6 versions of Terminator:Salvation that would have been an improvement

Here they are, in descending order from serious to just funny.

1) Terminator: What should have been

John Connor leads a small band of people just trying to survive. He comes across young Kyle Reese and acts as a father figure to him. They learn that Skynet is harvesting human tissue to make human-looking cyborgs to infiltrate the resistance. Their upcoming model is based on an Austrian weightlifter whose genome had been sequenced by CyberDyne. John captures and reprograms an experimental Terminator (Marcus). Skynet finds the resistance headquarters and captures everyone. Marcus pretends he is still a machine, but once back at Skynet headquarters, hacks into Skynet, locates John and Kyle, and is able to fight the other Terminators so that John and Kyle escape. Marcus’s last act before he dies is to upload a computer virus into Skynet that John Connor had created. It shuts down parts of Skynet, and the resistance takes over certain factories. As people hear about this, they come out of the woodwork, and this builds up the resistance from a few people to several thousand. Towards the end of the movie they find out that Skynet has repaired itself and is preparing a counterattack. Connor keeps trying to capture Terminators in order to reprogram them and find out how Skynet’s software works. Towards the end of the movie, something strange happens that implies that Skynet is working on time travel technology.
The soundtrack: Nine Inch Nails Year Zero, and The Day the Whole World Went Away

2) Terminator: Hackers

John Connor learned at the end of T3 that Skynet is software, and has infected the computers of the world. Therefore, logically, this next movie is about him trying to find out if any computer programmers survived Judgment Day so that they can try to hack into Skynet and turn it off. It becomes more of an intellectual thriller, as John Connor tries to figure out the structure of Skynet, and how he can communicate with hackers around the world without alerting Skynet to their plans. They may have to build a second Internet, use old WWI analog coding devices, or carrier pigeons.

Terminator: After the Bomb

John Connor has come up with some ingenious ways for the resistance to survive under Skynet’s radar. The movie revolves around how they had to rebuild from scratch all the things we take for granted. They had to develop anti-radiation pills or medications, they built a Biodiesel refinery so they would not be reliant on oil, which is controlled by the machines. Kate manages an organic greenhouse underground to grow food. We also find out which animals and plants survived Judgment Day, and which species began to mutate or evolve in the new ecology. Joseph Masco could work as a behind-the-scenes consultant for the film.

Terminator: The Basics

Like a video game, the camera follows John Connor around as he is attacked by robots in creative ways. That’s it.

Terminator: Salivation

The resistance has been living in bomb shelters like the one shown at the end of T3 for over 10 years eating canned beans. Finally, John Connor leads an expedition outside to see if anything edible survived the nuclear winter. Meanwhile, Kate attempts to start an organic community garden, using permaculture principles. It turns out that Kyle Reese really likes fresh fava beans.

Terminator: Under a Hot Moon

Moon Bloodgood strips to 80’s synthesizer techno from Term 1, GnR, Year Zero, Kraftwerk, and other robot related music. Perhaps the most successful of the proposed alternatives.

By the way, I've been enjoying reading the comments on this other blog.