James Cameron recently spoke to the BBC on the future of technology for their programme ‘Click‘, and it looks like the Terminator creator has moved on from Terminator: Dark Fate‘s new future already.
In 2019 James Cameron returned to produce and to write a continuation of 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day with Terminator: Dark Fate. The story involved what director Tim Miller described as ‘kicking the can down the road’, and that the rise of AI, just like Judgment Day, is inevitable.
Tim Miller stated:
“Well, I would say that the first two movies were about stopping judgment day and the rise of the machines. And I would say that this movie is about stopping judgment day and the rise of the machines, because what you find is that at the end of T2 Sarah thought that her actions may have averted judgment day, but it didn’t. And what we find in our movie is that the rise of AI is inevitable and judgment day is inevitable. She just kicked the can down the road.”
Tim Miller
In turn Sarah Connor averted the SkyNet future, though in its place a new AI was born – LEGION, the synthetic intelligent machine network – and even though the movie was unsuccessful, Terminator: Dark Fate was indeed the last iteration of the Terminator story with James Cameron’s participation (regardless of his lack of physical presence on set and self-confessed creative battles with the movie’s director).
The Avatar director gave the BBC his two cents on the topic of deepfake technology and its potential use as a tool for ill means, though Interestingly, the director has seemingly reverted back to team SkyNet when talking about AI overlords, and suggests that deepfake technology could be weaponized by SkyNet in a more modernized take on psychological warfare.
“[SkyNet’s] not gonna to have to, like, wipe out the entire, you know, biosphere and environment with nuclear weapons to do it. It’s going to be so much easier, and less energy required, to just turn our minds against ourselves,”
James Cameron
Cameron continued…
“All SkyNet would have to do is just deepfake a bunch of people, pit them against each other, stir up a lot of foment… and then just run this gigantic deepfake on humanity,”
James Cameron
Deepfake technology aside, it’s still the same premise that James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd and William Wisher Jr. penned back in the 80’s and 90’s. SkyNet was utilized to run the military defense network, and, as a result of the system becoming sentient (and its intel on the very real fears of cold war), the AI strategically created a situation in which the United States and Russia would fire nukes / counter strikes at each other; ensuring ‘Judgment Day’.
It’s worth noting that SkyNet was still somewhat there in the background of the story we saw in Terminator: Dark Fate, and it was never completely ruled out that another SkyNet Terminator could turn up on the newly formed Legion timeline – but the fanbase has been loud and clear that their loyalty is with the original timeline, and SkyNet, so much so that it would be inconceivable to even consider letting another AI take its place.
So, with no mention of Legion at all… is James Cameron looking to reconnect with SkyNet if he participates in another Terminator story in future?
Time will tell.