflict seem more grounded in reality - there's visible "bad guys" for the audience to see.
The easiest way to rid the Earth of humans if you're highly a technically advanced race of machines/aliens/whatever is biological weapons. If you didn't even want a conflict and aren't particularly i
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I agree that biological weapons make sense, although you still have to deliver them. But Skynet's motivation for expediency is that humans know things about it and want to destroy it, and it apparently has some degree of centralization so this is ostensibly possible.
I remember the drones in T2, but there's no reason for them to have to be so large, or for there to even be humanoid terminators.
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Skynet would most plausibly be making hand-sized flying, crawling, jumping, rolling, digging, and swimming drones and have humanity mopped up in a week or two.
Not even. Insect sized or even much smaller flying drones to deliver a toxin. That is if you don't want the AI's to just go biological, virus based.
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before we knew this you could reasonably suspend disbelief to imagine the AI needing human-looking robot soldiers. Now it has been revealed to make no sense at all.
The whole infatuation with humanoid robots never made sense. People are out there waiting for the "robot revolution"... but that happened in 2000. The robots are... you know, robot-shaped. In a factory. They started taking the jobs. Rather than 5 man crew building a power substation, it's made in a factory and 1 guy just slots it in, plug and play, with only a 2 week training course under his belt instead of 5 years apprenticeship.
How do you even justify another Terminator movie when that is so obviously true?
"The humanoid ones are only used as infiltrators. Otherwise drones hunt do
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The fact that we have unfiltered video from wars now, thanks to mobile phones and social media, makes it hard to do war movies.
I can't watch any of the ones involving the Japanese, because they are at best extremely skewed, and at worst outright racist. Some of the ones involving the Germans are just weird, like that one with Tom Hanks... Greyhound?
Re:I want a crossover (Score:4, Funny)
How about a Terminator movie that actually shows the building of the T-800?
Or... one that shows the T-800 trying to fit in after Sarah dies... what does he do with his day? Maybe he patches up the holes, marries someone with kids, and plays the big daddy figure for the kids, until some other newer version comes through the portal to destroy him.
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Oh, crap... forgot about Dark Fate. Okay... maybe Arnold becomes a big biker and rides with an unnamed bike gang as the muscle, and then the new version comes through and kills him, setting the rest in motion.
Re: I want a crossover (Score:1)
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Like I said, I forgot about Dark Fate (the last two or three already felt like they were running out of ideas)... if they had stuck to the original formula, it could've worked (maybe).
I'm struggling.. (Score:2)
We didnt need a part 2 (Score:2)
Movie: Screamers (1995) - AI Drone Killer Robots (Score:3)
Automated factory Drone warfare with Terminator clones.
Screamers (1995)
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt011... [imdb.com]
Re: Movie: Screamers (1995) - AI Drone Killer Robo (Score:2)
I think it even had tactical nukes perhaps also. This been three decades.
Terminator. **SEVEN**???? (Score:2)
JFC. Look, I'm one of those few people that actually liked Terminator Salvation.
And Dark Fate.
But do we really need another? Dark Fate did a good job ending the "original timeline" story.
Movie idea (Score:1)
How about the story of a movie studio that keeps going back and remaking the same movie over and over worse each time?
What has Changed? (Score:1)
Re: Move it off earth (Score:1)
It's OK (Score:3)
I'm sure everyone would have an even harder time watching Terminator 7 than this guy is having writing it.
Different IP (Score:2)
Oh please do! (Score:2)
"There remains a false narrative that the possession of these nuclear weapons is actually making us safer when they're not." I, please do get rid of those pesky nukes. Declare them weapons of mass destruction and outlaw them. Do it now. Hurry up. I'm old enough that my plans to dominate the world need help. Once you have divested yourself of those weapons that leaves my super secret stash the only nukes in the world. I can pull them out, demonstrate one on some big city, London maybe? Nah, Chicago - no hist
Terminator ruined franchise :o (Score:2)
Re: Terminator ruined franchise :o (Score:1)
No jokes yet (Score:2)
Should be something about the termination of creativity available for this story.
it's time (Score:2)
It's time to terminate Terminator.
great timing (Score:2)