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 hasnāt 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 didnāt exactly leave any loose threads (or surviving characters, to be honest) to carry on, though I wasnāt expecting anybody to return in Final Destination 2 either, so what do I know?
Regardless, I donāt 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 ā and not in a āhelp, Iām sitting on an airplane and I think itās going to explode the moment we take offā sort of way. In ChatGPTās version of Final Destination 7, AI is the ultimate enemy we canāt escape, not even if we head into outer space.
ChatGPTās version of Final Destination 7 is the sci-fi AI fever dream my mind canāt cope with
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ChatGPTās version of a āconcept that honors the legacy but gives it a fresh, terrifying twist,ā as it tells me, is something itās calling Final Destination 7: Ouroboros. Itās 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 thatās 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 Thatās 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 centerā¦ burned to a crisp, crushed by compression, ripped apart in zero-Gās, 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 deathās plan being confused, having to then kill off everybody that was supposed to die in the original accident. Hereās where ChatGPTās 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.
Iāve got to give it to ChatGPT here, itās a good twist. According to its generated scene, investigative journalist Leila is who finds system technician Ariās face in a grainy news clip from 2006, serving as our midpoint revelation. Ouroboros: the myth of the eternal return ā that life, death, and rebirth are part of a cosmic loop. Essentially, weāre looking at the idea of death vs. finality: is death truly the end? Obviously not, otherwise we wouldnāt be seven movies deep.
Itās the ending that takes things to a new AI bleak level, though. Our rebirth cycle means thereās an overarching danger of technological overreach (e.g. AI vs natural laws), and that leads Ari to realize sheās the anomaly in deathās design (Iām working with the āmind-bender endingā suggestion here, rather than the typical Final Destination ending itās 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. Yayā¦?
ChatGPT isnāt done there, though, as itās 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 ā then locks eyes with another student from a previous film. Fade to black. Chills! Applause, Academy Awards, etc. etc. Iām going to spare you the actual scene scripts itās suggested for the movie, as they are, frankly, diabolical.
Now Iāve taken in the full written pitch, Iām aghast. I donāt know whether Iām more horrified that thereās actually a kernel of a good idea here, or that an evil AI horror movie could be even more sobering than Iād 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 ChatGPTās genuine descent into cinematic madness while it lasted? Absolutelyā¦ and thatās scary in itself.
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