Terminator Genisys (July 1st, 2015)

[a-dev]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Well, I don't think Kyle Reese's existence is dependant on the war or time travel like John Connor version 2 is it? Unless there's some unspecifiable butterfly effect going on somewhere along the line. His own parents never meet somehow due to events in Terminator 2, a death that otherwise shouldn't have happened or something.

It reminds me of Star Trek First Contact again, where despite the Enterprise crew succeeding in stopping the borg from assimilating earth, the borg still managed to kill a bunch of randomers on earth who otherwise wouldn't have died - so that's a whole bunch of people wiped out of existence in the 24th century because their ancestors were killed, maybe important people! The film doesn't acknowledge that at all and everyone's happy and jokey - but ****, that's pretty serious surely!

Likewise in Terminator you have the T1 T-800 and the T-1000 killing people who otherwise weren't fated to die at that time. Who knows what effect that could have had on the future. Skynet could have been inadvertently shooting itself in the foot, killing someone who was involved, however loosely, in its own creation by allowing its Terminators free rein to kill people in the past.

If you could go back in time and stop the holocaust - sure it might seem like the right thing to do but you'd theoretically be wiping out generations of people born since WWII and replacing them with entirely different people.

 

[Khev]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

I'm glad a-dev and Khev are intrigued by the original John Connor.

Yep. I've given way too much thought to Terminator's premise for my own good (I know, a real shock.) There's no way that a timeline could *begin* with a traveler from the future because that future and that traveler technically don't exist. You could only have an untainted present in order to put something in the past, hence the original John.

Anyway, I know that Cameron wanted to end T2 with hugs and hope and all that but I think it might have been cooler if Sarah died at the end. Maybe she was bleeding to death when lowering the T-800 into the steel so John could still stand there crying and watching him and immediately after Arnold give the thumbs up she keels over. Have John standing there, by himself, with tears on his cheeks. Then kneel down, shut his mother's dead eyes, look to the side, and pick up a gun for the first time. Cut to two scientists standing in the Cyberdyne rubble and one says to the other, "What does this mean" and the other says, "A setback, nothing more." Boom, credits, no speech about hope and terminators learning to love or whatever.

As you mentioned they can't stop the future or they just create an even more paradoxical loop of erasing the time travelers who prevented the war in the first place. So show John manning up and remind us that the war is still coming, a war that doesn't need to be prevented because it's one that we already know we'll one day win.

 

[DiFabio]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Well, I don't think Kyle Reese's existence is dependant on the war or time travel like John Connor version 2 is it? Unless there's some unspecifiable butterfly effect going on somewhere along the line. His own parents never meet somehow due to events in Terminator 2, a death that otherwise shouldn't have happened or something.

Yeah but Kyle Reese is born well after Judgment Day. In 2029, John is 45 and Reese is in his 20s. So that means Reese was born around, what, 2005? That's 8 years after Judgment day and a life of pure hell. Reese is a product of living in in that hell. I mean, 6 billion people died and the survivors had to live in hiding. Surely Reese's parents met because of this? If there's no war, no Judgment Day, Reese can't be a product of that time. His parents may never meet, they may never conceive, and if they do, who's to say it'd be "Kyle Reese"? He wouldn't be around. That war molded him, from his birth, to his hardened life style. If there's no Judgment Day, he ceases to exist just like the original John Connor.

 

[a-dev]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Hmmm In Sarah Connor chronicles he is still conceived and born before (the delayed?) war. I've forgotten much about that show, only watched it once through.

Or are you arguing that T2 really does stop the war and everything after that is not canon (which I would accept).

 

[DiFabio]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Yep. I've given way too much thought to Terminator's premise for my own good (I know, a real shock.) There's no way that a timeline could *begin* with a traveler from the future because that future and that traveler technically don't exist. You could only have an untainted present in order to put something in the past, hence the original John.

Anyway, I know that Cameron wanted to end T2 with hugs and hope and all that but I think it might have been cooler if Sarah died at the end. Maybe she was bleeding to death when lowering the T-800 into the steel so John could still stand there crying and watching him and immediately after Arnold give the thumbs up she keels over. Have John standing there, by himself, with tears on his cheeks. Then kneel down, shut his mother's dead eyes, look to the side, and pick up a gun for the first time. Cut to two scientists standing in the Cyberdyne rubble and one says to the other, "What does this mean" and the other says, "A setback, nothing more." Boom, credits, no speech about hope and terminators learning to love or whatever.

As you mentioned they can't stop the future or they just create an even more paradoxical loop of erasing the time travelers who prevented the war in the first place. So show John manning up and remind us that the war is still coming, a war that doesn't need to be prevented because it's one that we already know we'll one day win.

Yeah, I hate that future coda ending and I'm glad that never happened (though, seeing T3 and Salvation, I wish Cameron had left it in there so they never existed).

The real ending still works though with it's ambiguity. I love the highway lines representing the timeline (the different roads) and ending just with a sense of hope, no real resolution. I'm sure Sarah was paranoid enough and took John to go back into hiding.

Like I stated before though, in the original script for T2, Future John remembers sending the reprogrammed T-800 to protect himself from the T-1000 (the scene would have then dissolved from Future John's war weary face, to 10 year old John's face when he's messing with his bike at the Voight's). So what you're thinking could be dead on (save for Sarah dying).

 

[DiFabio]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Hmmm In Sarah Connor chronicles he is still conceived and born before (the delayed?) war. I've forgotten much about that show, only watched it once through.

That show is whack. They somehow having time travelling in a ****ing 90s bank vault!

Or are you arguing that T2 really does stop the war and everything after that is not canon (which I would accept).

If T2 does prevent the war like the Terminator surmises, then yeah, Reese doesn't exist (and certainly no crappy T2, Salvation, or tv shows). It could happen like Khev said thoogh, so T1 and T2 are infinite loops.

 

[Khev]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Hmmm In Sarah Connor chronicles he is still conceived and born before (the delayed?) war. I've forgotten much about that show, only watched it once through.

Or are you arguing that T2 really does stop the war and everything after that is not canon (which I would accept).

Stopping the war would just cause it to be recreated as it existed during the original timeline with the original John Connor. So in a way the "original John" would be perpetually resurrected and then erased if they did that.

Timeline 1: Original John, original war, then time travel begins and creates Timeline 2

Timeline 2: Reese appears in 1984 and creates a new John who actually prevents the creation of Skynet in 1995

Timeline 3: Reese is now never born and doesn't create the new John, original timeline is restored and cycle begins again to be repeated forever

 

[DiFabio]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Basically, whatever Skynet does, it's always destined to lose.

 

[a-dev]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Timeline 3: Reese is now never born and doesn't create the new John, original timeline is restored and cycle begins again to be repeated forever

It couldn't be exactly the original timeline though, since it would still be the Reese-fathered John Connor. Otherwise Furlong should have phased out of existence or something at the end of T2 or whatever da ****.

 

[DiFabio]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

That's what Khev means though. If it's Back to The Future type mechanics, John and Sarah phase out, and the whole process repeats itself.


I don't think that's how the Terminator mythology works, but it could. The only thing I don't like about it though would be that Dyson's sacrifice was for nothing. I mean he scraps his life's work for his family and 3 billion lives. He goes out like a hero. Having that all be for nothing would sort of suck.

 

[jye4ever]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Great, you 2 neutered Dyson, good going there.

I bought a Dyson vacuum because of him.

Movie sucks now.

Khev did make it easy to comprehend though, good job Khev.

 

[Khev]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

It couldn't be exactly the original timeline though, since it would still be the Reese-fathered John Connor. Otherwise Furlong should have phased out of existence or something at the end of T2 or whatever da ****.

As DiFabio said that actually is what would happen in my scenario though. T-800 goes down into the steel and we see his POV fade to black and then young Sarah wakes up in the original timeline again with Reese John (Furlong) and badass Sarah erased. Things then play out as they *originally* did, with the original war, original John, time travel, creation of Reese John, prevention of Skynet and war, original timeline restored, original war, original John, time travel, creation of Reese John, prevention of Skynet and war, original timeline restored, etc., etc., etc. which I think would have been awesome.

Obviously that didn't happen since Cameron showed Sarah and John hugging and then driving off for ice cream or whatever instead of being erased. Which just means that they didn't prevent the war (because Reese John only can exist if War Reese can go back in time.) Which is THEN why I wouldn't have shown John in mommy's arms but rather her dying and the future leader of the resistance finally becoming a man. Otherwise the war is still coming and the final scenes of the movie end with John still in his mother's shadow (which is how the movie stands now.) I think it would have been better to end it with John hardened and on his own like we saw with Sarah at the end of T1.

Khev did make it easy to comprehend though, good job Khev.

 

[Indiana]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Yep. I've given way too much thought to Terminator's premise for my own good (I know, a real shock.) There's no way that a timeline could *begin* with a traveler from the future because that future and that traveler technically don't exist. You could only have an untainted present in order to put something in the past, hence the original John.

Ah, but you are assuming that a paradoxical loop has to have a beginning like a loop in the road. As a-dev pointed out, scientifically, time travel is impossible. All of the theories of separate timelines are very intriguing, and have given it a lot of thought before, but I like what T1 and parts of T2 say that all that has happened and will happen has already happened. It's not just John that T1 creates, but Skynet as well. In the first movie, Kyle and Sarah are on there way to blow up Cyberdine, and Kyle makes the pipe bombs to accomplish this. This was in deleted scenes, but I like how it establishes why they are so close to Cyberdine, where the Terminator's chip is recovered. This was stated in a deleted scene, and with some dialogue in T2. This all implies that Skynet can only exist because of itself. It makes the first Terminator even deeper in my mind, because maybe Skynet even knew this. It knew that it had to try to kill Sarah as to get the T-800's chip in the past.

The multiple timeline is an intriguing thought, like string theory's multiverse, but there is not a lot of evidence if there are any other timelines outside of the first two movies. All the evidence does point to the fact that it has happened at least once before. If once before, why not always? Many science fiction stories have involved time travel, and it is one premise that time cannot be changed. Either you can change time, ala Back to the Future, or you can't. Time is a set variable, and even if it runs slower or what not (speed and altitude determine this), it still appears to be a constant. It even makes a little since in thinking that any change (even the slightest) could drastically change everything.

a-dev mentioned First Contact, and I think that is a good parallel. With both the temporal vortex and all the things that happen. I like to think that in First Contact, the only reason that Enterprise crew didn't know about the borg attack is that the crew made sure that no one other then the few in the featured in the movie knew what the heck was happening. They could just tell everyone the attack was from some militant blah blah, and the people probably would believe it. Then with that, there is no evidence that the Enterprise didn't ALWAYS facilitate first contact. Of course, Star Trek has been all over the map in relation to time travel, so who knows there.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling.

Edit: Oh, plus, the road at the end of T2 is from the same shot from a scene earlier in the movie. The scene cuts to black right before the camera pans up to... Cyberdine. I like to think that the road will always lead to Cyberdine.

 

[ShadowX81]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Peronally ive always felt that there never was a "before Reese" timeline or original John Connor without Reese. Reese was always going to go back and father John. The past, present, and future always existed simultaneously in some way.

Think of a timeline like a book and our perception of time is like reading it. Just because you haven't gotten to the last pages doesn't mean that they don't exist.

 

[olbertfrog]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Its the time paradoxe thing.
Who came first the egg or the chicken?

 

[slipknotpredator]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)



Maybe a huge spoiler:

Spoiler

Maybe not.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

I think that's a tribute to a girl that worked in the industry that died, all slates have it on it.

 

[a-dev]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Arnie looks as good as you could possibly expect there. Seems likely they're going with leathers again though. I don't consider this a good thing. Change it up FFS. All he had was a leather jacket in the first film and even that only halfway through the film. Why is it that ever since T2 he needs to be in full biker gear the whole time? That's pandering to audience nostalgia rather than trying to be in some way, y'know, plausible.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

Will get any and all Arnold figures from this movie.

 

[slipknotpredator]

Re: Terminator: Genesis (July 1st, 2015)

I think that's a tribute to a girl that worked in the industry that died, all slates have it on it.

That´s sad... thought it had something to do with Sarah Connor.