:::the view from the bumper of a car as it rides along the middle of a dark road at night steadily swallowing up the painted freeway lines:::
The voice of Sarah Connors - “We all have our calling in life. While, John’s is to lead the resistance against Skynet, mine is to make sure he lives to see that day.”
There is a new TV show on Fox, Terminator: The Sara Connor Chronicles. The show picks up where T2 left off and seems to completely ignore the fact that there is a T3 movie, which is okay with me because I never saw it and I try to ignore it’s existence, too. It is (at least from the 2-part premiere) a pretty good show and I would like to announce to the world that it is my best estimation that I am almost completely responsible for it’s birth. At least…that’s how it goes in my head and you’ll soon see why.
I have had the opportunity to visit Skywalker Ranch twice in my life. It’s located in Marin County and like all of George Lucas’ other business locations, it keeps a very low visual profile and you would never know it was anything but a working farm and ranch as it is seen from the road. It’s an audio for film and video post production facility and it’s location is meant to be very secretive. George Lucas is funny that way. Another prime example of his quirkiness is Industrial, Light, & Magic, Lucas’ computer graphics company. ILM is located right in the middle of San Rafael, CA, but you would never be able to find it if driving around looking for it. Lucas basically just started buying previously developed commercial properties in San Rafael and just left the exteriors of the buildings whatever it was before he bought it. If it was a dry cleaners before before, it stayed looking like a dry cleaners, signs and all. He left these properties intermingled with operating companies owned by others and just keeps buying them up if they close down. You drive through San Rafael and ILM looks like nothing more than a five square blocks of suburban commercial building zoning with strip malls and 7-11’s.
My first experience at Skywalker Ranch was when I was in recording school. One of my teachers was able to get our class a tour of the facilities. It was quite impressive to get to walk into the studios and control rooms of a facility where there is no limits on expense. Everything was the nicest equipment, the nicest rooms, the nicest furniture. It was amazing.
My second occasion to visit the ranch was when my friend Steve was able to procure us some special invitations to a pre-release screening of Terminator 2. Steve’s sister-in-law worked for the Gap and this was apparently set up between the movie producers and the Gap (it may have been some other crappy clothing company but I’m going with the Gap for my story) for the Gap’s employee’s and their guests only, with limited invitations available. Steve and I were both fans of the original movie so it would be exciting to be able to see the sequel before the rest of the world.
We knew we’d have to wait in line to get good seats, but we were running behind because Lucas Valley Rd. is a very dark and winding road and we passed the entrance gate a few times. There are no big signs on the road that say “SKYWALKER RANCH, NEXT RIGHT”, which is okay except when you need there to be one. When we got there our seating options were limited to sitting in the very front of the theater or the very back. I don’t know anyone that actually wants to crane their head up 165 degrees for two hours to watch a movie so we chose the back. The very last row was roped off as reserved so we had to sit in the second to last row. The lights dimmed and we were excited to get the movie underway.
As the opening credits rolled, in the darkness of the theater, the back row filled up with what were apparently some very important people. I kept looking to see if Arnold was in the back row, but I couldn’t find him. It was too dark. As soon as the movie began, I actually forgot that I cared there might be famous people behind me. I knew for sure the director James Cameron had to be back there somewhere. That never kept me from uttering my audible commentaries throughout the movie about how things “could not possibly have happened that way”. I was having some issues with suspension of disbelief that night.
Now any of you reading who have seen the movie don’t know that the movie actually had a different ending before it made it to the theaters. This is what you know….Sarah and John are on the run the whole movie for 1) escaping the mental institution, 2) leaving a trail of dead bodies, 3) killing Miles Dyson (designer of Skynet, the computer which would go on to take over the world with robots). At the end you see them destroy the bad robot and destroy the good robot. With Miles Dyson and the robots dead, they have insured that Skynet would never be developed and they destroyed any evidence that the robots existed. Dark road shot with sappy Sarah Connor monologue, the end, roll credits.
That, my friends, is not how my version of the movie ended. What happens after they destroy the good robot is they flash forward to the future. Sarah Connors, now an old lady, is sitting in a playground watching her grandchildren happily play on the swing set. In her ending monologue she gives reassurance to the audience that Skynet INDEED was never developed and though her son John would never need to lead the resistance against Skynet he would go on to be a leader in the form of a US Senator. Happy ending music, the end. Credits roll…..to which I, furious and in capable of recognizing any volume control filters in my brain, stand up, look at my friends and announce to them “NO FUCKING WAY!”.
Which I follow up with an explanation that Sarah and John are wanted for murder. Sarah is already thought to be delusional and by destroying any evidence in order to protect our world from destructive futuristic robots, they also destroyed any evidence that would validate her seeming ridiculous claims OF DESTRUCTIVE FUTURISTIC ROBOTS! She would be forever hunted down for several murders and John would never possibly be able to be a public figure of any sort, let alone A FUCKING US SENATOR. I was probably yelling the parts I just typed in caps and definitely loud enough for James Cameron (who I had forgotten was somewhere only one row behind me) to hear as he was exiting the theater. Mine was easily the first verse he heard after the movie ended.
We were told to keep seated and they passed out question/answer sheets for us to fill out about the movie which I filled up with my rant about the crappy ending. As I was finishing up, a lady came over to talk to Steve and I. She said that the two of us were specifically being invited to participate in a small discussion group about the movie and asked if we could stick around for about an hour. I TOTALLY WANTED TO! I wanted to make sure my point was heard, that despite watching a movie filled with highly improbable scenarios, at the very least the ending was completely impossible and needed to be changed before it reached the consumption of the world viewers. There was only one small problem. Steve and I were driven there by his brother and sister-in-law and they were NOT being invited the discussion group and they were also NOT willing to stay to wait for us. And that was the biggest bullshit I heard that night. I was so pissed off, I refused to talk to anyone on the way home. There is a possibility that I haven’t talked to them since.
It seems obvious right? Anyone who has now seen the movie with my the proper ending can easily understand it. But why wasn’t it obvious to the writers, producers, and directors of the movie before they spent thousands of dollars shooting an ending that didn’t make any sense? Who knows? But I know one thing, I somebody set them straight and made them see what idiots they were. You’re welcome, world.
So, my friends. It comes to this. There is now a TV series that picks up where T2 leaves off and I’m somebody is not getting the royalties due to them. I’m just saying.
