• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Someone explain Terminator 3 to me

Status
Not open for further replies.

Seth C

Member
So I just saw it. How does all t his crap exist? I thought the designs were all based on the T-100 stuck in the past? That stuff was all destroyed. Did that basically just delay them? Did some of the initial work remain? I missed the first 10 minutes or so, so maybe this was explained....
 
Judgement Day was going to happen no matter what. They just postponed it.

The whole key to the thing was the girls father. He was the only one that could stop Skynet at the end. They just delayed Judgement Day.
 

Seth C

Member
Right, I hear that, but does it make sense? I mean, the robots and all? I thought they were all designed based on the stuff they learned from the T-100 left in the past, which was then destroyed?
 

Willco

Hollywood Square
Seth C said:
Right, I hear that, but does it make sense? I mean, the robots and all? I thought they were all designed based on the stuff they learned from the T-100 left in the past, which was then destroyed?

They left themselves a couple of loopholes that even Cameron acknowledges. One, Arnold from T2 leaves his arm from his fight at the end in the past. Two, the likelihood of them destroying all information based on the future robot designs in T2 is not very good.
 

Willco

Hollywood Square
Mama Smurf said:
Has the series ever made sense?

And this is number three. If the Terminator had done his job correctly at the end of T2, technically, John Connor would cease to exist. Along with the damn movies.
 
Basically, back then Arnold was desperate to revive his movie career, so he had his people look for ways to get T3 made, and they found Ann Hurd who has the rights to make the movie, and she hates her ex hubby, who never wanted sequels to his final Terminator movie, the T2, which he made as a finite end to the series, but oh well the hollywood machinary was cranking, so they got the person with the rights to the franchise, and found a fanboy director who thought he could pull it off, and got the money together and made the thing, logical storytelling and intentions of the creator be damned.

The end.
 

Seth C

Member
Willco said:
And this is number three. If the Terminator had done his job correctly at the end of T2, technically, John Connor would cease to exist. Along with the damn movies.

Haha...well yeah, this is very true. I always thought about that, but just ignore all things like that in time travel movies. Otherwise they're no fun. I'm basically just wondering why the T-1s and Skynet still existed, I guess. What became the story of how they were designed, etc.
 

DaMan121

Member
Haha...well yeah, this is very true. I always thought about that, but just ignore all things like that in time travel movies. Otherwise they're no fun. I'm basically just wondering why the T-1s and Skynet still existed, I guess. What became the story of how they were designed, etc.

I think that the time paradox was neatly explained in Back To The Future 2, were a different timeline was created, therefore John Conner could still exist even though Judgment Day would never happen. Beside, if the whole point theme of the movie was destiny (I hate that cause they completely ignore the first two) of Judgment Day, surely the machines would have realised that sending THREE frigin Terminators back in time was pointless as well, since John Connor and the humans kicking their asses would be inevitable as well... STUPID.
 
It's been a while since I've seen Terminator 2, but I don't remember them making it absolutely clear that it was a looping paradox where the Terminator could only exist due to the Terminator going back in time (though John Connor himself is like that...). I figure that people were working on this stuff anyway the "first time" through history, but having the actual parts from the future was a benefit the next time history reached that point. Destroying the parts and some of the people involved slowed things down, but it didn't stop the military from working towards intelligent programs and killing machines.
 

DaMan121

Member
It's been a while since I've seen Terminator 2, but I don't remember them making it absolutely clear that it was a looping paradox where the Terminator could only exist due to the Terminator going back in time (though John Connor himself is like that...). I figure that people were working on this stuff anyway the "first time" through history, but having the actual parts from the future was a benefit the next time history reached that point. Destroying the parts and some of the people involved slowed things down, but it didn't stop the military from working towards intelligent programs and killing machines.

Right, and even Terminator3 writters acknowledge that the 'original' Judgment Day was stopped, so whats the point? Introduce a bunch of other characters that are 'integral' to the resistance made no sense either... guess they had to fill in 2 hours somehow..
 

jett

D-Member
T3 made T2's ending meaningless. It's a nice action movie but otherwise I wish it hadn't been made.
 

Mama Smurf

My penis is still intact.
I dunno, the truck scene was pretty good. And the music played at the end, in the bunker.

Can't say i cared for the "I will....overcome...control...of another machine....even though...i'm only a...robot...with...no will..." scene.
 
It wasn't that bad, I don't think. Sure, the story had some problems (what movie dealing with time travel doesn't?) but it was entertaining. Atleast for me it was. The action scenes were good (chase scene/bathroom fight/etc.) and the acting was decent enough. Anyways, maybe my standards have been lowered due to all the other shitty action movies being released now, but I thought its been one of the better recent action movies.
 

OmniGamer

Member
Was there ever any mention of the "time limitations" of the time-travel thingy, if any? If not, then just go back and kill his great great great great grandmother(s) or great great great great grandfather(s) or whatever. Some time when the connor clan DOESN'T have access to guns. Since the T-X had weapons built in, and the old Arnie model doesn't, she wouldn't have to worry about getting her ass handed to her. Also, it was really stupid how the T-X had Claire(forgot her movie name) in her hands at the beginning, but instead of just snap her neck and be done with it, she flings her away.
 

LakeEarth

Member
OmniGamer said:
Also, it was really stupid how the T-X had Claire(forgot her movie name) in her hands at the beginning, but instead of just snap her neck and be done with it, she flings her away.

I know what you mean, but she just discovered that the primary target (John Connor) was in the area, so suddenly she didn't matter as much, and getting her to tell the T-X where he was was more important.

And about the whole "how did Judgement Day still happen", my thought is that is was always supposed to occur in 2003. But because of the original Terminator parts being found, this sudden advancement in technology 'pushed up' the date to 1997. So they only delayed it.
 

andthebeatgoeson

Junior Member
What about why did Claire whatsherface's father tell her to go to the bunker and lie that they could take down skynet? Why did the chick Terminator have to drive the truck in the truck scene when she could control cars by remote?
 

Particle Physicist

between a quark and a baryon
skinnyrattler said:
What about why did Claire whatsherface's father tell her to go to the bunker and lie that they could take down skynet?

cause he couldnt take down skynet and he wanted to save his daughter..
 
Read the T2 novel, people. It explains everything, including the arm left behind at the factory. It even has an epilogue in 2029, with Judgement Day never happening. T3 was nothing but cheesy fan fiction that made the awesome story of T2 completely meaningless. As far as I'm concerned, it's not canonical.

And the ONLY reason they developed the Skynet technology was because of the original T-100. The book makes this clear. T3 completely forgets Miles Dyson. The whole point of them attacking the CyberDyne building was to eliminate all traces of the research, if T3 is true they accomplished nothing. This movie should never have been made.
 

COCKLES

being watched
Nice action. But the script is crap.

As for the loopholes...well even Cameron convienantly forgot about the 'only living tissue can go through' plot point in T2 - how they hell did the T1000 manage it if it's one big lump of metal?
 
COCKLES said:
Nice action. But the script is crap.

As for the loopholes...well even Cameron convienantly forgot about the 'only living tissue can go through' plot point in T2 - how they hell did the T1000 manage it if it's one big lump of metal?


Think the excuse was since its incased in organic tissue. But that brings up when Sarah Connor asked Kyle why he didn't bring any future weapons when he cud have just incased them in like pig skin or something. Perhaps that could be answered with the humans not wanting any more future technology in the past which might help the machines even more in the future
 

Che

Banned
Mama Smurf said:
Has the series ever made sense?

Well actually it did till an idiot called Jonathan Mostow destroyed the whole concept and transformed the series into a parody of the last two parts.
 
Neutron Night said:
Read the T2 novel, people.
The thing about movie-based novels is...
As far as I'm concerned, it's not canonical.
Because they're being worked on before the film is complete, they're usually based on the script, which usually goes through further changes before being shot... and then further changes happen after being shot. So that epilogue you mention is almost certainly the original ending which they did shoot, but decided to get rid of.
 
MrPing1000 said:
Think the excuse was since its incased in organic tissue. But that brings up when Sarah Connor asked Kyle why he didn't bring any future weapons when he cud have just incased them in like pig skin or something.


The original poster was referring to Robert Patrick's terminator--he was 100% metal, so there was no organic tissue there.

And actually the line from the first Terminator was something like:

"You go naked...something about the field generated by a living organism...nothing dead will go."

"But if this Terminator is metal?"

"Surrounded by living tissue!"

So the ray-gun-in-a-pigskin idea wouldn't work.

BTW, the original Terminator will always be my favorite of the movies. People sometimes forget it was kind of a low-budget surprise hit.
 

Particle Physicist

between a quark and a baryon
COCKLES said:
Nice action. But the script is crap.

As for the loopholes...well even Cameron convienantly forgot about the 'only living tissue can go through' plot point in T2 - how they hell did the T1000 manage it if it's one big lump of metal?


i always wondered why the T1000 didnt bring back weapons hidden inside him.. :/
 

tedtropy

$50/hour, but no kissing on the lips and colors must be pre-separated
The T-101 is an approximately 1-ton machine (according to various mentions in the movies) that seems to have no problem riding a motorcycle. There's alot of things in all of these movies that don't make alot of sense. To me, the Terminator movies have never really been so much about a seal-tight plot as just really good action. Terminator 2 remains, to me, the greatest action movie ever made. I think Terminator 3 sought out to be its own movie, and while it paid alot of homage to T2, I don't think it was a "rip off" of it. Viewed on its own merits, I enjoyed Terminator 3.
 

COCKLES

being watched
I'd rather see Cameron given $50 million to film the 20 min future war sequence for Terminator 2 Redeux DVD Edition that was in the original T2 script rather then another T4 from anyone else.

Sorry to bang on about it again, but the whole Skynet Virus thing was a fucking cliche of the highest order - for me I'd imagined the Skynet goes operational thing as being a massive pivitol scene in the trilogy yet the naff way it's written and realised really ruined the film for me. The writing, the dialog, the concept and even the sets:- for $180 mil movie, they telling me they couldn't build a set like Wargames? All we get is a crap little set that looks like it's from an episode of Star Trek.
 

Laurent

Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
It's been a while since I've seen Terminator 2, but I don't remember them making it absolutely clear that it was a looping paradox where the Terminator could only exist due to the Terminator going back in time (though John Connor himself is like that...). I figure that people were working on this stuff anyway the "first time" through history, but having the actual parts from the future was a benefit the next time history reached that point. Destroying the parts and some of the people involved slowed things down, but it didn't stop the military from working towards intelligent programs and killing machines.
There you go! ^_^
 

darscot

Member
It's the whole rock in the river of time thing. If you throw a rock in the river it makes waves but the river still goes the same direction and ends up int he same place in the end.
 
COCKLES said:
Sorry to bang on about it again, but the whole Skynet Virus thing was a fucking cliche of the highest order - for me I'd imagined the Skynet goes operational thing as being a massive pivitol scene in the trilogy yet the naff way it's written and realised really ruined the film for me.

Most of the film was 'meh' to me, but I liked the Skynet Virus thing. Skynet spreading itself worldwide to gain massive power, as well as using itself to trick the military into giving it total control. I think having Skynet as some room full of destroyable evil computers would've been more cliche.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom