The "All things TERMINATOR" thread.

[e30ernest]

So it's Endgame rules?

 

[a-dev]

Is it? Maybe. Gives me an excuse to watch Endgame again.

 

[ajp4mgs]

.........................So whaddaya think?

I have to start with this first because what I think is that I can't imagine a better job being done of breaking down how all of this would work and fit into the 3-timeline scenario. Absolutely spot-on and ****ing outstanding!

My only issue with your post is that it hits every point so definitively that there's not much I can add. Just when I was digging a Terminator discussion more and more, and anticipating the next turn, you go and sort out virtually every loose end and leave us with nowhere left to go. Dammit!

There are a few points I want to further back you on, add to, and respond directly to two areas where you asked for clarification/correction if necessary.

Well I'm open to whatever makes it work, preferably in such a way that doesn't diminish the strengths of the concept that I previously praised it for and preferably such that doesn't cause new problems.

And that's my approach as well. The whole idea is to make the plot logic work while maintaining the thematic takeaway, and to make it work in a way that leaves us with the fewest inconsistencies possible.

After much consideration I think you're really onto something - in my rundown below I think it can shown that the third timeline does indeed allow for all present-day events taking place in one timeline (unless I misunderstood you in the part I underlined).

You didn't misunderstand, I just worded it horribly. What I meant is that the current-day events no longer *only* happen in one timeline. Everything from 1984 to 1995 happens in two timelines. It's less streamlined, and that's the downside which I thought would be a dealbreaker for you. It's a key reason why I ever tried to simplify things into a 2-timeline scenario in the first place.

But I'm stoked to learn that you're willing to live with that 2nd timeline. And it does contain events exclusive to it that show up on screen (the future war footage from T2, where Skynet would've been more advanced than in timeline #1).

Even if they didn't go on to destroy Cyberdyne and stop Judgment Day - correct me if I'm wrong ajp - he would not have to send back Reese. That plot had already played out and become part of the past. The future is dependent on the past but the past cannot be dependent on the future.

Affirmative. If Sarah hadn't targeted Dyson and Cyberdyne, yet John had still survived, he would end up fighting a future war against a Skynet with its advanced origins rooted in 1984 and no interest in risking those circumstances being undone in *any* timeline. If the T-1000 were to be defeated in a similar way where Uncle Bob would follow the same course of action to eliminate any trace of their future tech, then Skynet would develop the same way as in #2 and probably follow through on the same logic of targeting an alternate John in 1995.

The cool difference would be that John will have already battled a T-1000 as a 10-year-old by the time he'd face this scenario in 2029. Would he be an even better soldier for it? Maybe. If Skynet sends a terminator to an alternate 1995, would John still send a T-800 to be Uncle Bob, but provide more strategic info this time? Maybe. Lots of intriguing differences could/would play out. But yeah, a mission to 1984 would likely be out of the question, and Kyle wouldn't be sent in place of a T-800 (or whatever would be available) for any mission beyond that.

The movies kinda step on their own message a bit.

I think it's more than just a "bit," though. In T1, Kyle tells Sarah that he and the T-800 are from "a possible future." That's exactly how he phrases it. None of these characters ever act as though anything at all is inevitable. It's Cameron trying to have his cake and eating it too.

Cameron wanted characters to be convinced of free will while simultaneously setting them in a deterministic reality where everything in a closed loop *needs* to happen a certain way. These characters, at some point, would recognize inevitability and become more complacent. Instead, they're very proactive because the theme is about making your own destiny. The closed loop would destroy the logic of the characters' behavior (and their intellect in general) as well as destroy the central theme. No thanks.

T1 in particular seems to be insistent on the closed loop while if you also take into account the alternate, never filmed opening for T2 that I brought up before - where future John is fully aware that he must send back Reese and Uncle Bob - because it's a loop, he already lived through the events we're about to be shown - so even if the movie omitted the whole demolition of Cyberdyne stuff, we would know that John obviously always survived anyway because, well, there he is - sending back Reese and Uncle Bob. Talk about diminishing the stakes.

Precisely. As you noted, any John who exists in a future where Skynet has employed time travel is self-fulfilling evidence that the past wasn't altered in a way that had erased his survival. Also, the closed-loop scenario requires that John be incapable of figuring this out, even after growing up thinking about time travel while knowing exactly when terminators had been sent to his past and how they were defeated.

The parallel open-ended timelines are therefore much more in keeping with 'No Fate'. Together with the correction of certain major paradoxes via the 3 timelines (and I do now believe it has to be 3 to offer maximum consistency with what the movies present) I think I can agree with you ajp that this interpretation is more than worthwhile to compensate for whatever is lost. The main issue of contention against it seems to be any piece of dialogue that gives away Cameron/Wisher's intent about the Looping paradox - but in those instances I believe it's technically possible to call it mistaken presumption on the part of human characters.

I obviously agree about the benefits (far) outweighing anything that gets lost. The human characters act like the future is open-ended, so it just works for me on enough levels that once I resolved enough of the nagging logic problems via alternate timelines, I never looked back. Plus, I actually believe that infinite parallel realities exist in some form to account for the probabilistic nature of quantum discoveries in real life, so no great leap required from my existing worldview.

I kinda wish we had more nagging inconsistencies to work through, but I know that it'd be very hard for me to ever feel compelled to regard T1 and T2 as existing in a single deterministic timeline. It's just too nonsensical in multiple ways. If you've reached the same conclusion, then that's awesome! Just want to again say that you couldn't have outlined this any better, or covered all the bases more definitively. I very much appreciate how this now serves as a resource that's like a walkthrough for how the events in these films play out with this 3-timeline interpretation. As a much more knowledgeable Terminator fan than I am, you helped lock me into this point of view more assuredly now (and likely for good). Thank you!

 

[DiFabio]

That's why I said "cloned/3D printed." The 3D printed aspect would apply to the non-living elements of the T-800. As for "out of what" well it would be out of the molecules of those entering the TDE, whether they be living or non-living beings. They would indeed be duplicates, right down to the molecules, memories, programming, and yes, even battle scars. It's an out there concept to be sure, and not one that I'm married to by any means, but I just got a kick out of entertaining the idea so I thought I'd share.

I think I still hold to the notion that there's just a single universe that can be overwritten by time travelers. So yes there would have been an "original" untainted timeline that led to all of the future events, then a new timeline that is created when the T-800 and Reese first go back. And that first new timeline would *not* have involved that one specific polaroid of Sarah (since the polaroid caught her at a moment of thinking about Reese, and he created timeline #2.) Therefore the endless loop timeline would actually be timeline #3, the one that involves not only the T-800, Reese, but also the photo. Once those three co-exist in the same timeline then we get the loop as shown on screen.



I agree!

The amount of time I've spent thinking about Star Wars would have to be divided by about a million to get to the next-closest IP. I think I've literally forgotten more about SW than I ever knew about any other franchise.

But yeah, Terminator was probably the next-most interesting for me to think about. Well, until Genisys; I shut the franchise off *completely* right after watching that one. Didn't watch Dark Fate until recently, and it had nuggets of "what could've been" that restarted my engagement with the franchise.



Believe it or not, most of what you're describing up to this point is what would happen with time travel using alternate timelines. Something like memories that wouldn't match the timeline would still be true. The key element that is also the same is how a time-traveler can't create a paradox by killing his parents before they had kids; that's also very much the case with the parallel timelines scenario.

The cloning aspect is where you distinguish your version conceptually, but it doesn't really change anything in terms of the practical end result. The original time-traveler being killed and reborn during the time jump doesn't materially change anything as far as I can tell. Using parallel timeline theory, he would still be missing in his original future (barring a return trip back, which Terminator time travel prevents), and would exist in a variant version of his past memories.



I need to wrap my head around this, but I can tell you that I love the idea of putting a "barrier" on how far back in time an individual can go. That's just awesome as a story device by limiting backward time travel to no further than when the time-travel device was created. I ****ing love that! Not sure I can accept it in Terminator, but it needs to be written in some story somewhere if it hasn't already.

My initial resistance to it in Terminator is just that there's no indication in either film that the TDE was invented in 1984. Doesn't mean it can't work as a concept, but I've spent so long defaulting to the idea of time travel being developed via Skynet of the 21st century. I still need to chew on this for a while, and rewatch T1 and T2 with all of it in mind, but it's definitely a very cool idea on its own.



As I said above, your explanation was consistent with parallel timeline theory until the last paragraph. I think how you're keeping it from being the same is that you're saying that the timeline Kyle Reese came from in 2029 ceases to exist because it's entirely re-written by Nu-Reese necessitating new events by being part of a "new past." The problem for me, however, is that the T-800, T-1000, and Uncle Bob will end up *all* joining the Nu-Reese reality. But if Nu-Reese immediately erased that future, who/what sends them?

If original Reese's history gets erased as soon as he arrives in 1984, then I'm not understanding how future arrivals get there too. Where and when did they come from? And even if they're sent only seconds apart, wouldn't they each be "re-erasing" a section of timeline that was already erased by Nu-Reese?

Seems to me it's still the same problem that a more conventional single linear timeline runs into. You still need an ongoing fixed future from which these time travelers can be sent. And the conditions that motivate them being sent need to still occur the same way. If you can resolve that issue for me, I'd have no other objections to your version of tweaking Cameron's single-timeline Terminator reality.

I hope what I'm saying is clear. I love where you ended up (from a conceptual design perspective), but I don't see how it would work for the Terminator 1 & 2 plots to unfold as they did. I still think alternate timelines is the only way to make sense of it, so that's what I continue to default to.



It can't happen with Star Wars discussions because the debates got to a point where opposing views became almost a territorial or tribal battle. But even in spite of that, SW discussions will always be where I gravitate to whenever possible.

But as far as this particular Terminator discussion, it's got me more engaged with this franchise than I've been in several years. So thanks to both you and a-dev for that. And speaking of a-dev, I'm about to reply to his post with how I see parallel timelines working in these movies as the optimum way for everything to make the most sense. Maybe it'll even help make it clearer to you why I can't accept any version of just a single timeline.

I have a caveat that I want to preface with before I give my explanation to the part of your post that I put in bold. This is my caveat: It makes more sense to me if John sent Kyle Reese to a point in 1984 that precedes the arrival of the T-800, and we just see their two arrivals out of order on screen. But since Arnold is shown first, I'll reformat my thinking for this reply so that it lines up with movie chronology (and also probably how you see the sequence of events yourself). Okay, so here goes.

Every mission to the past that originates from the 2029 timeline would be sent in the "direction" of that same timeline's past. But as soon as the first subject (T-800) arrives in 1984, that event immediately creates a parallel branch because the original version of 1984 never had a Terminator in it. So, the T-800 creates a branched timeline that shares the exact same history up until 1984. Everything beyond that is open-ended and doesn't need to conform to any pre-determined future.

The next time disruption takes place when Kyle Reese arrives shortly thereafter (though that's kinda crazy on John's part). Reese would also be sent in the direction of the 2029 timeline's past, but would also need to occupy a separate branch from his original one because it had no adult Reese existing in 1984. However, I don't think this event would need to create a third timeline. That's because T-800 already created one with an *unwritten future.* So Reese would get slotted right into that same branched one since it would be the closest available variant with an open-ended future that he could be part of.

The same would then be true of Uncle Bob and the T-1000. Since the new second timeline would have no history yet for its 1995, both of them would be slotted in there as well. What we're left with is just TWO (I had previously thought it'd be three) timelines. The original one with John and Kyle in the resistance fighting the 21st century war; and a second one branched off where T-800 arrives in 1984. This same second timeline would proceed in 1984 with Kyle Reese showing up, then eventually Uncle Bob and the T-1000 in 1995. Think of it as the TDE "searching" for the closest approximate timeline with space available to place its traveler. In T1 and T2, we only need one branched timeline for all of them to fit in.

Believe it or not, that's the simplest I can make it. Like I said in my reply to Khev, I cannot reconcile the events of the first two movies with the single linear timeline that James Cameron was trying to establish. It ends up in paradoxes and other faulty logic that can't be resolved. The multiple parallel timelines solves those discrepancies for me. Timeline plot holes in movies like BTTF and Looper can't be resolved because they go too far trying to push the (impossible) single timeline scenario. Terminator, however, leaves room for multiverse repairs - even if the intention was contrary by seeking to convey a single timeline.

It's a long thread, so I didn't read all of it. What I would like to see it a series of Terminator movies without time travel. Clean slate. New characters. No Arnold! I know, "blasphemy", but his time is over. T2 was fun to watch, but is just added more issues re: time travel, and forced humor in, removing part of the horror element. Taking out Cyberdyne which stopped Skynet is a great place to end the story. The only thing that could be done, and done well would have been the future war, were it would have showed Kyle & the best T-800 going back in time, and the T-1000, and the sucky, non-humorous, non-killing T-800 going back. However, instead we got the crap fest that was T3:ROTM (which had some good elements), TS (which was a clusterfook. T-600 was alright), TG (awful Kyle & Sarah, but great design upgrades to the T-800 - except for the chest plate). TF (ugh! I did like Grace. REV-9 WTF? Looked like a knock off of the Hell creatures in John Constantine, half skull douchery.) Edit: I forgot T2-#3D. I did like the Mini flying HKs.

Give me a new movie. I know, a difficult task since there have been so many movies, TV shows that have covered the elements of AI, robots, etc. Use Bicentennial Man, and the TV series Humans as inspiration. Somehow, maybe through an AI/Robot revolt, you can get to the point where there's a war, but ultimately, having the human and non-human side come to the realization that in order for either side to continue, they would have to coexist. (If peace cannot be achieved, have the AI/self-aware robots leave Earth, they are the only ones who can space travel without the deleterious effects it does to humans.) Just PLEASE if you are going to do time travel in it, plan it out, make it logical. If you're going to do a trilogy, film it using the same actors/actresses, in the way LOTR was filmed. I'm sure that there are clever writers out that could pull off the story. Put the story out there as a trilogy of books, see if it sells well (i.e. like the Harry Potter books).

I went ahead and rewatched the first two Terminator films while trying to make your version of the single timeline work. Even though the discussion here seems finished, I want to just provide this "epilogue." Your scenario would work pretty damn well for T1, so long as everything after Kyle Reese arrives in 1984 becomes a closed-loop reality with predestined outcomes and no true free will (putting "no fate but what we make" in an unfortunate context, however).

I do prefer your idea of Kyle dying and being cloned (or something similar) during time displacement. Even though it has no practical effect on the events in the movie, it's still better conceptually because it does avoid certain paradox potentialities. The conceptual benefits still improve the internal logic even though the scenarios never play out on screen.

But T2 is where there's no reconciling the single timeline. When everyone is at Miles Dyson's house, Uncle Bob is describing future events to him. Dyson says, "You're judging me on things that I haven't even done yet." Before that, Uncle Bob tells Sarah that Dyson will create a revolutionary type of microprocessor "a few months from now." So... with Dyson's death, there can be no closed-loop timeline that would lead to the same history of Uncle Bob's timeline.

In order for the single timeline to work with T2, Uncle Bob would have to have been a double agent of some sort. He'd have to be intentionally lying about the true future, knowing the whole time that Dyson actually does die in that era. Cyberdyne/Skynet would have to have a backup off-site facility where someone else takes over from where Dyson left off. It just gets too weird. Again, alternate/parallel timelines is the only way to go. But I'll drop it now.

But Khev, if you're inclined at all to write (or otherwise produce) stories, I think you've got the seeds of something great in your time travel scenario. Lots of ways you could go with it which I don't think have been done before; at least not that I can recall. Great concepts, imo.

Hey thanks and that's awesome to hear that you entertained my musings enough to rewatch both films with them in mind!

Yes I know that everything is cleaner if you just take T1 by itself. I actually have been one of the harsher critics on how T2 sort of messed up the perfect loop presented by T1 over the years and have even gone on record as discarding it from "canon" on more than one occasion. But it is a great sequel in its own right so I can never permanently forsake it.

When I am charitable and accepting of T2 then I tend to just say that the endless loop resides with regard to Reese and the original T-800 only and that the events of T2 kind of demand a Terminator 3 that reinstates Judgment Day. For that reason I much prefer the ambiguous "dark highway at night" ending to the alternate one where Sarah sits on a park bench stating point blank that the war never happened.

I guess to keep the closed loop then we'd have to assume that there is some kind of cover up within Cyberdyne (no great stretch since it is already established that that's how they operate) where after everything is destroyed there's some sort of backup server that is discovered so that Dyson's work can continue and the company records (that Skynet later gets access to) for whatever reason still name him as the one who creates the revolutionary processor a few months after the events of T2.

I do realize that your approach to the mechanics of time travel in these films is more "Professor Hulk" compared to my "Rhodey" explanations but I find myself appreciating the story and the stakes more if I give a fair amount of leeway to the science of it all. Kind of like to enjoy giant monster movies you have to ignore things like whether their muscles and bones could really support weight of that magnitude, or sound in space (even in semi-"realistic" sci-fi like ALIEN or what have you.)

And I don't mean that to be a copout, it's just my approach. I love the challenge of trying rationalize my take on these films through the lens of your hardened scientific expectations. Great stuff and thanks again for the kind words and humoring my scenarios.

If you ever want to extend that into some version of a closed loop that includes T2, use the scene in the extended edition where Miles Dyson's wife is pointing out that he's neglecting his family. He turns off the computer so they can go to the water park. Maybe he would've abandoned his work anyway. That's the sort of thing that Cyberdyne couldn't afford to have happen, so they'd have someone else following backups of Dyson's work. When he died, they could've given him the credit for developing the neural net processor. In Skynet's (and thus Uncle Bob's) detailed records, maybe the only relevant data about Dyson is what he was credited with at work; and his date of death gets overlooked, or just isn't deemed relevant.

I don't know. Like I said, it just gets too weird and strained to try to make it fit a closed-loop reality. At least for me.



I use the looser approach for movies like BTTF and Looper. Any "scientific" sort of approach to the logic in those would utterly destroy any enjoyment.

But Terminator leaves enough room (minus the polaroid and maybe one or two other examples) for me to enjoy it on every level. The alternate timeline explanation keeps all the fun of the movies, plus I get to maintain a sense of "realism" about the plot.



No thanks needed, and no "humoring" at all. I genuinely have a high regard for the ideas you put forth and am quite serious that there's an awesome fleshed-out story waiting to be told from the seeds of what you laid out. And thinking about it did give me a new way to approach the films, and that's always appreciated.

Cheers to that.



Yeah I thought of that myself. I guess the reason we see Arnie first is because his was the title character but it does make more sense for the Resistance to try to give Reese a headstart at finding Sarah - especially when he has to fit a nap in! Remember that? He has himself a lie-down in the car. Only after that does he go looking for her. I know he had the advantage of having more specific information about Sarah and what she looked like than the T-800 did but still...



Firstly let me say I like the idea of the TDE searching for the closest open-ended timeline and placing each of the time travellers into that single parallel timeline. Feels like - for that to happen - there's some technical macguffinery about the TDE and/or about how it would work were time travel into the past actually possible but since we're talking about science fiction and largely theoretical concepts I find this acceptable.

Basically what you're doing is trying to allow the 'present day' parts of T1 and T2 to play out in their own single timeline while eliminating the looping aspect with the 2029 future that we see in the films. Correct me if I'm wrong but there is no looping at all now in your idea. There's the original timeline and only one parallel timeline starting from a new version of 1984. And we're not watching the second or third or fourth iteration of anything which was a suggestion before - what we're seeing is the new one and only alternate timeline. The potential of it is that it would solve the main paradoxes of time travel logic while very much preserving ''no fate but what we make''. The future would definitely not be set in this other timeline and either Skynet or the Resistance could win depending on the outcomes of these battles in our present - it means it was not a given that Reese could successfully protect Sarah from the Terminator. And when the 1984 T-800 fails to kill Sarah it's all to play for once again when the T-1000 shows up 1995. The stakes are real. And the related matter of 'incentive' to engage in this time travel war was settled as far as I'm concerned in our previous posts.

I think it deals with most of Khev's objections in his post a couple of pages back. Here's a recap of his main points



Settled.



Settled



Hmmm. You've sorta handwaved it and I don't even mind. Why not allow one ridiculous coincidence that she ends up in the same place at the same time, wearing the same outfit, with the same dog, having her photo taken by the same kid from exactly the same angle and lighting conditions etc etc across 2 separate timelines.



Well I come from an atheistic POV myself but I dunno, does the parallel timeline have to mean that God, heaven and hell were also duplicated? I wouldn't say so necessarily.

So ajp, although I'm intrigued by your idea for the above reasons I will first make mention of what we're losing by taking that interpretation over what is actually intended by Cameron and Wisher. In getting rid of the paradoxes, it does deprive the films of something that has long appealed to people about this franchise.

- We're sacrificing the idea of John Connor's father being born after him and John knowingly sending Reese back to the past to conceive him with Sarah...and to die. The hypothetical future war movie that so many have long craved instantly loses a major dramatic element - heck, Reese won't even be the father of this version of future John - your idea necessitates the acceptance of the 'original John Connor' theory, right? - although a version of it with less gobsmacking implications because in your idea the original John won't be erased by Kyle - his timeline carries on and he will live out the remainder of his life. Only in the new alternate timeline will he no longer exist because Reese will substitute in for whoever Sarah originally conceived a child with.

- We lose the idea of Skynet coming to be by means of its own Terminator - I can more easily live with that - there's no drama there, more just a neat little ''huh'' component of T1 and T2.

- There's also stuff that wasn't filmed but which might aswell be canon as far as many fans are concerned - such as the alternate T2 opening which spent longer in the 2029 future - I think it was supposed to show, among other things, John going into the room with the row of T-800s and 'recognizing' his Uncle Bob - now this would not be the case because original John can't have known Uncle Bob. And this John will not be the same one that Uncle Bob is protecting in the second timeline (that's going to be important later)

So given the loss of these long-cherished gee whiz discussion points not everyone would be on board with your idea. Nevertheless, being able to make logical sense of things I've always just had to throw my hands up in the air for is appealing to me. And if it's not what Cameron and Wisher intended, well - ever since Alien Resurrection, the Star Wars PT and Terminator 3:ROTM - I've very much been subscribing to the idea of personal canon so it can come under that blanket - if it can really work.

But can it. Does what's presented in T1 and T2 allow it to? Khev brought up the polaroid - but also certain lines of dialogue might not let us get rid of the time looping

So what are (some examples of) those?



''Who sent you?''

*turns head to look at John* ''You did. 35 years from now you reprogram me to be your protector here, in this time''


But this John didn't send the T-800 in your idea, right? This John is Kyle Reese's son where your idea suggests that Uncle Bob was sent by Original John - if I interpreted it correctly. And yet....and yet - when T-800 first sights John riding the bike in the canal he instantly recognizes him as his 'target'. So he had a picture of Edward Furlong on file? I guess the Voights could have shown him the same picture they end up giving to the T-1000 but that seems unlikely because he (T-800) was a complete stranger to them and they were suspicious of him. So if you rule that out you're forced to say that future John uploaded an image of himself to the T-800's memory...but then it shouldn't have looked like Edward Furlong, it shoulda been a picture of some other kid.....you might see the problem here.

Furthermore, if Skynet knows how time travel to the past works - if it knows it's dealing with parallel timelines - then likewise Uncle Bob should know this....and yet here he is talking to a version of John he shouldn't recognize, speaking like as though it is certain to happen that '35 years from now' John will send him to this time.

There's something similar later on - ''I wish I could have met my real dad''....''you will''....''I guess...when I'm 45 I think..I send him back in time to 1984..he hasn't even been born yet....messes with your head'' this exchange doesn't feel like it jibes with the parallel timeline idea. Because again, your idea dictates that it wasn't Furlong's John that sends Reese back and here's young Furlong John seemingly expecting that he will do this down the line. And unless John and/or Sarah filled Uncle Bob in on the whole Kyle Reese, soldier from 2029, being John's father situation, the T-800 shouldn't know about it so him saying ''you will'' (meet him one day) doesn't work. And if the line from T-800 is meant to be loaded with the additional implication that John will meet Reese AND send him back in time then that means T-800 is referring to the Loop paradox and contradicting the idea that this is a parallel timeline without a set future yet.

Sigh.....It does indeed mess with your head so I think I'll call it quits for now and see what you think of these points so far.




Well, per my stuff above, I wonder if in fact T2 makes it harder to apply your parallel timeline theory. I wish it weren't so. I was honestly gutted when I thought of the problems I've raised here.

Reese taking a nap just shows what a badass he is. And he was deep enough into it for REM sleep and dreaming.

In a past he never knew; occupying a stolen vehicle; firearm in his possession; a terminator on the loose . . . and yet Kyle Reese is cool, calm, and collected enough to get some shuteye.

Yeah, I prefer to think he got to 1984 first. There are plenty of examples out there of movies using nonlinear storytelling and expecting the audience to be able to figure it out. Even if that wasn't Cameron's intent in this case, it makes way more sense, so that's how I've interpreted the sequence of events.



The rules governing reality have revealed themselves to be efficient even if they seemed convoluted when they were initially discovered. Time travel via parallel timelines might someday prove the same. And even the movie term "time displacement" can refer to the process of taking the traveler into the most approximate timeline (the "closest" branch) from his own original one which he could occupy without any paradox. It's certainly plausible, imo.



Correct. In the scenario you're replying to, I am defining the first timeline as being the "prime" one from which the other gets created via branching. The prime one is set and unchangeable because there are no time travel alterations made to it. It is the "pure" one from which all others are branched due to time travel changes.

The second one (every time we see Sarah in the present day) is open-ended. Free will determines its course until the end of time. That's how we preserve John and Sarah's victory, and the possibility of avoiding nuclear holocaust and a future war.



Yeah, it's something where I don't mind suspending disbelief enough to allow the possibility that the photos would be almost identical had Kyle been replaced by John's alternate father in the original timeline.

I even had a silly thought rewatching T1 when it comes to this polaroid point. When Sarah is at that bar and sees the news report of a second murdered Sarah Connor, she heads for a payphone. Next to the phone is some awkward dude staring a hole through her. But she's in a panic at the time and is suspicious of everyone. Maybe Sarah in the original timeline gets approached by some guy at that bar, and because of not having any concerns about murdered women with her same name, she ends up sleeping with the guy on the same day and time she conceived John with Kyle. And maybe that dude was someone she needed to get away from 6 months later and fled to Mexico. Hey, it could happen.



We do sacrifice this one no matter what.



I can fix this one, but at the expense of something else. More on that later.



Definitely a give and take. Obviously for me, what I have to give up is worth the benefit of what I gain by way of alternate timelines. The closed loop is something that not only doesn't work logically, but it deprives me of these characters having free will to follow through on the theme of the movies: There's no fate but what we make for ourselves.

I'm not willing to lose out on the *central theme* of the movies if in my mind I'm absolutely certain that a closed-loop single timeline would definitely lead to these characters losing any actual agency. I'm not willing to have these characters *always* acting out a pre-determined fate. I choose to leave the thematic intent in place rather than cling to the logistics that take away the free will of the heroes.



That's a good way of looking at it.



I can fix all of these issues stemming from T2 (as I referenced earlier), but it would require the *three* timelines scenario that I had mentioned in earlier posts. My guess is that you wouldn't want a third timeline. All I'll say in its defense is that you'd eliminate these inconsistencies that you listed here while still having both movies interconnected (albeit not to a point where all current-day events are happening in the same timeline).

I'll leave it up to you. If you're willing to entertain three timelines, here's how it would work:

1.) A timeline where 1984 and 1995 have no visitors from the future. But when it gets to 2029, a T-800 (and Kyle Reese) travel back and end up creating a branched timeline with a new version of 1984.

2.) Identical to #1 up until May of 1984. That's when this one branches off because T-800 and Kyle Reese didn't exist in the 1984 of #1. The T-800 gets defeated; Kyle dies; and the T-800 CPU and arm end up leading Cyberdyne to develop Skynet differently than in timeline #1. No visitors arrive from the future during 1995. And when this timeline gets to 2029, Skynet sends a T-1000 (which is more advanced because Skynet itself is more advanced than in #1) to 1995 and John sends Uncle Bob.

3.) Identical to #2 up until 1995. Branches off from #2 at that point because T-1000 and Uncle Bob didn't exist in the 1995 of #2. Skynet gets wiped out; T-1000 and Uncle Bob melt into oblivion; no Judgment Day; and no Future War. John and Sarah either live however you want them to, or they end up how Dark Fate portrays them.



I'd love to know where you end up on this. Either way, I appreciate the opportunity to explore the options and decide what scenario maximizes enjoyment of the first two films in a cooperative canon.

Well I'm open to whatever makes it work, preferably in such a way that doesn't diminish the strengths of the concept that I previously praised it for and preferably such that doesn't cause new problems.

After much consideration I think you're really onto something - in my rundown below I think it can shown that the third timeline does indeed allow for all present-day events taking place in one timeline (unless I misunderstood you in the part I underlined).


Before I get into it, it seems prudent first of all to add a reminder of what your general premise of time travel is





It's at least as valid as any other theory we've seen in movies and quite possibly moreso.



Now I'm going to dive into your 3 timelines and see what describing them in more detail reveals. To be clear to anyone else reading, everything I'm saying originates from ajp's idea - some of my phrasing may make it seem like I'm pretending it was mine....


Timeline 1 - Since the point of this exercise is get rid of this notion of a perpetual time-loop paradox, the original timeline necessarily has to involve a John Connor who is not Kyle Reese's son. Some unknown guy conceived him with the Linda Hamilton Sarah Connor we know. She was indeed a waitress as of 1984 but presumably went on to other things of her own making and became the mother to a great, inspiring military leader. We of course see none of this. In fact the only parts of this timeline we see are the 2029 flashforwards in T1 (which I think you said in a previous post, ajp). The Reese we know from T1 came from here. Through circumstances we don't see he became known to, respected and personally liked by John - liked enough that John bequeaths to him something of personal importance, a picture of his mother. Somewhat weird, it's an area this whole enterprise requires that we retcon a bit because some dialogue in the film implies that Reese realizes after-the-fact that John must have been deliberately setting him up to volunteer to go back in time - he thinks - just to protect Sarah (while John knows - also to become his father). For our purposes we have to forget that and invent some other reason John would give away a picture of his mum to one of his troops. Perhaps Kyle was at a low point and John was merely trying to remind him of a world before, while imparting an inspiring story about Sarah. That Kyle would develop an infatuation with Sarah was not something John intended or foresaw nor does he know in advance that he will be sending Kyle back through time to protect her from a Terminator.

Ultimately, at the culmination of the war against the machines, they make the discovery of the TDE and Skynet's plot to erase John Connor from existence using an infiltrator T-800 sent to the year 1984 to kill Sarah Connor. Skynet knows this action will not change the current reality in which it is defeated and doomed. However, the plan is that in a new timeline the T-800 will not only prevent John Connor from being born but it will reintegrate its memory with the Skynet that eventually arises there. The original Skynet will in this way be 'reborn' - and now into circumstances more favorable towards victory in the war.
To John Connor and the Resistance time travel is a whole new ballgame, no one knows for sure how this works but John reasons that they must respond to cover any possible scenario and then destroy the whole facility. Kyle Reese does not hesitate to volunteer. As John has a particular trust in Reese aswell as faith in his combat experience he agrees that it should be him. As planned, once Reese goes through they evacuate and blow up the complex. The war is now settled in this timeline. Everyone here lives happily ever after, whatever that can be.

I want to remind myself (and anyone else who's following this) how - in this 3 timeline theory - it no longer matters that Skynet sends the T-800 before the resistance manages to send Kyle Reese. In a single timeline scenario this should have been an unreconcilable paradox because the instant Skynet sent the T-800 back in time it should have been an immediate success. It would have arrived first and with no one there to stop him it would have killed Sarah Connor. The Terminator and its actions would automatically become part of the past from the 2029 perspective, so why then does John Connor still exist in the future to have the opportunity to then send back Reese? I previously deferred to some madeup rationale stolen from BTTF or Star Trek to ''explain'' it but ajp's idea does a better job. The original timeline always remains unaffected by any time travel into the past. The first T-800 immediately began the new branched timeline when he arrived in 1984 - he could have killed Sarah Connor and he ''would have gotten away with it too'' except John Connor and the Resistance still existed in the unchanged original timeline and were in a position to do something about it. They send Kyle Reese. Per the time travel rules outlined in my ajp quotes above, Reese arrives in the same timeline as the T-800 and can go to work.

So the above is largely not actually seen in the movies. But now...

Timeline 2 - this is the first parallel branch off of the main timeline and it goes from T1's 1984 - uninterrupted by any further time travel incursions - all the way up to 2029 when Skynet eventually uses the TDE again.

Kyle Reese arrives, finds Sarah and flees with her from the T-800. At every opportunity he must explain to her what is to come. Notably different under this theory is that when he is telling her about her son John Connor he is referring to ''original John''. All the while his infatuation with this young woman he previously only knew from a single photograph and John's stories quickly turns to love now that he's with her and the gravity of the whole situation impresses on them both. After everything he has been through in his life (and his celibacy) he can't help himself. If she's going to go for it so is he. And she goes for it. But does Kyle consider the possible consequences of having sex with Sarah Connor, the mother of the future? Lets remember he previously had no notion of himself being John's father. Sarah actually asks about the father and Kyle says ''John never said much about him...I know he dies before the wa-''. So he doesn't go into this situation suspecting that it's him. Well, Kyle, you weren't the dad before but you will be now. I suppose it could be speculated that if they'd gotten a moments peace after that he would have been very concerned indeed about what he'd just done but from then on it's literally non-stop pursuit by the Terminator until Reese is killed, the poor bastard.

At the film's conclusion we have Sarah making audio tapes for her unborn son, John.



Reese of course is the father but Sarah speaks as though he always had been. More than that she seems to be expecting that John will again have to send Reese back in time in order to maintain his own existence. She thinks it's a loop, her recent past and the future mutually dependent on eachother. For our purposes I guess we simply have to say that she's mistaken but it's not ideal. It's a dead giveaway of Cameron and Wisher's intentions when the central character of the movie is saying these things in the epilogue.

The deleted ending to T1 reveals that the factory where the final showdown with the Terminator took place was Cyberdyne - the remnants of the T-800 are being recovered and kept secret there. It's fair to say that even if there had been zero remnants to be discovered Skynet was still going to come into existence - albeit more within the original timeframe. But the T-800's damaged brain-chip and surviving mechanical parts will go on to be studied and it will expedite the development of Skynet under Miles B Dyson.

Meanwhile, Sarah Connor is raising John - Kyle Reese's son (the Furlong version) who in this timeline will have the same experiences as T2 movie John up until 1995 but will live a different life beyond that not seen in any film. Now knowing what she knows, Sarah is forcing John's development much sooner - ''Shacking up'' with whoever she could learn from to teach John how to be a ''Great Military Leader'', ''flying around in helicopters'', teaching him ''how to blow ***t up''* - all to prepare him for his role in the future war. It deprives him of a childhood and he resents it. When she embarks on a failed attempt to stop Cyberdyne in its tracks and gets locked up in Pescadero, John has little sympathy and seems to think she belongs there. He no longer believes anything she's been talking about. With her in the mental institute the Voights take over his parenting.

*how all this fit into John's mere 10 years of existence and how someone so young could actually have the maturity and aptitude for any of it is another thing. We've always just had to give Cameron leeway on that one.

Wherever John is in 1997, he obviously survives the nuclear war though he will still only be 12 at this point. Now knowing his mother was right all along he will do much of his growing up in the ruins hiding from HKs not unlike how his father had. With no choice but to face reality John vows to become what he was supposed to become, eventually rising to his ultimate prominence in the Resistance.

Fasting forward, it's 2029 and once again Skynet is nearing ultimate ruin. Under similar circumstances as the original timeline John and his soldiers storm the HQ with the Time Displacement Equipment. Now John knows to look for it in advance because he knows what his mother told him; he listened to her tapes. He knows about the T-800 that tried to kill her the year before his birth. He knows that a man in his very company, Kyle Reese, is his father. So, assuming John doesn't question what his mother said in the tapes it means he goes in there expecting to find that Skynet has sent a T-800 back to 1984 and that he will have to send Kyle Reese after it. However, he will instead be surprised to discover a different plot. A terrifying new prototype - the T-1000 - has been sent to 1995 to kill him when he was a child. Remember, according to Kyle Reese the T-800 infiltrators were 'the newest, the worst', he made no mention of a T-1000. The T-1000 is particular to this timeline where Skynet developed sooner leading to new advancements not seen in the original timeline (love this, credit again to ajp). No human soldier would stand a chance against a T-1000 so how would they tackle this situation? In an offshoot chamber is a row of inactive T-800 infiltrators with which the Resistance has now endured a long period of experience and learned things about them in the process. Now that they have access to inactive and undamaged T-800s Connor's top tech-person believes they have a good shot at reprogramming one. It is their best hope.

So, this adult version of Edward Furlong's Connor does not know Uncle Bob, he has no connection to the T-800 he now sends back to 1995. Nevertheless it means that when Uncle Bob goes back in time he will be looking for this John Connor and there will be no inconsistency when he tells the child (Furlong) Connor that he (T-800) was sent by him. Because remember if original John had sent Uncle Bob he would have been programmed to look for an entirely different kid and never would have found him because that kid no longer exists. Uncle Bob has to have been sent by the same JC of Terminator 2.

Timeline 3 - The T-1000 and the T-800 are sent 'in the direction of' the past of their own timeline which was timeline 2. The history that they know comprises the new origins of Skynet dictated by the 1984 events in the first film. However, because the T-1000 was not originally in the 1995 of this timeline his presence now creates a new branch. But importantly the events of T1 will still be the past of this new branch. Uncle Bob, per the same rules as the first time travelling pair in T1, will reach this new timeline also (and in the movie apparently even arrives first).

The new 1995 will play out as we see in T2 while everything before that stays the same. So in effect the Sarah Connor of T2 is still the same Sarah Connor who experienced a T-800 trying to kill her in 1984 and thus has the reaction to Uncle Bob that she does. Incidentally, perhaps if Furlong Connor had known that the T-800 who tried to kill his mom was a model 101 he'd have picked a different model number to use as his own protector in the past. I guess Sarah could easily have forgotten that particular detail when recounting her story to John in the tapes etc

Sarah's narration at the start of T2 will remain correct as far as she's concerned - ''Skynet sent 2 Terminators back through time. The first was programmed to strike at me in the year 1984 before John was born. It failed. The second was set to strike at John himself when he was still a child'' - the only thing she won't know is that these were 2 separate plots enacted by Skynet from different timelines. Her narration continues ''as before, the Resistance was able to send a lone warrior, a protector for John. It was just a question of which one of them would reach him first'' - in open-ended timelines (without a pre-set future) this last line now has greater meaning because heck maybe the bad guy will reach John first. Or maybe the protector will but it won't matter...watch and see what happens!


Looking further into T2 we can say that whenever Uncle Bob is relaying the 'history of things to come' - to John, to Sarah and later to Dyson - he is talking about things that did occur as he describes them from the timeline he came from (Timeline 2). When he is talking to Sarah about Skynet becoming self aware, Judgment Day etc he is giving information accurate to his timeline, not to the one she was told about by Kyle in the first film - but she doesn't actually know this nor is Uncle Bob necessarily aware of her misunderstanding. As far as she is concerned Uncle Bob is from her Kyle Reese's future and he is giving specific details - from the horse's mouth so to speak - that Reese never could. In any case it wouldn't change her renewed determination to destroy Cyberdyne and avert Judgment Day.

A problem I previously brought up was the conversation between John and Uncle Bob when they're fixing the car at Enrique's camp - about John's real dad. There's a similar issue here as there was with T1 Sarah's closing monologue for the tapes she was making - where it was pretty clear she was expecting that John would have to again send Kyle Reese back through time. Because she has relayed this to John, he himself believes it and his lines during this conversation with Uncle Bob are telling - ''I wish I could have met my real Dad.....I send him back through time to 1984'' - or does he say ''sent'', past tense? That would 'kind of' be accurate albeit, under ajp's 3 timelines idea, it wasn't him who sent Reese but the Original John who now doesn't exist. If he's anticipating that he himself will have to do it then we again just have to say that he's mistaken. Even if they didn't go on to destroy Cyberdyne and stop Judgment Day - correct me if I'm wrong ajp - he would not have to send back Reese. That plot had already played out and become part of the past. The future is dependent on the past but the past cannot be dependent on the future.

Skynet would not have to worry about jeopardizing its own existence by not again sending a T-800 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor nor does John have to worry about being erased if he doesn't send Reese. In fact, in neither of the two timelines he exists in does the son of Kyle Reese have to send his father back in time. So potentially, and most intriguingly - John will not only meet his dad as Uncle Bob says he will, but they could have a 'happy ever after'...at least until Kyle sees his son die of old age before he does.


I haven't thought of any other problematic things so skipping right to the end



A truly unknown future rolls towards them.



For a final recap then - when watching T1 and T2 together it can be best approached with the understanding that 2 timelines have already played out and you're watching the 3rd with parts of the others hinted at. Alternatively you can reject this whole idea and stick with the filmmakers obvious intent about it being a paradox that just is. Most of us have been content with that for 36 years. But if everything actually can be unravelled and rationalized I feel like that's a better way to go because



The movies kinda step on their own message a bit. T1 in particular seems to be insistent on the closed loop while if you also take into account the alternate, never filmed opening for T2 that I brought up before - where future John is fully aware that he must send back Reese and Uncle Bob - because it's a loop, he already lived through the events we're about to be shown - so even if the movie omitted the whole demolition of Cyberdyne stuff, we would know that John obviously always survived anyway because, well, there he is - sending back Reese and Uncle Bob. Talk about diminishing the stakes.

The parallel open-ended timelines are therefore much more in keeping with 'No Fate'. Together with the correction of certain major paradoxes via the 3 timelines (and I do now believe it has to be 3 to offer maximum consistency with what the movies present) I think I can agree with you ajp that this interpretation is more than worthwhile to compensate for whatever is lost. The main issue of contention against it seems to be any piece of dialogue that gives away Cameron/Wisher's intent about the Looping paradox - but in those instances I believe it's technically possible to call it mistaken presumption on the part of human characters.


.........................So whaddaya think?

I have to start with this first because what I think is that I can't imagine a better job being done of breaking down how all of this would work and fit into the 3-timeline scenario. Absolutely spot-on and ****ing outstanding!

My only issue with your post is that it hits every point so definitively that there's not much I can add. Just when I was digging a Terminator discussion more and more, and anticipating the next turn, you go and sort out virtually every loose end and leave us with nowhere left to go. Dammit!

There are a few points I want to further back you on, add to, and respond directly to two areas where you asked for clarification/correction if necessary.



And that's my approach as well. The whole idea is to make the plot logic work while maintaining the thematic takeaway, and to make it work in a way that leaves us with the fewest inconsistencies possible.



You didn't misunderstand, I just worded it horribly. What I meant is that the current-day events no longer *only* happen in one timeline. Everything from 1984 to 1995 happens in two timelines. It's less streamlined, and that's the downside which I thought would be a dealbreaker for you. It's a key reason why I ever tried to simplify things into a 2-timeline scenario in the first place.

But I'm stoked to learn that you're willing to live with that 2nd timeline. And it does contain events exclusive to it that show up on screen (the future war footage from T2, where Skynet would've been more advanced than in timeline #1).



Affirmative. If Sarah hadn't targeted Dyson and Cyberdyne, yet John had still survived, he would end up fighting a future war against a Skynet with its advanced origins rooted in 1984 and no interest in risking those circumstances being undone in *any* timeline. If the T-1000 were to be defeated in a similar way where Uncle Bob would follow the same course of action to eliminate any trace of their future tech, then Skynet would develop the same way as in #2 and probably follow through on the same logic of targeting an alternate John in 1995.

The cool difference would be that John will have already battled a T-1000 as a 10-year-old by the time he'd face this scenario in 2029. Would he be an even better soldier for it? Maybe. If Skynet sends a terminator to an alternate 1995, would John still send a T-800 to be Uncle Bob, but provide more strategic info this time? Maybe. Lots of intriguing differences could/would play out. But yeah, a mission to 1984 would likely be out of the question, and Kyle wouldn't be sent in place of a T-800 (or whatever would be available) for any mission beyond that.



I think it's more than just a "bit," though. In T1, Kyle tells Sarah that he and the T-800 are from "a possible future." That's exactly how he phrases it. None of these characters ever act as though anything at all is inevitable. It's Cameron trying to have his cake and eating it too.

Cameron wanted characters to be convinced of free will while simultaneously setting them in a deterministic reality where everything in a closed loop *needs* to happen a certain way. These characters, at some point, would recognize inevitability and become more complacent. Instead, they're very proactive because the theme is about making your own destiny. The closed loop would destroy the logic of the characters' behavior (and their intellect in general) as well as destroy the central theme. No thanks.



Precisely. As you noted, any John who exists in a future where Skynet has employed time travel is self-fulfilling evidence that the past wasn't altered in a way that had erased his survival. Also, the closed-loop scenario requires that John be incapable of figuring this out, even after growing up thinking about time travel while knowing exactly when terminators had been sent to his past and how they were defeated.



I obviously agree about the benefits (far) outweighing anything that gets lost. The human characters act like the future is open-ended, so it just works for me on enough levels that once I resolved enough of the nagging logic problems via alternate timelines, I never looked back. Plus, I actually believe that infinite parallel realities exist in some form to account for the probabilistic nature of quantum discoveries in real life, so no great leap required from my existing worldview.

I kinda wish we had more nagging inconsistencies to work through, but I know that it'd be very hard for me to ever feel compelled to regard T1 and T2 as existing in a single deterministic timeline. It's just too nonsensical in multiple ways. If you've reached the same conclusion, then that's awesome! Just want to again say that you couldn't have outlined this any better, or covered all the bases more definitively. I very much appreciate how this now serves as a resource that's like a walkthrough for how the events in these films play out with this 3-timeline interpretation. As a much more knowledgeable Terminator fan than I am, you helped lock me into this point of view more assuredly now (and likely for good). Thank you!

 

[jye4ever]

Yup

a-dev went super nova lol

 

[a-dev]

https://youtu.be/SO0WmL-bJf8?t=162

 

[jye4ever]

DiFabio trying very hard to get up after that word count knock out lol

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Is there a summary of all that? I would appreciate it.

 

[TheDucky]

I hope they bring back Christian Bale. Salvation was the best one.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

I hope they bring back Christian Bale. Salvation was the best one.

Strike two!!!

 

[JAWS]

I hope they bring back Christian Bale. Salvation was the best one.

Strike two!!!

There is a good chance he never saw the first 2

If that is the case then he is right

 

[a-dev]

I have to start with this first because what I think is that I can't imagine a better job being done of breaking down how all of this would work and fit into the 3-timeline scenario. Absolutely spot-on and ****ing outstanding!

My only issue with your post is that it hits every point so definitively that there's not much I can add. Just when I was digging a Terminator discussion more and more, and anticipating the next turn, you go and sort out virtually every loose end and leave us with nowhere left to go. Dammit!

Your brain seems to work a lot faster than mine. I could hardly fathom after those pretty major issues I raised with the 2 timeline concept how you were able to pivot so quickly and come up with such a great solution. It seemed like it had great promise but I was concerned that ''nope, too good to be true, there's gotta be something else that will disallow this aswell''. A deeper dive was required. The whole time I was nervously expecting to come up with a new problem that would cripple the whole endeavor but I couldn't find anything fatal and days later was finally able to complete what was a pretty good post if I do say so myself, reads back OK

And that's my approach as well. The whole idea is to make the plot logic work while maintaining the thematic takeaway, and to make it work in a way that leaves us with the fewest inconsistencies possible.

And that it does. Right now, it seems to me this is a brilliant way of looking at these films which lends them greater logic and plausibility than they've ever had before.

You didn't misunderstand, I just worded it horribly. What I meant is that the current-day events no longer *only* happen in one timeline. Everything from 1984 to 1995 happens in two timelines. It's less streamlined, and that's the downside which I thought would be a dealbreaker for you. It's a key reason why I ever tried to simplify things into a 2-timeline scenario in the first place.

Ah yes. Well that doesn't feel like a problem at all. I kinda love it actually. The way each timeline builds logically from the previous one, and adds to the mythology.

But I'm stoked to learn that you're willing to live with that 2nd timeline. And it does contain events exclusive to it that show up on screen (the future war footage from T2, where Skynet would've been more advanced than in timeline #1).



Affirmative. If Sarah hadn't targeted Dyson and Cyberdyne, yet John had still survived, he would end up fighting a future war against a Skynet with its advanced origins rooted in 1984 and no interest in risking those circumstances being undone in *any* timeline.

There's a discussion point here. How much do you think Timeline 2's Skynet knows about these earliest circumstances of its origin? Do you think it correctly deduces that some version of itself had already existed in another timeline, invented time travel and ended up leaving behind the advanced artefacts that were used in its own development here in this reality? Would it be able to learn that those artefacts were from a Terminator on a failed assassination mission? Would it reason that it was targeting Sarah Connor?

If Uncle Bob had independently expressed knowledge of what happened in T1 we'd know the answer to all or most of these questions but I don't think he does unless there's something I'm forgetting. I know he makes a reference to ''the CPU from the first Terminator'' but I think there he's just working with recently learned information in the conversation with Dyson, Sarah and John.

These could be important questions if we want to cement that, come 2029* of timeline 2, Skynet would definitely not repeat the same mission to 1984 and would choose instead to send the T-1000 to 1995.

*2029 ends up being a key year in both the original timeline and timeline 2 incidentally...sorta like how BTTF has the year 1955. As Doc says

It could mean that that point in time inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance, almost as if it were the temporal junction point of the entire space-time continuum

But yeah, a mission to 1984 would likely be out of the question, and Kyle wouldn't be sent in place of a T-800 (or whatever would be available) for any mission beyond that.

I did wonder - if they could reprogram T-800s - why Kyle Reese would be sent in the first place. So that's why I later made the point of saying how in timeline 2 the Resistance had a long period of experience with T-800s (being that everything had been moved up in time) - as opposed to the relatively short period of experience they'd had with T-800s in the original timeline. So they simply had no idea yet how they could reprogram a T-800 in the original timeline. Hence Reese being sent and the pretty significant unintended consequence of that.

I think it's more than just a "bit," though. In T1, Kyle tells Sarah that he and the T-800 are from "a possible future." That's exactly how he phrases it. None of these characters ever act as though anything at all is inevitable. It's Cameron trying to have his cake and eating it too.

Cameron wanted characters to be convinced of free will while simultaneously setting them in a deterministic reality where everything in a closed loop *needs* to happen a certain way. These characters, at some point, would recognize inevitability and become more complacent. Instead, they're very proactive because the theme is about making your own destiny. The closed loop would destroy the logic of the characters' behavior (and their intellect in general) as well as destroy the central theme. No thanks

Yeah it's all very contradictory isn't it. Honestly I'm surprised it never before occurred to me quite how contradictory it is.

Consider this - Cameron and Wisher have Sarah believing at the end of T1 that not only is everything going to repeat exactly as it already played out; that a Terminator will again be sent to 1984 to kill her and that Kyle Reese will again have to be sent back to protect her - but that it must repeat because if it doesn't then John will never exist.

How then do we, the audience - and more importantly - how does Sarah herself reconcile that with wanting to destroy Cyberdyne, stop Judgment Day and avert the war against the machines? That would create circumstances in which Kyle is never sent.

So it seems to me, Cameron and Wisher just had this idea of the paradox that they latched onto and were going to insist on it no matter how little sense it made to the story and character motivations.

The only 'out' we have - unless you can think of another - is for us to just say ''well what does Sarah know? She's only human and she's simply not thinking it through''.

The monologue is in the movie, I'm not inclined to isolate it in my head and say ''not canon!!'' She says what she says so lets see what the knock-on effects are - and well, she passes this weird idea about how it all works on to John. We see in timeline 3 that young John seems to believe that one day he is going to have to send his father back through time to 1984. This means that the John of timeline 2 believed the same thing all the way up until they bust into the Skynet HQ. At that point he would discover that there was no Terminator sent to 1984. There is a different threat altogether of a T-1000 sent to 1995 to kill him<-if we'd seen that in a movie it would register as a 'twist'. So Sarah's weird notion would have served as a misdirect. We of course don't have a movie depicting that but it's what I'm going with in my new headcanon.

Speaking of a movie set in the future war. I definitely no longer want one. It probably would never have even adhered to my old list of requirements let alone my new ones.

I kinda wish we had more nagging inconsistencies to work through....

No, I'm good. I'm good with what we have thanks

.....but I know that it'd be very hard for me to ever feel compelled to regard T1 and T2 as existing in a single deterministic timeline. It's just too nonsensical in multiple ways. If you've reached the same conclusion, then that's awesome! Just want to again say that you couldn't have outlined this any better, or covered all the bases more definitively. I very much appreciate how this now serves as a resource that's like a walkthrough for how the events in these films play out with this 3-timeline interpretation. As a much more knowledgeable Terminator fan than I am, you helped lock me into this point of view more assuredly now (and likely for good). Thank you!

That's high praise. I certainly like the idea of it being a resource. I just hope Khev doesn't have anything else up his sleeve. *Haydakin voice* They WILL not take it from us!!

 

[JAWS]

Man I love me some Terminator.. But I am so happy i am not nuts about any of them accept the first film.. If I was I would have to read all this stuff and it seems very confusing

 

[ajp4mgs]

There's a discussion point here. How much do you think Timeline 2's Skynet knows about these earliest circumstances of its origin? Do you think it correctly deduces that some version of itself had already existed in another timeline, invented time travel and ended up leaving behind the advanced artefacts that were used in its own development here in this reality? Would it be able to learn that those artefacts were from a Terminator on a failed assassination mission? Would it reason that it was targeting Sarah Connor?

These questions would most likely be answered by what we know, or can at least infer, about the recovered CPU from 1984. If it could be repaired enough to extract data from it, that's all you'd need. But Miles Dyson would have to create the new neural net processor first.

Dyson wouldn't have been able to translate coherent info from the old CPU before Skynet became autonomous (otherwise what he'd learn would likely make him pull the plug on the whole operation). But after he succeeded in creating the new neural net CPU, I could see a scenario where attempts would then be made to repair, or otherwise access, the original one. That would conceivably allow Skynet to interface with all of that data from timeline #1.

Once an autonomous Skynet approaches 2029, it would then potentially not only have info from timeline #1, but also access to "detailed files" about people and events from their current timeline #2. These records could include things like police and medical reports. Any of Sarah's on-the-record accounts about the 1984 incident could therefore be accessible. And a Skynet sophisticated enough to launch a strategic nuclear strike on Russia would easily be able to connect the dots between Sarah's account of 1984 events and the recovered CPU. Plus, Cyberdyne internal records could reference the recovered future tech and their influence on Dyson's work.

If Uncle Bob had independently expressed knowledge of what happened in T1 we'd know the answer to all or most of these questions but I don't think he does unless there's something I'm forgetting. I know he makes a reference to ''the CPU from the first Terminator'' but I think there he's just working with recently learned information in the conversation with Dyson, Sarah and John.

Yeah, I don't recall Uncle Bob directly referencing specific events from T1. Most of that comes across to us by way of police chatter. But unless you're aware of something that would contradict what I just wrote above, it's at least possible that Skynet would've had access to data from the CPU from timeline #1 to go with accounts of the 1984 incident in timeline #2.

I did wonder - if they could reprogram T-800s - why Kyle Reese would be sent in the first place. So that's why I later made the point of saying how in timeline 2 the Resistance had a long period of experience with T-800s (being that everything had been moved up in time) - as opposed to the relatively short period of experience they'd had with T-800s in the original timeline. So they simply had no idea yet how they could reprogram a T-800 in the original timeline. Hence Reese being sent and the pretty significant unintended consequence of that.

Yep; that all fits. As you pointed out before, Reese briefs Sarah on relevant information about how advanced the T-800 model is, and that "these are new." He references the old "600" models that came before that. But with a more advanced Skynet, we get the benefit of T-800's potentially having been around longer in timeline #2, and John having learned more about them for that reason (as well as having been prepared for them by Sarah, which he wouldn't have the benefit of in timeline #1). It also means that if a T-1000 already existed in Reese's timeline, this dialogue about "these are new" would seem strangely misleading. But with the 3-timeline scenario, it actually works just fine.

Yeah it's all very contradictory isn't it. Honestly I'm surprised it never before occurred to me quite how contradictory it is.

Consider this - Cameron and Wisher have Sarah believing at the end of T1 that not only is everything going to repeat exactly as it already played out; that a Terminator will again be sent to 1984 to kill her and that Kyle Reese will again have to be sent back to protect her - but that it must repeat because if it doesn't then John will never exist.

How then do we, the audience - and more importantly - how does Sarah herself reconcile that with wanting to destroy Cyberdyne, stop Judgment Day and avert the war against the machines? That would create circumstances in which Kyle is never sent.

So it seems to me, Cameron and Wisher just had this idea of the paradox that they latched onto and were going to insist on it no matter how little sense it made to the story and character motivations.

The only 'out' we have - unless you can think of another - is for us to just say ''well what does Sarah know? She's only human and she's simply not thinking it through''.

The poignant moment where Sarah carves "NO FATE" into the table says it all. Plus, there's her specific dialogue where she says: "The future, always so clear to me, had become like a black highway at night. We were in uncharted territory now, making up history as we went along."

There's an evolution in her thinking as time goes on. But even without that, I don't think she had ever fully convinced herself of any looped inevitability. At the end of T1, she still questions what she should tell John and what she shouldn't. If Sarah was truly convinced that a fixed future was inevitable, she'd recognize the futility of worrying about what to tell John. It wouldn't matter, right?

The key plot points speak for themselves. Sophisticated machines exist in 1984 and 1995 trying to change a future. We have Uncle Bob recognizing that melting all evidence of future tech after scorching Cyberdyne will change the future. We have Reese talking about "a possible future." We have Sarah taking proactive measures to wipe out the history of Cyberdyne and Skynet. How much of this would be undertaken if any of them were convinced that specific future events would be inevitable?

And again, it's not credibly convincing to me that man and machine would exist in a closed loop of fate while that Miles Dyson plot unfolds the way it did in T2. No way. And the whole time, man and machine (being aware on some level of these time travel scenarios) wouldn't *all* be so oblivious to the relevant logic questions that we raise as an audience.

The monologue is in the movie, I'm not inclined to isolate it in my head and say ''not canon!!'' She says what she says so lets see what the knock-on effects are - and well, she passes this weird idea about how it all works on to John. We see in timeline 3 that young John seems to believe that one day he is going to have to send his father back through time to 1984. This means that the John of timeline 2 believed the same thing all the way up until they bust into the Skynet HQ. At that point he would discover that there was no Terminator sent to 1984. There is a different threat altogether of a T-1000 sent to 1995 to kill him<-if we'd seen that in a movie it would register as a 'twist'. So Sarah's weird notion would have served as a misdirect. We of course don't have a movie depicting that but it's what I'm going with in my new headcanon.

You're pointing out evidence of John believing that the future is set in stone until he reaches a different understanding in 2029, but there's equal (arguably *more*) evidence that he was also never fully committed to the idea of inevitability. At age 10, he pulls a terminator arm out his backpack at the end of T2 in an obvious effort to have the future re-written in the present. He believes in this even after seeing his mother's tales of time-traveling terminators actually materialize in front of his eyes. No fate.

No, I'm good. I'm good with what we have thanks




That's high praise. I certainly like the idea of it being a resource. I just hope Khev doesn't have anything else up his sleeve. *Haydakin voice* They WILL not take it from us!!

No view is worth holding onto if it can't stand up to scrutiny, so I'd welcome any attempt to knock this down. But did you really have to invoke Haydakin?

 

[Bravomite]

Wow great discussion and now I will never view time travel in these movies the same way.

I was mulling this over last night whilst my wife was watching 'a discovery of witches' (awful show) which also features time travel plot devices heavily. So whilst vampires and witches were getting all angsty on screen in their period drama costumes I turned to her and said 'I gotsa to know, does the time travel in this follow BTTF rules, Cameron's closed loop no fate rules for Terminator or AJP and Adev's super deluxe end game style rules for terminator?'. After explaining meticulously how each would have different consequences for her show she decided that she would continuing watching it on her own in future and we switched over to CobraKai. AJP and Adev's time travel rules just keep on getting better haha.

 

[jye4ever]

Cameron just announced the a-jpdev cut of T2

 

[ajp4mgs]

Wow great discussion and now I will never view time travel in these movies the same way.

The simplest truth is that paradoxes and other plot nonsense cannot be avoided in stories using time travel to change the past, *unless* those stories exist in one of these two realities:

1.) A single timeline. This means that every moment in the present makes it impossible for anything in the past to have ever happened differently. In other words: a closed-loop reality of predetermined fate.

or

2.) Multiple timelines. Here, any change to the past actually ends up branching off a separate open-ended timeline. In other words: a reality of complete free will.

I was mulling this over last night whilst my wife was watching 'a discovery of witches' (awful show) which also features time travel plot devices heavily. So whilst vampires and witches were getting all angsty on screen in their period drama costumes I turned to her and said 'I gotsa to know, does the time travel in this follow BTTF rules, Cameron's closed loop no fate rules for Terminator or AJP and Adev's super deluxe end game style rules for terminator?'. After explaining meticulously how each would have different consequences for her show she decided that she would continuing watching it on her own in future and we switched over to CobraKai. AJP and Adev's time travel rules just keep on getting better haha.

Making better sense of the Terminator 1 & 2 plot logic, plus freeing Bravomite from angsty witch/vampire shows. Well a-dev, I'd say our work here is done.

Cameron just announced the a-jpdev cut of T2

Planned as 8 installments for streaming, but we're still negotiating for a single feature release instead.

But no, the whole point of this exercise has been to take the first two Terminator films *exactly as is* and have them actually make sense together in a way that closed-loop explanation never can.

 

[a-dev]

@ Bravomite & Jye

Man I've gotta watch Endgame again. I didn't quite understood its time travel rules as defined by Professor Hulk but maybe I would now. I know one major difference they have in that film VS Terminator is that their time travellers can return to their own timelines.

These questions would most likely be answered by what we know, or can at least infer, about the recovered CPU from 1984. If it could be repaired enough to extract data from it, that's all you'd need. But Miles Dyson would have to create the new neural net processor first.

Dyson wouldn't have been able to translate coherent info from the old CPU before Skynet became autonomous (otherwise what he'd learn would likely make him pull the plug on the whole operation). But after he succeeded in creating the new neural net CPU, I could see a scenario where attempts would then be made to repair, or otherwise access, the original one. That would conceivably allow Skynet to interface with all of that data from timeline #1.

Once an autonomous Skynet approaches 2029, it would then potentially not only have info from timeline #1, but also access to "detailed files" about people and events from their current timeline #2. These records could include things like police and medical reports. Any of Sarah's on-the-record accounts about the 1984 incident could therefore be accessible. And a Skynet sophisticated enough to launch a strategic nuclear strike on Russia would easily be able to connect the dots between Sarah's account of 1984 events and the recovered CPU. Plus, Cyberdyne internal records could reference the recovered future tech and their influence on Dyson's work.

Yeah, I don't recall Uncle Bob directly referencing specific events from T1. Most of that comes across to us by way of police chatter. But unless you're aware of something that would contradict what I just wrote above, it's at least possible that Skynet would've had access to data from the CPU from timeline #1 to go with accounts of the 1984 incident in timeline #2.

The part I've bolded is actually all that I had thought of and I wondered would that alone be enough for Skynet to make all necessary conclusions such that it would decide against sending a Terminator to 1984 'again'. The idea that at some point information from the original Terminator's CPU could be accessed hadn't really occurred to me because of Dyson's line in T2 ''I mean it was smashed - it didn't work - but it gave us ideas, took us in new directions - things we would have never......all my work was based on it''

But perhaps further down the line in Timeline 2 - (pre-Judgment Day?) - it could have been repaired sufficiently and Skynet would have access to this information.

So assuming it becomes cognizant of its new origins I suppose Skynet would indeed be wary of interfering with that in the new timeline it was creating. Thus it would not send another Terminator to 1984 - understanding that the whole point of targeting Sarah Connor is to kill her before John is born - that would mean placing the new Terminator into the same timeframe in which the original T-800 was operating. Any action taken would likely prevent that Terminator from ending up where he needs to end up. So it chose the next best opportunity it could find - terminating John himself in 1995. Would you concur?

Yep; that all fits. As you pointed out before, Reese briefs Sarah on relevant information about how advanced the T-800 model is, and that "these are new." He references the old "600" models that came before that. But with a more advanced Skynet, we get the benefit of T-800's potentially having been around longer in timeline #2, and John having learned more about them for that reason (as well as having been prepared for them by Sarah, which he wouldn't have the benefit of in timeline #1). It also means that if a T-1000 already existed in Reese's timeline, this dialogue about "these are new" would seem strangely misleading. But with the 3-timeline scenario, it actually works just fine.

I thought this was great - the idea of the second timeline explaining the technological leap of the T-1000 - there are those who found the T-1000 too 'magical' for their liking but I think this theory goes some way towards accounting for it.

A question though - if we retain that bit of expanded lore that Skynet 'feared' the T-1000 I wonder why it used it for the 1995 mission. We know it had T-800s available. Though this question applies regardless of our reinterpretation of the timelines.

No view is worth holding onto if it can't stand up to scrutiny, so I'd welcome any attempt to knock this down. But did you really have to invoke Haydakin?

Sorry master. I forgot you don't like Haydakin. Oops I did it again. And now I've invoked Britney Spears in a red catsuit



I've been trying to respond to the other major part of your last post. I still have trouble with the fact that Sarah says ''if you don't send Kyle you can never be'' in her tape to John at the end of T1 but I'm having trouble arranging my thoughts or even figuring out what point I want to make so, honestly, I've just given up.

 

[snoop101]

Man I love me some Terminator.. But I am so happy i am not nuts about any of them accept the first film.. If I was I would have to read all this stuff and it seems very confusing

I love the first two movies. But I could never analyze them to that extent either. Seems exhausting.

 

[ajp4mgs]

The part I've bolded is actually all that I had thought of and I wondered would that alone be enough for Skynet to make all necessary conclusions such that it would decide against sending a Terminator to 1984 'again'. The idea that at some point information from the original Terminator's CPU could be accessed hadn't really occurred to me because of Dyson's line in T2 ''I mean it was smashed - it didn't work - but it gave us ideas, took us in new directions - things we would have never......all my work was based on it''

But perhaps further down the line in Timeline 2 - (pre-Judgment Day?) - it could have been repaired sufficiently and Skynet would have access to this information.

After Skynet becomes autonomous (and Dyson would no longer be needed), the technological developments seem to kick into higher gear in the 21st century. Ground and air assault tech are developed, terminators are produced (with living tissue and even bad breath!), and Skynet presumably even creates a functioning system for time travel! Based on that context, I have to believe that the technological leaps made by Skynet between 1997 and 2029 would easily allow for repair of the recovered CPU. At the very least, repair it enough to retrieve info from it.

So assuming it becomes cognizant of its new origins I suppose Skynet would indeed be wary of interfering with that in the new timeline it was creating. Thus it would not send another Terminator to 1984 - understanding that the whole point of targeting Sarah Connor is to kill her before John is born - that would mean placing the new Terminator into the same timeframe in which the original T-800 was operating. Any action taken would likely prevent that Terminator from ending up where he needs to end up. So it chose the next best opportunity it could find - terminating John himself in 1995. Would you concur?

I do concur that avoiding any undoing of the previous 1984 events would indeed be a logical objective that Skynet would reach. But I want to stop here to explain what I base that on just in case it seems like I'm attributing too much strategic calculation to the Skynet AI.

Skynet is described to have started as a strategic defense program trusted with replacing human military decision-making. Within a single month (from August 4th to the 29th of 1997), it gains self-awareness and employs an autonomous reaction in self defense against humanity. The nuclear strike on Russia, with a specific expected response, shows how accurate and adaptive its strategic formulations already were in 1997. And Skynet would've only grown *more* deductive and strategically sound all the way into 2029.

With all that said, Skynet could've arrived at the specific choice of 1995 perhaps to ensure that Miles Dyson would be far enough along not to risk tampering with him reaching certain benchmarks (by potentially exposing him to more future tech that he wouldn't have accounted for). And in 1995, John would still be young enough to dispose of with ease. He was a prodigy who would be formidable beyond his years as he got closer to adulthood, though. It would obviously be best to still target him well before he gets old enough to already be the resourceful battlefield warrior he proved to be in the 21st century.

I thought this was great - the idea of the second timeline explaining the technological leap of the T-1000 - there are those who found the T-1000 too 'magical' for their liking but I think this theory goes some way towards accounting for it.

A question though - if we retain that bit of expanded lore that Skynet 'feared' the T-1000 I wonder why it used it for the 1995 mission. We know it had T-800s available. Though this question applies regardless of our reinterpretation of the timelines.

I think Skynet awareness of the T1 1984 events would help here too. Sarah had seen a T-800 in 1984 and might've prepared John for ways to defeat one. More importantly, the 1984 T-800 had indeed been defeated. The T-1000 would therefore represent a more reliable assassin with greater versatility.

Plus, with multiple timelines, wouldn't the need for an expanded lore explanation of why a T-1000 wasn't sent to 1984 become a moot point anyway? The reason why becomes a matter of there not being a T-1000 available to that first version of Skynet. So no need to create a Skynet "fear" of the T-1000. Is there anything in the film that alludes to any such thing being necessary if we apply the multiple timelines interpretation?

Oops I did it again. And now I've invoked Britney Spears in a red catsuit

Invoking that visual is something I will never object to.

I've been trying to respond to the other major part of your last post. I still have trouble with the fact that Sarah says ''if you don't send Kyle you can never be'' in her tape to John at the end of T1 but I'm having trouble arranging my thoughts or even figuring out what point I want to make so, honestly, I've just given up.

Sarah was still trying to sort things out. If she believed that John couldn't have existed any other way only 6 months after conceiving him, I can compartmentalize her logic that way. But what's more important to me is her eventual view that she *could* change the future, not just for John but for all of humanity. And I think most people would agree that the ending of T2 was supposed to symbolize a departure from any sort of closed-loop reality where fate is locked in and unavoidable.

I love the first two movies. But I could never analyze them to that extent either. Seems exhausting.

It might seem more complicated and exhausting here because a-dev and I are willing to get into the weeds. But the basic premise is simple enough: the first two movies make more sense when you allow for multiple timelines because that gets rid of most of the paradoxes and contradictions that exist otherwise.