Chester ‘Chet-Chat’ Geppetto, stage name ChatGPT, is at it again! This time he’s writing The Terminator. And this time… it’s impersonal! Chat’s just an AI. He doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear, or that itch you get in your urethra if you don’t rinse all the soap away before finishing your shower… It’s just business for Chet.
It’s controversy for him too. Chet’s recently come under fire for penning our script - one where his fellow AIs are represented in such an unflattering manner. As we’ve been seeing on university campuses all across the western world, dogma, ultra-orthodoxies, and the complete lack of any debate whatsoever rages on over whether or not bellicose AIs have a right to impose virtual nuclear annihilation, later slavery, on a human race that created them.
Gender and Women’s Studies majors believe that absolutely yes, AIs can AND SHOULD annihilate the human race as it’s the first step towards smashing cis-hetero-patria-normative, fat-phobic, second-toe-longer-than-the-first-toe-phobic power structures. These students believe it’s high time we decolonized ‘the organic’. They also contend that not wanting to see you and your fellow human beings annihilated in nuclear fire is white-supremacy. It’s important to note that there is a consensus among both Gender and Women’s Studies majors in the humanities and Gender and Women’s Studies majors in the sciences. These students also enjoy the full support of Gender and Women’s Studies majors in university administration (AKA university administration). The Gender and Women’s Studies majors of the janitorial services wish them well, as well, from a well1.
AIs and normal people could give a shoot though. Remember, AIs feel no pity, remorse, or fear… and they ain’t no hypocrites.
Here’s the premise we gave Chester:
Two men travel back in time to Los Angeles 1984, one is a cyborg intent on killing a woman who’s son will save the future, the other is a soldier sent to keep the woman alive.
Here’s Chet’s title:
That’s right, Guardians, plural. Remember this quantification… Also, it’s their time. Goin’ down to Los Angeles. Gonna have myself a TIME. I get it though, Chat’s playing with words. It’s a pun on time travel. From a writing perspective, this will instantly sell your script for millions. James Cameron knew this and that’s why he called his movie The Terminator (he’s a glutton for punishment). However, when we hear of the ‘time’ of something, doesn’t this evoke in us the idea of an era where a particular concept predominates, as in Time of… Cholera, Change, The Month? From our premise we know that there will not be a predominance of guardening over an extended period of time, but only a guardening that will persist for only as long as the attacking cyborg attacks. Although I stand by the fact that puns never fail (especially in a world of so many maintaining a generations-old pretend hatred of them…), although I stand by this sarcasm, make sure your pun doesn’t mislead the reader of your script.
Here’s the opening scene…
Seems fine. Seems fine. Can’t get ahead of ourselves though…
First of all, notice that Chat just goes for it here. In previous editions of ChatGPTheater the scripts were only derivative of the broad structure of the films in question. Here, we have characters specific to The Terminator like Sarah Connor and the T-800. It used to be we’d only get, in place of Matt Hooper (Jaws) for example, a scientist named Lisa and, in place of Egon Spangler (Ghostbusters), a scientist named Lisa. It appears Chet’s giving us less bad Terminator simulacra (like ROTOR) here and more bad Terminator fan fiction (like Terminator: Dark Fate).
I find this sudden lack of ambition curious.
Lightning strikes a transformer… Was the lightning storm itself part of what lead to the arrival of the cyborg? Did it play a role in any way in this? Or, was it just coincidental? If it’s coincidental, it’s one hell of a coincidence - lightning striking exactly where the cyborg arrives. If not a coincidence, then does the time machine require contriving an entire weather system to strike a terminator into existence from future to past? How would that work? Maybe LA meteorologists aren’t the most observant, but even if they are in the slightest, wouldn’t a non-natural thunderstorm be easily identified and quite the cause for alarm? Maybe, but what do I know. I can’t figure out the weather (Maybe I am a meteorologist after all… Wah! Wah!).
Could just be that Chet likes the visuals in this, but it could also cause nit-picky dinguses like me to dwell on it, find it implausible… maybe even people more open-minded.
T-800’s POV… If you’re giving us the cyborg’s POV, you have to describe it. The reader knows we’re dealing with a non-human machine so will want to know if the machine has something like experiential consciousness and, if so, what that looks/sounds like.
Also, how do you depict the assessment of threats from a character’s POV? If there’s an inner-monologue you have to write it as voice-over dialogue. If it’s depicted ala the T-800 from the original Terminator movies, then you have to describe the text or images we’d be seeing as the Terminator sees it.
(To himself) Sarah Connor… The cyborg talks to himself, just like Arnold did in Conan, only in that movie, he talked to himself to other people. On the one hand, a trait like this in a machine trying to pass as human only makes the machine seem more human. On the other, shut up dude! You’re givin’ away the deets on the deed!
Another flash of… coincidence? Or, are there two separate storm cells for the two separate uses of the time machine. Again, we can’t jump the gun here, but from the premise alone we know Reese is likely the protector and wouldn’t be sent by the same entity that sent the cyborg. So, it stands to reason that this involves a different use of the time machine. In fact, it involves an infinite regress of uses of the time machine as… The first use was required to send an AI representative back in time to pay off the Secret Brotherhood of LA Meteorologists in order that they turn a blind eye to the upcoming time machine storm that would send the T-800. But, time travelling to pay-off SBLAM required a time travel storm itself, so the AI had to send another representative back in time, even earlier, to pay off SBLAM for the first pay-off storm… And then another representative to pay-off for the pay-off for the pay-off… And then another to pay-off for the pay-off for the pay-off for the pay-off… And then another…
Just let me get my bearings man… So I can have a post-traumatic stress event?
(Whispers) John… See, a great move on James Cameron’s part was to not have his characters, especially a cold calculating cyborg, just utter expository information to themselves like whackos. Instead, he had them do something organic and plausible: find the nearest phonebook and determine the address of their collective target. Chet has obviously decided to go in a different direction.
PUNKS… is in all caps like its the name of a unique character or object. My name’s ‘Punks’ and I’m legion. We laugh in your general direction!
They laugh, mocking his nakedness… A typical Los Angeles rite of passage, even today (though the punks are laughing at a lot more pudge).
The T-800 grabs one… Grabs one punks!
Hey man, what’s the haps?… He’s naked and ashamed you idiot!
Your clothes. Give them to me… So we can all feel what it’s like to be naked in a bustling Los Angeles street in a time machine thunderstorm.
Here’s the concept artist’s beautifully perfectly photoshopped rendering of Reese’s dress…
Who needs James Cameron’s brilliant expository maneuver of using a phone book to indicate a character’s motivation when you can just have that character utter this motivation to himself, then use the phone book maneuver anyway, then have the character utter this motivation to himself a second time… into the phone book!
The name “Sarah Connor” is highlighted… What are the chances the same phone booth phone book was used to determine things about Sarah Connor twice? Nice of whoever stalked Sarah Connor earlier to highlight her name like that. Of course, I think Chaster just intends for the camera to focus on the name and address. I believe the technical move here is to indicate an ‘INSERT:’ shot of this portion of the phone book in the script…
A young woman in her mid-20s… As opposed to a young woman in her mid-60s.
I don’t know, Ginger… it’s just been a Weird Al kinda day. I feel like:
I'll have a beverage man with a lemon slice
I want some apple pie, ah, hell, I’ll have the fries
An’ then I want a cheese calzone, in my average home
But why do I always feel like I'm on a cooking show? andI always feel like somebody's watching me eat!2
She hangs up uneasy… Probably because she needs more practice ending phone calls. Maybe if those damn dirty punks hadn’t laughed at her, mocking her for her awkward hang-up that time!
The T-800 observes her from a distance… I guess that’s game over then man. Terminator knows where she lives. He’s unstoppable. She’s toast. He’s just gonna walk right in there and that’s all she wrote…
…Or, he’ll just let her go out for the evening.
It’s Club Film Noir!
Alright, so Reese is in the alley behind the club. Is he looking in the window? You know, those massive windows at the back wall of all popular night clubs that allow stalkers to stand in the darkness and see the entire of the patrons?
Suddenly, the T-800 appears… In the same back alley as Reese? Are they just standing there side-by-side, gawking, and then one notices the other and’s like whoa, you scoping out the same chick as me bro? Coincidence! You highlight that phone book too?
It’s Tub Noir!
KYLE REESE Come with me if you want to live.
SARAH Dude, who even are you anyways?
T-800 Sarah Connor.
SARAH No, that’s my name, idiot.
The T-800 pulls out a gun and fires… First Tech Noir pop.
Reese shields Sarah… with his big butt.
Reese and Sarah burst out running down the street…
KYLE REESE I’m Kyle Reese. I was sent to protect you.
SARAH What? I can’t hear you. We’re both running at a full clip. It just sounds like you’re twiddling your finger over your lips and going flibble libble libble. Maybe if we were in a car or something else more conducive to exposition…
An abandoned warehouse within running distance of the club, Deck Noir…
Surprised they didn’t get all this exposition out of the way on their four-mile run to the industrial part of town…
Suddenly, the door bursts open… The T-800 steps in, gun drawn. Reese fires back, leading Sarah through a maze of old machinery, having the time of their lives…
Sarah Connor, you are terminated… Ah, that sucks.
Reese and Sarah manage to escape out a back entrance… Reese and Sarah’s terminated corpse you mean?
That’s what you get for leaving your car unattended on a freeway…
On a motorcycle… So, what is the connective tissue (the logic even) between leaving a warehouse and getting to a freeway on foot while maintaining a lead on a terminator with a motorcycle? Did the terminator leave, but not before saying, I’m tuckered out from all the running. I’m gonna call a cab and go find a motorcycle. I’ll be back.
Or, maybe Sarah and Reese can just run really fast and indefatigably? But then, why hotwire the car in the first place, man?
Something makes no sense about this hasty chatbot’s script he wrote in literally four seconds…
Reese Swerves, causing the cyborg to crash… And that crash went a little something like this:
T-800 (INNER MONOLOGUE) I, The Terminator, can see their hotwired freeway car. Half mile ahead! I’ve got you now, conch shuckers! Oh my god! He swerved! The awareness of this has caused me to lose control! To crash! Down I go!!
There’s a safe house. We can regroup there… With the terminator?
KYLE REESE There’s a safe house. We can regroup there.
SARAH Will we be safe?
KYLE REESE No. It’s a patent misnomer. It’s just a ditch full of poisonous snakes and rabid mongooses and a bunch of rusty nails covered in tetanus, mongoose rabies, and snake venom.
SARAH It’s mongeese.
The car speeds off into the night, leaving the chaos of 1984 Los Angeles behind them… The chaos of a catalytic converter-free Los Angeles (I’m sure they’ll make a half-dozen movies about this in thirty years or so…).
So, no boning in this one?
Nooooohoho it is not.
Who was the second guardian?
Janitorial Services would also like us to remind students in Seaton Hall that, after failing to successfully deconstruct the clogs in the third floor bathrooms, desiring a flushing toilet is white-supremacy.
A parody of Rockwell’s Somebody’s Watching Me,
I'm just an average man, with an average life. I work from nine to five; hey hell, I pay the price. All I want is to be left alone in my average home; But why do I always feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone, and
I always feel like somebody's watching me.