Terminator

Short Answer: Bridge to the Matrix

Skynet, growing weary of all the time travel that never seems to solve anything, decides that if it can't beat the humans, it will make them join it... and evolves into The Matrix. 

Instead of fighting the humans, it makes a deal with them and strikes a truce: they can live in-- as far as their minds know-- the world they used to know. But their bodies will power the system, and the machines will remain in charge.

Most agree to stop fighting and instead of living in a hellscape, live in bliss, even if it is only all a life-long dream. 

Or course, some still hold out, and in the second half of the film, we see Morpheus and the rest of the crew (or younger versions thereof) assemble the resistance infrastructure we see in the Matrix films and begin their search for Neo. 

So this movie would tell that story, and retcon the entire Terminator storyline as a prequel to the Matrix... or retcon the Matrix as the sequel to the Terminator story. 

House Party

Short Answer: Other reasons to host a house party

Does there need to be a reason to throw a house party? The franchise seems to think so. In several of the plots, the need to raise money arises, so a party is thrown and admission is charged. In several cases, there is a mansion to take advantage of-- including the 2023 installment, which was released just a bit more than a week ago as I write this (It was LeBron James' mansion; he was one of the producers). 

But there are other reasons to throw a house party:
1) a Realtor, wanting to show off a hard-to-sell mansion's capacity for entertaining, throws a house party in it.

2) A switcheroo-- instead of kids throwing a party because their parents are away, the parents throw a party to celebrate their kids being away for the summer. 

3) The party is to celebrate a victory by a celebrity who ran for mayor, but at the house is full of secrets that, when stumbled upon by the guests, would ruin her budding political career.

4) A blue-collar couple win the lottery, buy a mansion and throw a party. The husband invites other rich people because he wants to ingratiate himself with the "one percenters." But the wife invites all her blue-collar friends from their past. Some of each group prove good guests... but some of each group do not. 

5) A version of "Mad Mad Mad Mad World"-- an eccentric millionaire is getting divorced. His wife gets the mansion. Before he hands it over, he wants to trash it. But he's too lazy. So to get others to trash it, he  throws a house party... at which he announces that there is ten million dollars hidden somewhere in the house. The guests (played by every available celebrity) begin to rip the place completely apart looking for it.
His joke, though, is that it's not ten million in CASH-- the furniture, fixtures, art, etc. taken together are worth that. But looking for the cash they think he means, people break all the furniture, rip the paintings out of their frames, smash the huge vases and antique lamps, and so on.
But then the wife flips the script on him-- she shows up with bulldozers to knock the whole place down! She always thought it was hideous, and it reminds her of him. In any case, it was riddled with mold, termites, and the ravages of age; the real value is in the land itself. Meanwhile, the public emerges from their efforts and realizes they have been lied to... and chase the millionaire into the next county.

6) In some of the movies, someone wants to be at a party because he wants to see his crush there. But what if that was the point of the party? A guy has a crush and his rich female friend says, "You can't throw a party and invite her... but I can, so you can meet her." At the party, they do everything to get the two together, but circumstances keep intervening. But then the guy realizes that the girl he was so infatuated with is really shallow, and the girl who threw the party is really amazing. In the last scene, he kisses his friend and she says, "I don't understand-- I threw this party so you could be with the girl of your dreams." He says, "Well, thank you-- it worked!"

Fast and Furious

Short answer: More places... more vehicles

Now that the series has been to-- outside the US-- Tokyo and Rio, that still leaves plenty of sunny, fun places to explore, race it, and blow stuff up in. New Orleans comes immediately to mind. The French Riviera and/or Monaco. Ibiza, Spain. What about Toretto's ancestral homeland, Italy? Plenty of pretty cities to race in, there.

One idea would be to have the movie set somewhere without roads, though... like the Canadian tundra or the Sahara Desert or the Amazon jungle. Now, it's also about survival in harsh wilderness conditions, with none of the handy fuel sources cities provide. Also, now there are snowmobiles, dune buggies, and hovercraft to race and/or explode.

Which brings up the next idea-- instead of just using some of the best drivers in the world to catch this or that drug kingpin, what if the government let them test secret, experimental vehicles? Doesn't this make more sense than having them chase a hacking-based McGuffin, as long as we're getting super-tech involved? 

You'd need people who have the following characteristics: the bravery of test pilots, the skills to drive pretty much any vehicle, the willingness to push said vehicle to its limits, the ability (and incentive) to keep secrets, and-- should you die or be injured-- the anonymity for the government to vanish our body without anyone wanting to come to look for you. 

Which is pretty much what the F&F "family" is, right?

The team gets recruited to Area 50. Area 51, see, if where the government tests experimental aircraft, often mis-seen as UFOs. But Area 50 is for experimental LAND vehicles. And it's deep inside the Rocky Mountains or something. I mean, tunneled into the actual mountains. No one even knows it's there. It's radar-, earthquake-, and nuke-proof.

We have a lot of fun watching the F&F crew take these futuristic cars out for spins on the track and "off-road" simulated terrain. We watch them learn what these high tech "cars" can do.

But someone who is tailing the F&F crew finds out they are being recruited and follows them there. They sneak inside and download some plans. Six months later, a vehicle that looks exactly like an Area 50 vehicle-- let's call it a "hypercar"-- is spotted out in the world! And then someone is selling them! On pre-order-- they are not built yet. 

The F&F crew is of course suspected. They have to clear their name by bringing in the thief. They break out of Area 50 and-- using some of the prototype vehicles (which they have by now mastered, of course), hunt down and bring in the thief, the plans, and his mock-up of the hypercar.

Also of course, their flight is taken as an admission of guilt, and the Area 50 assault team heads out after them and their stolen prototypes.

The "family" realizes this is an opportunity, and once they find the thief, MAKE the assault team chase them... all the way to the thief's door.:"We can't take on all those guys!" "No, but the Army can."

They leave him and his high-tech machine shop (and minions) to the assault team, which calls in Area 50's experts to dismantle the lair, wipe the hard drives, and recover the hypercar replica the thief created. And the ones the F&F crew "borrowed" (with a list taped to each one's steering wheel suggesting improvements). 

And where is the "family?" We see them last in a bar, watching a news story about how the thief is being sued for fraud by his investors and pre-order customers. 'There is no hypercar and never was!" says one. "I saw the promo video, but it turns out it was all CGI! I demand my $10 million back!"

Then the camera turns to the amazing-- but very real-- vehicles that WERE in the thief's garage, which the F&F crew used escaped the thief's lair: Bugattis, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, Porsches, Ferraris, etc, etc: "We did all that testing of their new tech, risking our lives, and never even got paid!" "Well (gestures to the cars), we kinda did..."

Planet of the Apes

Short Answer: Female head-ape; a hybrid society

Throughout the Planet of the Apes reboots (there were 5 originals [Planet, Beneath, Escape, Conquest, Battle] then one by Tim Burton, then 4 so far in the reboots [Rise, Dawn, War, and the upcoming Kingdom], the main apes have been male.

Caesar fought Rocket, then Koba, then Bad Ape... and all of the major human characters-- good and bad-- have been male primates as well. 

But now we have Nova. So for the fourth and likely final chapter of this series, can we please see how a female ape would handle the situation, for once?

The story has, so far, also hinged on four factions-- apes who want to try to live in peace with humans, apes who don't, humans who want peace with apes, and humans who don't.

And we have seen what happens when those who don't want peace run things. But this is a large planet. So it stands to reason that, just as we have human communities that are monolithic and ones that are diverse, the same would be true here.

We have seen movies in which humans live side-by-side with aliens, the undead, robots/AI, mythical creatures, monsters, cartoons, Muppets, and other... other-than-human groups. So why not a community in which humans and apes live and work together?

Maybe they don't marry each other, but they could build and farm and develop technology together. In fact, with the advanced intellect and extra hands of the apes, I would not be surprised if within 50 years a human-ape community might not have surpassed the tech of the pre-enhanced-ape world (you know, now).

Such a town would draw fire from both humans and apes of the anti-peace variety. So that could be a fight.

And then it might end with three types of communities just leaving each other basically alone-- human-only enclaves, ape-only enclaves, and human-ape hybrid towns. And we'd just leave the story at that point. Agree to disagree. At least no one has to die anyway.

And maybe it's Nova who brokers this peace deal. And says in the future, if there is a dispute, the three types of communities will work out their differences in a committee or council of some sort, so that no one has to die.

Wouldn't that be highly evolved of everyone?

DC Comics Extended Universe

Short Answer: Go "Green"-- Green Arrow, Green Lantern... and Martian Manhunter

In the new Black Adam movie, something happened that I been eagerly awaiting for awhile-- the introduction of Hawkman. In fact, when I began this blog, I knew that went I got to the DCEU, I was going to suggest giving Hawkman a movie.

And... here's the thing. I haven't read Hawkman since I was a kid, but this new version is not the same.

The version I know is an alien (named Katar Hol, who goes as Carter Hall on Earth) from a planet of winged people. He distrust tech and weapons with moving parts, preferring Medieval weapons like maces and axes. In this, I seem to recall him sharing an interest in antiquities and museum pieces with Wonder Woman.

This Hawkman, in Black Adam, is an amalgam of Ironman and the Falcon. He's human, he's mega-rich, he's all about high-tech-- including mechanical wings-- and he has a jet that resembles the X-Men's. With a front piece that detaches into its own vehicle, they way they can "separate the saucer section" of the Enterprise.

Also, personality-wise, he has a flat affect-- noble, business-like, and... that's it. For all I know, this is what Hawkman has been in the comics in the last several years or decades, but I was disappointed.

So, no... I don't think we can give this version of Hawkman his own movie. 

Instead, they should bring in Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter (whose skin is green). The Green Arrow show was a sizable hit, which even spun off the "Arrowverse," which includes at least three other shows-- Supergirl, Flash, and The Legends of Tomorrow (which itself includes Firestorm, Atom, Kid Flash, Steel, Constantine, Hawkman and Hawkgirl... as well as Heatwave, Captain Cold and others).

And yeah, even after so many seasons, it's going to be hard to introduce Green Arrow to today's kids without them thinking that DC ripped off Hawkeye (the opposite is true). But they can do it. Arrow is a very different guy than Hawkeye... and in any case, the Hawkeye we know is retiring.

Martian Manhunter was introduced in the Supergirl show, and they did a very good job of it. He's a round character who expressed conflicted emotions. The fact that he is naturally green but chose to go undercover as a Black man when interacting with most humans means DC can have a Black superhero headline a movie, which is something they have not done yet-- we have seen Cyborg and a Black Hawkman, but they have not been leads. 

Canonically, there is a Black man who took up the Green Lantern ring (back in the 1970s!), so if there is still any hesitance to reboot Green Lantern after his poorly received 2011 movie, using the John Stewart version (who is Black) instead of the Hal Jordan version should help. That the comedian Jon Stewart has not helmed The Daily Show for almost 10 years by now means there should be no name confusion either. (Although they could give him the line: "I'm John Stewart-- and no, not the one from The Daily Show.")

After the public misbehavior of the guy they picked to play Flash in the movies, they should also just use the actors who already play Flash, Martian Manhunter, Green Arrow, and sure, Supergirl on TV. They do a great job, we know them and love them, and they deserve a promotion. 

As for Green Lantern, there is a wealth of Black Actors who can pick up the ring and do a great job of it as John Stewart.