You’ve probably heard the news by now that hedge fund Pacificor, LLC has purchased the rights to the Terminator franchise from Halcyon’s bankruptcy auction. This transaction has sparked massive speculation on the franchise’s future. Will McG make more sequels? Will T1 and T2 screenwriter Will Wisher’s treatments turn into the next two sequels? Will Pacificor go for a total reboot?

The future not set: there is no fate but what this shady hedge fund makes, right? Well, I wasn’t content with that. As a rabid Terminator fanboy, I needed to know how this turns out, so I took the liberty of using the Overthinking It Time Displacement Field (OTITDF) to travel ten years into the future to see what will become of our beloved franchise.

My report is as follows. Be warned; it ain’t pretty.

2012-2014: The Sequels

Pacificor’s first move was to get a sequel to Terminator: Salvation out the door as quickly as possible. McG, not having anything else better to do, agreed to helm the sequel. Christian Bale, upon hearing that McG had brought on the same Director of Photography from the last movie, refused to participate.

McG, in a bind, recalled Freddie Prinze, Jr’s fine work in Wing Commander and tapped him for the role of John Connor. Nicolas Cage just showed up on set, and nobody had the heart to tell him he wasn’t actually in the movie.

Pacificor, for its part, contributed the title:

If you live between North Carolina and New York, you’re digging yourself out from over a foot of snow this week. If you don’t, you have no idea what I’m talking about. And speaking of not having any idea what we’re talking about, how about we OPEN up this THREAD?

First off, in news that readers of this site are likely to care about, the rights to the Terminator franchise have been sold for $29,500,000 to hedge fund company Pacificor. That’s less than 15% of what the last movie cost to make, or less than 8% of what it grossed worldwide. Halcyon Holding Corp was forced to sell the rights to Terminator off in order to pay off its debts – debts held largely by Pacificor. If this reminds you of those plays from the 19th century where the bank threatened to foreclose on the farm unless the evil manager could marry the nubile daughter, well, quit spoiling Terminator 5: Foreclosure, jackass.

Question: if you could acquire the rights to one franchise for less than $30,000,000, which would it be? And what would you do with it?

Ohhh, good for you! McG, you got something to say?

Second, some movie news: Valentine’s Day, The Wolfman and Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief all debut this weekend. Critics are largely unimpressed by these three, which should shock nobody. Speaking of shocks, Bioshock 2 found its way into reviewer hands this week, and the worst thing anyone can say of it is that it’s “exactly as good as the first one.” Damning with faint praise? Better than damning with OH HELL IT’S BIG DADDY GO RUN HIDE AAAAH!

Question: Adapt either Valentine’s Day, The Wolfman or The Lightning Thief to a grim, atmospheric first-person shooter rife with complex moral dilemmas. Go!

Call me jaded, but I'd rather pay $9.50 to see the entire cast of Valentine's Day get tossed around by a Big Daddy for 80 minutes. ... too soon?

Did anything else happen this week? If so, we clearly missed it. That’s why we rely on you, our readers, and this: your … open thread!

I had no choice. My health insurance wouldn't pay for anyone else.

My doctor recently diagnosed me with Terminator: Salvation induced post-traumatic fanboy stress disorder (TSIPTFSD–if it’s not in the DSM yet, it will be soon). The treatment regimen consists of repeatedly watching Terminator and Terminator 2 until the names “McG” and “Sam Worthington” no longer send me into an apoplectic rage.

So far it’s going OK (the apoplectic rage that resulted from me typing those words only lasted five minutes this time), but one of the unfortunate side effects of this treatment is that I’m starting to nitpick the hell out of these movies, more so than they probably deserve (see also: motto of this site). Take, for instance, the famous ”hasta la vista, baby” scene from Terminator 2 in which Ahnuld shoots the frozen T-1000 and shatters him into a million pieces.

This seems like a poor tactical decision. Sarah Connor and Ahnuld are both injured. John isn’t much good in a fight. Their adversary is frozen pretty damn solid and isn’t going anywhere. Why don’t they run away, fix themselves up, and fight later?

Instead, he shoots the frozen T-1000 and shatters it into pieces. Okay, I know he needed to deliver a catchy one-liner, but look what happens. Moments later, the T-1000 quickly thaws out and reconstitutes itself.

Shouldn’t Ahnuld have known that the T-1000 would thaw out faster when shattered?

Here’s a better idea: why not take the frozen T-1000, pick it up, and just dunk it into the nearest convenient molten steel vat? It’s frozen. It’s not going anywhere. Its’s completely vulnerable.

R&B singer Chris Brown has been something of a pariah since the Rihanna assault incident earlier this year. He’s back with a new album, and if you take a look at the cover, it will come as no surprise to our readers that it caught my attention:

Yup, that’s Chris Brown with what appears to be a Terminator-esque metal endo-skeletal hand, not to mention the liquid metal T-1000 spelling the name of the album in the lower right hand corner.

But this Chris Brown/Terminator connection is only the beginning. Some investigation revealed more strange connections in the world of romantically connected R&B singers and science fiction movies with robots. Behold, a Venn Diagram:

See how it all comes together, after the jump:

Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Josh McNeil to begin a month-long overthinking of the decade. We do this by almost ignoring pop culture, instead focusing on Latin poetry, Greek etymology, poststructuralism, and the artistic viability of remakes. We do talk about Terminator a little.

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.

Download Episode 75 (MP3)

The giving of thanks now dispensed with, the giving of gifts can begin. Or rather the buying of them. Just as we did last year, we enter the Think Tank today to present you with charming and unexpected gift ideas for the overthinker in your life.

Oh, who are we kidding, they’re for you.

As always, we are grateful for your continued readership throughout the year and hope you enjoy our ideas. And we hope you buy them (by clicking these links!).

And whether you buy the gifts listed here or some others, we hope you’ll use our Amazon affiliate link (oh, and here’s just the Black Friday deals) every time you shop online so that we get the kickbacks that keep our servers humming.

Now onto the good part.

These have been difficult days for me. As a die-hard Terminator fan, I went into a screening of Terminator: Salvation knowing that the movie was getting bad reviews, but still holding onto a sliver of hope that this latest installment to my beloved franchise would remain true to the “real” Terminator and right the many wrongs of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

As we all know now, the movie was a sloppy, shoddy disappointment (you can listen to me rant about its shortcomings in this podcast episode; I won’t retread that territory here). That disappointment was bad enough, but in the ensuing weeks after seeing Terminator: Salvation, an even worse thing happened: I came to the sad conclusion that a huge part of the Terminator ethos, the franchise’s mantra and guiding light, is one big fat lie:

“No fate but what we make.”

For years, I fooled myself into holding onto this phrase like some sort of holy writ, but now, at this nadir moment, I must recognize the truth: “no fate but what we make” is demonstrated poorly at best by the movies/TV shows–even in the greatness that is Terminator 2–and flat out contradicted by the meta-narrative of the franchise.

“No fate but what we make?” My ass.

Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather rip Terminator: Salvation, McG, Christian Bale, and Skynet a new one.

Tell us what you think! Email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401. If you haven’t yet, take the very short survey! And… spread the overthinking by forwarding this episode to a friend.

Download Episode 47 (MP3)

In honor of this weekend’s release of Terminator: Salvation, enjoy this roundup of terminator themed posts stretching back to the early days of the site:

• “I’ll Be Back”: The Terminator Monster Ballad
• I Will Always Have Been Back: Toward a Grand Unified Theory of Schwarzenegger
• Bedknobs, Broomsticks, and Terminators: James Cameron’s Inspiration?
• Unpacking Christian Bale’s Armband: The Resistance Logo from Terminator Salvation
• NY ComicCon Day 2: Terminator Salvation and McG
• Halloween Conclusion: We Need a Terminator Awareness Campaign
• The Terminator Prequel
• Memo to Skynet
• Overthinking It Dot Com with Me If You Want to Live
• A Brief History of Terminators
• The Pump Action Shotgun: The Sound and the Fury
• Research, New York Times, Research!
• Fictional Fictions

Podcast Episodes

• Episode 3: How To Survive a Terminator Attack
• Bonus Episode: Interview with Bear McCreary (composer for Sarah Connor Chornicles)
• Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles Supplement 1
• Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles Supplement 2

Really, Mark Lee should be writing this post. A couple weeks ago, he had the idea of doing a schmaltzy Terminator song, in the style of “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” or “Everything I Do (I Do It For You).” He asked if anyone would be willing to help, and I told him to “keep me in the loop,” which means “good luck.” Then he sent me a demo version of the song, and it’s been in my head ever since. So in the end, I had no choice but to make this video.

Notice the armband he’s wearing?

This song, to me, is a prime example of “earony,” a word I coined to describe my feelings towards inspirational speeches. The word is a combination of “earnest” and “ironic.” With this song, Mark is clearly mocking monster ballads. At the same time, he clearly loves monster ballads to death. Thus, it’s an earonic song.

I like to imagine this whole backstory about lovers separated by nuclear disaster, searching for each other as they dodge exoskeletons. “How far would you go to find the one you love?” No wait, maybe we play it a little lighter. Poster shows an endless line of gleaming robots walking down Santa Monica Boulevard. Tagline: “The commute is killer today.”

But here’s something to Overthink: is the end credits monster ballad a thing of the past? Robin Hood was ‘91, Armageddon was ‘98. Nowadays, they end action movies with upbeat rock songs, not cigarette lighter-waving declarations of undying affection. Of course, maybe the monster ballad itself is an endangered species. The genre definitely peaked in the 80’s and early 90’s. I might argue that the high water mark for monster ballads was 1992, which gave us “November Rain” and “Bed of Roses.” But ‘92 was also the breakout year for Nirvana. After Nevermind, rock became less glam, for better and for worse.

Anyway: Mark, you’re a rock star, plain and simple.

Lyrics after the jump.