Whether you're ready or not, here we go. Hello and welcome to the studio demanded an exercise in creative thinking where we will challenge ourselves to conceptualize, pitch, and craft a film based on the stipulations of a hypothetical Hollywood overlord. I am TC DeWitt, and joining me as always is Jim Great Beard Burzelic. How's it going, Jim? Great.
T.C. De Witt:What are we doing here? We talk movies all the time. In particular, we complain about the choices that are made in movies all the time. And of course, like any good nerd and cinephile does, we automatically assume we could do better. Automatically.
T.C. De Witt:Automatically. We see a mistake and we go, I do that. So we decided to make a podcast about that. Yeah. Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:So we assume and we are going to prove that we could make better choices based on the demands and restrictions that clearly must have been put in the place of the production. I'm a writer. You're a writer. We're both filmmakers. I've directed and acted and produced.
T.C. De Witt:You've directed and produced, so we're not without experience. How are doing, Jim? I'm doing well. You do have a good beard right now.
Jim Burzelic:Thank you. You have a Thank you. It's I it was it was quite long. It was bordering on words. I I don't got the words again.
Jim Burzelic:You you Hermit. That's sort of Oh, you went It was bordering on hermit.
T.C. De Witt:Hermits here.
Jim Burzelic:And going for wizard. Mhmm. But then I decided to give it a trim.
T.C. De Witt:Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:So I brought it down brought it down to a nice Okay.
T.C. De Witt:It's it's quite long.
Jim Burzelic:I think you Well, it it it grew back out a bit. Right? So this is this is about an inch longer than where I had taken it.
T.C. De Witt:Alright. I I've been growing mine out for a part, so, like, I have I have quite a lush beard going right now.
Jim Burzelic:I mean, me too. I I also
T.C. De Witt:I think I don't know. Who has the right of way beard law?
Jim Burzelic:I I do.
T.C. De Witt:Because it's because yours is longer? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Mine's too clean.
T.C. De Witt:Like, I'm clearly Yeah. I should
Jim Burzelic:Well, you can have you can have a clean long beard as well. Mhmm. But it's it's almost always length. I I could see a situation where where a beard could be mighty in other Mhmm. Ways, but but generally, it's it's gonna be length.
T.C. De Witt:So so you know how, like, there's barbershops and there's salons? Mhmm. And there's also studios where you can get your haircut. We're discussing a different studio demand because we're discussing hair and beard.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. That's true.
T.C. De Witt:The studio demands a goatee. No. Okay. So
Jim Burzelic:I'll I'll do it by god. I'll do that one as
T.C. De Witt:strictly about beards.
Jim Burzelic:Where we where we talk about the facial hair we have. Mhmm. Perhaps I'm just not attuned to it yet. I don't know if you can hear Yeah. Facial hair?
T.C. De Witt:I think people who have facial hair can hear it.
Jim Burzelic:Okay. So it would be for them.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. Like, it's a it's a real, you know, you have a hairy upper lip. You can just hear it. If you have one, you can hear it in someone else. Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:There it is. I hear it. It's like it's like a dog like a dog. Don't want to say
Jim Burzelic:because that has
T.C. De Witt:a bad connotation. What kind of mustache does he have? He said dog whistle and okay. Moving on. So where to begin?
T.C. De Witt:We have our ridiculous pile of studio properties. Mhmm. Been doing this for a few episodes now. Actually are developing an audience. So excitedly so.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. We actually have a guest star of this. So we did the Dark Universe.
Jim Burzelic:Yes.
T.C. De Witt:We brought the wolf man on. We did. He refuses to revert back to human form.
Jim Burzelic:Because why would you? It's a weaker form.
T.C. De Witt:It's a why would you be anything but the wolf at all times? Yeah. Right? People just I mean, decide he needs to accept great. That wolves are are wolves too.
T.C. De Witt:That wolves are people.
Jim Burzelic:Wolves. Yep. Wolves. Wolves. People.
Jim Burzelic:People.
T.C. De Witt:Wolves. But the best part about this is we finally reached a point where our stack of possible studio demands Mhmm. We now can add to it because the listeners have finally started throwing demands at us. Yes. And tonight, we have a listener who has chosen what our demand will be.
T.C. De Witt:Yes. We have. Yeah. I I think what we need, though, is this is something for the future. So if you're gonna throw us a a demand, if you're gonna say do this movie, do this franchise, do this, then you have to come up with a studio name.
T.C. De Witt:So we will first Okay. You this this tonight's episode, our studio head that is making the demand is is our friend Leah. She's she's made a demand. And she actually told us what her studio name is, Better Than the Book Productions. Yep.
T.C. De Witt:Now that's no indication of what we're gonna do today, but
Jim Burzelic:But it will be.
T.C. De Witt:It might be. We but literally, you or I don't really know what we're jumping into here.
Jim Burzelic:That that's right. We did we correct.
T.C. De Witt:We're kinda going in blind here. Yeah. Yeah. So alright. So I guess we should just jump in.
Jim Burzelic:Guess so.
T.C. De Witt:If you're new to the podcast, welcome. What we're gonna do is, like I said, we're going to get the a demand of a studio to basically fix a movie that didn't work. So here we go. I'm just gonna I bring it up. I do not know what we're gonna do.
T.C. De Witt:Today, we are doing The Terminator. Oh. A new Terminator. Okay. Okay.
T.C. De Witt:I have okay. So the studio is demanding a new Terminator. Now, the question is
Jim Burzelic:Mhmm.
T.C. De Witt:Do we fit it in the current continuity? Do we completely reboot it? What do we consider canon? What do we not consider canon? Because currently coming out this year as of recording, there is a new Terminator coming out Oh.
T.C. De Witt:Directed by, I believe, produced by James Cameron.
Jim Burzelic:But sure,
T.C. De Witt:Schwartzenegger's in it. Linda Hamilton's going to be in it and probably a new friggin John Connor because they got to have a new one for every movie. Yep. So will that be the studio is demanding a new Terminator, but that's the extent of our demand is just a new Terminator.
Jim Burzelic:Yep.
T.C. De Witt:Now I have to ask you, is this does this come off of your list?
Jim Burzelic:It does.
T.C. De Witt:It does come
Jim Burzelic:off of us.
T.C. De Witt:Yes. So I I'm gonna have you jump on the studio demands and kinda create some more stipulations for for us Okay. Sure.
Jim Burzelic:To discuss here. Well, so with this one this one was the one that I I had no ideas. I've been avoiding thinking about. It was just the one it just seems like like it should be it should be
T.C. De Witt:done. Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:I I first, with all the things you just said, I think we should probably explore all of those options.
T.C. De Witt:Oh, boy.
Jim Burzelic:At least a little bit. At least touch on them. So the first thing that comes to mind to me oh, but you wanted stipulations first. Well, I
T.C. De Witt:Keep talking.
Jim Burzelic:Let's see here.
T.C. De Witt:You're moving along here.
Jim Burzelic:Because because as as you were describing that that is it should it be this or this and there's a new one coming and all that kind of stuff Yeah. It occurred to me it could actually be really really fun to do a a reboot Mhmm. That acknowledges the previous one, a la Star Trek.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. So, like, which is the movie that started this entire podcast. Yes. Our Star Trek Into Darkness conversation led to the creation of it. Okay.
T.C. De Witt:I have such memories about Terminator. I'm excited to dive into this. Leah, thank you for picking this for us. I can remember the the most heated discussion I ever had about Terminator was before Terminator Salvation came out. My friend Ben, who I used to do a podcast with, asked me if I was a fan of it and I said because he knew I love time travel.
T.C. De Witt:Sure. And I said, No, I don't like the Terminator movies. I was like, Why? I literally pulled out a whiteboard to explain the paradoxical nature of Terminator. And he was like, Boy, for disliking this movie series, you sure know a hell of a lot about it.
T.C. De Witt:And I suppose the more I talked about it, and we've gone through salvation at this point and Genesis, which is just a textbook example of terrible trailer making. Do you know why they did the reveal in the trailer? Because they didn't think people would accept it if they saw it in the movie. You wanna talk The Genesis? Spoiler for Genesis that John Connor is the big bad villain in Terminator.
Jim Burzelic:Oh, I didn't even remember that.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. They
Jim Burzelic:revealed Honestly, if if I'm thinking of the right one I don't even know if I'm thinking of the right one anymore. That was the latest one. Right?
T.C. De Witt:Correct. Yeah. The one with
Jim Burzelic:Good for you. Yeah. Honestly The best thing
T.C. De Witt:that come out of that movie.
Jim Burzelic:The thing that I remember about that trailer, the thing I I was excited to see it, and then I just didn't get the chance to, but apparently, everyone else disagreed with me. I actually thought getting the Khaleesi? The yeah. Khaleesi to to be Sarah Connor was an amazing choice. I'd I'd for for my mind, for my memory of Sarah Connor, Linda no.
T.C. De Witt:Linda Hamilton. Right?
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Linda Hamilton being younger, I thought that she was a great match for that, and you what a great way to kind of reinvigorate the the story with with essentially her showing up and saving the Terminator.
T.C. De Witt:Come with me if you wanna be.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Yeah. I thought I thought that was amazing, and I really wanted to see it from that point. And then just that that summary I didn't get to.
T.C. De Witt:Well, we we've they've attempted to reboot this. This will be the third time they've done it, and they're using the they're kinda going with the the new way of rebooting things, at least for Dark Fate, Terminator. Dark Fate's the the most recent one coming out this year, directed by Tim Miller from Deadpool fame, is that they just are ignoring the bad ones and only only one and two exist and that's it.
Jim Burzelic:I mean, okay.
T.C. De Witt:Well, that's the new method of doing it. Halloween did it.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. I suppose. Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:So that's the new way to do the reboots is to just ignore the bad ones and only like robot robot robot cop's gonna do it. You know robot cop?
Jim Burzelic:Robot cop.
T.C. De Witt:Robot cop. You know Robot's Cap?
Jim Burzelic:Robot's
T.C. De Witt:You're coming with me, dead.
Jim Burzelic:Dead and alive.
T.C. De Witt:So there we go. Do you like Terminator? I suppose we're doing a
Jim Burzelic:bit
T.C. De Witt:of a review before we do that.
Jim Burzelic:I do. I do. So so the the thing that you said you don't like, the paradox?
T.C. De Witt:I I
Jim Burzelic:I love it. I'm being
T.C. De Witt:pedantic about it that it's like, do I hate it? No. Do I I just I can appreciate the term t two, Terminator two is one of the finest action movies ever made, made by one of the finest action directors ever made, crazy ass James Cameron. Like, I will never not, like, I will always agree to that that Sure. To it.
T.C. De Witt:I really like the first one because it's just a horror movie. Mhmm. It's like a slasher movie. Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:It just
T.C. De Witt:happens to be Schwarzenegger.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Do you do a Schwarzenegger impression? There you go. That's my but I could I you can you can put some phrases in there, but they're not nearly as much fun as yeah.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. So where do we begin? Where is this a reboot? You want are you saying that
Jim Burzelic:So so here's the thing.
T.C. De Witt:Acknowledge all of them?
Jim Burzelic:Maybe. Mhmm. I think the studio would like to. The studio wants to lose no money on previous attempts.
T.C. De Witt:Oh, boy. You stupid studio. You should've made Terminator Genesis because this could be like a a diehard six situation where, like, let's just pretend five doesn't exist and they're like, no. No. Sure.
T.C. De Witt:Five has to exist.
Jim Burzelic:So Well, so here's here's the problem with that stipulation. Yeah. Again, I haven't seen Genesis.
T.C. De Witt:Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:And I haven't the the other thing that I know a bunch about, but actually haven't seen all of that I think was fantastic was the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
T.C. De Witt:With with another Game of Thrones alumni. Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:So so doing making making something that does acknowledge everything, I'm coming in at a handicap. Okay. Well,
T.C. De Witt:I I've actually talked to you about this before because you had shared that concern previously. Mhmm. I said this is perfect because how many studio executives make decisions on franchises they don't know a damn thing about? Yeah. But because they have the suit and the money and the and the office and the top Top Floor Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:They get to make calls about, like, movies they've never even seen before. It's like, alright,
Jim Burzelic:just do it that way. That's what people want. Just the Terminator. Schwarzenegger's in it? Yeah, just do that.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. It's like, you don't know anything about this franchise. Doesn't matter. So it's okay that you haven't seen Genesis because a studio. Like, I know.
T.C. De Witt:It's a bad movie. Okay? I agree. Beckett, look. They made the mistake of trying to, like, Facebook it.
T.C. De Witt:I get it. Like, that bad guy was social media was the villain.
Jim Burzelic:Wait. In in seriously? Genesis Really?
T.C. De Witt:All about the like, the
Jim Burzelic:release of No.
T.C. De Witt:It was release of a new social media app that went that became the singularity.
Jim Burzelic:Is that
T.C. De Witt:your idea? Oh, I took I'm sorry. I've ruined this episode.
Jim Burzelic:No. You're Fine. Fine. Fine. That works fine.
Jim Burzelic:I'll do it. I'll make it work.
T.C. De Witt:Oh, because you now have to absorb it. You're like, oh, Sarah Chronicler Sarah Counter Chronicles, they did a good job with it. Facebook.
Jim Burzelic:And then and then the social medias came.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. So where do we get? Okay.
Jim Burzelic:So so you had mentioned you that you didn't like the paradox, and I've talked to other people about this. Yeah. They didn't like the paradox either. I love the paradox. Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:And let me specify the paradox that I like. Right. I like that Skynet, the Terminator, creates itself.
T.C. De Witt:And it's just that constant loop of creating itself.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. It it is from the future. Nothing in the past ever led to it. It's just it's just always this this thing that will show up because it manifests from nowhere. I I love that.
Jim Burzelic:I love it so much. And and the thing is it's not just, oh, the bad guys popped in from the future because we said they could. They always set it up so that it so that something happens that ensures that it that it occurs. Right? The first two movies, it was there's an arm left over.
Jim Burzelic:Mhmm. Then Tyson The yeah.
T.C. De Witt:Responsible for creating SkyNet. Yeah. It's alright. So in in your wanting to stay true to the franchise and your wanting to stay true to Terminator, is that something that needs to occur in this movie? And if you wanna absorb all of the existing versions of this, you have to recreate the loop.
T.C. De Witt:Right? Like, like, let me let me try this again. The first one exists and it loops back on itself. And then we move forward in time and then you the second one exists because it loops back in on itself. And then you move forward just a little bit more on the third one.
T.C. De Witt:And then the fourth one goes way further into the future and still loops in around itself. And then the fourth one goes back. Sarah, the t 800 actually goes back to when she's a child and befriends her, and they grew up together until Kyle Reese shows up, and then they jump forward in time. But the TV 800 couldn't travel, so he waits for them. Now he's old.
T.C. De Witt:And now they're in modern day. And the Skynet sends like a nanobite Terminator back who actually is John Connor. And Oh, no. And he wants to kill Sarah and stop so we have to stop face evil Facebook.
Jim Burzelic:So the thing is I think that even that can be acknowledged.
T.C. De Witt:And then Sarah Counter jumped around, like, they jumped ahead ten years, so they were in the early two thousands. Like
Jim Burzelic:So I think as strange as it may be Mhmm. All of that stuff that they did, let's just call it stuff Mhmm. Actually helps us in that at the most we would really need to do would be to nod enough that it that it could exist.
T.C. De Witt:Okay.
Jim Burzelic:An example I wanna give is in Godzilla. I think it was king of monsters. That might be the wrong one. All the Godzilla fans are getting mad at me now. They the it was it was, again, made by Toho, and they they included the American Godzilla that everyone in the world hated.
Jim Burzelic:They gave him a different name. They didn't call it Godzilla. They called it iguana something.
T.C. De Witt:Something dumb, probably.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. But but they acknowledged it. They made it a part of the the Godzilla canon, and and it is a monster that exists there. They didn't just hand wave it away and say, oh, crazy Americans. That.
Jim Burzelic:They said, oh, crazy Americans, we're gonna beat up your dumb monster.
T.C. De Witt:And they did.
Jim Burzelic:So I think I think that that could be that could be done. And I think the Sarah Connor Chronicles did some really interesting things that also help sort of explain these things. If if I remember right, it acknowledged different timelines. Yeah. Different versions of the future.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Different versions of Skynet. Different versions of the rebellion. Yes. Sending people and robots back in time.
Jim Burzelic:Cybernetic organisms. They're not robots. Cybernetic organisms.
T.C. De Witt:Thank you. Okay. Don't be robotist.
Jim Burzelic:It's well, it's it's true because you can't send nonorganic matter back in time. So clearly, they couldn't be robots. They would have to be cybernetic organisms.
T.C. De Witt:The science in this movie these movies are so tight.
Jim Burzelic:Like Oh, yeah.
T.C. De Witt:It always makes, like, absolute sense. Yeah. Like, I've never had to roll my eyes. I'm playing the bad guy here. I was like, how can you not like Terminator?
T.C. De Witt:I like the Terminator movies. Let's actually, I'm gonna swing to the other side of being the bad Okay. I think Terminator three is not that bad. So now I have a new different set of people mad at me.
Jim Burzelic:I I didn't think it was that bad either.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. And I wanna come back to Terminator three when we're laying out how we're gonna fix this creating a We will come back to Terminator three.
Jim Burzelic:And we're we're taking a long I think we're taking a long time to lay the groundwork here.
T.C. De Witt:Well, I mean, it's important. We're
Jim Burzelic:we're doing
T.C. De Witt:a franchise that's got a lot of mess
Jim Burzelic:to clean It's it's convoluted by its nature and then convoluted by studios.
T.C. De Witt:I the the problem here for me is that Terminator was never meant to be a franchise. Sure. It's it it has a each one of the the first one has a definitive ending. The second one has a definitive ending. Like, they keep extending and prolonging this story that's been told, it's done, and to varying degrees of success with something like the Sarah Khan Chronicles.
T.C. De Witt:Some of the ideas in Terminator Salvation are good Mhmm. When you have the charismatic void that is Sam Worthington. You're you're it's problematic just by casting him alone. Yeah. And and when you have a rewrite on the script while it's being made, again, the best thing that came out of that is
Jim Burzelic:like, good for you. Like, that's the
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. And Terminator of Genesis did have some good ideas playing with it that but it could potentially have been the launch pad to a new trilogy, which is what it was supposed to be. Sure.
Jim Burzelic:Which is what I'm sure this next one is going to be.
T.C. De Witt:Once again, gonna try to be. And so this is a series that I felt I have felt never should have been a franchise, but it exists as a franchise. So how do we give the studio what they want? They want a successful franchise. They want more movies to come out of this Terminator series in a story that's so simple that they just keep telling in varying degrees.
T.C. De Witt:I mean, hell, how many frigging Friday the thirteenth there are? There's this isn't a bad thing.
Jim Burzelic:Sure. Yeah. Is do.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. How do we give them what they want, which is a a frame a viable franchise? That's what we need to figure out because you can convince people to go see Terminator on name recognition alone. Schwarzenegger's gonna do them until he's too old to do them. Sure.
T.C. De Witt:He's too old to do that, but he's gonna keep doing them. How do you create a movie that I wanna see? The studio we have to get the studio movie that me, because I've I said, yeah, I'm a fan of this, that, and the other, but I don't love How do you create something that's worth coming back to? Get get or get a new audience in, not on just the name recognition. That's that's the problem we need to solve here.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. I think we've we've laid a lot of groundwork. Continue wherever you Sure. Go with this. I'm just
Jim Burzelic:So my first my first wall idea I wanna throw at the wall. Mhmm. Multiple Skynets.
T.C. De Witt:So, like, competing versions of Skynet?
Jim Burzelic:Yes. Okay.
T.C. De Witt:Has one sent back a bad guy and one sent back another bad guy? Or does the resistance still send
Jim Burzelic:someone back? Mentioned something in Genesis that you you said they send back a nanotech terminator?
T.C. De Witt:They they first send back a t 1,000
Jim Burzelic:Okay.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. To kill Sarah to to kill Kyle. Yeah. Or to kill Sarah Kyle and whatever. It's they send back a t 1,000, and then they do this thing where they take over John Connor himself as, like, a nano.
T.C. De Witt:It's beyond
Jim Burzelic:Oh, the the so the nano terminator that's what I was gonna ask. How is it beyond a liquid metal terminate? Like, that's already that essentially is nanotech. So how do they nano Tiny computers so Nanonanotech that.
T.C. De Witt:It go into technology now.
Jim Burzelic:And take it over.
T.C. De Witt:Oh, I see. Liquid metal. Oh. The nanotech.
Jim Burzelic:The nanotech, it it maximum overdrives everything. Yeah. Okay. In a so the thing is that concept, I don't mind is either. Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:They just did poorly in the third one.
T.C. De Witt:With the girl. Yeah. The girl terminator.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. And she she, like, plugs into the stuff, and then she makes cop cars chase after people. And and we get to watch the pedals depress themselves. It's very That's
T.C. De Witt:not a hard work. So you're saying multiple skies. Now what are these what okay. Every Terminator has your human character, your robot hero, like like so Schwarzenegger. You have the good guy relationship, the the saved and the one doing the saving.
T.C. De Witt:So Kyle Reese and Sarah, you have the t u 800 and John, you have John and Claire Danes and Well the t
Jim Burzelic:800. John was John, I I felt was the damsel in Yeah. In that one. Okay. Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:So it was it was Claire Danes and the Terminator.
T.C. De Witt:T 800 once again.
Jim Burzelic:Then and then conceptually, at least, really liked the twist at
T.C. De Witt:the end of three.
Jim Burzelic:The the the twist of the way he was saving them.
T.C. De Witt:The that he got them to the bunker so they were saying yeah. Okay. I again, I think three is better than people give it credit for. And it's one of those like, well now that we've had Salvation in Genesis, three looks like
Jim Burzelic:a million bucks. It does.
T.C. De Witt:A 100,000,000? No. 200,000,000? A good movie. Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. But there's so with with Skynet sending back multiple villains, they are they competing against each other? Like, what are their intentions here? How Or you're telling me. I have to figure out.
T.C. De Witt:You're the student.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Two Skynets. Okay. Well, right. So may maybe maybe there's other things that need to be considered here, and and maybe the pieces will start start falling into place.
Jim Burzelic:Mhmm. Do we need to keep the notion of John Connor, JC, the savior of humanity?
T.C. De Witt:Oh, JC. I never got there.
Jim Burzelic:Oh, no? Yeah. That's a that's a pretty good one.
T.C. De Witt:That's really on the nose. Yeah. How did I miss that?
Jim Burzelic:Robots are coming for you
T.C. De Witt:for future Jesus. Jesus Christ. Yep. Jesus Connor.
Jim Burzelic:Yep.
T.C. De Witt:I mean, John Christ. Do we keep the concept of John Connor? At this point, I don't what is the why is the Connor bloodline so damn important at this point? Like, because he's the savior, so they constantly keep trying to go back and take care of him. Like, why don't we go back further?
T.C. De Witt:What about a freaking renaissance terminator movie where they're freaking swash it's pirates of the Caribbean meets terminator. They're taking out great great great great great granddad, Johannes Conner.
Jim Burzelic:If if I remember right, there was it didn't go that far back. Mhmm. But there was an episode of the Sarah Connor Chronicles Mhmm. That sent a terminator back, but they they got the time wrong, and so they sent it back to, like, the thirties or forties. Okay.
Jim Burzelic:And it had to wait. But but I believe I believe it had some some old timey adventures.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. So it has it has been at least broached before.
Jim Burzelic:Mhmm.
T.C. De Witt:Well, okay. So my question is how critical is John to the Terminator? Like, you ask a layman what they know about Terminator, they're gonna know Schwarzenegger first and foremost. Come with me if you wanna I I Oh, yeah. Edward Furlong?
T.C. De Witt:Like
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. He's gotta he's gotta save the kid?
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. Like, how how essential does the studio think a fresh faced because obviously, they thought they could capitalize on casting Emilia Clarke for Sarah Connor. The popularity of her being Daenerys in Game of Thrones, getting her in the role. She's hot right now. She could be our main character, the audience draw.
T.C. De Witt:People know her, people are gonna see her.
Jim Burzelic:My my guess actually is that probably came from some sort of focus testing where people were like, who is John Connor? Everyone knows Sarah. Yeah. Oh, so if we can somehow move the importance of John Connor in the story, because I think it it we wouldn't need to acknowledge that John Connor for the mythology of Terminator is very important.
T.C. De Witt:Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:However, I think when watching when watching the Terminator movies, Sarah Connor is way more compelling because she's the hero that we're watching.
T.C. De Witt:And the studio currently does not disagree with you because they've got Linda Hamilton back for Dark Fates. Like, they are realizing that John Connor isn't exactly important. So there lies the question. Do we try to figure out a way to make John Connor the new star of this franchise or do we forego him? Do we forego Sarah?
T.C. De Witt:Do we try to create a new bloodline at risk here? Do we take the counters completely? I think that is more compelling to me. We want to see the robots. We want to see the action.
T.C. De Witt:We want to see the Terminators doing the fight and whatnot. I feel like John and Sarah are we've seen their story at this point. They're uninteresting. I think there's new heroes and new places we could go with this.
Jim Burzelic:I'm not opposed to it, but I'm not on board yet.
T.C. De Witt:You you still think we should stick with the
Jim Burzelic:the Connor family? Yeah. Until I hear something more compelling.
T.C. De Witt:Darlene, DJ, Becky, like
Jim Burzelic:the Connors. You know what? Now the studio demands you do a a mashup between Terminator and The Connors.
T.C. De Witt:Come with me if you wanna laugh. Oh, no. Oh, no. Get to the chopper. Well, that's all I'm gonna think about the rest
Jim Burzelic:of this episode.
T.C. De Witt:Well, that's it folks. Thank you for listening. We've we've solved this movie. The new Terminator stars Roseanne Barr. I mean, honestly, if John Goodman was in it, it would be good because
Jim Burzelic:That's that's the rule.
T.C. De Witt:If John Goodman's in it, it'll be good. Yeah. Even when it's bad, John Goodman, how can you still love the man? Okay. So you you want the Counters to stay involved?
T.C. De Witt:Do you want the Counters I
Jim Burzelic:think so.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. So Then Well, because
Jim Burzelic:if because if don't
T.C. De Witt:I don't think Sarah Connor's James Bond. I don't think you can recast her. The the as great as Emilio Clark is for what what she's capable of doing, she's not Linda Hamilton. That's why they're smart enough to bring her back for this. I think John's the key.
T.C. De Witt:If you can if you can find someone to fill that role because we've never I've the most we've ever seen John Connor, the the savior of humanity is in the first movie when we get just a glimpse of the man. Right?
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Well, and here's the thing. For the for the hardcore Terminator fans, that that small scene
T.C. De Witt:Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:Is really important. The the hardcore Terminator fans want to see John Connor. They they wanted to see that future so badly. It's it was a very compelling scene. The and that's what that's what Salvation was supposed to deliver, and it didn't.
Jim Burzelic:If salvation fell short
T.C. De Witt:in so many regard like, the the hero robot and the person being saved is Kyle Reese in Yeah. Batman. And John is this tertiary character. It's Christian Bale doing Batman voice.
Jim Burzelic:Mhmm.
T.C. De Witt:And they have a great cast. Terminus Salvation has, aside from Sam Worthington, the black hole of charisma. He's not a thing. Stop trying to make him a thing. And then they stop trying to make him a thing.
T.C. De Witt:Except he's gonna be in four more Avatar movies.
Jim Burzelic:So I
T.C. De Witt:just gotta keep seeing
Jim Burzelic:this guy and
T.C. De Witt:screen just sucking the life out of a movie. He's he's just the embodiment of vanilla.
Jim Burzelic:Oh, that's not fair to vanilla. Vanilla's I'm being It could be good. It's a good base. You know, I'm being
T.C. De Witt:real hard on him, but after those
Jim Burzelic:Oh, no. The the Clash of the Titan movies Okay. Thank you. Should have
T.C. De Witt:been so much fun. They should have been so much fun. Whatever. We're off topic here.
Jim Burzelic:We are.
T.C. De Witt:Salvation is a great cast and they did they Bryce Dallas Howard and Mhmm. Christian Bale commented So freaking Anton Yelkin. That's a great cast and they didn't the story just didn't we got to see the future. There's some good stuff in that movie. The helicopter crash in that movie is fantastic.
T.C. De Witt:I don't know if you remember, but it's a oner. John gets on the helicopter helicopter. It goes up into the air and crashes all in one shot. It's a beautiful
Jim Burzelic:I don't remember there being a oner, but yeah.
T.C. De Witt:And so before we go any further with what we're gonna do with this new Terminator, something that I'm will sell this to me, will sell this in the era of film we are now, And granted, we are recording this before Dark Fate comes out, but I don't I don't know. It's Tim Miller and he is responsible for Deadpool. Practical effects, real action set pieces with some real grit and stakes. We don't need to CG because that was the problem with Genesis is a rubber faced CG Schwarzenegger diving into a helicopter means nothing to me. Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:When you go to James Cameron's T2 and yeah, you're tossing you're tossing the T 1,000 liquid metal through the window of that helicopter. They still shot that with a real helicopter. They used those visual effects with the practical. They literally flew that helicopter under the bridge.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. It was so
T.C. De Witt:dangerous that there was only the pilot and James Cameron. Like, wanted to do it because it was so damn dangerous. We need that. All these all the action set pieces need to be really well thought out. That's gonna get people in.
T.C. De Witt:When you have Deadpool doing what it does with no budget, when you got John Wick, like action movies now, even like the the bloated CG ones that still utilize practical effects like Mad Max Fury Road, it's visceral. It's real. I like, that's what we need to inject into this franchise and bring back in this franchise that's gonna make it appealing to for me is someone who wants to feel something from a movie as opposed to just seeing. Right? Sure.
T.C. De Witt:Like the best fights in the Marvel movies is Winter Soldier because we actually see Chris Evans punching and swinging and falling and like Marvel movies actions aren't exactly memorable because it's a lot of CG. Sure. So that's what I'm that's that's that's that's how I'm gonna sell this to a wider audience is like this these action set pieces are gonna be inspired.
Jim Burzelic:Sure. Yeah. I I can yeah. I I can I can get on board that? Okay.
Jim Burzelic:Idea occurs to me. Mhmm. Throw this this idea out there. It it kinda goes along with the idea of multiple Skynets, but now I'm thinking more about our our the characters we're potentially following. So I'm gonna I'm gonna do a trick James Cameron did Oh.
Jim Burzelic:On a different thing.
T.C. De Witt:Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:Terminator's.
T.C. De Witt:You know what? That is the perfect spot for us to take a commercial break. All right, we're gonna take a quick break here. We're gonna throw it to one of the other We have an ad right here, so take a listen to this ad. We'll be right back.
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Jim Burzelic:Good line.
T.C. De Witt:Wish I was recording. Appreciate I appreciate that. Should I just repeat it right now? Yeah. That's probably the best way to do Okay.
Jim Burzelic:It it it'll totally feel genuine. So,
T.C. De Witt:Jim, you're you're feeling a lot of pressure. Yeah. And I said to you, you're the studio, so it's more on me to to make this work. So I'm gonna moron my way through it. I'm clapping for myself.
T.C. De Witt:I'm clapping for because it's funny when you say something on the spot and you get a laugh and then you try to recreate it.
Jim Burzelic:Oh, yeah.
T.C. De Witt:Because there's nothing better than taking something that worked in its original go of things and then going, you know what? Let's just do it again. Yeah. And you know what? This time, Schwarzenegger's the good guy.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. So where are we with this? We have Okay. You cliff you gave us a cliffhanger I did. Terminators.
T.C. De Witt:Terminators. So you've said multiple Skynet villains. Are you saying multiple Terminator heroes in this as well? I am. Okay.
Jim Burzelic:So, right, we still have the problem of the Connors. Mhmm. So what our what our what our ensemble team can be. It we it could be a combination of of robots or I'm sorry, cyborg cybernetic organisms Mhmm. And humans.
Jim Burzelic:That's probably actually the best way to go. But I like the idea of well, again, this is probably counter to what a lot of Terminator fans really want, but I like the idea of keeping John Connor not not unknown, but, like, like, off screen.
T.C. De Witt:Well but then again, Terminator two had
Jim Burzelic:him on screen the whole time, albeit as a child. Mhmm. Oh, unless unless with this one, this is John Connor has been killed. Skynet, a Skynet has won Mhmm. Which is why other Skynets are now trying to defeat that Skynet.
T.C. De Witt:So, like, the so John Connor's gone, and now Abe's version of Skynet has taken off.
Jim Burzelic:All all that's left of John Connor was what he taught us to try to survive.
T.C. De Witt:You know, he bestowed us with, like, these
Jim Burzelic:I used to hate Christ analogies, and now I just put them in everything.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. Well, you're onto something there because something Salvation balked at that they were that was in the original script that it looked like that they were going with it. They I don't know if they tested this and it just didn't go through, but they didn't follow through, which was that John Connor was gonna die and they were going to that Sam Worthington was going to have take his heart and embody John Connor. That John Connor became the title Mhmm. That was then the the the name of the resistance, John Connor's our hero, not knowing that this is a title that's being passed along.
T.C. De Witt:And that's think maybe okay. Let's go there. Let's go with this. Alright? So you've said there's multiple heroes.
T.C. De Witt:You've said there's multiple villains. We've gone through multiple movies where we've seen robot versus robot. Sorry. Seiber versus T eight hundred versus T one thousand. The version that the T X that was from Terminator three.
T.C. De Witt:Different variations of this. John Connor is dead. Skynet has won. The rise of the new Skynet. A different Skynet has now come back and they're clashing.
T.C. De Witt:The t 800 comes back. The the problem here is, okay, we're just throwing a lot of stuff at the wall. Who's our main characters here? Could there be an element of trying to build up the the myth of John Connor so that our the hero that comes back in time is there to find the new John Connor. To basically create I let's see if we can capitalize on this.
T.C. De Witt:Follow me on this and see what you I
Jim Burzelic:throw idea out there as well. Since we are kind of turning things around, what if instead of well, because we have other Skynets coming back in time, coming sideways through time. What if someone comes forward? Someone comes from the past.
T.C. De Witt:Well, that's technically what happened in Terminator Genisys. Oh, Sorry. It's Studio, you need to know what you're talking He
Jim Burzelic:he he just aged into it.
T.C. De Witt:No. They jumped ahead.
Jim Burzelic:Oh, jumped ahead? Yeah. I mean, they did in Connor Chronicles as well. That's right. It's not like
T.C. De Witt:Here's what my here's here's my pitch. We have multiple Skynets battling it out in the streets. We're in the not too distant future. We're not at the we're not at the battle of crushing the skulls and the dirt that we saw in the original or in Terminator Salvation. We're somewhere in the interim.
T.C. De Witt:Skynet has won the it's post Terminator three, post Terminator like, we're in the midst of
Jim Burzelic:it. Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:And now we have Skynet versus Skynet, like factions of the same evil entity. You can use that as an allegory for how busted up America is right now. That's like the extremes of both sides are not good for this country and they're kind of like hurting themselves. Okay. And just go with me on this.
T.C. De Witt:The concept of the hero here, we have our time traveler who's come back, John Connor's dead, it's not worth trying to save him because that's what's caused this broken ass timeline as it is. I'm sorry to like capitalize on the most unlikeliest of things, but Into the Spider Verse opened a world of people to the concept of alternate realities.
Jim Burzelic:Sure.
T.C. De Witt:This time trailer has come back in the midst of robot versus robot, cyborg versus cyborg action is not just trying to find John Connor, someone to take on the mantle of John Connor, but multiple people create a team movie. The mentor from the future is roping in three or four Interesting. John Connor potentials, different nationalities. So you got different races. So you have and imagine the marketing campaign for this.
T.C. De Witt:The marketing campaign is I am John Connor. And you got your young post you got your poster of your young pop star that's breaking into the movie industry. You got a I am John Connor, it's a female. You have I am John Connor, and it's an Asian lead. You have I am John Connor, it's a young black girl, like a kid.
T.C. De Witt:Right? So this person has come back in time and found the most possible, likeliest subjects to be the new John Connor. And now you have four ragtag people with their robot, cyborg mentor, time traveling mentor that's trying to navigate through the robot versus robot world. And the two sky knights that are battling each other, the twist halfway through the movie is that they turn and have to team up and go after the team of possible John Connors. And now they don't know which John Conner to kill, so they're just gonna kill them all.
T.C. De Witt:And our and our time traveling mentor character has to I have to save all of you because I don't know which one of you is gonna save the future. And your third act little twist a roo, one of these kids, one of these young people, one of these possible John Connors betrays everybody. Sides with
Jim Burzelic:the Okay. I wasn't in until that.
T.C. De Witt:There so the you have your you have your kinda two two big twist in this movie is, first, the revelation that the robots, the Skynet has won. Skynet versus Skynet, the Earth is over. We're reeling and panicking. It's just past where we are now modern day wise. So it's like, it's not post apocalyptic, it's during the apocalypse.
T.C. De Witt:Time traveler comes back and is just plucking, are you Sarah Connor? Are you John Connor? Are you like, recruiting all that. Not even. Like, are you Joe Schmo and Sally, what's her name?
T.C. De Witt:I'm gonna train you to be the the savior of humanity because statistically speaking, one of you can do it and and heal this broken timeline. Erase the Skynets. Save humanity. I don't know which one of you it is. So now you have a teen movie, and you have action set piece after action set piece of them having to learn how to work together to defeat the bad guy, and one of them gets it in his head that, you know what?
T.C. De Witt:F this. There's no point in trying to save the future. This is who we are now. Some embittered, enraged, ward from shield kind of attitude where it's like, you know what? Let's burn it all down.
T.C. De Witt:We're over here. Like the betrayer. Sure. Because once this is all said and done, you can kill the mentor, and this can be your star power. The mentor could be your one star power in this, and everyone else can be nobodies and up and comers.
T.C. De Witt:You kill your Harrison Ford, and now you've opened up the franchise to a team of saviors for humanity. Because you know what? In this day and age, we don't need one person to rise up and save us anymore. If anything's been proven by the way people have have taken to the streets and succeeded in anything right now in this day and age, it's in groups. No.
T.C. De Witt:There is no no man is an island anymore. Look at the women marches. Look at the Black Lives Matter. Look at the even the alt right movements. All these movements are not led by one person anymore.
T.C. De Witt:It's a group of people. So what better way to say the future than with a group of people and just throw in some amazing action set pieces. Give me a couple car chases. Give me a couple explosions, and you damn right this all ends at a machine factory, because where else is it going to end? There you go.
T.C. De Witt:There's your movie, Jim. There's your franchise starter too. Because they can save the day in the end, but now you got a villain out there that used to be one of them. You got
Jim Burzelic:three Oh, doesn't he doesn't get it in the end?
T.C. De Witt:He doesn't get it in the end. He can get away. Because he can get away by being turned into a freaking cyborg. So now you got one one of us is now our enemy, and he's sided with the enemy. We can this still can have a definitive ending that they've they've kind of won, but think of some of the best Harry Potter movies that feel like an ending, but they have that moment of it's just beginning.
T.C. De Witt:You can feel like a movie ended, but we got a whole lot of more war ahead of us.
Jim Burzelic:So
T.C. De Witt:Okay. I I just threw a
Jim Burzelic:loud Yeah. I like I like a bunch of that. Mhmm. I think it should should take place later. I think it should take place in in slash after that post apocalypse
T.C. De Witt:So fifty years. World.
Jim Burzelic:Right?
T.C. De Witt:Okay.
Jim Burzelic:So you
T.C. De Witt:you wanna see
Jim Burzelic:sound nature now? We we need to see the Skellabots crushing the skulls. Okay. I I think You're not into
T.C. De Witt:I'm I'm okay. Keep going. Keep going.
Jim Burzelic:So so that's that's the world that's in. Because there are still some people left. Mhmm. John Connor has died. The the hope of humanity has been extinguished.
Jim Burzelic:Right? And that's where your person from the future comes comes back. Mhmm. I'm currently thinking because I want more I want more robots. I'm just gonna call them robots.
Jim Burzelic:I want so I think it should be a robot that comes back, and he either has a computer or just can do the calculations himself. Mhmm. Itself, herself. TBD. Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:Robot self. And so it's able to, on the spot, calculate the future. So it doesn't know which one's going to be the new
T.C. De Witt:Savior.
Jim Burzelic:Leader.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:The new savior. So it is trying to save multiple. Mhmm. And it also so it it comes from something like not necessarily this, but essentially, it's from the one super rare good Skynet. And it's it's come
T.C. De Witt:back the fractured future Yeah. That there's a Skynet that's like, we we can do good things.
Jim Burzelic:And so so I think, actually, and and I think there should be more than two Skynets. It may start it starts with the one. We probably even in the opening killed John Connor and alienate all the fans. And then when that happens, very shortly after a second Skynet shows up, that's when this that's when the the Skynets start fighting. So then maybe at every act turn, a new Skynet shows up.
Jim Burzelic:Just
T.C. De Witt:keep piling it at.
Jim Burzelic:And so then our ambassador from the future is saving these kids or teens or even adults. But along with that, I don't I don't think it should be a cast of just humans cowering behind one person who, you know, holds the the the guidebook. I think that that person from the future, that that robot from the future, also, as they're going, taking notes from the previous Terminators, is making guardians for each of them. So that way, the thing that I'm really kind of going forward, the studio's really wanting Mhmm. Is an ensemble of different terminators to to be our cast.
Jim Burzelic:So we have a cast of robots. And not humans? No. The at at this point, both. Okay.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. So I I can I
Jim Burzelic:can And wise? You can they they would each sort of get their own personality. And so by introducing multiple Skynets, what I think that would also allow the franchise to do, Arnold is great. Arnold can be in
T.C. De Witt:it. Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:We need more, and we need more than Jason Patrick. And I feel bad for not remembering her name, and I don't know who else was
T.C. De Witt:in there. It's not Olga Kirilenko.
Jim Burzelic:But at this point, it could be because these other Skynets are showing up and and each one has one or more of their own models. So that's how we can not only cast new John Connors.
T.C. De Witt:It's Christiana Locant. I was that's I was kind of in the ballpark. Someone was yelling at me off mic. Yeah. It's Christiana Locant.
T.C. De Witt:Sorry.
Jim Burzelic:Please continue. But what what that allows us to do is is so we can still sorry. Grandfather in Arnold. Arnold. But then with these these other alternate Skynets, we can so not only do we have new blood for the John Connors, but we also have new blood for the Terminators.
Jim Burzelic:It allows us to put new faces, new personalities on the on these cybernetic organisms, but it also gives us a multiverse in which we can introduce others if we want Okay.
T.C. De Witt:I'm I I'm sorta on board here. I don't like the concept that each kid gets a Terminator because now we have the cast is too big. It's it's very gimmicky. It's very transformers y.
Jim Burzelic:With your number of four Yeah. Plus the one bringing them all together, that's nine. And we're gonna kill off two or three. Right?
T.C. De Witt:That's a lot of characters to juggle. I'm I'm I wanna I wanna find a a happy balance here because I can think of the imagery of k two when he jacks into the other robot in Rogue One.
Jim Burzelic:Mhmm.
T.C. De Witt:Right? Where he, like, like he gets the information from the other
Jim Burzelic:Sure.
T.C. De Witt:K two robot. Just that idea of like being attacked by by a Terminator of some variety. It's just getting demolished and skins flying off. Finally, like the mentor time traveling hero Terminator just grabs it and is like reprograms it on the fly and now you have a glitchy, broken, old school Terminator that is now along for the ride Sure. With the group.
T.C. De Witt:The so kind of go back to where I sort of threw this at, thinking from a studio perspective. This is a Fox property. Disney now owns Fox. I know we're going have listeners who are going be pissed at me for turning this into some SJW garbage like freaking Force Awakens and Last Jedi became and and freaking Doctor Who and Star Trek have become. But you know what?
T.C. De Witt:I'm trying to to reach this out to a broader audience and to try to bring in new fans. And you seem to be on board with this idea of a team of John Connors. I'm quoting putting that in quote. You seem to be on board with
Jim Burzelic:I'm not I'm not against it. But I I'm just I'm not compelled by the by by that part.
T.C. De Witt:Well, I think of the what why? Like, what we're missing here, we can have a team. We can have three or four people of various ages and ethnicities and genders to potentially be John Connor, finger quotes, being led by the time traveling mentor robot. What we're missing here is the villain. We don't have these movies are only as the reason Terminator two and the original Terminator are so good is because those are the best villains.
T.C. De Witt:Terminator three, she's not the best villain. Terminator Salvation, who was the villain? Yeah. Right? Terminator four Genesis, terrible villain.
T.C. De Witt:So what we're missing here to kind of like bring all these ideas together on the table is what's the threat? We can't just say multiple Skynets because that's there's not something tangible there to
Jim Burzelic:Okay. To threaten this So, again, to attempt to push my idea of of multiple cybernetic organisms, So while we're meeting basically, let's say it maxes out at one, two, let's say four. Mhmm. Right? Four Skyknets.
Jim Burzelic:Skyknets. Okay. Four Skyknets, and each one
T.C. De Witt:Oh, duh.
Jim Burzelic:That that's so we're able to take a different star essentially, a different iconic actor or or just character personality. And the thing is they're gonna be all of whatever t version they are. And and so that actually gives a face to each of the factions.
T.C. De Witt:And each of those potential futures is based on who's the savior. That's why there's multiple Skynets because he has multiple John Connors. So depending that so kinda drawing from the inspiration from the Spider Verse Oh.
Jim Burzelic:Oh. Now I want now I definitely want. Oh.
T.C. De Witt:What do you want? Okay. You're the studio. You can have it.
Jim Burzelic:The thing. At at some point, either we we very quickly and then introduce and then we're gonna end up getting rid of a fifth one to show that, to show a coordination with that. Oh, maybe that might not work. I'm gonna say it out loud anyway. It's gonna be that way it's on record and and what a terrible idea.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. I see we can point it.
T.C. De Witt:I'm glad he said it.
Jim Burzelic:We we have our our our heroes rescue someone, and then as they're going, they get killed, and we see a whole faction of Skynet just disappear.
T.C. De Witt:Just like the whole reality shifts and changes. Like like
Jim Burzelic:Oh, maybe.
T.C. De Witt:Fractures right in front us. Not like a Dustin Fade away Marvel Infinity War kind of thing, but actually like a broken and see, that's the thing. I've I've leaned too hard into the SnyderVerse aspect. I don't want it to be funny. I don't want it to be stylish.
T.C. De Witt:I want it to be
Jim Burzelic:Oh, yeah. No. I wasn't thinking it would
T.C. De Witt:be I'm saying this for the listeners who might be worried that I lean too heavily into the fun aspect of Gotcha. Into the spider version. I was doing that more leaning more towards the concept of alternate realities. I like the idea.
Jim Burzelic:So it's not it's not the best example because I know a lot of time travel fans did not like it, but I think visually it would really work. So when it disappears, it would be a la Looper.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. Just that.
Jim Burzelic:Sort of. Yeah. And then and then like like a whole third of the battlefield is suddenly empty. Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. I something visceral, something uncomfortable to see. That's what Looper did rather well and they're they're messing with time was was gross. It was uncomfortable to watch that guy's nose suddenly disappear and his fingers fought like just stop existing. So I think as much as I was saying earlier that they the real action set pieces, something that feels visceral and raw, I I think the doing that and erasing reality and messing with reality and making that almost going leaning towards the horror aspect of the original Terminator, making it uncomfortable to watch will also make it that much more compelling to watch.
T.C. De Witt:So I like that idea of, like, breaking reality if you kill a possible future timeline.
Jim Burzelic:The logic of that, though, doesn't work because the Skynets are trying to kill these kids. It's a And thus if they succeed, they shouldn't disappear.
T.C. De Witt:Or it just changes. And may Yeah. And you said these Skynets are versing each other that there's different variants. Like, they're all fighting for the future that they want. Is that the what was that?
T.C. De Witt:What's fight for the future's tale?
Jim Burzelic:It's x files. It's x files.
T.C. De Witt:Is it? Okay. Fight fight the future. Fight the future. Okay.
T.C. De Witt:We're we're still close here. We're still missing the big bad, and maybe I maybe I already came up with the big bad. Maybe it's one of them. The thing is how do you introduce a bad guy?
Jim Burzelic:Well, to go along with your notion of a franchise Yeah. So I like my idea of the four or five notable faces Mhmm. Of of the different terminate bad guy terminators, and then your idea of the turncoat. Mhmm. I like the idea of so so we don't get the bad guy until near the end, and it suggests that this is going to oh, they're our future bad guy.
T.C. De Witt:Can I can I make a suggestion who this person could be? Yes. Okay. I'm just gonna throw this out there, and you tell me where you, if you wanna go with this. So again, this might be a bad idea, but I'm gonna say it, and see if your mind goes somewhere with it.
Jim Burzelic:Is it Sam Worthington?
T.C. De Witt:No, it's not Sam Worthington. He's the real villain here. Whoever decided he was a thing. Why do I hate Sam Worthington?
Jim Burzelic:I don't know.
T.C. De Witt:He's a
Jim Burzelic:very He's probably a really nice guy Yeah. And this episode is gonna blow our chances of ever getting to meet or work with him.
T.C. De Witt:Sam, I'm just being funny to be funny. Here's my suggestion. Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:Me too.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. It's a family bloodline that the term Cope belongs to. Okay? Uh-huh. And it's a family bloodline from the original Terminator.
T.C. De Witt:Okay? Sarah went out with a guy.
Jim Burzelic:Oh, you want to bring that theory into it?
T.C. De Witt:Before she hooked up with Kyle. There's a dude out there that thought he did very well on a date with Sarah Connor, and she never called him back, And he's mad. Don't know. Know. Just again, I said I'm just gonna put it out there and see if we wanna go with because you I You did say the studio wants us to acknowledge all of the Terminix that
Jim Burzelic:I'm doing. I feel like if I were to see that in a theater
T.C. De Witt:You've grown
Jim Burzelic:I would go, oh, come on.
T.C. De Witt:I've been there. I've seen a few movies. Go back to Star Trek Into Darkness. Yeah. I'm the one guy in the theater looking around going, are you fucking kidding me right now?
T.C. De Witt:No. I'm the only one? Okay. Come on. Half the people at the theater are like, who's Khan?
T.C. De Witt:I don't why did he say it that way? Like, should I know who that is? Because what? Okay.
Jim Burzelic:Wait. Really?
T.C. De Witt:I know who Khan is.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:But he said like everyone should have known it.
Jim Burzelic:Oh, yeah. With his the
T.C. De Witt:context of the movie. M. Khan. Who? Khan.
T.C. De Witt:Right at the Khan? Do you know who's the second one? Whatever. So if you okay. So let's not go with Sarah's other date as the bloodline.
T.C. De Witt:I just wanna throw out, we need a bad guy in this movie. I
Jim Burzelic:mean, I
T.C. De Witt:you still have not convinced me that we have one. We have we have the we have the concept here. A ragtag team, these multiple futures that they're all fighting for, these multiple variations of a villain that wants to beat the other ones in the submission Mhmm. So that they can be the one true future. Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:We we have the idea of a mentor coming back to say, one of you is gonna save us. I don't know which one it is, I have to save and train all of you. Mhmm. I died. You're on your own.
T.C. De Witt:Or But we don't have and, yeah, we can have a compelling movie with some, like, badass action sequences, but still gonna come down to the bad guy. What is the true villain of this movie? The a movie of any genre movie is made or broken by the villain, the aliens, the Terminator, Freddie Freeman. Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:What if what if the the bad guy isn't a robot? It's not even the turncoat in the group. It's someone who very early on, maybe it's a witness to John Connor's death, and in that, they're they're they're so overwhelmed by his death that they decide this must be the way it is. Humanity must die. And so there is a person stalking our heroes through the whole movie.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. Yeah. That's I mean, that's what every every like, the best versions of Terminator one and two is running and gunning.
Jim Burzelic:Mhmm.
T.C. De Witt:Flee. Flee until we can't flee anymore, and finally, we turn and save our own asses. So, yeah, having I
Jim Burzelic:mean, a human bad guy is I I I don't know how you go and make that as
T.C. De Witt:threatening as Well, actually Skynet, you're a threat of something. You're you're you've you said it right there. And that's something that the Terminator movies haven't done is a human bad guy. A truly a 100 human, no science, no cybernetic attachments, human bad guy. We haven't seen that.
T.C. De Witt:Have we?
Jim Burzelic:You're not in Terminator?
T.C. De Witt:It's always the term and we have
Jim Burzelic:Well, the TV show had had some of those. Well,
T.C. De Witt:that that aside Yeah. Thinking of the films, no offense to the fans of the Sarah Connor Chronicles, I'm aware that's a very good show. But the that's there it is. I think that's it. If the if the villain has seemingly nothing special about him.
Jim Burzelic:What if his what if his driving dogma, his philosophy is is this notion of putting our faith in one man is what's killing us?
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. There it is.
Jim Burzelic:So his goal is to destroy this notion of a savior.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. There it is. And and they're fleeing this guy and what makes him what's so what would make him so frustrating of a villain is that he has no science behind him. He's just that smart and capable. If I'm not saying And
Jim Burzelic:he survived this long in this
T.C. De Witt:hell. It could be as simple as that. He has no connection to time traveling. He has no connection to or you could say he was like, if the mentor robot that has come back and is trying to maybe this was the first recruit that he failed with or not. Like, I don't know.
T.C. De Witt:I I think there's something compelling about just being he witnessed John Connor's death. He understands the potentials of the future all based on a savior. And he's like, no. That's what's destroying us. Or you like the idea of him
Jim Burzelic:being No. No. I had an idea. It it it moves away from the notion of a ragtag group of humans trying to survive.
T.C. De Witt:Okay.
Jim Burzelic:We have the our our bad guy human. Mhmm. I I I'm enjoying that idea more and more.
T.C. De Witt:Me too. I think that's I think we're on something.
Jim Burzelic:And so I don't know if we wanna go so far as to say he is the one who kills John Connor. Mhmm. But I think he's definitely at least witness to it, and so we get an idea. So because I think John Connor in our story here needs to die to make this happen.
T.C. De Witt:I agree.
Jim Burzelic:So then either he witnesses our character coming back in time. I don't why I like the idea of him being another robot, a beneficent robot from
T.C. De Witt:the future. I think we need that in this. We need the t one t one sorry. T two proved the benefit of having the good guy robot versus the bad guy robot. I think absolutely the mentor, the one bringing them together, training them, protecting them should be some version of a Terminator.
T.C. De Witt:Oh, crap. I lost my train of thought. You like the human bad guy. You like that you could've witnessed John Connor's death or potentially have been responsible for it. I'm trying to get
Jim Burzelic:you back on track. Yeah. Well, because what it was doing, it was going back toward the multiple good guy robots. We can still get there.
T.C. De Witt:I think we can still get there.
Jim Burzelic:So so yeah. Basically, this this kind of cat and mouse thing, our our our our nihilistic human Mhmm. Basically early on also meets our our our messenger? What's what's the the term? What was I can't think of what the term is.
Jim Burzelic:The the the robot who comes back in time to find the the new John Connors.
T.C. De Witt:Right. The shepherd.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. He sure. We'll use the for for our short term meets our shepherd, finds our shepherd, finds out about his mission, and doesn't necessarily say right up front, oh, I'm gonna get you. But that's very quickly what he then decides. He's like, wait.
Jim Burzelic:So now the future is trying to the the future is trying to undermine what I think will save humanity, which is no savior. So he's stalking he's stalking him that way, finding finding the new saviors. I'm running out of gas here. Shoot. We're we're really kind of back where we were.
T.C. De Witt:I I think just with,
Jim Burzelic:you know, with more robots.
T.C. De Witt:So you a studio, you're trying to figure out how to create a toy line of multiple robots here. And I get where you're going with that. I see the benefit of having different variations of the robots for our heroes to work with and use. I I don't know if having them being a part of the team can work. Time and time again, we've seen at most you could have two.
T.C. De Witt:C3PO and r 2D2 have shown us that. We have there's always a fun robot character with the teams in every Star Wars. There's a there's a new robot for every k two s o, chopper from rebels, b b eight. It works, like having the extra robot sidekick.
Jim Burzelic:I don't see why you can't just apply the standard character archetypes Mhmm. To a band of robots. You have the You're trying
T.C. De Witt:to erase the human element here.
Jim Burzelic:A little bit.
T.C. De Witt:But that's not gonna sell this movie to a general audience. The toys, it's cool.
Jim Burzelic:You you you think so?
T.C. De Witt:No. I term I okay. Yes. I I can I can acknowledge Terminator two?
Jim Burzelic:Eddie Furlong is is fine. He's fine. But how much of that movie are you like, yeah, Eddie Furlong.
T.C. De Witt:I know. I'm not gonna disagree. And the Transformers movies have proved that people will pump billions of dollars into watching robot heroes smash into robot villains. But to truly sell this movie to a critical degree, a critical success, we need the human element. And I do think that you could have a team of humans and robots working together, but the humans need to be the thrust here, the humans need to be the main characters, and the robots need to be their subordinates or their sidekicks, and it can't be a one on one ratio, one to one ratio.
T.C. De Witt:I'm a human, here's my robot sidekick. Well, I'm a human, and here's my robot sidekick. That's It starts turning into Power It starts turning into, it's too gimmicky. And I think that if we had a group of four kids, I'll give you three robots. I know you're the studio here, but I'm trying to I I can see the camp of having a robot for every kid.
T.C. De Witt:I can
Jim Burzelic:see Yeah. No. It it I I that was just the it doesn't have to be one for one. That that was my concern that that's where you're going because then we have a No. It it doesn't it doesn't have to I actually wouldn't mind the ratio being the other way, but, yeah, it doesn't have to be one for one.
T.C. De Witt:You are the studio, so technically, I have to bend to your demands if you're telling me you need more robot main characters here. But it's
Jim Burzelic:So so I basically, I I guess, as a studio, I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too, which is I'm trying to diversify the Terminators, which is the attractive. It's it's the thing that is compelling about the right? Like, visually, you think the skeleton robot.
T.C. De Witt:Right.
Jim Burzelic:Am I wrong? Got a gallery with a gallery. Am I wrong about that? You can say you can say something. Schwarzenegger.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:She just said Schwarzenegger. That's not an answer.
Jim Burzelic:I believe it is. But but, like, you remember you remember the liquid one from the second one. Right. Right. That's what you remember.
Jim Burzelic:Is is the is is those two. Right? That was at the height of the Terminator franchise, but it it almost always comes back to the the skeletal robot. Mhmm. And then whatever potential skin you put over it.
Jim Burzelic:And I'm trying to create a situation where you can put a new skin on, but not just one. I'm trying to create a situation where we you can then build this franchise because I guess that's what we're doing. We're not just making one new movie. We're building
T.C. De Witt:to have a complete story, but it needs to launch into a franchise.
Jim Burzelic:That's what
T.C. De Witt:the studios obviously want.
Jim Burzelic:And it it allows it allows it it allows you to inject another twenty, thirty years by putting newer, younger faces on the Terminators themselves, which are what's gonna theoretically keep launching it. And I realize it's it's falling into the DC folly of universe building by trying to do it in one movie. Yeah. But what I'm trying to go for is so the magic that we've discussed that that Marvel off off camera.
T.C. De Witt:Off mic.
Jim Burzelic:Off mic. We we've discussed the the magic that that Marvel was able to do was they made a bunch of separate movies and then brought them together, and that's what made it work because then you could downplay the ones that didn't work well and upplay the ones that did work well. Mhmm. What I'm trying to do here is I'm trying to because we're putting a bunch of new terminators with new faces in here, a whole bunch, not just one and hoping it works. We're putting a whole bunch.
Jim Burzelic:We'll see which come out of that as working well. Right. There will be fan favorites. There will be things like that. And so that way you get multiple options Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:All from from your your your one movie. You're you're kind of incubating a bunch of ideas here. Bunch of Skynets, bunch of new Terminators.
T.C. De Witt:And I love all of My question is
Jim Burzelic:And and the the bunch of a bunch of John Connors is also a neat idea, which is which is why I like that because it it kind of helps with that as well. Mhmm. But I just I'm not a fan of leaning so much on the Connors. The or the the the the the the savior element. Like, it's
T.C. De Witt:Well, it could be that the final Don't say final solution. That the way to solve this in the end is it's not just one of us is gonna be a savior, we need to work together to go back to that angle.
Jim Burzelic:Sure.
T.C. De Witt:Where I'm lost, think that I'm either not agreeing with you, or just I'm not understanding where you're coming from, is do you want the heroes of this franchise to be cyborgs? Is that I think that's where I'm lost. Because if that's the case, then we're looking at the wrong I have chosen to look at the wrong franchise for inspiration. You're asking me as a studio that you want all these heroes to end up being cyborgs and you don't even want humans as the you want more robot characters, good and bad and less human characters, then I need to start considering Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2,049, because Blade Runner 2,049, within the first half hour of that movie, successfully made me care about a replicant and his holographic wife. They're not human.
T.C. De Witt:Of them are human. But they felt so genuine and that relationship was so real. I really, really cared about that. And that's it. So it is possible.
T.C. De Witt:If you're asking me to come up with to pitch you an idea where the and maybe that's the the end game of what the bad guy is trying to our human character is the essentially the last human standing and saying, you know, I've done it. All your potential John Connors are dead. There is no future here. And all those robots they've collected along the way turn to him and say, no, we're the future. And that's the end that's your basically your end of this this movie.
T.C. De Witt:All the human characters have died. Their robot counterparts who've saved parts of their personality and and and and transposed them onto themselves. Different levels of Terminator styles, different looks, different abilities are saying, you know, the the idea of John Connor, the idea of saving the future rests now on our artificial hands because the bad guy kinda was right in the end. Humanity is not gonna save the future for themselves, the robots are. I think you I think we're think maybe I'm getting you wrong
Jim Burzelic:or That feels
T.C. De Witt:maybe?
Jim Burzelic:It feels like what I've been trying to say, but when you say it out loud, I feel like that's not gonna be as so successful.
T.C. De Witt:Well, I think that's where we're just that's just and you know what's great is that this will be the first episode where we're like, kind of crossing our arms and be like, Nope, my way. And you're going, Nope, my way. And that's fine. We got close with that with the Dark Universe, and hammered you into the ground until you finally agreed to let me do Monster Squad.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:But I think what's happening here is this, it's a difference in taste, because I wanna see I like the idea of and I can get on board of having different versions of Terminators being a part of the good guy team in the end Mhmm. And having five, six, seven main characters. It's possible. Guardians of Galaxy proved you can have that many strong personality, different personality types in an ensemble that they can all work together to save in the end save the world and universe in the end. So, yeah, maybe I'm being a little too precautious about not wanting to have robots, robot, robots.
T.C. De Witt:Because I've used I've just cited a bunch of examples that prove that that method could work. Blade Runner 2,049, Guardians of the Galaxy having variety of personalities. I know they're not robots.
Jim Burzelic:Mean, it does. It's it's pretty second and third act when when there's a bunch of them, Wally.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. Yeah. So maybe I'm being too stubborn and wanting it to just be, no, the humans, the humans have to save the day in the end. We need our robot and human friends to come together as one and work together and just, you know, more more Terminators than men. You know what?
T.C. De Witt:It's a three to four ratio. We have four humans and three robots. But in the end, one of those human dies, but they resurrect them and they're a cyborg now. So now you got four robots and I got three humans and we both win.
Jim Burzelic:Sure. Yep. Yeah. Alright. I
T.C. De Witt:I don't know. I'm I don't know if we've solved anything here.
Jim Burzelic:I don't I don't know.
T.C. De Witt:Where else
Jim Burzelic:Perhaps perhaps this is why the Terminator movies end up the way they do.
T.C. De Witt:Because there's too many ideas on the table. Yeah. I do think there's something here. If the if if the studio demands that you can feel me trying to like
Jim Burzelic:Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:Wind
Jim Burzelic:this up. Yeah. Yep.
T.C. De Witt:I think if the studio's intention is to launch a Terminator franchise Mhmm. And what I would like is a movie I give a damn about that has amazing action set pieces and interesting characters, and you're also trying to play with we have different timelines fracturing with different Skynets and different t one thousands, t eight hundreds, t x's. Every robot you can imagine, some are good, some are bad. And this my human group that I've created is trying to navigate, just survive. Like, where are we running to?
T.C. De Witt:I don't know, but we got to keep running. I just need to keep you people alive. We'll figure it out as we go. You got a human bad guy chasing them who is like, how? In the midst of all this technology and all these different variations of of Skynet and all these different variations of good Terminators trying to stop them, is this human not being stopped?
T.C. De Witt:I think I think we have something here. You're thinking. Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:I'm I'm I'm a mad no. I'm I'm I'm close to to Jim's broken. It's
T.C. De Witt:all the paradox.
Jim Burzelic:Yep. It's yep. We didn't even fit my paradox in there. God dang it.
T.C. De Witt:No no, we did because you talked about like reality is getting broken and then if you kill it then it doesn't exist, but if it doesn't exist, who killed it? There's gonna be like 15 paradoxes in this and I think characters need to address that. And I think that there can be those elements of of self awareness in the midst of this of this term, which is all part of like revitalizing franchises at this point is lampshading. Sure. Making characters fans of the franchise within the franchise, having a person who's obsessed with Michael Myers in the new Halloween, having Rey and Finn being obsessed with the old Star Wars and being in Star Wars.
T.C. De Witt:I think it's perfectly possible to acknowledge paradoxes and time travel and and really hammering it home.
Jim Burzelic:Maybe maybe to satisfy my need for multiple robots. It doesn't need to be that they're there from, you know, act one to act three, and there are characters we get to know and love like they're the Autobots.
Commercial:That's what this is all about.
Jim Burzelic:What if what if just through through the chase because because now I I'm the the the way you just described it, I it it it became more crystal clear in my head, this Mhmm. This singular stalker hunting this this group of people. And and in in my own mind, I started deciding now you earlier, you you were sort of giving faces to them, but they were all kind of in my in my mind, they were all sort of blank late teen, 20 diverse cast, and that was not really interesting to me at all. But now I'm thinking, what if, like, one's a baby, one's a preteen, one's an old woman, just another adult or something. Certainly.
Jim Burzelic:Certainly. Like literally, quite literally a ragtag group being led by this by this very clinical robot that's like A
T.C. De Witt:t 600. Sure.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Well, I'm I'm actually thinking it's quite advanced because Okay. It it has the ability to connect back to the future to see the different probabilities.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. I
Jim Burzelic:see. But it's not soup it's not sophisticated as far as weaponry goes. And instead, as they travel, it becomes aware of their stalker. And so not only is he trying to do things like obfuscate their path, but the only real weapons available to him to protect these people is to basically co opt the the other Skynet's robots. So then
T.C. De Witt:Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:We can see the Like, each
T.C. De Witt:action set pieces utilizes some of the other Terminators. Yeah. I gotcha.
Jim Burzelic:Okay. And and allows us to introduce other Terminators, and so then we get name name a celebrity we would want to cast as as a Terminator.
T.C. De Witt:Literally was just writing a name down. Carl Urban, man. Carl Urban. Do not know why, but I've had it in my head since we started talking. I love Carl Urban.
T.C. De Witt:He loves genre stuff. I wanna see him in this in some
Jim Burzelic:I don't even want him to be this.
Commercial:Actually, he
T.C. De Witt:would make a great bad guy. Right? That's exactly
Jim Burzelic:what I was Oh, no. Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:He'd be so perfect
Jim Burzelic:for this. I I was I was for for my current example, I was originally thinking The Rock. Right? But I I feel like putting disposable
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. Term oh, okay. I see. Okay.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Yeah. We Dolph Lundgren. Sure. Sure.
Jim Burzelic:Why not? Yeah. Dolph Lundgren is is I mean, that doesn't really anyway, that's a different argument. So we're just getting for example purposes, Dolph Lundgren, he's we've seen him now for, like, a good ten, fifteen minutes of the movie. There's bunches of him, and he's a bad guy.
Jim Burzelic:He's a but then bleeds. Yeah. But then but then Carl Urban, he's he's stalking our our people through a warehouse, and our our robot dude finds a a downed Dolph Lundgren. And so he, like, plugs plugs into him and then, like, stands him up. So then Dolphin Grun gets to have his moment as a good guy, like, go out the back way.
Jim Burzelic:I'm gonna hold you off. Alright. I'm gonna yeah. And so we get this multiple times. Mhmm.
Jim Burzelic:And so so ideally ideally, each time we're gonna meet someone, we're like, no. I wanna know them.
T.C. De Witt:Oh, I wanted to see the Dolph Lundgren t seven fifty.
Jim Burzelic:So that that was oh. Oh, does that work? I was so I was originally thinking that the Shepard character would be like a very iridite Niles type type character.
T.C. De Witt:Vampire slayer.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Yeah. However, Giles. Sorry. Well, no.
Jim Burzelic:No. I was thinking Giles, yes, but I was thinking Frazier's brother.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. David Hight Pierce.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Yeah. But what if what if that's our our our nod and inclusion of Schwarzenegger?
T.C. De Witt:That he's
Jim Burzelic:The oldest the oldest version of of that series from is turns out to be from this future and is sent back
T.C. De Witt:Are you thinking casting Schwarzenegger for this mentor role?
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Okay. As as as the shepherd because and and and this robot, it it it he's still a cybernetic organism Mhmm. But is built mostly to to to pro not to be offensive, but to be to to know things.
T.C. De Witt:He's an indestructible tank, and he has and it's just his shell. Okay. I see. And honestly, Schwarzenegger as a part of this is is such an easy gimmick to get people in the seats. He's back again.
T.C. De Witt:He's back again. Alright. Gotta see it. Like, yeah. I mean, Dark Fate might be his last hurrah, but as long as Shorsnager's around, he's gotta be in this.
T.C. De Witt:Sure. Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:And and, like, yeah, casting him in the, not even old guard role, but like, at this point, he's the wise man. He's the sage.
T.C. De Witt:Mhmm. Mhmm. And I would take away all jokes. There's nothing like, he doesn't know how to smile. Like, of that anymore.
T.C. De Witt:He is a fully functioning Obi Wan Kenobi Terminator.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. Yeah. Hell, yeah. I'm I'm on board for that. And if he didn't wanna do it, casting some elder I used Harrison Ford as a reference or they're just referencing Force Awakens.
T.C. De Witt:But some someone of that capacity capability, that genre connection, if it's not Schwarzenegger, we can surely find someone. I love that you're on board for Carl Urban as the bag. Guess, literally, I was thinking. I mean, are we gonna go so far as he's, like, quoting Shakespeare while he's doing this stuff and, like, dooming himself to being that kind of bad guy? But I don't know if we need to go there and get into the nitty gritty of those details.
Jim Burzelic:Maybe may do you think bible quotes or is that too much?
T.C. De Witt:Well, mean, he's anti savior. He's like, we don't need a savior. And like quoting examples from the Bible and the Koran and the Torah, like constantly referencing biblical and Making
Jim Burzelic:making religious references to to things like leaders who will lead you astray, false prophets, things like that might work.
T.C. De Witt:There's something haunting in that. And he is he is set what's the movie where he plays the cowboy? It's like a futuristic movie. Priest? Was that the name of it?
T.C. De Witt:He's just he's Judge Dredd, like, he's bones from start. I will Mhmm. Carl Urban is just so committed to geek culture, and when he gets a role, he, like, throws himself in it. Yeah. I'm I'm on board for that.
T.C. De Witt:And whoever whatever young or faces young, like, up and coming faces we can throw into the group, I think we got it. I let's we could sit down and write this now. I think we have enough
Jim Burzelic:Mostly. We we just we don't have the ending. Like, how does how is Carl Urban stopped?
T.C. De Witt:How is he finally stopped? Do we want it to go downwards, the mentor versus him? So that that's how we lose the mentor in the end. His mentor had to die earlier in the movie so that the new ragtag group can rise up to defeat him? Because you're right.
T.C. De Witt:We don't have the machine warehouse fight to end the fight or to to end the movie with.
Jim Burzelic:Would it work if our if our human survivors Mhmm. The the the people we've been trying to protect that cannot protect themselves this whole time somehow it does. It comes down to villain versus shepherd. Mhmm. And he's about to, you know, smash his head with a rock.
Jim Burzelic:Good classic way of doing things. Mhmm. Or shoot him, whatever. And and be because because symbolically, it comes down to the a savior is is the end of us and the shepherd saying no, a a savior or is essentially I'm I'm not getting the I'm not explaining it right.
T.C. De Witt:I'm not gonna help you this time. No. I I do think you're right. Like, the that's probably the classic way to go, to have the final showdown seemingly be shepherd versus villain, and the shepherd's gonna sacrifice himself to take out the villain. And perhaps we pull the rug on that and let the let the
Jim Burzelic:I was thinking let the let the flock Yeah. Save the shepherd.
T.C. De Witt:Save the shepherd and and defeat the villain. And maybe there's a question along the way of like, how do you stab this guy? Well, we gotta kill him. Is killing the answer? Like, I don't there can be some moral gray area for all these characters.
T.C. De Witt:And I think I think the missing element that I don't feel like we can answer now without truly diving into who our cast of characters is, in the end, there's gonna be a leader that rises up among that to lead the group. We can still move towards a future where this group needs to work together to save the future, but there's I I think No. No.
Jim Burzelic:I no. I I actually, that might be the whole the whole point. The whole the whole point to this is our shepherd maybe our shepherd also dies at the end of this along with the villain. Mhmm. But the message in the end is, as kinda as you said earlier, it's gonna take all of us.
T.C. De Witt:Okay. Then I love the ending of Rogue Nation, Mission Pastel four Rogue Nation where it's it truly is all all the characters, Benjie, Ethan, Paula Patton, and Jeremy Renner, names can but they all they all literally all four of them have to work together to save the day. There's no one person that yeah, Ethan gets to hit the button, but they all four have to play their part to save the day. So in the end here, it has to be them all working together so not one person defeats the bad guy. It's they all do what they say.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. The Shepard is gonna have to go on, like, we need to lose Gandalf. We need to lose Obi Wan in order for our heroes to to carry to move on to the next level of their quest as heroes. Yeah. Giving that villain his final showdown, it's a badass action fight.
T.C. De Witt:And but in the end, he's gonna be defeated by the group proving that the future is is gonna happen one way or another, and he just won't be around to see it.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Well and and that and that the message goes on. Yeah. That that I think yeah. And and the I'm just stuttering at this point.
T.C. De Witt:The but having it be just a big action set piece and then the warehouse would probably do it, give people what they want, and and setting it up with kind of what Sarah has at the end of Terminator two where she gives her message, or in the end of Terminator one where she does the monologue about, like, the future's coming whether we want it or not, and I'm gonna be there to see it. Mhmm. Kind of returning to that formula that makes the first one and the second one so good. Yeah. And enough closure in these characters that there's hope, but also enough of an open door that we can keep going on and face some new bad guys in the future.
T.C. De Witt:And there's your new Terminator. I think so. Yeah. There's probably more we'll pick apart once we've stepped away from The fun of this is like we're doing this literally on the fly. We can't sit here and leave dead air
Jim Burzelic:Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:Trying to
Jim Burzelic:figure out Can't can't come back next week and be like, oh, oh, but I thought of I thought of a way to do it.
T.C. De Witt:We we will do that eventually. We'll have a bonus episode where we, like, return to some of these because I already have ideas from stuff we've recorded and Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:I know that I'm I'm very curious to as as far as this episode goes, I'm very curious to to to know what the listeners think.
T.C. De Witt:I'm Yeah.
Jim Burzelic:I because I'm this one like, every other one we've ended and I felt very satisfied with. Mhmm. This one, I'm I'm only mediocrely like like, I'm like, okay. This
T.C. De Witt:I wonder
Jim Burzelic:This is okay. But is this is this really the
T.C. De Witt:Did we fix it?
Jim Burzelic:The new Terminator?
T.C. De Witt:Do exactly what the studios have been doing. Yeah. I I wonder if me coming out right front and being like, I don't like Terminator kinda put a bad attitude on me in the beginning, but I think that Oh.
Jim Burzelic:I mean, yeah. It probably vilified you to the listeners. Well, then I said
T.C. De Witt:I like Terminator three, so then they were like, we hate them for that.
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. Okay. Good for you.
T.C. De Witt:Alright. Well, I I am curious to hear what the the listeners have to say here. You can hit us up on the socials. Am only on Twitter at this point, so you can hit me up at t c's big head and Jim.
Jim Burzelic:Still got that TABOC wax on.
T.C. De Witt:TABOC wax on. We also have a website up now, studiodemandsit.com, where you can if you want to RSS, so you can subscribe on iTunes and whatnot. We're available everywhere at this point, so we want to thank the audience that's been growing each episode. So I know that the studio that Jim and I actually answer to for this podcast is very happy with how things are going, and I am thankful for our listeners for chiming in and starting to comment. And thank you for Leah and her studio Better Than the Book Productions for demanding us to make a new Terminator today.
T.C. De Witt:And the thing I'm most curious about, what's Dark Fate gonna be like when we finally see it?
Jim Burzelic:Yeah. So we if we figured
T.C. De Witt:out this movie without knowing anything about it,
Jim Burzelic:whoo. That's got that would be so like, what we came up with is so far away from what I think anyone would be thinking.
T.C. De Witt:Yeah. Like, we
Jim Burzelic:we probably committed the ultimate sin right off the bat of killing John Connor.
T.C. De Witt:But we we yeah. Yeah. Because a lot of complaints from I mean, why they literally changed the ending to Salvation. Was like, you can't kill John Connor? I'm telling you, you can and we did.
Jim Burzelic:But what if we do it in the beginning?
T.C. De Witt:Alright. Well, I think that does it. We will be back again soon with another Studio Demands It. I I please keep throwing your suggestions at us. We'd love to to go in blind because like Yeah.
T.C. De Witt:Oftentimes, I know what I'm gonna pitch, so I've already sort of started preconceiving some notions And Jim, you
Jim Burzelic:have this I really I really try not to. I try to
T.C. De Witt:I know. I don't either. I'm not trying to like
Jim Burzelic:I I try to blank my mind.
T.C. De Witt:So so yeah. So thank you so much for listening everyone. Jim, thank you for being here. Thank you. Beautiful feared.
Jim Burzelic:Thank you for having me.
T.C. De Witt:It's your house.
Jim Burzelic:Here. It's true. Yeah. Thank you for, thank you for recording this. Otherwise
T.C. De Witt:I did, I did record
Jim Burzelic:it for Okay, that's good, yeah.
T.C. De Witt:Cool. So I'm TC. I'm Jim.
Jim Burzelic:Dear TC.
T.C. De Witt:And yeah. That's k. Bye.
Jim Burzelic:Studio demanded it. That's it. Hi
Commercial:there. This is David Geisler, executive producer of The Studio Demands It, and I am interrupting our outro music here to say that, after this episode, TC and Jim actually, continued their conversation a little bit about the Terminator franchise, and so we have a bonus clip that we've decided to put over on our website, studiodemandsit.com. So if you head on over to studiodemandsit.com and navigate to the Terminator post for that episode, you will find a link to some bonus content. Also, I'm pretty excited to talk about a new button that we just put on the website that will allow listeners to submit their own studio demands. So right on the homepage at studiodemandsit.com, we will have a button that'll allow you to make a request, make a demand, and TC and Jim will be tasked with trying to solve it.
Commercial:So I encourage you to head on over there, and, I kinda am excited to see what you listeners task them with. TC and Jim are obviously pretty smart fellas, and me as a producer and as a fan of the show wanna see what you have to bring. So please head on over to studiodemandsit.com and be the studio. Send them your demands. I kinda wanna say real quick that Six Five Media is absolutely having a blast producing this show with TC and Jim, and it's the kind of show that we want to listen to.
Commercial:So we are fans of this show as much as anybody else, and I can't wait to hear what the other fans will bring to the show with their crazy, crazy demands. Studodemandsit.com. You can get some bonus content for Terminator, and also you can find our link so that you may request some crazy things. Okay. Thank you so much.
Commercial:Thank you for listening. Let's get back to this outro music.