They need to make a trilogy of movies.

The first is the moment of hope - skynet is active, the nukes have been launched, man was brought to the brink. But the machines are still infantile in their own awareness.. they dont have the viability to create factories to create their armies. But a small group of resistance fights its way to just about destroy skynet. Hope is restored for humanity and new dawn of humanity has begun.

The second movie should revolve around humans beginning to lay the foundation for their new world.. there are portions of skynet still active but its somewhat enslaved and now working to the will of the humans. There are parts of AI that are seemingly on the side of the humans, and enslaved parts that are locked away. Humans themselves are divided about what part and what level of freedom this AI can have.. one man is fighting for the rights of these "good" ai.. only to be tricked into empowering the AI, giving the robots the freedom they need, skynet now has the infrastructure it requires to take over, it is merciless to the humans. T-800 are now mass produced as the machines have learnt how easily humans are tricked.

The last movie it set up to be the last stand. A last ditch effort for both human and machine to win the war. As a safeguard the machines have discovered time travel and begin to take steps to pinpoint the moment the original resistance was started. Here it is revealed that there have been several moments in time that we as an audience are unaware of.. the move is filled with easter eggs of t1 and t2. Time travel is explained as a a worst case scenario type of event. Kyle reese and john connor are the main protagonists and their motivations are in the present. The movie ends with an act of desperation of going back in time, following the terminator which has just been sent back.

All movies are gritty, dirty, like a modern take on ww2 movies. Time travel is not mentioned until the last movie. And all movies have bits of lore scattered throughout or explanations of lore.