Hello there!
I’m excited to announce that I have finally finished the project that has been on my mind for a very long time:
For years, I’ve wanted to see a proper Terminator 5 movie, a story that truly feels like the end and the beginning of the saga—a full cycle.
And since we never got a sequel that fully captured this idea, I finally decided to create one myself.
Drawing from The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Terminator Genisys, both of which included flashbacks/flashforwards to the future, I crafted a new narrative that ties everything into one story and a complete loop.
Although my vision for this fanedit is as a sequel to Terminator Salvation—essentially a fifth and final entry in that cinematic line—the film can just as easily be viewed as a continuation of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Since the events of T3 and Salvation aren’t directly mentioned, it fits smoothly after T2 as well, without creating inconsistencies with the first two originals.
🪖 THE REESE BROTHERS
While the story ultimately revolves around John and Kyle Reese—the cycle of one being sent back in time to father the other—the central figure of this fanedit is Derek Reese. He’s the character who binds all the storylines together and carries much of the narrative on his shoulders. Kyle and John are essential, of course, but in this version it’s Derek who serves as the “connective tissue” between the chapters and perspectives, giving the story its throughline.
📼 VHS BOOTLEG LOOK
But here’s the twist… Since TSCC was a low budget TV show, and most of the source material looks “cheap” (but don’t get me wrong, I love the show!), I decided that, instead of aiming for a slick, modern look, I would reimagine it as if it were a low-budget, straight-to-VHS/TV sequel from the late ’80s or early ’90s—something in the spirit of Universal Soldier 2 or 3. The goal was to make it feel like a forgotten TV movie, a bootleg tape you’d stumble across in a rental store bargain bin.
🎞️ NON-LINEAR STRUCTURE
The story itself isn’t told in a strictly linear way. Instead, the structure is more like “tape fiction”—a series of segments and chapters that focus on different characters at different points in time. The order isn’t always chronological, but each piece connects to the others, and by the end, they all come together as parts of a larger puzzle.
📽️ Other key elements/changes of this edit are:
• The intro/prologue from Terminator: Dark Fate: showing the future war, the machines, and Sarah Connor’s voiceover as a way to set the stage.
• The fan film SKYNET, starring Michael Edwards (the older John Connor from T2’s prologue): I used most of it as one of the main segments, but reworked some key parts. For example, instead of showing Skynet going back to kill Robert Brewster, I swapped in some The Sarah Connor Chronicles footage of Sarah finding Andy Good’s body to change the context. So now, Skynet seems to be referring to Andy as the person who needs to be killed in order to stop the Judgment Day.
At the end of the scene, I transition directly into Sarah waking up from a nightmare in the ’90s—leaving it deliberately ambiguous whether it’s just a dream, a prophecy, or both.
• Chapter Titles Inspired by Malibu Comics: Most of the chapter titles are borrowed from Malibu’s 1990s Terminator graphic novels (Cybernetic Dawn and Nuclear Twilight).
• Ending Credits with Malibu Comic Panels: For the credits, I used panels from the final issue of Nuclear Twilight and Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle, showing what happened after sending Kyle Reese back in time in 2029.- John Connor and his crew finding and reprogramming the T-800, sending it back to 1995, and then a T-1000 infiltrator reactivating Skynet. This addition completes the whole story and provides some additional explanation of how Skynet survived and kept sending more Terminators.
📆 Because “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” had a lot of timeline inconsistencies—especially with dates— I adjusted some of them for coherence. Most of Derek’s flashbacks/flash-forwards were shifted from 2027 to 2029/30. These small changes help smooth out contradictions and make the overall story flow more consistently.
For two brief scenes set in the past, when John Connor is still a teenager, I deliberately left the year unspecified. This avoids creating new inconsistencies with the first four films and adds a touch of ambiguity. The exact year is left to the viewer, though fans can easily place the events of these scenes in the Terminator timeline ☺️
• I have also added a short post-credits scene — not as a cliffhanger, since I want the story to feel closed, but more as a final surprise. It’s a scene from TSCC s02 with a T-888 arriving in the 1920s. It’s unexpected, but it doesn’t undermine the sense of closure, making it a fitting little extra.
• The Fanedit will also be available in a slightly different version, with the old John segment placed earlier in the film (between Derek&Jesse’s mission and the USS Jimmy Carter storyline).
📼 All of this comes together in a fanedit that feels like a rare VHS artifact from the early 90s—low budget, rough around the edges, but capturing that raw 80s Terminator vibe.
DM me if you’re interested ☺️
