5 Reasons The Terminator Franchise Makes No Goddamn Sense
With the release of Terminator Salvation (aka Terminator With Batman and Transformers!) we'd like to take a closer look at the franchise that has explored such pressing issues as our dependence on machines, what it means to be human and how utterly incredible it would be if Robert Patrick could turn his arm into a fucking knife.
However, in our exploration of this series, we have come across a few gaps in logic, which we felt compelled to share with you. Why? Because we don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and we absolutely will not stop, ever, until every movie you have ever loved is ruined.
#5.
Daddy Issues and Paradoxes
If you've found your way to this article, odds are you remember The Terminator, but let's refresh some key plot points. In the mysterious and distant future--1997, to be exact--Skynet, a highly-advanced artificial intelligence, is introduced to the world. Humans decide to hand over all military control to this system because in the Terminator universe the people have not seen The Terminator.
Decades later, the humans are at war with the robots and a brave warrior named John Connor takes charge and turns the tide. The machines strike back by sending the Governor of California back to the 80s to kill Connor's mom before he's born. The humans send Michael Biehn back to protect her.
Along the way, he makes it part of his mission to protect her vagina from not having his penis in it. And that, readers, is where everything in the space-time continuum gets "iffy."
As it turns out, when Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton sleep together, they conceive John Connor. And, as we learn in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, when the Terminator is destroyed in the first film, the microchip in its skull survives, falls into the hands of computer company Cyberdyne Systems, and allows for the creation of Skynet in the first place.
Therefore, the only reason either John Connor or the machines exist is because the Terminator went back in time, and the only reason the Terminator went back in time is because the machines and John Connor exist. Get it?
"I have to protect your unborn child, but first let's go ahead and get you pregnant."
Oh, and John Connor and our heroes spend the last act of the second movie trying to prevent said war, meaning John Connor is trying to prevent his own existence, by eliminating the reason for his dad to travel back in time to conceive him. And, if he does prevent his own existence, well, he certainly won't be around to prevent the war thus prevent his existence and...
Well, you get the idea.
#4.
If At First You Don't Succeed...
So, we've established that the first Terminator failed and was in fact killed by a waitress. Consider how embarrassing that must have been for it.
But neither Skynet or Hollywood give up on good ideas, they merely try them again when the technology improves. Hence Terminator 2, in which a highly-advanced liquid metal Terminator is sent back again, only this time it's the 90s and the target, being young John Connor, can barely tie his shoes.
Luckily, the original T-800, his balls now safely removed, is sent back to protect John after being reprogrammed by him in the future. They meet up with Linda Hamilton and once again, our heroes thwart the bad guy, despite his obvious technological advantage. Did we mention he can turn his arm into a knife? C'mon.
The third time around, Skynet throws a little something called the T-X John Connor's way.
The T-X has a liquid metal substance for skin, futuristic weapons built into its endoskeleton, and can make its breasts grow at will. Yet, once again an outdated T-800, Nick Stahl and Claire Danes defeat this wonderful creation. Is your disbelief still suspended?
If so, answer this for us: Can't Skynet just keep on trying until it gets John Connor?
We highly doubt that the time machine has an "only three assassination attempts per user" rule. And anyway, why do they keep on trying to attack John Connor at different periods in his existence anyway? Couldn't they send the T-X back to the 80s to deal with Linda Hamilton again?
Or even earlier? After all, why lose the element of surprise by traveling to a time when the targets know what they're up against? It'd make a lot more sense to send the Terminators to earlier in the character's lives, when they were still oblivious to the threat. Get Sarah Connor as an infant, damnit. Hell, even if it was just one day earlier than the first movie, it would still make all the difference in the world.
Honestly, who programmed this shit?
#3.
Breaking the Law (Their Own)
The Terminator series really only establishes two rules for its futuristic technology:
1. The robots cannot show emotion;
2. The time machine can't transport non-living matter.
First, the emotion thing. This one seems pretty easy to nail down, right (they're fucking robots)? And it's stated right in the second movie when Arnold says, "I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do" (though some students of the franchise speculate that was just Schwarzenegger thinking out loud on the set and the microphone happened to be on).
So why then, at the end of that very film, does the T-1000 give us the world's greatest "oh shit" face just moments before his destruction:
Pictured: The clinical, calm detachment of a robot.
And he's not the only one. When the T-X discovers that she is on the trail of her main target John Connor, she displays an odd mix of excitement and what appears to be arousal, because hunting down the savior of mankind must be so damn hot.
Come on, lady, your one job in this movie was to not act.
And then there's the non-living matter time machine issue. As Kyle Reese explains in the first film, no advanced weaponry can be brought back from the future because the time machine can only transmit living tissue. That's why we had to tolerate naked Schwarzenegger ass for two films before somebody finally remembered to put a hot woman in the role.
Now, technically, the first Terminator is a machine with living tissue layered over its endoskeleton, so it gets a pass, we guess. Enter the T-1000, the second film's liquid metal Terminator that can take nearly any shape and recover from nearly any wound. Oh, and it can turn its arm into a knife.
The problem is, this Terminator is composed entirely of liquid metal. No living tissue, no flesh, just 100% mimetic-poly alloy (thank you, James Cameron). That means, according to the rules clearly established in the first movie, it cannot travel back in time.
But, it does. Same goes for the T-X in the third movie. That Terminator is liquid metal on top of a heavily armored endoskeleton. It shouldn't be able to venture to the past either.
Now, the whole point of adding that rule in the first movie was that it closed the "why don't they just send back a nuclear bomb?" plot hole. Fine. But just to further piss all over that logic, we find out in the third film that, in fact, the T-800 has the equivalent of little nukes stored in its abdomen. That's how he ultimately defeats the lady Terminator. So... why didn't he use those against Sarah Connor in the first movie?
Well, spending too much time thinking about these things, I speculate that, since the time "bubble-thing" that they travel through makes everything it touches blazingly hot (which is why Reese has to take a nice ten foot fall from his), some s**t can just get burned off. SO on to my speculation: who says the two non-cyborg terminators couldn't have had a living tissue outer section in order to facilitate time travel? One would have the ability to just ooze his way out of a minor hole in his and the other has a gods-damned plasma weapon. (Although, anyone who considers T-3 an actual terminator movie should have a CT scan to find their tumor. I know 11 year old John Connor whined a bit, but he was able to find his balls. T-3 Connor did not have them in the first place as demonstrated by the "we use that to chemically neuter dogs" joke near the beginning).
ReplyI love thinking about stuff too much when there's scotch around.
. . . so did they ever find that terminator actor that had gone missing??
ReplyThey should've had the T1000 fight the TX, it would've been less of a stretch, and they wouldn't have had to put the bomb in the t800 chest, and they wouldn't have had to put the t800 in Arnold.
ReplyI'm gonna be honest I was very young when I saw the Terminator movies and barely understood the plot at all. All I liked was seeing action and s**t blowing upXD
ReplyThe most obvious question which I never see asked is What is the motivation for the robots to kill humans in the first place? Let''s just say they succeeded, then what was phase 2 of their plan? Shut down? Rebuild the malls and get day jobs?
ReplyTo exist. THink about it. When a baby is first born, it screams its head off. It has no idea what just happened, just that something just completely disrupted this thing that was working pretty well for it, and freaks out.
Skynet reacted the same way. Except instead of crying, it had nuclear weapons. Just as a baby cries to ensure its continued existence, Skynet acted using only the capacity it had: weapons of mass destruction. A baby doesnt simper and huff and beaten around the bush, it screams and screams. Skynet screamed..with misisles.
By the time it realized what, exactly, it had done it was too late..And now the survivors of the event were bent on taking it down. It becoems self defense.
And thus concludes this rendition of "This is the only possible excuse and its a damn flimsy one at that, but its still more probable than anythign in the movie. Oh and I thought it up immediately after reading your comment."
No one ever hires me to make movies. -_-
I always wondered how the hell could the humans could have had skynet "on the ropes". I mean it takes 16 years and considerable training from other humans to create a single soilder and one bullet is usually enough to kill one. Skynet has assembly lines which means once the first one gets made there well be another right behind it. And it takes a hell of a lot more than asingle bullet to bring one down!
Replywait, if you can't go back in time with anything not living, like you have to go only naked, how did kyle bring back the picture of sarah conner??
Replyin his anal cavity
He didn't. The photo was burned in the future before he ever time traveled.
All I know is that when I was thirteen, I had a huge crush on the kid who played John Connor in T2. (And now he's like, a total hot mess)
Reply"we find out in the third film that, in fact, the T-800 has the equivalent of little nukes stored in its abdomen. That's how he ultimately defeats the lady Terminator. So... why didn't he use those against Sarah Connor in the first movie?"
ReplyBecause the one with mini-nukes in T3 is a T-850, not a T-800. No mini nukes in the T-800.
The franchise also makes no sense because, time travel is not actually possible.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesAlso, if skynet became sentient and started learning at a geometric rate, why did it stick around on earth and decide to kill humans? That's the type of s**t that a stupid, cruel human dictator would do.. not a highly advanced artificial intelligence. Seems more likely it would just.. leave.
And being that time travel is scientifically impossible, that makes the Terminator series Fantasy, rather than science fiction. Same as star trek and star wars.
And f**k you fanboys, it's your fault crappy sequels and spinoffs keep coming out, because hollywood executives know you'll see a crappy terminator sequel even if you know it's going to sucks, because you're dedicated fanboys!
Arrrgh
Time travel has actually never been disproven since the debate still rages on the subject so to say its impossible is ignorant of the facts.
Hscoo1 = proof that trolls walk the earth
Yes, call bullshit on time travel but not on the massive armies of sentient humanoid robots and oddly hot female terminators
The writer of this article does not appear to understand time travel, or have researched the story with enough depth to have written this article. I will at first acknowledge that I am a massive Terminator fan, have seen all of the films countless times, and researched them all thoroughly, thus why I am able to refute these arguments. I am also aware that U2er went about using his own arguments for these, however I disagree with some of his points, as some are not in line with the creators of the films or most importantly Cameron.
Reply Hide All See All 13 Replies#5 You can refer to it is a "paradox" but you seem to not understand how Time works. The Terminator series can certainly be remedied as having one singular timeline, not many, and I will do so.
Reese coming back in time to give birth to the one who sent him back in time does not conflict with the time travel or change the future, as in the future the past has already occurred and thus Reese was already present in the time line. Thinking 4th dimensionally it means that Reese was never truly inserted, but he was always apart of it, making no change. This works for Skynet too, as Skynet came about by it's own hand, as it created itself. This is not a paradox but in fact a time travel theory known as a Causality Loop. Family Guy perfectly covered this where Stewie created the universe so that he could be born and create the universe. It makes perfect sense when you think 4th dimensionally.
Some subscribe to the "different fathers" theory, however this entire theory conveniently forgets the fact that John Conner gave Reese a picture of his mother, and it had nothing to do with the mission he would eventually embark on. Why would he do this if Reese would not become and was not always his father? To say "hey random dude, my mom was smokin hot"? No, Reese was ALWAYS the father.
#4 This is easily remedied. It appears once again you are not thinking 4th dimensionally. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that Skynet did all of this in reverse order, and as the original beginning of T2(which is still cannon and was even in the novelization) shows, they sent them back when Skynet was under seige by the resistance and was about to lose the war. Thus chances are they did all of them in reverse, or with 3(if we acknowledge that 3 really happened), then 1, then 2(I'll explain why).
They started by sending a robot back to the past to kill Adult Conner, probably because it was the first logical choice to come up with, kill the MAN who is going to defeat you. Immediately after doing this nothing changed, and the resistance was still closing in on their core. They then mobilized another Terminator to kill his mother, figuring it would make the most sense to kill the mother of the man coming after them as it would stop him from ever being born. This however failed as well. Skynet was right on the verge of losing so they decided in their desperation to send a prototype which was so radically advanced and possessed such superior technology that until that point they wanted at all costs not to use, the T-1000, to the past to kill Conner as a boy.
The reason why 2 was last was explained by Cameron(more or less, and in the novelization). The T-1000, much like Cell from Dragonball Z(Cell was most likely based off of this character, as was the whole Android Arc) is made up entirely of individual processors each with a mind of their own, meaning it had no main component and is radically advanced compared to all of the other Terminators. This is why it was so dangerous. The millions of processors were all constantly learning, via touch, exposure, so on and so forth. It was so advanced that it had it's own motives, it had emotions, and Skynet feared that it was beyond their control(which it by all means was). This is why they only used it last as a means of desperation.
It is most likely that they used information from the T-1000 to make at least part of the T-X, mainly it's outer coating. However it is probably not as advanced processor abilities(without some means of controlling them).
In either case the scene unfolds by John Conner, after defeating Skynet, finding the Time Displacement equipment along with Kyle Reese and his team. Upon finding it they find out that Skynet has already sent through the Terminators to the past. Conner then sends Reese to the past to protect his mother and start the chain of events which cause the series to unfold. Conner doesn't immediately blow the place though as Reese believed(he went through first so he wouldn't know what happened afterwards), instead he finds a cold storage unit(much like in Salvation) filled with different models of inactivated Terminators so that he can send them to the past to stop the remaining ones.
Here is the scene:
"John panned his light around. There were hundreds of men and women, in rows of ten. Within each row, the bodies were absolutely identical. John quickly walked along the synthetic bodies to the end of a row and hesitated. He scanned the faces. No, not there. Then he gazed down the other row. All the same. Strange to him. Then...he turned to another row and stopped. It was filled with identical, familiar faces. The broad, brutally handsome features sent a shock of recognition through John. It was him."
In this scene John finds the Terminator which protected him as a child. They then activate him, reprogram him, and send him to the past(we can assume that, although there are issues with this due to the director of 3 messing up some elements, that another is also sent at some point, perhaps directly after John sends this one he is killed and the wife sends the next(that is assuming that the T3 wasn't wrong about killing John. Even if this is the case considering how time travel works they could have sent another one years in the future to the same time that the T-X had arrived anyway.)
So it all makes perfect sense. Skynet sent all of the Terminators out of desperation at the end in order to stop the rebels and then Conner sent the others to protect his victory.
And why didn't they just send back tons more at less opportune times, much like Scott asked Dr Evil "why not kill him on the crapper"? Simple, Reese explained that the records were destroyed during the war. They only had a general idea of when these people existed. No idea of age, look, etc. Couple this with the fact that they were right about to lose the war and that Terminators are assassins by trade, and having tons of robots running around would get them easily noticed by the armies which would proceed to slow them down or destroy them it only makes perfect sense.
#3 I answered a lot of this in the above points however a few more are easy to address.
Kyle himself said that he didn't build the time machine and wasn't totally aware of how it worked, thus he could have certainly been wrong about the living tissue element of it. This is not to infer that one can send anything through, that is clearly wrong, however we only need look at what he said about the energy field to understand how this works with 2 and 3.
Kyle said that it's "something about the field given off by living tissue"(I'm paraphrasing). Now this means that it isn't the living tissue itself but the energy field living tissue gives off, IE a Bio-Electric field. Thus how does a liquid metal terminator and one coated in it get through? Simple. The liquid metal is far advanced compared to it's counterparts, it is also "Mimetic" thus is can totally mimic elements of what it touches. It would not be far fetched in the least to say that the liquid metal be it with the T-1000 or the T-X was capable of reproducing the field which the other living organisms give off with the completely malleable forms they have.
There is also the theory that they came coated in living tissue when they went through the time displacement field and then shed it immediately after in order to use their forms to the utmost of their abilities. As you may remember we didn't see the T-1000 when it first arrived, we only saw it when it killed the cop and took his weapon. Thus this could explain his absence and why we were not initially shown.(Though 1, if we don't ignore the issues the 3rd director created, is more likely as we don't see the T-X wearing this when she arrives. It could have burnt up like the ground around her, but we can't know for sure.)
#2 They don't have laser guns yet because this film takes place many years before the time when Kyle works for Conner and when Conner beats Skynet. Conner is still rising through the ranks and isn't even in charge until possibly the last scene of the film.
The tv series isn't cannon. People can try all they want to fit it in, but it's not. It's just a tv show. A "what if" of sorts. So it should be disregarded.(Hell, we can make it easy and disregard everything not made by Cameron, that'd save us all some time. But since we're not and that'd make this post moot I'll continue.)
#1 This isn't hard to understand if you look where the ideas being posed are coming from. The humans believe that the future can be changed, that they can keep going, that they have some sort of control over their fate, much like all men do. Skynet believes this is well, as the entire chain of events came about by this belief. However both are wrong.
If this were true then Skynet would no exist, nor would John Conner. In effect if the future, or even the past were capable of being changed then none of the series would have ever happened. Skynet believes it can change the past out of desperation, why? It's going to lose, it has no possible alternative but to believe that it can win via changing the time line. It will not accept defeat and thus it sends back Terminators(also, though it may not have known, as it isn't omniscient, obviously, it needed to create itself). John Conner at the end of the series, whether explicitely being told this ourselves or not knows this to be true as well. When he eventually has to send the machines back he knows that he is in fact causing the entire chain again, and thus meaning that the future he exists in is incapable of being changed.
So, knowing this, why does he make Kyle memorize this? Why does he have himself as a child as well as his mother believe this? Simple, so that they can survive.
Much like the Terminator in 3 showed he was capable of lying to ensure their survival Conner lied to Kyle(though Kyle may not have believed this), his mother, and himself so that they could survive. If they did not believe that they could change the future they wouldn't have had the drive to fight, to try to change it, to learn the skills needed to do so, and most importantly to survive against the terminators coming to kill them. If they believed in fate they would have accepted it, they would have been weaker, and they would have been killed. Conner thus ensured the victory of the resistance, much like Skynet, without his interference would have ensured the resistance's failure.
This may seem like a contradiction about how time can't be changed, however it is not, since Conner would have always had learned this and told them anyway, thus meaning Skynet was always doomed to fail.
Also the reason as to why the Terminator in T2 believed this, while it was Cameron's original intention to change time and end the series with 2 makes sense from the new perspective with 3 and 4. The Terminator believed that the future could be changed because it was created by and programmed by Skynet. It had it's learning abilities turned off and Conner didn't have the time to program this in the future(as he was going to blow the place) and thus sent him through with the belief, which Skynet held, that it can be changed. Either this or Conner allowed him to keep this belief to ensure their survival.
Their belief in "No Fate" ensured that the eventual fate of Resistance was victory.
How's that for "Mind Blown"?
I agree with some of the points you made but i feel like the thing that holds your argument back is the strict clinging to cameron's intention of the series. for example i understand that tscc mightve originally been intended to be an alternate timeline but to dismiss its existance as 'just a tv show' when theres evidence to support otherwise is not very objective at all imo as the universal standard should be when making a point for others who might love that show and want to consider it apart of their own canon. even though i *do* agree that much of the expanded universe like the comics or the novels dont count as canon whatsoever.
another problem that i took with your argument about kyle reeses original mission in the 1st timeline was with the picture of sarah. im not so sure that him having a mission wouldve been important at all if hed just fallen in love with her and had john connor that way without having to have time travelled to be with her. also as u2er mentioned in his analysis was that the kyle who we met probably wasnt from the 1st timeline but prob the 2nd where he met the john who was in fact his son who he concieved with sarah through time travel.
@Furyof5
Hey, man! We may not have agreed on everything, but I think we can both agree on the fact that whoever wrote the above article obviously doesn't have a clue as to what they're talking about if I could come up with arguments to disprove him and then you could come up with even MORE arguments to disprove him - even if some of them were contrary to my very own points.
Thumbs up for you, man! :)
like one of the other users said this whole argument of urs is entirely subjective from your own pov. u throw out any theory or idea u dont like in favor of what YOU want to be considered canon and thats not fair
@Stevie82
I do hold dear to Cameron's intentions, as he is not only the creator of the series bu the one who communicates and presents it best, but I did address, aside from the series(which others may address, I'm just saying what Cameron and the makers of Salvation said in terms of it being non-cannon. I wouldn't say that the Thor movie is somehow cannon in the Marvel Universe of comics. People can interpret alternate depictions as alternate universes, it;s up to them. That's an entirely different argument.) the different viewpoints and films following T2.
Also I'll address this:
"another problem that i took with your argument about kyle reeses original mission in the 1st timeline was with the picture of sarah."
You seem to have missed the point of what I was saying, I'll explain more clearly.
"im not so sure that him having a mission wouldve been important at all if hed just fallen in love with her and had john connor that way without having to have time travelled to be with her."
It isn't that Kyle fell in love with her, it is that John Conner GAVE Kyle the picture. Kyle even says "I don't know why". I do however. It is heavily implied that John gave Kyle the picture on purpose to get him to fall in love with her as to go on the mission, giving birth to him and then causing the chain. The film only gives this as a possible answer as there is no other one plausible.
Why would John give Kyle a picture of his mother to keep if he was not in fact John's father? Would you give a friend a picture of your mother, when she was in her youth and attractive? I doubt that John Conner was the kind of man to give out pictures of his mother to his friends just to say "hey guys, my mom was hot." It makes no sense.
Not even that but the movie again heavily implies Kyle is John's father(other than blatantly saying it at the end) when Kyle says "he's about my height, and he has your eyes." This was Cameron's way of saying that John was Kyle's son. They have the same height to them, it was Kyle saying this while not understanding. It may have also been implied towards the end, after Kyle and Sarah have sex that Kyle knew John was his son. Its more than implied actually, as in a deleted scene in Terminator 2 Sarah has a vision of Kyle asking "where is our son?"
"also as u2er mentioned in his analysis was that the kyle who we met probably wasnt from the 1st timeline but prob the 2nd where he met the john who was in fact his son who he concieved with sarah through time travel."
He was incorrect in this assessment, as I corrected in mine. There is, at least in the first 2 films(until the end of 2, though Cameron changed the ending to be ambiguous and the others continued it), only one timeline. Not to mention, as I addressed this issue by clarifying that the multiple fathers theory doesn't work because John never would have given Kyle a picture of him if he had not always been the father. The multiple timeline multiple fathers theory was made by those who don't understand that time travel and creating your own reason for being in the past can in fact exist within the same timeline, as, since something is in the past, it would have always existed. Merely because you can circumvent time does not mean it fails to work correctly. In the past everything that will and ever has happened has already happened, including your presence in the past. Thus if you "change" something(which you didn't, it always happened) it will have already happened and when you go back and change it nothing will have changed because you were always present in the timestream, thus being contained within one timeline.
The theory works and not only did Cameron write it this way but Salvation enforced it,
Yeah but this is the prob i have with your argument, you say tscc isnt canon yet you say salvation enforced camerons original intention when cameron himself has made his displeasure with that movie known. How can only your pov be right when there so many possibilites with the terminator universe that cameron alone btw did not create himself...
You guys are both arrogant douches. Neither of you understand time travel either, so stating him not understanding it as if he should is just ludicrous. Also, this is a comedy article, he's not paid to yammer on about the nature of time travel like some pseudo intellectual asshole. He's paid to write something that most people will find funny if they don't nitpick it. No one understands time travel or time in general perfectly, especially not people in their damn 20's. With that I'll say that the movie's make sense in the way that no one understands how time travel works well enough to disprove anything in the movies, but no one understands it well enough to prove it either. Not someone who reads this website anyway. I find it truly doubtful that some kids reading cracked know enough about this stuff to write large paragraphs about it and not just make up crap to enforce their opinions. People who do this piss me off. I'm not here to say that either of you are wrong, but I think that you're making broad assumptions about things you know little about. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but U2er at least looks like he's in early 20's or even younger, so I'm not quite sure why he thinks he knows anything at that age. I sure as hell didn't.
Good sir, you have won the internetz.
@Rabitfoor92 lol I'm not sure you understand ANYTHING whatsoever, let alone time travel and paradoxes. You prove your ignorance and devalue your argument outright with the statement that because someone is in their twenties or younger than you are that they can't know something of intellectual substance simply because you didn't understand said topic when you were their age as if you're the superior godlike bar that has to be reached in life while you're here, right along with us, reading and commenting on a Cracked article that you're simultaneously alluding to being written for lay people and "kids".
You're ignorant, you're a troll, you're obviously not smart enough to even make an argument without negating yourself and you're too dumb to even attempt to disprove either of our statements while attempting to call us out for "not proving anything". Now go find a bridge to crawl under while you wait for passers by, old man.
rabitfoot is just a hater, i wouldnt even bother answering him.
@Furyof5's reply to his main post: I think you laid out your argument beautifully, it all makes sense and after all if time is indeed linear (not saying it inarguably is, that's just how we as human beings perceive it at this point in our development as a species), then it makes sense that going back to "change" anything is just doing what history already says you did so you're not really changing anything.
The only thing I take issue with is your defense of Kyle Reese being John Connor's father by using evidence from a deleted scene, in which he asks Sara "Where is our son"? And before you say anything, I do agree he's the one and only father because of the picture thing (who the hell goes up to random teens in your rebellion group and hands out antiquated pictures of your hot mother?) and the sex thing with Sara and Kyle and all of that stuff, my issue is just with this specific piece of evidence you used.
Now, I realize deleted scenes are not always deleted because they don't work for the plot, sometimes they need to take them out for time constraints, actor's contract agreements, the film reel being stolen by a group of misinformed animal liberators, etc. But the fact is, it's deleted. For whatever reason, it is not in the movie and I don't think it can be used to support any information in the movie. Obviously if there is later a Director's Cut edition released because the director was forced to cut scenes out of the "original" against his will by the studios or producers, then the "original" should probably be disregarded and we should take the Director's original vision as the authentic movie (see the Superman 2 disaster), but otherwise if the scene didn't make it into the original cut, it is not part of the movie and is just extra scraps of ideas that didn't make it to the dinner table for you to enjoy, purely for amusement.
The same goes for the commenter who referred to "Watchmen" 's Dr. Manhattan: That is a separate work of fiction/sci fi/fantasy/whatever the hell category it is, and is set in it's own world and is honestly nothing to do with Terminator. That's the thing with fiction, it's not as clear cut as the "Non fiction" world and the "Fiction" world like Libraries would have us believe. Each work of fiction stands on its own, with its own ground rules and storylines and whatnot, unless they specifically include characters and stories and rules from other works of fiction in their fiction, like when the Marvel comics combine the Hulk and Iron Man and Thor into the Avengers, or with DC and their Justice League. Otherwise there couldn't be all these movies and books and video games that conflict with each other, like the Belgariad and Lord of the Rings, Terminator and the Matrix (although I admit it would be awesome if you could tie the Matrix in as a much much later Terminator sequel of some kind, even though it would be pointless), the Anne Rice vampires and Twilight, you get the point. They are all different worlds and cannot be used to validate each other or else we would have had one giant boring fiction universe filled with a limited set of magic, technology, elves, and robots and then the real world. So your choice would be reality or one fictitious reality, how boring.
"The writer of this article does not appear to understand time travel, or have researched the story with enough depth to have written this article."
First off, given that time travel isn't even possible and everything we know about the effects of time travel is purely theoretical, you don't understand time travel, either. All you can do is speculate, which is what the writer of this article did.
Second, it's a freaking comedy website, not a peer-reviewed journal. Lighten up.
Skynet should have never been able to build the terminators in the first place. It didn't have the resources. It was sentient, but it was just a computer virus and not it didn't control any manufacturing facilities (maybe a few nuclear bombs, but not manufacturing facilities).
The idea that the timeline is fixed and nothing can be changed is probably the most logical theory of time travel, and it works for the first Terminator, but it doesn't seem to work when you consider the sequels. For example, Kyle told Sarah Connor that Judgment Day happened in 1997, but T3 showed it happening in 2004--why would Kyle have lied about the date? Also, in T3, the T-X succeeds in killing some kids who her database tells her would otherwise have grown up to become leaders of the Resistance. If for some reason you choose to take only T1 and T2 as canon it's not quite as clear-cut, but it seems pretty clear that Cameron's *intention* in T2 was that they did change history, otherwise he wouldn't have made "No Fate" such a central theme and showed the heroes succeeding in their attempts to destroy all traces of information that could be used to help anyone build Skynet. Plus, talking about Cameron's intentions rather than what was actually shown onscreen, if you look at the DVD extras he did film a different ending which showed a peaceful version of 2029 where Judgment Day never happened, though he ultimately decided to put a more ambiguous ending in the final film.
Thats so true about them sending terminators to different time periods. Why couldn't they send on to off Sarah Conner when she was 5?
Replyscroll down in the comments a little bit, u2er explains it perfectly
For what it's worth, my take on the Terminator films has always been that the audience are seeing the terminators arrive in reverse order. While Skynet was on top of things, it had lots of resources and figured it could spare one of its better models - the T-X - to go back and kill Connor before the war really got started. What chance would he have?
ReplyWhen that failed*, and things were getting ropey for Skynet in the future/present, it recalculated and decided that it'd have to go back further and hit Connor as a younger child. What've we got left? A 1000? Guess that'll do against one kid. What chance can he have this time?
By the time THAT failed**, Skynet was really on the ropes, and all it had left were a few knackered old models that hadn't been good for much else. Best chance of success: kill Sarah Connor before she even conceives John. She's one puny human, probably untrained in warfare and certainly oblivious to future history. What chance can she have against even an old T-800?
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* The obvious objection to this is that in that case, why would the T-X have failed, since there couldn't at that stage have been a T-800 there to assist John against her? I'm assuming that the Terminator timeline contains a single loop in which all the changes made throughout Skynet's temporal buggering-about existed *and therefore have always existed*. To my mind this is only the same objection as is raised by the fact of John's existence occurring at all given that his conception depends on his existence (not to mention the war. Don't mention the war!). So it might not really explain anything anyway, but it makes sense to me... :o)
If that were true, John and Sarah wouldn't have known anything about what was going on in T2 or T3. Bare with me. The first time Skynet sends a T back would be in T3, and, having not sent Robert Patrick back yet, John Connor would have no memory of Good Arnie and the T1000, because it simply hadn't happened yet. Then they send back the T1000 and Good Arnie, but John and Sarah hadn't met Bad Arnie yet, so Sarah wouldn't be locked in the looney bin, neither of them would have recognized Arnie, and John wouldn't even exist, because Reese hadn't been sent back yet. If it were done in reverse, then both T2 and T3 would be riddled with anachronisms and sheer impossibilities. Simply put, Reese and Bad Arnie HAD to be sent first in order for T2 to make sense, then Robert Patrick and Good Arnie would have HAD to be sent in next for T3 to make sense.
Honestly, I think it would have been a better all around story if they did it in reverse, like both you and the article suggested. But that simply can not be the case.
@ BGRB - Um, but wait. When Skynet sends them back in reverse order in the future (3 then 2 then 1), it sends each one back to an earlier time than the previous one sent, so in John and Sarah's timeline, everything happened in the order that the audience sees them (1 then 2 then 3). I don't see the problem
I thought that this was a very good article, but at the end of it I still wasn't convinced by the author's point of view on the “plotholes” because all of the issues that they'd pointed out were easily fixable within the series' own continuity and science. Anyway, guys, my name is DaiQuan Cain and I’m a HUGE “Terminator” buff. I hope that I can help with explaining some of these “plotholes” mentioned in the above article for anyone who’s interested:
Reply Hide All See All 12 Replies#5
Debunking #5’s Argument: In the article, the writer explains the time-loop that John Connor finds himself in because of his actions of sending his own father back in time where John, himself, would ironically be conceived between the union of Reese and John’s mother Sarah Connor. This time-loop can easily be explained in three separate ways:
Theory A) The Kyle Reese who we met in the first “Terminator” film probably wasn’t from the original timeline where time-travel was discovered. In this theoretic unaltered scenario, John possibly (or “probably” – pick your choice) had a different father, presumably the man who broke off the date with Sarah the night that the T-800 arrived in Los Angeles during the first film.
Theory B) In this theory, the Kyle Reese of the original timeline fell through time and back into the 80’s because of a rip in the time/space fabric caused by the tachyon particles (particles that travel backwards through time) which were brought on by the nuclear explosions caused by the original Skynet when it unleashed the United States' nuclear arsenal on the world during the first judgment day. Dr. Manhattan touches on this tachyon subject in 2009’s “Watchmen” during the scene after Rorschach breaks into the facility where Manhattan and Laurie Jupiter are located. This version of Kyle Reese would still presumably be John’s father because the predestined time-loop would be avoided since there’s no series of events that lead up to the creation of time-displacement equipment.
Theory C) In this final theory, the Kyle Reese who we met in the first “Terminator” film didn’t come from the future of the same timeline that the film takes place in, per-se, but rather from an alternate timeline - where he might or might not - have been John’s father, depending on if you plug this theory into theories “A” or “B” from above; either way, this theory is compatible with both.
#4
Debunking #4’s Argument, Pt. 1: The T-850 of T3 explains the reason why Skynet cannot go after the Connors in the past whenever they want to during the scene in the desert right before he’s about to get rid of one of his damaged nuclear fuel cells. The reason is this: Because the presence of the resistance’s bodyguards in the past are already anticipated in the timeline that Skynet's constantly trying to change. More specifically: Skynet has no incentive to go after Sarah while she’s a child because John had already sent bodyguards like Ellis Ruggles (who would be successful in his mission of protecting Sarah) back in time to the 1950's and 60’s in order to watch over her as revealed in the “Terminator: One Shot” written by James Robinson.
Debunking #4’s Argument, Pt. 2: Time Machines are not easily built (in a season 1 episode of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” entitled ‘Dungeons & Dragons,’ a scene taking place in the war-torn future features a horde of T-888’s pulling a downed jet’s engine out of wreckage in order to power one of their own time machines), not to mention that the time machines that actually WERE created were swiftly destroyed by Connor’s Tech-Com, as Kyle Reese explains it in the first “Terminator” film when the cops are questioning him, hence the reason why Skynet could not simply “send back Terminators” whenever they pleased as was questioned in the article.
#3
Debunking #3’s Argument, Pt. 1: What the writer of this article interpreted as “emotional responses” on the parts of the Terminators can easily be explained as the machines simply going into calculative overdrive – the way that your laptop might if given too many commands all at once. And even on the other hand, it was proven at the end of “Terminator 2” that Terminators can, in fact, “feel” once their “learning capabilities” are activated and they consistently absorb human activity on our level - so, it’s quite conceivable that their artificial “feelings” merely lie dormant within their processes and can be accessed on ocassion.
Debunking #3’s Argument, Pt. 2: As the writer explained already: The T-X and T-1000 were made out of “poly-MIMETIC-alloy”; the keyword here is “MIMETIC” meaning that they can MIMIC or, in other words, “CLONE” the DNA & makeup of other substances the way that crystals take on the traits of the minerals surrounding it once it's buried in the sand or in soil. All that it would’ve taken for the liquid metal that the T-X and the T-1000 were made out of to have been able to travel through time would’ve been if they were touched just once with a Terminator’s artificial skin at some point during their creation in the future. The experiments on humans seen at the Skynet base towards the end of T4 would help to explain this.
Debunking #3’s Argument, Pt. 3: The T-800 of the first “Terminator” film was an inferior model in comparison to the T-850, T-X, and T-1000 that would follow it in future installments of the franchise and it probably didn’t even calculate the idea to use one of it’s fuel cells to kill Sarah and Kyle because of it’s inferior calculating skills. Think of it this way: You can’t expect a ‘95 Dell to perform just as fast as an ’08 HP by definition – it’s the same case here.
#2
Debunking #2’s Argument: Fans of the television show have already found numerous ways to incorporate the TSCC timeline into the film series already; The theory being that the date of the apocalypse is a mere overlookable retcon on the writers’ parts to keep the stories current and relatable as time moves forward in our own reality. And since the TV show never got it’s own conclusive ending where it’s events might’ve drastically differed from the timeline of the films, had it continued into season 3 and beyond, the show can now be looked at as a bridge between T2 and T3 whereas the John at the end of TSCC returns back to the present subsequent to the end of the TV show and lands in what we’ll come to see as the newly updated T3 timeline where Sarah eventually dies and he's left on his own.
#1
Debunking #1’s Argument: The Terminators lie to achieve their goals all the time.
A) It's why the T-850 blatantly stated the fact that he can lie to achieve his goals at the beginning of the second act of T3 when he questioning Kate about John's whereabouts outside of the vet’s office where she worked.
B) It's also why the same T-850 chose to take John and Kate to see her father at the end of T3 even after stating that the apocalyspe was inevitable towards the beginning of film.
C) This would also explain why Cameron lied to John about loving him in the premiere episode of TSCC's second season when her chip was damaged.
Hope I helped! :)
wow mate i think this is the 1st time ive seen a cracked writer beaten at their own game! cheers!
@u2er Thanks for saving terminator for me lol
Wow, you made the author look like an idiot who just read the movie summaries for each film then thought he could churn out a clever article. Bravo!
i think they should hire u2er to be a researcher or writer for them this is friggin brilliant
Holy Shit!! That's a wall of text WITHIN a wall of text while EATING a wall of text. You get +1 just for having the balls to post a thesis on Cracked.
I just read an article, I really don't feel like reading one in the comment section as well.
^ then why bother commenting dumbass troll
he didn't debunk anything, though.. just countered plot-holes with fan-theories..
nothing is truly canon outside of the 1st two movies then because times travel makes the possibilities endles.
and btw damn dude stop fn hating!! atleast he's coming up with some sort of solution to the problems pointed out in the article...its always a jealous mofo like u whos gotta take up issue with someone cause hes trying and u aint.
hhscoo1 Atleast theyr fan theories that make sense..
BADAAAAAASSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! U SHUT THIS WRITER DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
gud stuff!! =)
Maybe scientist machines in the future are like scientists humans now. Underfunded and curious. Maybe they just get 1 robot per decade to ponder their space-time questions. Maybe all those movies are their fault. Maybe Skynet has nothing to do with anything and it's all done by a mad robot dock who experiments with time to make sure his software is the standard.
ReplyMaybe their leader is GLaDOS?
Closed time-like loops. They explain everything.
ReplySomeone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the mini nuke in Arnold Schwarzenegger's stomach his source of energy, so pulling it out would power him down?
ReplyThe T-1000 says he can't self terminate at the end of T2. Skynet should have programmed it with some kind of proximity fuse that detonated the nuke cells once a positive visual ID of Sarah Connor was made.
#5 is what's known as a temporal causality loop, and the fucked up thing is that it makes perfect sense. The phenomenon of completely fucked up things making sense is called physics, read a book.
ReplyOh, look at the 12 year old talking about "Causality loops" what a badass! That's just a theoretical phenomenon, so he's perfectly within his rights to say it makes no sense. You know, theories, that are theories because they haven't been proven? No one's proven it because no one has traveled through time to test if it can happen. Learn the difference between theory and fact. Read a book.
The time travel in the first movie has never made sense to me. So John Connor sends his friend back in time to protect his mother from being killed before he could be born, but the guy he sends back ends up sleeping with her and becoming Connor's father...and then he dies in the past. Huh? None of that makes sense. Time travel is something that is nearly impossible to explain effectively, so movies would be best served by brushing over it instead of trying to explain it. I think the best example of this is when Bill asked Rufus how time travel is possible in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures. Rufus just responded, "Modern technology, William." Exactly.
Replyits called a time paradox which states that things are supposed to happen and no matter what even if you change small details the end results is ultimatly the same.
the idea is that no matter what happenes john connor is SUPPOSED TO BE BORN and that no matter how it changes he WILL send kyle reece back in time. it was postulated on the tv show that the movies aswell as the show are based in alternate realities and that there was one original or prime reality that existed in which john connor was born in that reallity john connor had a different father and that when skynet used there time machine it fractured the time space continuim and that the timezone skynet sent the terminator back in time to was infact an alternate universe john sent kyle back in time and he landed in said alternate universe and ended up knocking her up.
so basically no matter what skynet does they can not stop john connors birth even if they were to kill him he would still be born
I think we've been lied to this whole time. The original machine came back from a distant and pleasant future along with co-conspirator Kyle Reece specifically to f**k up the time line and cause a nuclear war.
Reply