Final Destination 7 is officially in the works, Variety reported on August 8. Lori Evans Taylor is returning to write the script, with Craig Perry, Sheila Hanahan Taylor, Jon Watts, Dianne McGunigle and Toby Emmerich all attached as producers. Details about the upcoming film end here, but if Final Destination: Bloodlines was anything to go by, the franchise hasn’t lost sight of the sheer level of unhinged chaos that sets it apart from the best horror movies.
Where the seventh film takes things remains to be seen. Bloodlines didn’t exactly leave any loose threads (or surviving characters, to be honest) to carry on, though I wasn’t expecting anybody to return in Final Destination 2 either, so what do I know?
Regardless, I don’t want to wait however many years it will inevitably take to get the new movie in motion, so I asked our faithful friend ChatGPT to do in seconds what a writers room would take to achieve in months.
I got a full outline, character list, ending choices and the opening scene script mapped out before my eyes, and I was immediately horrified – and not in a “help, I’m sitting on an airplane and I think it’s going to explode the moment we take off” sort of way. In ChatGPT’s version of Final Destination 7, AI is the ultimate enemy we can’t escape, not even if we head into outer space.
ChatGPT’s version of Final Destination 7 is the sci-fi AI fever dream my mind can’t cope with
ChatGPT’s version of a “concept that honors the legacy but gives it a fresh, terrifying twist,” as it tells me, is something it’s calling Final Destination 7: Ouroboros. It’s not exactly a title I can see tripping off the tongue and onto billboards across the globe, but its meaning is steeped in the ancient symbol of a serpent or dragon consuming its own tail. Set in an AI-run space tourism facility orbiting Earth that’s basically fit for Black Mirror, a group of people (e.g. wealthy, contest winners, unlucky journalists) board ready for its launch.
The Final Destination movies always have a That’s So Raven-style vision at this point, and Ouroboros chooses systems technician who foresees catastrophic failure due to an unnoticed AI miscalculation and a solar flare disrupting guidance systems. People are being killed off left, right, and center… burned to a crisp, crushed by compression, ripped apart in zero-G’s, you name it.
Much like the first movie, our technician causes enough of a scene to get a few lucky stragglers back off the shuttle, watching it explode mid-orbit as the vision suggested. Obviously, this usually leads to death’s plan being confused, having to then kill off everybody that was supposed to die in the original accident. Here’s where ChatGPT’s cyclical Ouroboros legend comes in: survivors begin dying in ways they should have in space, but replicated on Earth, but wait! Some of our characters have died before in previous Final Destination films, but were reborn in this timeline.
I’ve got to give it to ChatGPT here, it’s a good twist. According to its generated scene, investigative journalist Leila is who finds system technician Ari’s face in a grainy news clip from 2006, serving as our midpoint revelation. Ouroboros: the myth of the eternal return – that life, death, and rebirth are part of a cosmic loop. Essentially, we’re looking at the idea of death vs. finality: is death truly the end? Obviously not, otherwise we wouldn’t be seven movies deep.
It’s the ending that takes things to a new AI bleak level, though. Our rebirth cycle means there’s an overarching danger of technological overreach (e.g. AI vs natural laws), and that leads Ari to realize she’s the anomaly in death’s design (I’m working with the ‘mind-bender ending’ suggestion here, rather than the typical Final Destination ending it’s suggested, which is a much lazier choice). Essentially, Ari is either a reincarnation of Clear Rivers or Kimberly Corman, sacrificing herself to restore the natural order. So, basically, AI and bad tech win out. Yay…?
ChatGPT isn’t done there, though, as it’s even thought of a post-credits scene. Picture it: Back in 2006, a teenage Ari boards a school bus in McKinley, Pennsylvania. She looks around – then locks eyes with another student from a previous film. Fade to black. Chills! Applause, Academy Awards, etc. etc. I’m going to spare you the actual scene scripts it’s suggested for the movie, as they are, frankly, diabolical.
Now I’ve taken in the full written pitch, I’m aghast. I don’t know whether I’m more horrified that there’s actually a kernel of a good idea here, or that an evil AI horror movie could be even more sobering than I’d thought. Is it likely to be what Final Destination 7 actually looks like? No. Should we just rewatch the first movie instead? Probably. Did I enjoy ChatGPT’s genuine descent into cinematic madness while it lasted? Absolutely… and that’s scary in itself.
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jasmine.valentine@futurenet.com (Jasmine Valentine)
