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So can someone explain the Terminator storyline to me

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-viper-

Banned
How does Kyle Reese (John Connor is already alive in the future) go back in time to become John Connor's dad?

It doesn't really make sense to me. It feels like a time paradox.
 

joe2187

Banned
2zxi.jpg
 

Ecotic

Member
It's best if you don't think about it too much. The time paradox is probably best thought of as a "Wait, what? No way." wink by the movie's writers.
 

dojokun

Banned
Yeah, this is what bothered me about Terminator as well. Other sci-fi universes like Star Trek always show or explain to you the original event that caused time-travelling cycle. Like when Tasha Yar went back in time with the Enterprise C to eventually give birth to a half Romulan daughter.
 
The Terminator universe assumes a cyclical timeline that repeats and repeats. There is no beginning nor end. It is a loop that has always and will always go on.

0nD6Q.png
 

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
Each one rewrites the previous.

T1. There is only one time line, and its just events playing out that are supposed to happen. There is just a jump is all where the two points intertwine.
T2. Nope, we can change it now! The future can change. New options!
T3. Oh no, you can't change the future. Certain events have to happen. New arrangements!
T4. Christian Bale
 
Each one rewrites the previous.

T1. There is only one time line, and its just events playing out that are supposed to happen. There is just a jump is all where the two points intertwine.
T2. Nope, we can change it now! The future can change. New options!
T3. Oh no, you can't change the future. Certain events have to happen. New arrangements!
T4. Christian Bale

Nope. T2 only provides the hope to change the future. There is absolutely nothing to say they can.
 

jetjevons

Bish loves my games!
John Connor never tells Kyle Reese he is his father, even though John knows. But he gives Kyle a photo of his Mom, Sarah Conner. Kyle falls in love with Sarah long before he meets her.
 
Hi, we're SkyNet, and we need to destroy John Connor. So we're going to use his teenage dad, Kyle Reese, as bait to lure him into our clutches so we can trap and kill him.

Of course, we could make it much easier on ourselves by just capturing Kyle Reese and shooting him in the fucking head, but explosions.
 
What story? Arnold killing people, then not killing people but kicking ass, then getting his ass kicked, then turning into a CGI killer...THE END...
 
The Terminator movies each used a different theory of time travel. The first movie assumed time was linear and unchanging, Kyle was always John's father and nothing could alter the past or future.

In Terminator 2 the characters changed the past and affected the future. Though I never saw T3 I think it may have actually addressed this issue somewhat by having Skynet launch anyway without being invented by the dude in T2, though that still suggests that the guy originally invented it and that was changed by Sarah and John in T2.

So basically, T1 assumes an unchanging single timeline, T2 assumes a malleable timeline with alternate futures, and T3 assumes that no matter what you change in the past some things are destined to eventually happen.
 

protonion

Member
And how the hell Biff -after giving the magazine to his young self- returned to the original timeline so that Marty and doc get their car? HUH?

Time travel movies suck.
 
And how the hell Biff -after giving the magazine to his young self- returned to the original timeline so that Marty and doc get their car? HUH?

Time travel movies suck.
The changes hadn't caught up to the future. By the time Marty and the Doc used the Delorean to go back, the changes caught up and altered 1985.
 

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Hi, we're SkyNet, and we need to destroy John Connor. So we're going to use his teenage dad, Kyle Reese, as bait to lure him into our clutches so we can trap and kill him.

Of course, we could make it much easier on ourselves by just capturing Kyle Reese and shooting him in the fucking head, but explosions.

How did they even know that Kyle Reese was his father? Or even simpler, how did they even know he was important at all? Terminator Salvation was a complete clusterfuck.
 
Time is not linear,

It can be assumed that since only "the moment exists" then Kyle has always been John's dad and its simply a quirk of manipulating time.

No paradox exists its just a simple cause of cause and effect.

No one came first.


Another explanation is

my own personal dual time line theory.

Before Movies ("Zero Timeline")
Sarah Connor falls in love with person X and has John, Mike Dyson creates skynet a little later ( since he didnt have the T-800 arm) but judgement day still happens in 1997.

Zero John has essentially the same upbringing as John absent farther/raised via mother so he is essentially the same guy, different looks but still

Movies (this is the point the "loop" starts "Prime Timeline")
Zero John fathers Kyle and Kyle is sent back in time to stop the T-800 and protect Sarah, however this is the first meeting and they fall in love and give birth to Prime John cue Cycle.

Problem?
 

Sheppard

Member
The changes hadn't caught up to the future. By the time Marty and the Doc used the Delorean to go back, the changes caught up and altered 1985.

That is how I saw it. Since Marty and Doc go back and fix everything, the OG timeline is still there.
 
They killed the guy who invented Skynet to prevent it from being created.

They didn't kill him, cops did. Also, it was a theory that killing Dyson would change things. You never see if it does or not. As a matter of fact, the movie ends with Sarah wondering if what they did will work.


It's also never established in part one that you can't change the future, though people like to say it is. One character says you can't change things, Kyle. The terminators obviously think it's possible, since the whole plot is that they are trying to fix the future so that they don't lose the war.
 

Shahadan

Member
I have more problems with the fact that Skynet doesn't try to send terminators before or shortly after what happened in the movies.
 
I have more problems with the fact that Skynet doesn't try to send terminators before or shortly after what happened in the movies.

You would assume the future terminators have no clue how things turn out, unless the terminators in the past leave notes for their future selves. Also, in theory it wasn't possible for anyone to time travel after Reese, he says the factory was destroyed after he went through. Never explained how they did it in part 2, and fuck part three, I refuse to acknowledge it when discussing how the movies work.
 

Lynn616

Member
People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.
 

MisterHero

Super Member
Everything happens as it was supposed to, if Kyle wasn't the original father of John Connor, the circumstances wouldn't have led to the photo of Sarah in the future. It's the same one from the ending (it already happened).

T3 made stuff up to validate its own storyline, as did Sarah Connor Chronicles*, and so did the final version of T2 by getting rid of the good future ending.

*I loved Season 1
 

gabbo

Member
Another explanation is

my own personal dual time line theory.

Movies (this is the point the "loop" starts "Prime Timeline")
Zero John fathers Kyle and Kyle is sent back in time to stop the T-800 and protect Sarah, however this is the first meeting and they fall in love and give birth to Prime John cue Cycle.

Problem?

John is not Kyle's father?
 

Balphon

Member
The original timeline resulted in Kyle Reese going back in time and altering the timeline in a way that was self-perpetuating.
 

KevinCow

Banned
Each one rewrites the previous.

T1. There is only one time line, and its just events playing out that are supposed to happen. There is just a jump is all where the two points intertwine.
T2. Nope, we can change it now! The future can change. New options!
T3. Oh no, you can't change the future. Certain events have to happen. New arrangements!
TSCC. The future is constantly changing! Also T3 totally never happened.
T4. Christian Bale, also TSCC totally never happened

Added the one you forgot.

But yeah, pretty much.

It's a big clusterfuck that doesn't really make any sense past the first movie.
 
Did Skynet send all three terminators back at the same time? If so was it just a backup plan or did they know the first two failed?
 
Did Skynet send all three terminators back at the same time? If so was it just a backup plan or did they know the first two failed?

Fuck part three. It's never explained in any way in part two how they time traveled again. Probably because it would be lame to actually say on screen "there was a back up time traveling machine," or "they built another".


The Terminator universe assumes a cyclical timeline that repeats and repeats. There is no beginning nor end. It is a loop that has always and will always go on.

0nD6Q.png


I have seen you set bitches straight on this all multiple times, and enjoyed the shit out of it each time. But, I've never seen this before. A fucking work of art.
 
Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the face of time, and I can tell you: they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm. You may wonder who I am or why I say this. Sit down and I will tell you a tale like none you have ever heard.
 
Everything happens as it was supposed to, if Kyle wasn't the original father of John Connor, the circumstances wouldn't have led to the photo of Sarah in the future. It's the same one from the ending (it already happened).

T3 made stuff up to validate its own storyline, as did Sarah Connor Chronicles*, and so did the final version of T2 by getting rid of the good future ending.

*I loved Season 1

T2 alternate ending??

*looks on YouTube*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=780llTKt3uM

Woah!
 

FyreWulff

Member
You would assume the future terminators have no clue how things turn out, unless the terminators in the past leave notes for their future selves. Also, in theory it wasn't possible for anyone to time travel after Reese, he says the factory was destroyed after he went through. Never explained how they did it in part 2, and fuck part three, I refuse to acknowledge it when discussing how the movies work.

Man I'm still annoyed that they changed Salvation's ending, much less the holes from the other one.
 

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.
You are the best person.
 
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