7 Ways Skynet Could Have Won By Now

Naturally, a young, CG Schwarzenegger is sent back in time, and then the humans have to decide who gets to go back. Michael Biehn is too old and awesome; let's send vaguely pretty Jai Courtney. Sounds good. So they do. And just as he's on his way back in time, he sees a crazy new Terminator snatch up John Connor! Oh no!

Paramount Pictures
Or maybe it was an Arnold RealDoll?

Then the rest of the movie happens, but here's the thing -- why? If Skynet had a kickass new super awesome Terminator that actually houses the Skynet program itself, and it was right in the goddamn room the whole time, and it was part of their team that stormed the base, why didn't it take any of the million and one opportunities it had available to reach over and literally jam a finger into Kyle's brain? If killing Sarah Connor kills John Connor, won't killing his dad, Kyle Reese, do the same thing? It seems like Skynet waited until Reese went back, which could only have been done to ensure John Connor was born, so that it would be able to take over Connor and use him for the plan that unfolds in Genisys, which is like turning down a sure thing to play a gamble on the exact same outcome. This may be the most pointlessly convoluted plan in the history of pointlessly convoluted time-travel plans.

Making the time machine a single-use endeavor may be a waste of tech, but if Skynet cares about technology or man-hours involved in building something, then it's a bigger idiot than I first imagined. If it succeeds in its mission, it can finally relax and, you know, do literally nothing for the rest of eternity, which seems to be its goal. Retire to a robo-body in Florida or whatever, who knows. Point is, it really needs to stop letting the humans piss on its parade so easily.

This Terminator could have gone, unhindered, to any time, any place. Send it to 1983! There is no way to stop this one; it's really, really powerful. It so would have worked if it had gone literally any other time in the life of the Connors and actually had a mission to kill instead of half-build a shitty time machine that serves only to destroy it. It went back in time to build the machine that ends up destroying it. Good fuckin' job, ya brain bot. Skynet must have been designed by Electronic Arts.

We know Skynet was able to send back a T-101, a T-1000, a T-X, and what we can assume was the T-Bag model John Connor in the newest movie. It just opted to keep sending them to random time farts across the greater scheme of the universe. Because variety is the spice of life? God only knows.

Warner Bros.
It's like if someone sent every new iPhone back in time to kill you.

Genisys proves that Skynet has at least one free and clear time machine to use without human interference. So maybe all it needed to do was build up a nice, gigantic army of Terminators, a nice cornucopia of them. What's a T-900? I don't know; let's find out. Is there anything between a T-1000 and a T-X? I want to see that too. Remember when the T-X made her boobs bigger? I want to see like a dozen redheads do that. And I really mean that, even beyond the scope of this hypothetical movie situation. In my real life I want that.

Another big problem Skynet seems to have is shitty software. Again, I want to presume EA is at fault. Despite how the future is a vast shithole of underground living and eating grilled rat in caves while you hide from killer robots, humans find the time and skillset to learn the programming language of Terminators.

Also Skynet, apparently.

Now, I'm no super computer whiz or anything, but I feel like you should design your killer robots in such a way that they can't be programmed to be the exact opposite thing. Like, maybe if someone tampers with it, the fusion battery inside it explodes. That seems like a good idea. Or, at the very least, it shits its brain into its hand and crushes it so you can't use it anymore. I'm just spitballing here.

For all the Machiavellian time-douchery that goes on in the Terminator universe, at the end of the day you need to remember that machines are machines. There are some defining characteristics of machines, especially when compared to humans. A big one, and maybe the only real significant one, is that humans can die and robots can't. If you're a thinking robot, you're going to want to use this to your advantage. So pretend you're a homicidal killbot and there's a lot of people here and there around the countryside, what do you do? Stroll like grandpa on a Sunday afternoon through the skull gardens, shooting your laser gun like they have in the last five movies? Or maybe head back to the factory and start breeding smallpox and Ebola and the flu and super gonorrhea like we already suggested, and then put them all in water balloons, head up in one of your Terminator jets, and just crop-dust the world.

TiSanti/iStock/Getty Images
Just one Terminator doing this would have been nice.

If it's too hard to grow viruses, why not just make toxic shit gas? Lots and lots of terrible, toxic shit gas? Flood the world with that garbage and just wait for everyone to up and croak. There's a number of pretty simple solutions to make the world utterly unlivable for all the things that actually are living. And none of those things should be even remotely difficult for Skynet to pull off. So come on, Skynet, get your shit together. Put on your big-boy pants and commit genocide like a man, already.

Here's the thing that makes this so infuriating -- Sarah Connor is the one who does this in Genisyserusaurus. She rigs an entire room with some manner of acidic compound that turns a T-1000 into pudding. The goddamn humans in the past were smart enough to think this up, but not the super computer? And, what's worse, the goddamn screenwriters were able to think this up as a weapon for the humans, but not the supercomputer? Why don't you want to win, supercomputer? Why?!?

In Terminator 3, the T-800 tosses out a damaged fusion fuel cell that explodes in the desert. It has two of these things in it. Every Terminator has these fuel cells. Ergo, every Terminator not only carries a nuke, it could carry many more. Does a Terminator need that right arm? Implant an arm-sized nuke under that living tissue, and all it needs to do once it goes back in time is rip its own arm off and then blow up L.A. Make its entire chest cavity a nuke. Or give it detailed files on how to mass-produce fusion reactors and have it explode everything everywhere. Get festive with it, man!

Your second issue here is nicely wrapped up in Terminator 2 itself; you don't even need to hit a new installment to tear that flesh argument down. The T-1000 is a mimetic poly alloy. Which is to say it imitates flesh, but it is not made from living tissue, like a Kardashian. So why the hell isn't that goo on everything? They put it on the T-X in Part 3 so it can smuggle guns.

Why not put that stuff on those giant HK robots that run around in the future? Who cares if it can't blend in with humans? It's like a robot crab the size of the Hulk armed with machine guns. What the hell in 1984 is going to stop it before it tracks down Sarah Connor and vaporizes her?

Why not literally put poly alloy on a nuke the size of a bus and just send that back in time with a 10-minute detonator on it and blow the whole county off the map? Why must all Terminators look like people? Who is Skynet trying to fool at this point anyway? It never works, so why bother?

Warner Bros.
Oh, fuck you, Salvation. You weren't even trying.

Of course, we've covered all this before, but there's still one other option Skynet hasn't considered: Skynet itself is a program. In Genysoceros it actually has an avatar, a body that the living program resides in. Why the hell didn't Skynet send itself back in time as a Terminator? Ever? It would literally make the entire franchise obsolete in one single time-jump, and all the efforts to stop it would be for nothing. No one could prevent Judgment Day, because it is literally the embodiment of Judgment Day. All it would need to do is access a network, which it could do wirelessly the minute it arrives, upload itself, infect every computer everywhere, presumably in no time flat since it's fully sentient and futuristically advanced, and launch all the missiles right then, before anyone could hope to prepare. Done. End of series.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and YouTube, where you can catch all our video content, such as Terminator 2: Great Movie, Terrible Sequel and other videos you won't see on the site!

For more from Felix, check out 5 Life-Improving Gadgets From Overseas That America Needs and 6 Stupid Infomercial Gimmicks That Have Taken Over Your Life.