An Open Letter to the Makers of 'Terminator Genisys'

To the makers of Terminator Genisys,

I just watched a short clip that was released online from the new movie. It’s pretty neat. Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese are wearing the same costumes from the original movie and everything. Kyle even has the same Nikes.

It tries to succinctly explain its ridiculously convoluted timeline, and where it’s supposed to fit within the whole Terminator saga, which is why I’m writing this letter. I just wanted to ask: Why?

You guys did watch The Terminator, right? Sci-fi horror classic, roundly lauded as one of the most influential movies of the past 40 years…? Why are you trying to erase it? Sarah even says, “The 1984 John sent you to no longer exists.” Is it because you ran out of ideas and want to subversively tie this new one to the original that we all pretty much love? Do you think that we’ll just forget about the travesty that is Terminator Salvation and the slightly less mortifying Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines?

This means that you also erased the existence of Terminator 2, one of the best sequels and action movies ever made. What gives?

We get it. You like making Terminator movies, and we love watching them. It’s mostly our fault that these things keep getting made. Arnold's still got that Schwarzenegger swagger and seems to dig playing the ol’ T-800. We only ask that you please stop plotzing on the memories of the first two by coming up with hot-garbage plots. We realize you’re trying to do the T2 thing and flip everything on its head. People did go rather nuts when they found out that the Terminator was the good guy in the second one. 

But making John Connor the bad guy this time and erasing the original two movies just reeks of running out of ways to tell the same story. Even James Cameron has moved onto new things. Shouldn’t you do that too?

If you want to keep making Terminator movies — and who wouldn't? — maybe just go ahead and make up some new characters, with different pasts, while you're at it. Here, watch. Jake Carpenter. His mom is Sally Carpenter. They live in Florida. In the future Jake's daughter becomes a brilliant, Skynet-crashing hacker, so Terminators come back in time and chase them. They have a big, fast truck and a bunch of sawed-off shotguns stashed in a hunting trailer in the middle of the Everglades. The Carpenters have no idea who the Connors are, and thus, don't need to pave over two cinematic classics in order to have coherent conversations about whatever plot they're involved in.  

Thanking you in advance,

Everyone born before 1998