Last Saturday, we covered two key events: the new Terminator, the Rev-9, was introduced, and the trio of protagonists was united. While the they are leaving a motel, Sarah Connor says that she found Grace and Dani thanks to a mysterious stranger who’s been texting her the times and locations of new Terminators before they enter the present. This explanation doesn’t really work.

First of all, these texts wouldn’t have helped Sarah find Grace and Dani because the Rev-9 showed up at Dani’s apartment. Sarah, who knows nothing about Dani, wouldn’t know how to find the Rev 9 once it left its starting point. But Sarah’s account raises a much deeper issue, one that I discussed in last Saturday: There now exists an endless stream of Terminators and heroes entering the timeline. This infinite regress destroys the continuity and stakes of Terminator: Dark Fate (2019). Genisys also had Terminators running up and down the timeline, but Dark Fate was incompetent enough to introduce a third party into the madness, John himself.

The writers were so eager to kill off John and introduce a new timeline that they either forgot or hoped the audience wouldn’t notice this problem: If John was killed and Dani (a female John) was introduced by fate or necessity, then if she is killed, “Bill” will be introduced by fate or necessity, then maybe “George,” “Bob,” “Frank,” and so on. In other words, there’s no point in being emotionally invested in anything that happens in this story because in every possible world, a new hero for humanity will rise to the occasion.

Stop and relish this chaos. Learn from it

The audience is past the point of hoping for any continuity in this series, so the best we can do is imagine some multiverse scenario where Kyle Reeses, T-Xs, T-1000s, good T-800s, bad T-800s, and Johns are popping in and out of the timeline, living and dying, and either wreaking havoc or twiddling their thumbs, all based on the writers’ whims. Picture a clown car, only instead of clowns, there is an untold multitude of Kyle Reeses, T-800s, and Johns all climbing out of the vehicle and wanting to sell some poor sap a movie ticket.

This franchise is destroyed.

But why? Are there rules to writing screenplays?

How can objectivity and creativity exist in the same work? There’s an answer to that: While a story, a creature or a system might be fiction, it must still be believable. And the first part of believability is coherency. For example, I can comprehend a unicorn. Such a creature may not exist. But if someone describes that being, I can picture it. But try picturing a married bachelor.

An infinite regress presents the same problem: it’s incoherent. How can there be an infinite number of Terminators running up and down a limited timeline? A writer who adds an infinite number of heroes compounds the problem. If that writer adds an infinite number of third parties — in this case, John Connors — the problem compounds further.

In Dark Fate, there simply isn’t a scenario an audience can comprehend. How can so many Terminators exist without affecting the present? Anyway, how many Terminators are there? What if there’s one more? What if there’s one after that? See the problem? Now add some John Connors. Every time a John Connor is killed, another one pops up. Then another — and another. But what if there’s one more?

Why multiverses and time travel create story problems

This is why multiverses don’t work in extended storytelling. The best a writer can do is save a multiverse scenario for the end of a series and hope the audience doesn’t ask too many questions. (Just as a caveat, multiverses work great in parodies, provided they don’t affect the main story.)

The same goes for time travel. There’s always the chance that a random character can go back and change the timeline. These alternate timelines act in the same way as a multiverse would, and that is the problem the writers of the Terminator franchise have run into: To continue telling the story without limiting the infinite regress is to ask the audience to picture infinity within linear time. The audience isn’t going to become angry; they simply won’t be able to picture the scope of the story — the stakes — and they’ll grow bored.

As an aside, I would like to suggest that even if Disney hadn’t acquired the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel’s future movies still would’ve been less successful because a writer can only get away with the multiverse/time travel trope once. After that, the story will forever be plagued by the question, “What if there’s one more?” No writer can escape that bottomless pit.

The importance of stakes for believability

The second requirement for believability is stakes. There have to be goals, or a story question, and those goals must be accomplished or that question answered before the end. That’s the other problem with an infinite regress: there’s no ending, so there’s no way to answer the story question.

But does a good story really need stakes? Is this really an objective rule in storytelling? Some have said no. They’ll appeal to shows like Seinfeld, which has literally been referred to as a show about nothing. This is nonsense. Here’s why.  

Image Credit: WavebreakmediaMicro - Adobe Stock

Stakes create tension. They do so by presenting a set of rules. In other words, the goals or the story question must be accomplished or answered within a certain framework. Let’s take Seinfeld, for example. If George wants to beat the Soup Nazi, he can’t bring a bazooka.

One way of looking at it is that stories have something in common with games. Why do people enjoy watching chess? Ultimately, the rules of the game are arbitrary. Strictly speaking, a player could make the pieces do whatever he or she wanted. But that’s not the point. The point is — the story question is — whether or not the player is clever enough to win using the rules placed in front of him. Can the player win without cheating? Is the player smart enough to beat his opponent while playing fair? Turning to storytelling again, is the writer smart enough to make the protagonist beat the antagonist using the rules he or she has set up?

The rules of sci-fi

Every genre has its own set of rules or conventions. Sci-fi has tech. That tech has limitations. Those limitations are the rules. Fantasy, by contrast, has magic systems. Those magic systems are the rules.

I could go even deeper into this. Certain genres have certain tropes. Every plot also raises additional questions — sub-plots — to deepen the stakes. Stories must also make a loop or complete an arch because every story is a closed moment in time that must have some idea connecting the beginning and end. One could think of this progression as the timer in a game of chess. The bottom line is that a writer needs to play by the rules given for the game, the genre.

So, yes. The rules of storytelling are objective, unless some coy writer wants to claim that two toddlers throwing game pieces around are still playing chess.

Story rules and the Terminator franchise

When it comes to the Terminator franchise, there is one all-important rule:

John and Sarah live: Win. John and Sarah die: Lose.

When the loop is completed, when the timer has run down, if John and Sarah are alive, the story has a happy ending. If John or Sarah dies, the story has a sad ending. Either way, the story is over. The question is answered.

What’s amazing is that the writers — perhaps on a subconscious level — recognized this. When John is killed, Sarah says, “And I am terminated.” Meaning the story is over! They knew. But instead of playing fair and ending the franchise, the writers attempted to continue the game long after the checkmate, and surprise, surprise, no one cared to watch. Female John is not John. John is dead. The movie’s over. It’s game over!

Trying to trick the audience

But the writers wanted to trick the audience into calling a new game the old one. Never mind the fact that we have a new John. Never mind the fact that Skynet is now Legion. Never mind the fact that Rev-9 is in no way connected to all the other Terminators. This is still a Terminator movie because we say it is! This didn’t work, which is why the movie bombed, as it should’ve.

Other things have been blamed for Dark Fate’s failure — like sexism and petulance from an unenlightened audience who can’t let go of their beloved characters — but the real issue is that killing John or Sarah means checkmate for the franchise. Frankly, I’m amazed that the writers tried this. There are plenty of dumb errors in movies, but this is the most obvious mistake I’ve ever seen. At least, Genisys had enough sense to tie John’s betrayal with the end of the war because once that happened, the series was over, win or lose. I’ll come back to the story next Saturday.

Here are the first two parts of my extended review: Terminator Dark Fate: Not as bad as Genisys but close. Here in Part 1, we also look at rumors of a new Terminator project in the works. Could some of the mistakes that plagued earlier films be avoided? The actors are quite good and if their performances seemed canned at times, I blame the dialogue. They can’t draw blood from a stone.

and

Terminator Dark Fate: Welcome to the new future. Which turns out to be the same as the old one. Here’s Part 2 of my review. The writers seem to have run out of ideas for new Terminators. They’re recycling the concept and adding new abilities — without thinking them through.