Terminator Genisys (July 1st, 2015)

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Correct she was less versatile than the T-1000 which could be the reason he was sent after the Primary Target (John himself) while she got the Lieutenants. But she was specialized in taking out other Terminators and for that purpose she was more potent than the T-1000. The T-1000 appeared to require the aid of weapons or his environment to disable a T-800. The TX could do it by herself with no additional tools.



Actually T2 made its own ending irrelevant since you can't stop a war with a machine created *by* that war. In order for Uncle Bob to be able to exist and travel back in time the war had to happen. So T3 provided that inevitability which T2 implied was no longer a given.

Says who? T2 had a perfect ending and the whole plot of the film is to change the future. The T800's mission was to protect John Connor, not necessarily to kill the T 1000, just to protect him, but the mission changes when John orders him to save his mother, then once Sarah and John find out that Uncle Bob knows who is responsible for JUDGEMENT DAY, the mission is to stop that future, and they did...even though Uncle Bob left an arm somewhere, but lets ignore that So there's no reason for Skynet to even exist in part 3, but of course, their explanation in T3 is that, it was "inevitable" and that the original target was that general guy who was the father of the girl that John kissed or some crap like that....I don't remember the details.

As far as the T 1000 goes, he could have killed the T 800 without any external weapons because he WAS a weapon, but why he didn't just stab Uncle Bob? Who knows? A mistake I guess. So why would Skynet send a less advance model though..it's the third time they are doing it?

 

[Khev]

Says who?

Says good storytelling. You could go the "parallel universe" route if you don't want the paradox but then T3 wouldn't step on T2's toes anyway...since it'd be a parallel universe. If it's all one timeline then Judgment Day had to happen.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

If it's all one timeline then T3 had to happen.

Why? They changed the future in T2. No more Skynet, no war, no terminators, and no T3?

 

[Khev]

Why? They changed the future in T2. No more Skynet, no war, no terminators, and no T3?

No they didn't. The blew up a building and a Terminator shook Sarah's hand. They didn't see the future to know if they actually stopped anything. All they know is that Uncle Bob and the T-1000 came from *somewhere.* And regarding the TX being "less advanced." Well IIRC Uncle Bob said the T-1000 was an advanced prototype. They couldn't send another because he was the only one.

Plus he's awesome for squeezing through holes and pretending to be the floor but he seemed easier to slow down than the TX. They each had their strengths.

 

[DiFabio]

They didn't just blow up a building, they blew up THE building. The processor, the files, the arm, the chip, the computers, the prototypes, Dyson's work at home (you see that they burned everything he worked on in that can when the T-1000 walks in), they destroyed every item that would have led to Skynet and the machines. Cyberdyne was completely leveled and Dyson destroyed all of his life's work.


Judgment Day and Skynet would be averted.

 

[karamazov80]

I was shocked to find that it has aged incredibly well. I don't even see why it'd need to be "ignored." It certainly works as a respectable follow-up to T2. Arnold looked great and his Terminator was cool. John being protected by his own killer? Brilliant!

That's nice.

 

[Khev]

They didn't just blow up a building, they blew up THE building. The processor, the files, the arm, the chip, the computers, the prototypes, Dyson's work at home (you see that they burned everything he worked on in that can when the T-1000 walks in), they destroyed every item that would have led to Skynet and the machines.

Or so they hoped.

Judgment Day and Skynet would be averted.

Only if you allow for the parallel universe theory. Which of course is as valid an interpretation as any. But as I said, T3 can then just be one of those parallel universes. But if there isn't an alternate timeline then T3 has to exist, no matter what anyone did in T2.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

No they didn't. The blew up a building and a Terminator shook Sarah's hand. They didn't see the future to know if they actually stopped anything. All they know is that Uncle Bob and the T-1000 came from *somewhere.*

Don't simplify their efforts. They also destroyed all the files and all the research that was going to be used create Skynet and the future terminators. Even the guy in charge of the project dies. Then Sarah and Bob shake hands. If you can change the future by sending someone into the past to eliminate a person, then by that logic you can change the future by killing the creator of that future in the past. T3 ignores that...with the it was "inevitable" line.

Or so they hoped.



Only if you allow for the parallel universe theory. Which of course is as valid an interpretation as any. But as I said, T3 can then just be one of those parallel universes. But if there isn't an alternate timeline then T3 has to exist, no matter what anyone did in T2.

If you are saying that they can't change the future...then why send anyone to the past to begin with?

 

[DiFabio]

How can it possibly happen when everything that would lead to Skynet was destroyed? "We've got Skynet by the balls now, don't we." They wrecked everything. I could see if the T-1000 or T-800 was still around, but they perished that same night too.



Also, sure, T3 can be a valid alternate timeline, you're right. Just not the one that follows up T1 and T2. Why? John's age. In T2, John is 10 years old. He was born in 1985 and T2 takes place in 1995. In Terminator 3, they recon this. John was 13 years old. That throws a wrench in that. Besides, there's no way Sarah was dying of leukemia during the events we see in T2. She was ****ing ripped, healthy and spent the last couple of years of her life hospitalized in a facility that would have caught those symptoms. Unless of course, Sarah knew about it and simply kept her mouth shut to John, the T-800, Enrique, Dyson, etc. which would just be silly.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Microbots man! Just go watch Big Hero 6 and suddenly the TX seems perfectly feasible.

I suspose. looked like magic.

 

[Khev]

How can it possibly happen when everything that would lead to Skynet was destroyed? "We've got Skynet by the balls now, don't we."

Yeah and, "It's just him...and me. No one goes home, no one else comes through." The characters aren't 100% right about everything. John thought they had Skynet by the balls but Skynet's creation was as inevitable as Connor's birth. Both sides ultimately learned that. If you don't like "inevitability" and want everyone to live happily ever after then, again, just take the alternate timelines/universes approach. T2 was a little too touchy feely for me so I like that T3 brought back some edge and the endless circle.

Also, sure, T3 can be a valid alternate timeline, you're right. Just not the one that follows up T1 and T2. Why? John's age. In T2, John is 10 years old. He was born in 1985 and T2 takes place in 1995. In Terminator 3, they recon this. John was 13 years old. That throws a wrench in that. Besides, there's no way Sarah was dying of leukemia during the events we see in T2. She was ****ing ripped, healthy and spent the last couple of years of her life hospitalized in a facility that would have caught those symptoms. Unless of course, Sarah knew about it and simply kept her mouth shut to John, the T-800, Enrique, Dyson, etc. which would just be silly.

Well the leukemia thing is perfectly valid but it does sound like they messed up some of the dates. We know T2 was 1995 and in T3 John said that after those events Sarah hung on for "3 years" to make sure Judgment Day didn't happen. That would have put Judgment Day after 1998. So I would agree that there are some continuity errors there but those are relatively minor and happen all the time, not only from one sequel to the next but even in the same movie depending on how well they keep track of what's what during production.

You have to handwave a fair amount of elements to make T2 fit with T1, the same can be done just as easily with T3.

 

[DiFabio]

Yeah, isn't that a little different though? Why would Kyle Reese know about the T-1000 and T-800? Especially if he volunteered. As far he knew, he was right, for his mission in 1984, it was just "him and me".


With T2, the T-800 is pretty confident that destroying every tie to Skynet will prevent the war. It makes sense 100%. Him and the T-1000 have the same exact information and know how it will play out with Dyson, the Russians, etc. because they're inventions of Skynet. Now if that tech is burned to the ground and is destroyed, how the hell can those things possibly come to be? Hell, that was an abandoned plot point as far back as 1984 with the first Terminator. That was something Sarah had in the back of her mind even then! If you completely destroy the files and data WITH the creator, Miles Dyson, how could Skynet possibly be created? Dyson was head of the project, his understudies weren't even allowed to see the chip or the arm! Saying "ohh, Judgment Day was just postponed" is a huge cop out, even though I do think T3 did a decent job of setting up Judgment Day in the last half hour with the bunker.

And yeah, T3 had to change up all the dates and pretty much severed all it's continuity with T2. What happens in T2 that contradicts T1? All the ties that bind are solid, from photographs of the T-800s police shootout in 1984 to Sarah going to Mexico with John like the end of the first, to John having her tapes to the frickin' endo arm and chip from the first Terminator. It's all solid.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

/\ This. They stopped judgement day. "There's no fate but what we make for ourselves."

 

[Khev]

Yeah, isn't that a little different though? Why would Kyle Reese know about the T-1000 and T-800? Especially if he volunteered. As far he knew, he was right, for his mission in 1984, it was just "him and me".

With T2, the T-800 is pretty confident that destroying every tie to Skynet will prevent the war. It makes sense 100%. Him and the T-1000 have the same exact information and know how it will play out with Dyson, the Russians, etc. because they're inventions of Skynet.

See, you're saying that Reese was just wrong but the T-800 was "pretty confident." Reese was confident too. Doesn't make him, or the T-800, all knowing. Why would Skynet fill the memory banks of their hackable soldiers with information that could be used to destroy them? Especially if those infiltrators could use that memory for more tactically advantageous information like new human behaviors? THAT doesn't make sense or would be "silly" as you called it. And like the original John Connor that was erased Dyson could have just been "Dyson #2" who only created Skynet in the timeline where the T-800 was crushed in the hydraulic press. Someone else obviously created Skynet before "John #2" was fathered by Reese and so on.

So killing Dyson would have just allowed the guy who originally thought up the defense network (without any help from a future CPU) to come to the forefront and be the real creator again. Obviously we get to interpret crazy time travel stories however we want but I think it was pretty clear that Cameron wanted there to be one timeline, one "universe" due to Sarah's polaroid from the "future" being taken after she knew Reese. So if there is just one timeline then Skynet MUST be created, no matter what anyone does or tries, because if they destroy Skynet before it is made with the help of Uncle Bob then all creations of Skynet, like Uncle Bob, will cease to have ever existed and Skynet wouldn't be destroyed and so on.

I get what Cameron wanted (one timeline,) and how he wanted it to end (everyone stops the war and lives happily ever after) but then HE creates his own massive plot hole (that did not exist at the end of T1) which T3 nicely rectifies.

What happens in T2 that contradicts T1? All the ties that bind are solid, from photographs of the T-800s police shootout in 1984 to Sarah going to Mexico with John like the end of the first, to John having her tapes to the frickin' endo arm and chip from the first Terminator. It's all solid.

Well Reese's "him and me" comment for one, plus the opening scroll about the final battle being fought here, tonight, and Reese having to wait until Arnold made a move in order to pinpoint him because you and I both know that originally there weren't supposed to be however many duplicate Arnold Schwarzeneggers running around future L.A. You just accept those things because you've already hand waved them away to your own satisfaction. But I can do that just as easily with T3, say that John misspoke or exaggerated when he quoted how many years his mom fought cancer and so on. He lied about his age to sound cool or whatever. It *can* be done since the "errors" are just from people quoting things incorrectly. Even Sarah's casket said she died in 1997 so John's "three years" line isn't supported by the very movie in which he says it.

 

[DiFabio]

Kyle Reese also says "one possible future" and "I don't know tech stuff".

I just don't see how Judgment Day could still happen inevitably when they trashed all the information that led to it. I forget what T3's ******** reasoning is for the military getting a hold of similar tech, but as far as T2 is concerned, there shouldn't be a Skynet. Certainly not a Skynet that would be able to create a prototype endoskeleton as early as 2003 or whenever 3 takes place. Remember, in the Terminator and Terminator 2, the T-800 and T-1000 are brand spanking new. Reese in all of his years in the war fought HKs and 600 series machines with rubber skin. The infiltrators were new to him and the T-1000 was a prototype!

T3 has these types of things as early as 2003 in CRS commercial campaigns no less! Flying HKs, endoskeleton models, huh? That would change the whole dynamic of the story. Besides, if Judgment Day no longer happens during 1997, and instead, happens in 2003, will Kyle Reese even survive? His folks may have been able to survive in the 90s, but perhaps the way it happens in 2003 kills them off? The playing field is completely different now that dates, companies and ages have changed. It can't be the same universe.



So yeah, T3 can exist, they can all exist but it's certainly not the same world as the first two Cameron films. Everything got messed up. The John we see in T3 can't possibly be the Edward Furlong John we see grown up from T2. Not just because of the age change but personality too. I mean, kid John Connor was smart enough to know that each machine was different, his mom taught him all that. Yet in T3, John thinks that the T-850 in front of him is the SAME exact one! "remember hasta la vista baby?"

 

[jye4ever]

Khev's Titanic just met DiFabio's Iceberg.

 

[DiFabio]

In one thread I'm arguing about a toy chewbaccas weapon from the 70s, in another I reached a stalemate about Catwoman. I refuse to argue about anything related to the merits of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. What am I doing.

Madness took me for a moment, but I have come back to my senses.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Khev's Titanic just met DiFabio's Iceberg.

It won't sink. Khev is like rubber

Khev Just keeps stretching the crap out of the Terminator mythos

 

[jye4ever]

Khev is the unstoppable force to DiFabio's Immovable object.

 

[Khev]

I just don't see how Judgment Day could still happen inevitably when they trashed all the information that led to it.

The same way that John Connor still "happened inevitably" when Reese obviously replaced whoever the original dad was. The timeline always finds a way. A different guy impregnates Sarah? Different John, everything else still plays out. Miles Dyson's work is destroyed? Then a different Skynet is born, everything else still plays out. Skynet is always born, John is always born, the war always happens, the humans always win, only the minor details can be changed. Skynet didn't realize that when it sent Arnold back, and neither did the Resistance, but neither side was going to leave things to chance. "The future is not set" was just a pie in the sky illusion. And it's cool because it sucks for both sides. Sucks for the machines because they ultimately lose. Sucks for humans because WWIII has to happen.

I forget what T3's ******** reasoning is for the military getting a hold of similar tech, but as far as T2 is concerned, there shouldn't be a Skynet. Certainly not a Skynet that would be able to create a prototype endoskeleton as early as 2003 or whenever 3 takes place. Remember, in the Terminator and Terminator 2, the T-800 and T-1000 are brand spanking new. Reese in all of his years in the war fought HKs and 600 series machines with rubber skin. The infiltrators were new to him and the T-1000 was a prototype!

T3 has these types of things as early as 2003 in CRS commercial campaigns no less! Flying HKs, endoskeleton models, huh? That would change the whole dynamic of the story. Besides, if Judgment Day no longer happens during 1997, and instead, happens in 2003, will Kyle Reese even survive? His folks may have been able to survive in the 90s, but perhaps the way it happens in 2003 kills them off? The playing field is completely different now that dates, companies and ages have changed. It can't be the same universe.

Yes, T3 has new details that are not part of the characters' "histories" in T1/T2. But that's because they actually accomplished something in T2. They bought more time. I believe T3 takes place in 2005 because John references Uncle Bob arriving 10 years ago. So Sarah, John and Uncle Bob literally gave the world 8 additional years of life. Of course that will make a totally new "Judgment Day." Brand new people will now be born after 1997 that wouldn't have even existed, others who would have originally survived would have had radically different paths through whatever life experiences occurred over those 8 years. Who knows how that'd **** everything up. Reese being older (maybe a different guy!) Terminators being invented at different times. That's all juicy, pretty fascinating stuff. But only because T3 ran with the concepts presented in T2.

It didn't just come up with a delayed timeline out of the blue, it paid tribute to the fact that the events in T2 actually meant something. They could have just had the war still occur on August 29th, 1997 but what they did was far more interesting, IMO. Because if the broad strokes are inevitable, but the individual players in the game can be altered (or overwritten!) then just what the **** did they screw up by blowing up Cyberdine? Fascinating stuff!

I get that you guys are writing off T3 because of some jokes that fell flat or whatever else but if you're going to accept T2, might as well include T3 because it raises some questions that are just as interesting, possibly moreso, as what was addressed in T2.