Xisiqomelir
Member
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.
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So can someone explain the Terminator storyline to me
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Incredible
T2 completely rewrites the rules of time travel.
According to T1, time is a closed loop. Nothing changes. Whatever happened, happened. Kyle Reese and the Terminator always went back in time, Judgment Day always happened as planned. T1 leads directly into the war, which leads directly into John Connor leading humans nearly to victory, which leads directly to the machines sending the Terminator back in time, and John Connor sending Kyle Reese back after the Terminator.
T2, on the other hand, implies that things can be changed. That's like half the plot of the movie, trying to stop Skynet from ever being created. It also implies that the T-800 going back in time has sped up the development of machines and Skynet.
TheKaeptain
Banned
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.
You are such a dork.
Himynameischris
Member
And now I need to play Chrono Trigger again...damn..
Anyways thanks to the show and 3rd/4th movie it's best not to think about it. (Better yet ignore the 3rd and 4th movies, I loved the show lol)
vicissitudes
Banned
Kyle Reese is not John's father. Sarah is a slut. She slept with someone else right after and John was born. Then John sent Kyle Reese back to the past.
This is the only explanation. Search your heart, you know it to be true.
This is the only explanation. Search your heart, you know it to be true.
Team Filler
Member
Imagine a banana, or anything curved. Actually, don't do that, forget the banana.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
T1 does not establish any firm rules. Kyle believes nothing can be changed, the terminators believe things can be changed (since they are the ones in part one attempting to change the future). Anything beyond this are your assumptions. While they are logical assumptions mainly established by Kyle being John's father, they are still assumptions and not rules Cameron should have or did feel tied to when it came to T2.
T2 never "implies" that the future can be changed, the characters hypothesize that it can. Sarah hopes it can be (as she did in part one) and the terminator thinks it could work (as all the terminators did in part one).
I don't see how the terminator from part one helping in the advancement of the machines doesn't fit with your theory of whatever happened happened. Forgetting about the garbage that is T3, you can imagine that after T2, judgement day happened exactly when and how it always had. Or they all lived happily ever after and the machines never went crazy.
ryutaro's mama
Member
The only problem I have is, a super computer like SkyNet would make every effort to be successful.
In reality, it would have sent multiple T-800s to 1984, 1985, 1986 and so on to make sure it was successful.
(yeah, yeah, there wasn't enough time, SKYNET could only send back one)
But I'm just nitpicking one of my favorite 2 movies.
In reality, it would have sent multiple T-800s to 1984, 1985, 1986 and so on to make sure it was successful.
(yeah, yeah, there wasn't enough time, SKYNET could only send back one)
But I'm just nitpicking one of my favorite 2 movies.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
Yeah, no time, like you said. Wasn't the resistance attacking when the T800 was sent back? So I assume they send Arnold back, then Kyle and crew bust through the doors, realize what has just happened, send Kyle back, and blow the place up. Had the humans not attacked, you can assume Skynets plans would have been far more grand than just sending a single terminator back.
At the end of the movie, we see Sarah get her picture taken, and the photo is the exact same photo that Kyle Reese had earlier. The entire point of that scene is to tell the viewer that nothing has changed, they've just made sure the future happens the way it's supposed to.
They bring down Cyberdyne. The entire theme of the movie is "No fate but what you make." How can you claim that changing the future was never implied?
Because an ontological paradox is different from a causality loop.
If Cyberdyne learned about machine technology by examining a machine that's descended from the machines they made, then who originally invented the machines? Nobody. Somehow, it just always existed. X came from Y, and Y came from X. This is an ontological paradox.
Kyle Reese being John Connor's father isn't an ontological paradox, but a causality loop. There is no information or physical object that magically spawns out of a paradox, just time travel that causes more time travel.
T1 was built on the idea of a causality loop. T2 introduces paradoxes or future changing or both.
Perfect.
And as for grandfather paradoxes in sci-fi, I've just passively accepted in my mind that intrusions into the past create new timelines while still preserving the original ones they came from. It's a conceit that just allows everything to make sense.
Kung Fu Jedi
Member
Sheesh! I didn't realize so many people had issues with Terminator's time travel premise. As far as movie-time travel plots it's one of the tighter ones really. I'm not sure how a viewer couldn't get that Reese was the father, that Sarah told John that, and John always knew that he had to send him back.
Seems pretty straight forward to me.
Seems pretty straight forward to me.
SCULLIBUNDO
Banned
'No fate' is the hope. Just like Sarah says at the ending of T2:
The unknown future rolls forward. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope...
There is only the hope of changing the future. T2 doesn't retcon anything from T1. It shows no evidence of the future changing in the slightest from their actions.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
"Basically, what I wanted to say in Terminator 2 was that everything is meant to be a certain way, everything has already been written. You can call it karma or destiny, whatever. So I asked myself a hypothetical question: what if you could you grab a line of history like it's a rope stretched between two points, and just pull it out of the way? If you can pull it just a little bit out of the way then cut it at that moment, maybe you could change it and history could go in a slightly different direction. Like the catastrophe theory. If you could actually do that you would get a future that no longer exists except in the memories of the people who are here now. They have a memory of a future that will never happen, which is curious, because it defies our Newtonian view of the world. But couldn't it be possible? That became my point of departure. It's like the Terminator is an anomaly of our time because he's the only one who has memories of a time that will never exist. His particular future does not exist anymore." James Cameron
MarkMclovin
Member
Why does John send Kyle to the past, when he's still alive? Did he expect to just disappear if he didn't send him?
Probably when a certain time pass (when kyle is too old to produce semen), John would suddenly look different because his mom retroactively fuck a diffetent guy.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
I could just see John and Kyle's last conversation.
"Reese, I'm sending you back in time to stop the Terminator."
"Why, John?"
"Because you're quite literally the hardest motherfucker I know."
"Reese, I'm sending you back in time to stop the Terminator."
"Why, John?"
"Because you're quite literally the hardest motherfucker I know."
Sho_Nuff82
Member
How this never occurred to a self-aware supercomputer is beyond me. Sending a an assassin through time to kill his mother seems perfectly reasonable, but squashing his father like a bug (or, to be super sure, replacing him with a robotic double who then kills John Connor by shooting him in the face rather than rag-doll tossing him like Ahnold) is too much trouble? I blame Sam Worthington.
MisterHero
Super Member
Judgment Day is inevitable because there's toys to be sold
I will watch T5 only because of Arnold, and even that won't be pretty
I will watch T5 only because of Arnold, and even that won't be pretty
It's called a Predestination Paradox. It makes perfect sense in a universe where time travel is possible. Frankly, I don't see why people struggle with this so much.
Now, if you want a paradox that seems to defy all logic try the Boostrap Paradox (information from nothing).
All of the discussion is hilarious when you consider that the only reason time travel existed in Terminator is because James Cameron couldn't afford to make a future Terminator movie. It had to be modern day for budgetary reasons. Time travel was just a mechanism to get the Terminator into modern day.
Kyle volunteered to go because he'd fallen in love with Sarah.
The Lamonster
Member
Okay, I'll buy it. I always kind of assumed they successfully changed the future (Senator Connor deleted scene, eh?), but your theory actually makes the most sense.
And I agree - story ends @ T2 (even though TSCC was actually pretty good and mostly respectful to the source material).
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
Again, the Terminators were the ones attempting to change the future in part one, they failed. So, of course the outcome is that nothing changed, that's what Sarah and Kyle were fighting for.
That in no way implies that it was impossible for the terminator to kill Sarah and change the future.
Just because the characters hope they can, does not imply that they in fact can. I can hope to sprout wings and fly, doesn't mean I can, or that I won't try. The movie in no way ever implies that they succeeded in changing the future.
Terminator 1 = Terminators try to kill Sarah, ensuring the leader of the resistance is never born, changing the future so that they win the war.
Terminator 2 = Sarah tries to destroy Cyberdyne, ensuring Skynet is never created, changing the future so the war never happens.
What's the difference?
That is never stated in the movies. That's the joy of never giving answer as to how your time travel plot works, you don't know what would have happened and Cameron never gives you any answers, outside of the fact that it seems that whatever happens happened.
There were 10 years in between T1 and T2, if Dyson hadn't been working with the CPU from the first terminator, he would have still done something in those 10 years. And who is to say it wouldn't have lead to the advanced microprocessor he was supposed to invent a few months after T2? And then he still has 3 or 4 years before Skynet goes live.
My point is, there are no firm rules established in T1 or T2. Only viewer theories. And Sculli's chart of madness is the correct theory, and T2 fits in that circle of life just fine.
The Librarian
Banned
That's the wrong question to ask. That would be like asking me to point you to a corner of Earth.
I think there is here a missed opportunity to completely blow people away with a new Terminator movie that is not a prequel nor a sequel but something in the middle.
Let me explain.
Skynet would send another Terminator back in time to 1984 to help out the first T800 that failed. At the same time John Connor would also travel back to 1984 to stop that new terminator of helping the old terminator. The movie would be set in the 80s of course and with the help of movie magic and cgi the characters could cross paths with Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor and interact with them. The ending would be double awesome, while Sarah Connor was trying to crush the T800 in the metal press, the action would have a parallel story of John Connor crushing the other Terminator in another metal press except that here they both die!
It would be the "Terminator 1.5" or "Terminator - Double Impact"
Just kidding, only Terminator 1 and 2 matter. Don't make more movies please.
P.S. and think of the sequel to this mehquel! Terminator 2.5!
Let me explain.
Skynet would send another Terminator back in time to 1984 to help out the first T800 that failed. At the same time John Connor would also travel back to 1984 to stop that new terminator of helping the old terminator. The movie would be set in the 80s of course and with the help of movie magic and cgi the characters could cross paths with Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor and interact with them. The ending would be double awesome, while Sarah Connor was trying to crush the T800 in the metal press, the action would have a parallel story of John Connor crushing the other Terminator in another metal press except that here they both die!
It would be the "Terminator 1.5" or "Terminator - Double Impact"
Just kidding, only Terminator 1 and 2 matter. Don't make more movies please.
P.S. and think of the sequel to this mehquel! Terminator 2.5!
It doesn't need to be stated. I am explaining to you the entire concept of the ontological paradox.
Let me try again.
There are two possibilities that come from Miles Dyson studying the Terminator hand:
1) This was always how it happened, and how Cyberdyne learned about machines. This is an ontological paradox, because the technology has no beginning. It is impossible, even for a time travel story that allows for the John Connor/Kyle Reese causality loop.
2) This was not how it always happened, and the Terminator hand changed the past. In this instance, the future can change.
Both possibilities introduce their own problems into the original movie's tight causality loop. Either there's a big plot hole, or the future can be changed.
I mean, I guess there's a third option:
3) The Terminator's hand and Miles Dyson had nothing to do with anything, meaning half the plot of T2 was completely pointless.
But that can't be it, because that would just be bad storytelling.
Anyway, this argument is kinda pointless, because from this:
You clearly haven't really wrapped your head around the concept of time travel.
The Terminator couldn't kill Sarah Connor because it didn't kill Sarah Connor. That's what a causality loop is.
"Well, what if he did--" but he didn't that's the point.
Joe: "Wait a second. What are we gonna do? Wait, okay, I know. Here's what we do. We just go to the time machine, then when I get back to the past, I tell her not to do the experiment. Then she won't even be her. That'll work, right?"
Frito: "Uh--"
Joe: "No, no, wait a second. She already is here. So, that must mean I didn't go back in time, right?"
Frito: "Uh--"
Joe: "No, wait, hold on. It just means I haven't done it yet. Okay, so, I go back an tell her not to do the experiment. Then I won't have to do it either because she won't be here. Then I won't have to come back and save her, right?"
Frito: "I--"
Joe: "But then, wait. Why am I still here?"
Frito: "Uh--"
Joe: "How does this time travel work?"
Marty Chinn
Member
But that doesn't make any sense. If they have the potential to change events, clearly there has to be a way to change the future. It's clearly stated that Dyson's fate was different before than it was in T2. If you can kill Dyson now, why can't you kill John Connor which in turn changes the future?
Bolt Vanderhuge
Member
Midiclorians.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
My understanding was that Cyberdyne were under contract to develop SkyNet by the US Armed Forces. With their access to the T-101's CPU and arm they were able to develop SkyNet quicker and in a predetermined way. Without Cyberdyne, the US Armed Forces still developed SkyNet but it took a lot longer to do so... and why in the fuck am I even talking about Terminator 3 like this. Godamn industrian, next thing you know you'll be talking about how the Incomplete Death Star in Return of the Jedi would have fucked up Endor after it was destroyed.
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