Terminator: Salvation (If They Left Out The Bullshit)
What if Terminator: Salvation was only ten minutes long, and was made by someone with two names who had actually seen the first few Terminator movies? Would the film, like Skynet, have become self aware, and realized how much it sucks? The-Editing-Room.com answers all of these questions and more with the least retarded Terminator script produced so far this year.
FADE IN:
INT. SKYNET BASE
CHRISTIAN BALE and a team of ROBOT FODDER break into a SKYNET military base which, despite the fact that it is made for machines instead of humans, is designed to make it easy for humans to move around.
CHRISTIAN BALE
It looks like Skynet is taking human prisoners. Something's different. This isn't the future my mother warned me about. That future definitely had lasers, I'm sure of it. That future would have been totally sweet.
MICHAEL IRONSIDE
Bale! You're a loose cannon! You've destroyed over half the city! I've got the mayor breathing down my neck!
CHRISTIAN leaves the BASE only to discover a bunch of TERMINATORS taking more humans prisoner.
CHRISTIAN BALE
I must chase after them! If only there were an easily damageable vehicle that, when damaged, would maximize my chance of fatality! Oh, a helicopter, perfect!
CHRISTIAN grabs a HELICOPTER, which results in a CRASH that somehow leaves him unscathed. A CRIPPLED TERMINATOR chases him, but it is killed by bullets. Plain old, regular bullets. The kind that couldn't kill terminators in the other movies.
EXT. POST-APOCALYPTIC WASTELAND
SAM WORTHINGTON wanders into the ruins of a city. He is attacked by a TERMINATOR THAT LOOKS LIKE DOLPH LUNDGREN but rescued by ANTON YELCHIN.
ANTON YELCHIN
Come with me if you want to live.
SAM WORTHINGTON
Actually I've read the rest of the script for this movie, I'll just stay here, thanks.
ANTON drops some TRASH on the TERMINATOR and kills it.
SAM WORTHINGTON
What the hell was that thing?
ANTON YELCHIN
Where have you been? That was a Terminator!
SAM WORTHINGTON
No it wasn't. Terminators are scary. That thing was wearing a headband.
ANTON YELCHIN
So who are you anyway?
SAM WORTHINGTON
I'm a prisoner that was executed in 2004. I donated my body to science because Helena Bonham Carter asked me to and she was bald with perfectly plucked eyebrows, the international moviemaking symbol for someone with cancer.
ANTON YELCHIN
Nothing suspicious about that, let's become reluctant partners!
INT. RESISTANCE BASE
CHRISTIAN BALE gets a lecture from MICHAEL IRONSIDE while IVAN G'VERA translates.
MICHAEL IRONSIDE
You don't play by the rules, Bale! You think you're above the law! I'm taking you off the case!
IVAN G'VERA
Mr. Ironside wants you to be aware that you and your teenage father have both been targeted by Skynet.
CHRISTIAN BALE
My father? I can't let that happen, it would create a time paradox that wouldn't really matter since this whole franchise just seems to make up the rules of time travel whenever it wants!
MICHAEL IRONSIDE
Turn in your gun and badge! You're suspended until further notice!
IVAN G'VERA
Mr. Ironside also wants you to know that his team has figured out how to turn the machines off using an audio clip.
CHRISTIAN BALE
Does it secretly mimic the remote shutdown code?
IVAN G'VERA
Nah, it's just a track off Eminem's new album. When the machines hear it, they kill themselves. I'm pretty sure he rhymes "rubbers" with "rubbers."
EXT. POST-APOCALYPTIC WASTLAND
SAM and YELCHIN drive an amazingly-still-functioning car around a bit until they attract the attention of MEGATRON.
An incredibly LOUD action sequence follows with a bunch of EXPLOSIONS.
ANTON YELCHIN
Wow, it's all of the action of Terminator 2, without the reason to give a shit!
DIRECTOR MCG
Dude, what do you expect from me? I only have one name. And it lacks vowels.
MEGATRON captures them along with a bunch of other people. SAM escapes and runs into MOON BLOODGOOD, whose name is MOON BLOODGOOD.
MOON BLOODGOOD
Who are you? And why is McG introducing a bunch of new characters nobody cares about?
SAM WORTHINGTON
I don't remember anything. Surely that's not alarming to someone who ought to be living in a constant state of paranoia.
MOON BLOODGOOD
I see. Well let's set up camp for the night. We can start a large fire to attract as many invincible murderous robots as possible. Tomorrow I'll take you to see Christian Bale.
SAM WORTHINGTON
He's not going to do that stupid Batman voice is he?
MOON BLOODGOOD
Hilariously enough, he is!
MOON and SAM make their way to the SUPER SECRET RESISTANCE HIDEOUT, SOLD SEPARATELY.
CHRISTIAN BALE
Sam Worthington is a machine! Strap him up, no ultra-powerful cyborg can possibly break out of a couple chains.
SAM WORTHINGTON
I'm a cyborg? How shocking to absolutely nobody since the trailer showed it!
CHRISTIAN BALE
You're a different kind of model, I've never seem a Terminator with human organs before.
SAM WORTHINGTON
Skin is an organ, numbnuts.
CHRISTIAN BALE
...you and me are done professionally, man.
CHRISTIAN sulks around other parts of the base and listens to the tapes his MOTHER made for him, which have been needlessly rerecorded with slightly different lines.
MOON BLOODGOOD
I think you should let Sam go. When he and I were alone, he decided not to rape me, and "doesn't rape people" is pretty much the only moral barometer in action movies.
CHRISTIAN BALE
No. How am I supposed to become the leader of the human resistance if I go around listening to people with more information than me?
MOON decides to free SAM. There is a dark but extremely loud chase sequence and eventually CHRISTIAN confronts SAM.
SAM WORTHINGTON
Listen, I need to go rescue Anton Yelchin, he has to be on the Star Trek set in half an hour.
CHRISTIAN BALE
He eventually grows up to become my father! I will allow you to attempt to rescue him so he can have sexual intercourse with my mother.
SAM goes to the MACHINE CITY where he is captured by machines. CHRISTIAN BALE says goodbye to his wife, BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD.
CHRISTIAN BALE
Alright, let me just stick this flash drive into a killer motorcycle and take it over. It's a good thing the Terminators are backwards compatible with USB 2.0.
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
Please tell me that this isn't how the movie has decided to portray all of the "you re-programmed me" stuff from the other movies.
CHRISTIAN BALE
Goodbye, wife who is not Claire Danes. I'm heading into the machine headquarters to rescue the guy who I later send back in time so that he can continue to be my father and I can continue to exist. Yeah, I just said that. Anyway, I'LL BE BACK.
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
Ugh, this whole movie isn't just going to be a series of winks and nods to the audience members that saw the other movies, is it? Because that's what Terminator 3 was, and it sucked big metal cyborg balls.
CHRISTIAN BALE
No, that was the last in-joke. The rest of the movie is painfully serious.
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
OK, good.
CHRISTIAN BALE
Just as soon as I listen to the same Guns N' Roses album that I listened to in the second movie, a copy of which somehow survived the nuclear holocaust.
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
At least it isn't Chinese Democracy.
CHRISTIAN drives to MACHINE CITY. Meanwhile, SAM awakens in a room with a BIG MONITOR (very useful for machines) with HELENA BONHAM CARTER'S FACE on it.
HELENA BONHAM CARTER
Hello Sam. Thank you. You have lured Christian Bale here. Our plan all along was to release you, at which point you could earn his trust and tell him that his teenage father has been captured, causing him to attempt a rescue that we could anticipate and prevent!
SAM WORTHINGTON
Why not just kill his teenage father?
HELENA BONHAM CARTER
...
SAM WORTHINGTON
Did you seriously not think of this?
HELENA BONHAM CARTER
FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
CHRISTIAN BALE arrives and is attacked by CGI ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, HOLY SHIT! ARNOLD throws CHRISTIAN around a lot rather than snapping his neck, just to be NICE.
CHRISTIAN BALE
Whoa, I'm getting my ass kicked by the first T-800. It's kind of too bad you had to be CGI, though.
CGI ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
Are you kidding? This is the most realistic performance of my career.
CHRISTIAN BALE
Well it's costing about a million dollars per frame, so let's move this along.
CHRISTIAN BALE dumps a load of MOLTEN STEEL on ARNOLD and it melts his skin off, converting him back into a regular boring robot.
CHRISTIAN BALE
What the fuck? That was molten steel. That's the thing that kills you in Terminator 2.
CHRISTIAN escapes ARNOLD and finds ANTON.
CHRISTIAN BALE
Anton! It's very important you live. It's also very important you switch from briefs to boxers, you gotta keep that sperm count up.
ANTON YELCHIN
We need to destroy this factory, especially considering that it's not supposed to exist for like 10 more years.
CHRISTIAN BALE
We can detonate the power cells. Terminators are powered by explosive nuclear cells.
ANTON YELCHIN
Lemme make sure I have the rules straight. Things that can go back in time: metal endoskeletons, computer chips, liquid metal, robots with rocket launcher arms, small nuclear devices. Things that cannot: a gun, clothing.
CHRISTIAN and ANTON detonate the nuclear cells and survive the ensuing nuclear explosion.
EXT. BACK AT RESISTANCE HEADQUARTERS
CHRISTIAN is severely injured from the encounter. BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD and SAM WORTHINGTON fret over him.
CHRISTIAN BALE
The T-800 ruptured my heart. The fact that I've survived longer than 0.2 seconds is astonishing.
SAM WORTHINGTON
I shall achieve true Terminator salvation. Bryce, give Christian my heart.
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
Yeah, I'm a veterinarian. Unless you're both kitty cats, this is a bad plan.
BRYCE somehow saves CHRISTIAN but everyone probably dies a year later from being exposed to nuclear radiation nonstop for 10 years.
Somehow MCG manages to make another sequel anyway.
END
For more of our bitching and moaning about indestructible robots, check out 5 Reasons The Terminator Franchise Makes No Goddamn Sense and our mind-melting attempt to map out a sensible time line of the franchise. Or find more of Rod's scripts for Twilight, Juno and other movies on his author page.
And go to our Top Picks where we'll teach you how to travel back in time to stop McG before it's too late.
