UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: RETRIBUTION

I'm going to share my idea for a final Universal Soldier sequel, that would see the current story closed, before a rumoured reboot happens.

But first, lets go over backstory with a quick rundown of the past movies and events.

The Universal Soldier series is a little all over the place after the first movie.

The rights got snapped up and two TV movie sequels were made, "Brothers In Arms" & "Unfinished Business", not to the best reception either and were later rendered non-canon.

So, this article will be going through the official timeline of the franchise.

"Universal Soldier"

American soldiers killed in Vietnam, have their bodies put on ice and later brought back to life via cybernetics & chemicals, to be soulless killing machines, dubbed; Universal Soldiers (UniSols for short), for the Government.

Luc Deveraux (JCVD) & Andrew Scott (Dolph Lungdren), from the same unit in Vietnam, became enemies over the killing of innocent people, where they both shot and killed each other. Now being UniSols with no memories of who they are or what they've done, slowly start to remember, which causes trouble for those running the UniSol program.

As things start to piece themselves together for Luc and Andrew, their rivalry is revived and Luc is on the run.

After meeting with his parents who thought him dead many years before, Andrew catches up with Luc and both battle to the death, which Luc gets the upper hand and makes mince meat out of Andrew Scott, literally.

Within the same year after "Unfinished Business"( Universal Soldier 3 TV movie) was released, movie rights moved again and Van Damme returned to do a sequel, that would be classed as the "official sequel" to the first movie, rendering the last two TV movies, non-related and unrecognised as sequels.

"Universal Soldier: The Return"

Luc Deveraux returns to be part of a new Government funded UniSol project.

Super soldiers would be created from those that died in battle and train them to be unbeatable, under the watch of S.E.T.H, an AI super computer that controls the UniSol units.

These new UniSols are trained by Luc, being the only survivor of the last failed project, he proves very valuable to everyone involved and is ahead of time in field testing.

When the Government try to shut down the project for stupid reasons, S.E.T.H's existence is threatened with termination, to which S.E.T.H decides to fight back.

Adapting it's own programming and creating more UniSols units with the help of Romeo (Bill Goldberg).

With time running out to get the kill code to stop it's automatic shutdown, S.E.T.H, begins miniaturising it's matrix to implant it into the "best body" specimen that was hidden away in the bowls of the facility.

After the merging of man & machine, SETH lays out his plan to defeat the human race and making them all UniSols, simple, but also needs Luc for the code to stop his shutdown.

During the initial chaos, Luc's daughter Hillary is badly injured and only the technology from the facility can save her live, but SETH wants the code in exchange.

This leads to Luc and SETH fighting in epic fashion, with Luc saving his daughter's life, destroying SETH by freezing him solid and smashing him to pieces with a well placed kick.

The facility is later destroyed with the remaining UniSols inside, the explosion forces the building to collapse in on itself. Luc and his daughter are safe and the UniSol threat is buried.

Nearly a decade after "The Return", another sequel was made;

"Universal Soldier: Regeneration"

This movie wouldn't acknowledging "The Return" or it's events, but also not stating they didn't happen either, as this movie would serve as yet another attempt to reboot the franchise after the bomb of The Return.

Terrorists have kidnapped the son & daughter of the Ukrainian Prime Minister and taken over a Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant with the threat of blowing it up and killing the children if their demands are not met.

They also have the resources of creating new generation UniSols, with the help of rogue scientists, that have unleashed one NGU (Andrei Arlovski) that is almost unstoppable.

Luc Deveraux is sort of dead-minded and in a run-down state. In therapy and rehabilitation for years, with the hope of being released back into society to try and live a normal life.

But this is all nixed when the US Forces reclaim him back to be used to fight against the terrorists, rescue the children and stop the bomb from blowing up the plant.

Not only that, a clone of Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren) from the original movie would also return, continuing their battle against each other that breaks many walls, literally.

After Luc makes sure he don't regenerate a brain by blowing it out of his skull, he is met with the NGU trying to kill the children and make sure the bomb goes off.

The fight with the NGU and Luc is fast paced and aggressive, ending with Luc pulling the explosive detonator from the bomb pack and pushing down the back of the NGU, before falling 50 feet to the outside and watching the NGU blow up, saving the day again.

Luc though, decides to run off to nowhere and presumably on the run forever.

Regeneration did well enough to spawn another sequel;

"Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning"

Van Damme plays a very back-seated role, in favour of a new protagonist, John (Scott Adkins).

John, a father and husband who's wife and daughter were executed in front of him, was left for dead only to wake up from his coma months later and released to go back to his life.

Luc Deveraux, now in control of a rogue UniSol group, operates underground with scientists that can now created super soldiers.

A secret Government-backed agency, are looking for Luc and the rogue group, that went missing years ago and shadow John in his personal hunt to find Luc himself for revenge.

John having a past he can't remember leads him down a path to an exotic dancer Sarah, that tries to make him remember, but he can't seem to remember the smallest things.

John is also being followed by a UniSol unit (Andrei Arlovski) that has been awakened to take John out, to which John escapes a few fingers short.

coming face to face with the UniSol, John discovers he is different and makes short but exciting work of taking out the UniSol, then later regenerating his fingers he lost earlier in the movie.

John, with Sarah, finds out that he was manipulated to do the dirty work of the secret agency and that he is a clone, by discovering the John clone before him in a cabin, this older John is the one Sarah remembers, but is too mentally unstable and is killed by the newer John clone.

Now knowing where Luc is and that his life is a lie and was an attempt to find Luc and the rogue group, John is found and picked up to be taken to the hidden rogue base.

After a couple of scientists attempt to literally drill the fake memories out of his skull, those memories prove too strong to let go of and John snaps, taking out patrolling UniSols in brutal manor, then he comes face to face with Luc himself.

In the end, Luc meets his demise at the hands of John and the rogue UniSols see John as the new leader, something the Government agency didn't see coming.

Using a cloned agent to replace the one John kills, it seems John has a plan to infiltrate the Government, but for what? We still don't know.

Potential future?

The franchise is left open for potential sequels, but rumour of a reboot was going around.

Years pass and there's no word on another sequel or of the rumoured reboot.

As a fan of the franchise, I didn't like the sound of a reboot, because I feel the current story deserves to at least go out with a bang.

So, I created a basic storyline that would mould all these movies (apart from the TV movies) into a ball of C4, to bring everything together for a kick ass movie, that would send the franchise off into the sunset with it's pride back.

I'll go into a little detail on how I would like this "final" movie end on a high note.

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: RETRIBUTION

The idea in my story, is the Luc we saw in Regeneration & Day Of Reckoning, was a clone that mentally couldn't cope with the memories of the real Luc, which ultimately led to why the clone went rogue. This would explain why the events in The Return, were never mentioned in Regeneration or Day Of Reckoning.

After the Government-backed UniSol program ultimately failed (The Return), the real Luc Deveraux moved far away from the city life with his daughter Hillary, to stay away from anything related to what he experienced and try to live out his life as normal as possible. But he is still connected to his rebirth as a Universal Soldier, which still haunts him.

Not long after the destruction of the UniSol facility (The Return), during a clean-up, unknown agents recovered the S.E.T.H. miniature cube as well as what was left of the flesh/DNA from the bio enhanced host body.

The S.E.T.H. cube was and still is very active and years have been spent breaking it's program to control it, while at the same time, recreating and advancing the bio enhancements of the host, using the recovered DNA.

Why?

This secret agency are part of a sub-Government that deals in creating weapons and other unknown activities, on a mission to recover or destroy anything related to the UniSol projects before they fall into hands.

With many remaining UniSols still out there, the latest plan by the agency is create a "UniSol Hunter-Killer" they can control and hopefully take control of the rogue UniSol group, by taking out it's leader, John.

John has become more unstable and unpredictable, with midnight heists for weaponry and supplies. What's driving him crazy? The implanted memories of his (fake) family still control & drive him, to the point where he feels justice isn't served.

As a clone, there are no original memories for him to rediscover as Luc did.

After multiple assassination attempts on John's life by the secret agency failed, John found information that the agency knows of the real Luc's existence and near location of where he lives.

In John's mind, he feels he needs to take out Luc himself and make him feel what it's like to lose family, so John orders Luc's daughter to be kidnapped, to lure him out of hiding.

The UniSol Hunter-Killer (UHK) is created, with upgrades completed, S.E.T.H is back online with a new super-bio enhanced host body, all under complete control of the agency.

They send the UHK to take care of the pockets of remaining UniSols that are in different states, the UHK having no problems destroying his targets.

Little do the agency know, is that S.E.T.H. created a date-node during the time of it's miniaturisation process all them years ago.

The data-node calls to S.E.T.H and the agency have no idea why they can't control the action of the UHK but they can only track where it's going.

After holding all the memories of what happened that fateful night many years ago, along with keeping up with today's events, S.E.T.H links with the data-node and retrieves everything, which completely breaks the controlling link with the agency.

S.E.T.H is now autonomous.

Now knowing of everything the secret agency knows, S.E.T.H is now on a more personal mission, to hunt and kill Luc Deveraux and take control of the rogue UniSol group itself, by killing it's leader, John.

The final battle has all three in a triple threat, in a steel foundry, where Luc finds his daughter being held hostage by John, but S.E.T.H crashes the party and almost looks to relish the moment.

Who will have ultimate retribution?

The end battle I'll leave to your imagination, as to the ending, but it's one that delivers the send off the franchise needs, before a potential reboot wipes it all off of the table.

So there you have it. My idea for a sequel to end the story with a sense of closure.

I hope you enjoyed reading the concept.

By David Savage.

Twitter @DaveSavage1982 Let me know what you think!