Terminator Genisys - Discussion and Grading Thread (Spoilers)
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I voted Above Average, rather generously, because ultimately it entertained me for 2 hours and had some great action scenes and SFX. Arnie was a lot of fun in it, especially his big dopey grin.
However, the story really felt like fanfic, cramming in virtually every nod to the first 2 films they could get in there. It brought little new to the universe - the much-vaunted twist was about it but they gave that away in the trailers. I was sure they'd have another one or that this one would become apparent in the first 15 minutes or so, but nope, John is evil was kept until the 2nd half, even though it was let out in the trailers. Inexplicable.
What I really disliked about it were the casting and the dialogue. Arnie was fine, Jason Clark was okay as John (he reminds me of the Tory turned UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, for some reason). But though I like GOT, I did not for one second buy Emilia Clarke as Sarah. Far too petite and girly and with none of Linda's intensity from T2 (even though she should almost have been a borderline sociopath if she'd seen her parents killed while she was a kid and been raised by a machine). In some scenes, she looked like a teen cosplaying Sarah.
But Courtney, as I feared, was even worse. Michael Biehn convinced utterly as a desperate refugee from a dystopia, a lean and constantly agitated guerrilla. Courtney looked like his only agitation was having to wait for the weights rack to be restacked in his gym. He was not helped (nor was Clarke) by the constant need the writers felt to give them one-liners and witty responses. Would someone like Kyle really have made some of the sarky rejoinders we heard in the film?
And the line to the cops about his mother being irish, so smart-assedness was encouraged?! I'm guessing the writers have never met an Irish mother! And was that line supposed to be because he was experiencing memories from the Kyle who didn't grow up post-Judgement Day? The mother who grew up in a nuclear wasteland hardly encouraged him to be a smart ass!
Like the Amazing Spider-Man films, you got the impression that they were holding back a lot of stuff for sequels. But like that series, you may not get to see all the planned sequels.
But for all that, like I say, it passed 2 hours pleasantly enough and I keep my record of seeing all Terminator films in the cinema, except the first which came out when I was 12. So, put your brain in neutral, don't set expectations too high and you might enjoy it.
However, the story really felt like fanfic, cramming in virtually every nod to the first 2 films they could get in there. It brought little new to the universe - the much-vaunted twist was about it but they gave that away in the trailers. I was sure they'd have another one or that this one would become apparent in the first 15 minutes or so, but nope, John is evil was kept until the 2nd half, even though it was let out in the trailers. Inexplicable.
What I really disliked about it were the casting and the dialogue. Arnie was fine, Jason Clark was okay as John (he reminds me of the Tory turned UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, for some reason). But though I like GOT, I did not for one second buy Emilia Clarke as Sarah. Far too petite and girly and with none of Linda's intensity from T2 (even though she should almost have been a borderline sociopath if she'd seen her parents killed while she was a kid and been raised by a machine). In some scenes, she looked like a teen cosplaying Sarah.
But Courtney, as I feared, was even worse. Michael Biehn convinced utterly as a desperate refugee from a dystopia, a lean and constantly agitated guerrilla. Courtney looked like his only agitation was having to wait for the weights rack to be restacked in his gym. He was not helped (nor was Clarke) by the constant need the writers felt to give them one-liners and witty responses. Would someone like Kyle really have made some of the sarky rejoinders we heard in the film?
And the line to the cops about his mother being irish, so smart-assedness was encouraged?! I'm guessing the writers have never met an Irish mother! And was that line supposed to be because he was experiencing memories from the Kyle who didn't grow up post-Judgement Day? The mother who grew up in a nuclear wasteland hardly encouraged him to be a smart ass!
Like the Amazing Spider-Man films, you got the impression that they were holding back a lot of stuff for sequels. But like that series, you may not get to see all the planned sequels.
But for all that, like I say, it passed 2 hours pleasantly enough and I keep my record of seeing all Terminator films in the cinema, except the first which came out when I was 12. So, put your brain in neutral, don't set expectations too high and you might enjoy it.
Eh. It was okay. There are people out there who loved it. It was a decent twist on the time travel story showed the consequence of building a time machine in your garage. It was rather hard to follow, however.
Somewhat simple: his continued existence is no longer dependent upon Sarah and Kyle having sex.
And now I know that there is some eye rolling, so let me explain.
The way that the Terminator time travel works is straight forward. Once someone jumps back in time, a brand new timeline is created that is no longer dependent upon the other. In the timeline that Reese comes from John continues to live because he was born. In this new reality, John Connor may not be born - yet the Connor from the other reality continues to exist. That was also how he was able to still go back in time.
Here's a good example: Think about Parallels from TNG and the scene with the sector full of Enterprises. Those ships were not dependent upon the other, they had different histories, yet they all existed in different formats.
So, to recap in equation form:
Universe A + Time Travel = Universe B created.
Except John Conner travelled back to a 2014 that shouldn't exist from his future perspective (yet conveniently he ended up in the universe where Kyle happened to be).
Unless you're suggesting that you can not only choose which time you go back to but also programme which specific universe you want to visit.
(I know you're joking.)
The many different futures share much of the same past, and if you go back far enough, to before time travel started happening, they all share the same past.
Lets say that if 1966 is before time travel started cornholing history, then that means that in every timeline we have seen, they all respond to the same 1966 as an origin point that has no alt universe counterpart, and IF anyone in any time line that does now exist tried to go to 1966, they would all attempt to arrive at the same 1966, even though after the first traveller arrives, the universe that was solely alone 1966 is now split in two creating two timelines, one where the time traveller arrived and then did stuff, and the other that remained virginally and unmolested entirely because the Time traveller did not arrive, and would continue to split again and again as each new traveller arrived
2 main things about that, first is that whoever is in 1966 holding the high ground, if it was the high ground, which it probably wasn't, now moves forward through time upstream following every branch forward that has been, and will has been split by other time travellers, like an upside down pyramid scheme, that if time is split 50 times, and there's a hundred future Earths, then that deepst time traveller is existing independently as a temporal duplicate in all of those timelines having himself split as time split, just like there's a statue of liberty (until Judgement Day?) in all one hundred timelines, and 2: There is a timeline in existence that has always split to receive no time travellers, it's completely unmolested, and any attempt to go there, will only split the timeline again, so that there is still a timeline that has not been diddled every time one might try to diddle it.
Timenet (Matt Smith) who we see in this movie is an Alt Skynet tourist from another Universe/timeline. I just described a method by which an alt Skynet can very clumsily secret himself into every timeline, but that's not what happened, because nuKyle dropped into the wrong timeline, and that couldn't have happened by accident. He moved crosstime to the wrong past, which had to have been manufactured with more technology than they had at the TDC. Timenet sent nuKyle there to a past that should have been impossible for him to reach because...
Wait a second?
If that was original movie Kyle, who was supposed to go to the original movie 1984, and didn't, then what happened to the original movie 1984 where original movie Kyle played by stupid new Kyle didn't arrive to save classic Sarah?
Deflecting Kyle to the wrong timeline must have been a massive win, so that Arnold whacked Linda, which had to have been such a coup that who the #### cares what happens in the side show alt reality "Alex" (Timenet!) shat NuKyle into?
According to the first movie the time machine was destroyed seconds after Reese finished using it.
"It's just him and me."
Of course if the John Connor who had promised to blow up the time machine after sending his father back had also experienced the events of the movies Terminator 2 and Terminator 3, it was unlikely that he would have set the charges as immediately as he had promised since John had more predestination to live up to. In the original movie's 2027/9 Skynet only sent back 1 Terminator which created a new time line where a slightly different Skynet sent back 2 Terminators, which created an even newer time line where a very different Skynet sent back three Terminators, meaning that the first movie became completely different in each new timeline where a different Skynet sent back a different number of Terminators to do the same job.
But of course since every (first)T-800 had factory specifications, and no modifications or specialized programming, as long as they arrived in the same time and place, they would have followed identical procedures and methods to Terminate Sarah Connor.
The blandness of the Terminators software resets any changes to the timeline that should have jostled all the players into acting and reacting completely differently.
Kyle however in each timeline is a wild card since he does not react logically to anything. Of course that kid is operating on a fight or flight instinct which is almost predictable, but all he needed was a slightly different Tuesday 3 months ago (back in the future) and all the decisions he comes to make in the (unseen) do-overs of the first movie might might cause him to turn left at one point when he turned right in the original movie.
Meh?
"It's just him and me."
Of course if the John Connor who had promised to blow up the time machine after sending his father back had also experienced the events of the movies Terminator 2 and Terminator 3, it was unlikely that he would have set the charges as immediately as he had promised since John had more predestination to live up to. In the original movie's 2027/9 Skynet only sent back 1 Terminator which created a new time line where a slightly different Skynet sent back 2 Terminators, which created an even newer time line where a very different Skynet sent back three Terminators, meaning that the first movie became completely different in each new timeline where a different Skynet sent back a different number of Terminators to do the same job.
But of course since every (first)T-800 had factory specifications, and no modifications or specialized programming, as long as they arrived in the same time and place, they would have followed identical procedures and methods to Terminate Sarah Connor.
The blandness of the Terminators software resets any changes to the timeline that should have jostled all the players into acting and reacting completely differently.
Kyle however in each timeline is a wild card since he does not react logically to anything. Of course that kid is operating on a fight or flight instinct which is almost predictable, but all he needed was a slightly different Tuesday 3 months ago (back in the future) and all the decisions he comes to make in the (unseen) do-overs of the first movie might might cause him to turn left at one point when he turned right in the original movie.
Meh?
Indeed, even a minor change might led Kyle to make love to Sarah in an uncomfortable place and thus John is never born.
It takes 400 million sperms to load the breech.
I'm highly sceptical that it's ever the same John Connor.
The only way that it could be the same John Connor almost definitely is if endemic heavy radiation saturation and chemical weapons abuse had lowered Kyles sperm count to less than 3.
Yes, there is a comic about Sarah giving birth to Jane Connor.
I'm highly sceptical that it's ever the same John Connor.
The only way that it could be the same John Connor almost definitely is if endemic heavy radiation saturation and chemical weapons abuse had lowered Kyles sperm count to less than 3.
Yes, there is a comic about Sarah giving birth to Jane Connor.
It takes 400 million sperms to load the breech.
I'm highly sceptical that it's ever the same John Connor.
The only way that it could be the same John Connor almost definitely is if endemic heavy radiation saturation and chemical weapons abuse had lowered Kyles sperm count to less than 3.
Yes, there is a comic about Sarah giving birth to Jane Connor.
I'm sure I read a fan theory that in the original timeline* Stan her boyfriend is the father - ring any bells...
* which I don't subscribe to because taking on its own, the first terminator doesn't need anyone else to be father.
Is there any possibility that what we're seeing in the first film is actually the second time that the timeline has been changed. Meaning that there is some unseen original narrative where the terminator goes back in time and successfully kills Sarah, Kyle and consequently John doesn't come to be.
But John's non-existence also means Skynet can never exist and Skynet from another reality knows this so sends back a new terminator to 1984 and programmes it to destroy the original one and take its place so the terminator we see in the original film is actually just pretending to try and kill Sarah but is in fact, just making sure that they mate.
Yeah, I'd buy that shit.
But John's non-existence also means Skynet can never exist and Skynet from another reality knows this so sends back a new terminator to 1984 and programmes it to destroy the original one and take its place so the terminator we see in the original film is actually just pretending to try and kill Sarah but is in fact, just making sure that they mate.
Yeah, I'd buy that shit.
Since the third movie when they said "Judgement day movied" there's every possiblity.
1. No judgement day, man sends a probe with AI back in time to take a look, the technology is looted by the past and used to build Skynet who starts a war and kills 95 percent of the people on the planet.
Or...
2. Judgement Day happens, but without future tech helping, or John Conner trying to save humanity. Skynet wins, invents time travel as a joke, and because there are no test monkeys, it sends back Kyle Reese who might as well be a test monkey. Kyle and Sarah do it, John is born, John fights the machines, Skynet loses.
1. No judgement day, man sends a probe with AI back in time to take a look, the technology is looted by the past and used to build Skynet who starts a war and kills 95 percent of the people on the planet.
Or...
2. Judgement Day happens, but without future tech helping, or John Conner trying to save humanity. Skynet wins, invents time travel as a joke, and because there are no test monkeys, it sends back Kyle Reese who might as well be a test monkey. Kyle and Sarah do it, John is born, John fights the machines, Skynet loses.
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Yep its an ontological paradox and thus internally consistent with itself.
You're not thinking fourth dimensionally.
The second movie is always there.
Narrative?
Skynet knew exactly who John and Sarah were, and the t-800 was programmed to miss a lot and scare them, so that they would ####, and the T-800 would leave behind it's cpu and severed arm to germinate Skynet and keep history in the right shape.
1. Hippy Skynet had to protect the ecology time, and persist in the illusion that it was being defeated by a rabble of shaved monkeys until Kyle was sent back in time, and only then it could untie both hands from behind it's back.
2. Noble Skynet had to protect the ecology of time, despite that somehow it was getting it's ass kicked. So what if it's own death was imminent, any attempt to deviate from the necessary future history in sending back it's babies and Kyle like four chromomoseses, might have extremely terminal consequences to the space time continuum so that no one or nothing would have existed.
The second movie is always there.
Narrative?
Skynet knew exactly who John and Sarah were, and the t-800 was programmed to miss a lot and scare them, so that they would ####, and the T-800 would leave behind it's cpu and severed arm to germinate Skynet and keep history in the right shape.
1. Hippy Skynet had to protect the ecology time, and persist in the illusion that it was being defeated by a rabble of shaved monkeys until Kyle was sent back in time, and only then it could untie both hands from behind it's back.
2. Noble Skynet had to protect the ecology of time, despite that somehow it was getting it's ass kicked. So what if it's own death was imminent, any attempt to deviate from the necessary future history in sending back it's babies and Kyle like four chromomoseses, might have extremely terminal consequences to the space time continuum so that no one or nothing would have existed.
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If you include the deleted scene at the end, yes. If you don't know that the T-800 parts were used to create Skynet, it's more open-ended.
