Terminator Genisys - Discussion and Grading Thread (Spoilers)

[Trekkin]

Maybe the TX killing off some of Connors lieutenants in T3 changed the timeline.

Nothing from T3 or T4 can count. They are set in a demonstrably different timeline than the start of Genisys.

Wasn't Arnie a TX at the end? And with all the time travel shenanigans, I don't know what counts anymore. Wiped from existence by the plot maybe, but I didn't see it as being flat out contradicted like Salvation was.

Xmen, Star Trek etc kept their rules pretty clear - Everything we saw before happened, and had to happen in order for the new timeline to occur. If they never happened, no new timeline. Inconsistancies in the plots up to the reset were just that - inconsistencies to be ignored.

With this film, (1) not only are past not-great, but pretty straightforward adventures been maybe flat-out ignored/maybe overwritten in universe, (2) not only have the characters themselves thrown up their hands and said 'fuck if I know' as to how the time travel actuallyworks, (3) but an assload of plot apparently happens completely off screen.

There's just so much unnecessary shit, considering what the filmmakers were trying to do. It almost feels like something that wasn't proofread.

Here's a question - why couldn't they just go to 1997? They didn't know that Skynet in the future could still send Terminators after them. If Sarah was right, they'd stop Judgement day. If she was wrong, they'd have 10 years to prepare for what Kyle had seen. Sarah could have got herself some Hamilton-sized arms during the wait.

 

[DWF]

Maybe the TX killing off some of Connors lieutenants in T3 changed the timeline.

Nothing from T3 or T4 can count. They are set in a demonstrably different timeline than the start of Genisys.

Wasn't Arnie a TX at the end? And with all the time travel shenanigans, I don't know what counts anymore. Wiped from existence by the plot maybe, but I didn't see it as being flat out contradicted like Salvation was.

Xmen, Star Trek etc kept their rules pretty clear - Everything we saw before happened, and had to happen in order for the new timeline to occur. If they never happened, no new timeline. Inconsistancies in the plots up to the reset were just that - inconsistencies to be ignored.

With this film, (1) not only are past not-great, but pretty straightforward adventures been maybe flat-out ignored/maybe overwritten in universe, (2) not only have the characters themselves thrown up their hands and said 'fuck if I know' as to how the time travel actuallyworks, (3) but an assload of plot apparently happens completely off screen.

There's just so much unnecessary shit, considering what the filmmakers were trying to do. It almost feels like something that wasn't proofread.

Here's a question - why couldn't they just go to 1997? They didn't know that Skynet in the future could still send Terminators after them. If Sarah was right, they'd stop Judgement day. If she was wrong, they'd have 10 years to prepare for what Kyle had seen. Sarah could have got herself some Hamilton-sized arms during the wait.

There's no reason to go to 1997, teh chip Cyberdyne used to create Skynet was used in the time machine made by Pops.

 

[DWF]

If I recall correctly there was a line in the film where either Alex or John stated that there had been many timelines and in each of them Skynet had fallen after John Connor led humanity to victory. The one constant was John, so Skynet needed him on its side.

I know I'm paraphrasing, but I remember an exchange to that effect.

I also want to point out that, again, Reese doesn't know anything of what happened after he jumped back in time. You cannot definitively say that Skynet was destroyed in Reese's timeline. It could've backed itself up and reactivated itself (multiple noncanon sources suggest that it had). Cheyenne Mountain was supposed to have held the system core in the original script, the script for T2 has it having been moved to LA. It could've been brought back online there.

As for Skynet's motivations - who knows.... maybe it is still trying to kill everyone... maybe it has decided that it can't win and is creating hybrids... maybe it just wants to be the next 'killer' app on our phone...

Reese told the police in 1984 in the first movie that the war was over and Skynet had lost and the time machine was destoyed so it was just him and the terminator.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Personally, I'd find it more interesting if Skynet realizes John Connor doesn't matter. If not John, some other human leader would rise to the top and defeat them. In fact, it's possible a different leader would be more competent than Connor, and result in a Skynet defeat even earlier.

Except Connor due to time travel has knowledge about how Skynet works which is what allowed humanity to win. Some other random person isn't going to have that knowledge or even better knowledge except maybe the people that built it and Skynet probably already sent its forces to kill them, and thats assuming they aren't like Micheal Ironside's character in Salvation and just assume Skynet is a defective piece of hardware.

 

[nx1701g]

If I recall correctly there was a line in the film where either Alex or John stated that there had been many timelines and in each of them Skynet had fallen after John Connor led humanity to victory. The one constant was John, so Skynet needed him on its side.

I know I'm paraphrasing, but I remember an exchange to that effect.

I also want to point out that, again, Reese doesn't know anything of what happened after he jumped back in time. You cannot definitively say that Skynet was destroyed in Reese's timeline. It could've backed itself up and reactivated itself (multiple noncanon sources suggest that it had). Cheyenne Mountain was supposed to have held the system core in the original script, the script for T2 has it having been moved to LA. It could've been brought back online there.

As for Skynet's motivations - who knows.... maybe it is still trying to kill everyone... maybe it has decided that it can't win and is creating hybrids... maybe it just wants to be the next 'killer' app on our phone...

Reese told the police in 1984 in the first movie that the war was over and Skynet had lost and the time machine was destoyed so it was just him and the terminator.

Reese's quote is:

It had no choice. Their defense grid was smashed. We'd won. Taking out Connor then would make no difference. Skynet had to wipe out his entire existence!

As I said he has no idea what happened after he entered the time machine. There is nothing to say Skynet didn't have a backup somewhere else.

 

[nx1701g]

Personally, I'd find it more interesting if Skynet realizes John Connor doesn't matter. If not John, some other human leader would rise to the top and defeat them. In fact, it's possible a different leader would be more competent than Connor, and result in a Skynet defeat even earlier. Skynet is continually obsessed with beating this one man, and it would be suitably ironic if that man is just not all that important. But once Skynet has rationalized itself into the supreme importance of John Connor to the timeline, it may not be able to reason itself out.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem the people who put together this film care much about examining their premise, but just sticking elements of it in a blender and then throwing what comes out up on the screen.

This is one of the reasons why I keep looping back to Cameron's comments from Terminator Vault about Skynet's motivations (seen earlier in the thread). If Skynet is secretly manipulating the entire future war, it has to try to ensure that certain conditions are met and John Connor is one of them.

Though, Genisys kinda destroys that in a sense, but John could still be created in this new timeline just at a different time.

 

[publiusr]

The eye naturally went to Matt Smith, perhaps even if folks didn't know him as The Doctor. The Mother of Dragons took a moment for me to see.

The oddest thing/

There actually is a Skynet http://www.skynetmobile.com/
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/skynet-5-military-communications-satellite-system/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_(satellite)

 

[Shazam!]

Maybe the TX killing off some of Connors lieutenants in T3 changed the timeline.

Nothing from T3 or T4 can count. They are set in a demonstrably different timeline than the start of Genisys.

Yeah, T3 definitely doesn't count. In that film, Arnie killed John Connor in the future before coming back.

 

[Juju Zombie]

Time spirals rather than loops explain just about everything.

Just sayin'.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well that depends what you mean by "spiral".

You know what would have been hilarious?

Sarah "If we do it, the saviour is born and the world is not doomed."

Kyle "That's nice and all, but I'm gay, so very gay."

Sarah "Skynet must have changed the timelines and made you gay."

Kyle "No one made me gay!"

Sarah "Pops hold him down! I'll take his pants off!"

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

The overseas market is making up a more and more significant impact on such. 10 years ago, it was barely registered. Now it's making the difference. Die Hard 5 did poorly here ($67m domestic total) but it made another $240 internationally, so we'll likely someday see a 6th.

*Sigh* I genuinely hated A Good Day to Die Hard. I fell asleep while watching it IN THE THEATER! It was so horrible and so few people I knew seemed to be even aware of its existence, let alone seen it. I was really hoping it had killed the franchise for good. Anything is possible, so I guess Die Hard 6 might still somehow salvage things but Bruce Willis seemed totally past it in the last one.

IIRC, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides also did lackluster business here but made huge bank overseas. Ditto with Underworld: Awakening. So I guess we have dem darn foreigners to thank for keeping franchises going even after later sequels seem to hit rock bottom. (Although, I am admittedly cautiously excited about Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales & Underworld V. So, thanks, I guess. )

Getting back on track, while I'm not crazy about Terminator Genisys, I do hope we get Terminator 6 just so that it can explain a bunch of the lingering questions from this last one re: Alex and who sent Pops back to 1973. (I'm guessing it was Sarah, or even perhaps Pops himself.)

Plus, unless I'm much mistaken, I think Paramount probably re-shot the ending for Terminator Genisys so that Pops could survive for future installments. It would be a shame to waste those re-shoots if he's not going to come back anyway. The Pops/Sarah/Reese scenes were the best part of the movie, so I would be up for more of that.

I subscribe to HISHE and Honest Trailers. Also, if you haven't, you might want to check out Cinema Sins.

Honest Trailers are almost always great. HISHE can be hit & miss, although they did great stuff with The Dark Knight Rises, Spider-Man 3, & all the Superhero Cafe stuff. Cinema Sins is a bit too nitpicky for my taste. I only watch it when I truly despise the movie they're ripping into anyway (i.e. Prometheus or Star Trek Into Darkness).

BTW, 6 years ago, HISHE used Terminator to give us the greatest crossover of all time!
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBBw9E2Q_aY[/yt]

I ignored that stuff and was pretty much on board all the way (even when they were inventing time machines in the mid 80's) but as soon as Connor showed up in the hospital and that whole strand took over, I seriously started to lose interest. Sure enough, after his reintroduction, the film just becomes lots of explosions and set pieces that amounted to nothing (Arnie dives out of the helicopter to stop Connor..,...but actually helps him crash in the exact place he wants to be......oh for goodness sake).

I went in with low expectations but I was pleasantly surprised by the first half and thought there were quite a few interesting ideas being explored but when Connor shows up, the whole thing just descends into standard blockbuster tedium.

Yeah, that's kinda my reaction to it too. I think part of it is that the upgraded John Connor just seems TOO powerful for anything else to feel plausible. If his nanites can turn humans into Terminators, then why didn't he just do that to Reese & Sarah the first chance that he got? Why does he have such a hard time putting down Pops even though he's just a broken-down T-800?

Reese's quote is:

It had no choice. Their defense grid was smashed. We'd won. Taking out Connor then would make no difference. Skynet had to wipe out his entire existence!

As I said he has no idea what happened after he entered the time machine. There is nothing to say Skynet didn't have a backup somewhere else.

T3 also implies this. I got the impression from that film that their victory in 2029 wasn't as complete as Kyle Reese first believed. Skynet was still around in 2031 and they sent a new T-800 to Resistance HQ to kill John Connor. It succeeded, but was then captured, reprogrammed by Kate Brewster, and sent back to 2004 to stop the T-X and make sure that John & Kate survived Judgment Day.

 

[Juju Zombie]

Well that depends what you mean by "spiral".

I'm pretty sure I've explained it already.

Everyone keeps assuming its loops (which would mean they're closed and thus immutable), when there's no conceivable way for it to have been, as it all had to start without a John Connor who was fathered by Kyle Reese.

Instead, the time changes are overlapping each other (since, again, there's been no evidence of different timelines existing simultaneously; MS-Skynet likely just has the ability to "travel" through the different iterations by existing outside of them rather than physically jumping from one to another; combine that with the ability to travel alone it, too, and it perfectly answers his presence and comments in the movie).

Or, in other words, the future keeps changing, and the past keeps getting jumbled up, with different presents, futures, and later-pasts (for lack of a better term) also being created as appropriate.

Hence how Kyle Reese can be sent back to the alleged starting point (which was only the starting point for the franchise, not all the time jumps since, again, there's no way for him to have been John Conner's father in the original timeline) only to find out that there's already another pair of Terminators who have been there waiting for him, unlike the first movie.

 

[hux]

Yeah, that's kinda my reaction to it too. I think part of it is that the upgraded John Connor just seems TOO powerful for anything else to feel plausible. If his nanites can turn humans into Terminators, then why didn't he just do that to Reese & Sarah the first chance that he got? Why does he have such a hard time putting down Pops even though he's just a broken-down T-800?

Especially when putting down the (technically) younger T-800 at the start of the film was apparently a piece of piss.

The fact that Connor was revealed as a bad guy/hybrid in the trailer was the dumbest decision associated with the film though. Someone should have been fired for that.

 

[DWF]

Well that depends what you mean by "spiral".

I'm pretty sure I've explained it already.

Everyone keeps assuming its loops (which would mean they're closed and thus immutable), when there's no conceivable way for it to have been, as it all had to start without a John Connor who was fathered by Kyle Reese.

The Doctor: 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... timey-wimey... stuff.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Time spirals rather than loops explain just about everything.

Just sayin'.

Well that depends what you mean by "spiral".

I'm pretty sure I've explained it already.

Everyone keeps assuming its loops (which would mean they're closed and thus immutable), when there's no conceivable way for it to have been, as it all had to start without a John Connor who was fathered by Kyle Reese.

Instead, the time changes are overlapping each other (since, again, there's been no evidence of different timelines existing simultaneously; MS-Skynet likely just has the ability to "travel" through the different iterations by existing outside of them rather than physically jumping from one to another; combine that with the ability to travel alone it, too, and it perfectly answers his presence and comments in the movie).

Or, in other words, the future keeps changing, and the past keeps getting jumbled up, with different presents, futures, and later-pasts (for lack of a better term) also being created as appropriate.

Hence how Kyle Reese can be sent back to the alleged starting point (which was only the starting point for the franchise, not all the time jumps since, again, there's no way for him to have been John Conner's father in the original timeline) only to find out that there's already another pair of Terminators who have been there waiting for him, unlike the first movie.

A spiral is still a line.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

it all had to start without a John Connor who was fathered by Kyle Reese.

No, it didn't.

That's the whole nature of a predestination paradox - it never had a 'start'. The original film, before they muddied the waters with all these sequels, WAS an absolutely closed loop. It had no beginning and no end. That's what paradoxes are all about.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

The fact that Connor was revealed as a bad guy/hybrid in the trailer was the dumbest decision associated with the film though. Someone should have been fired for that.

I go back and forth on that. On one hand, it would have been nice to be surprised by that going in. But, I must admit that I wasn't nearly as interested in seeing the movie before I saw that trailer. It was the revelation that Connor was the bad guy this time that really made my ears perk up.

 

[Trekkin]

Nothing from T3 or T4 can count. They are set in a demonstrably different timeline than the start of Genisys.

Wasn't Arnie a TX at the end? And with all the time travel shenanigans, I don't know what counts anymore. Wiped from existence by the plot maybe, but I didn't see it as being flat out contradicted like Salvation was.

Xmen, Star Trek etc kept their rules pretty clear - Everything we saw before happened, and had to happen in order for the new timeline to occur. If they never happened, no new timeline. Inconsistancies in the plots up to the reset were just that - inconsistencies to be ignored.

With this film, (1) not only are past not-great, but pretty straightforward adventures been maybe flat-out ignored/maybe overwritten in universe, (2) not only have the characters themselves thrown up their hands and said 'fuck if I know' as to how the time travel actuallyworks, (3) but an assload of plot apparently happens completely off screen.

There's just so much unnecessary shit, considering what the filmmakers were trying to do. It almost feels like something that wasn't proofread.

Here's a question - why couldn't they just go to 1997? They didn't know that Skynet in the future could still send Terminators after them. If Sarah was right, they'd stop Judgement day. If she was wrong, they'd have 10 years to prepare for what Kyle had seen. Sarah could have got herself some Hamilton-sized arms during the wait.

There's no reason to go to 1997, teh chip Cyberdyne used to create Skynet was used in the time machine made by Pops.

The characters didn't know that. Pops might have, but he never brought it up. We're just meant to accept that from their perspective 2017 is a good idea, because Reece saw it in his flash forwards...where he also saw that 2017 was really approaching the 'last minute' to do anything.

The only 'evidence' Reece had supporting his argument was that the future was now probably a blank slate. Which still isn't a good reason for why 2017 is a better choice than 1997 or 2007 or any other possible time.

There was a lot of telling and not showing in this movie. It was kind of like a fanfiction where the author has this fully expanded and detailed story inside their head, but completely forgets the audience isn't privy to all that. In fanfiction you usually end up with stuff like characters saying 'I love you', which makes sense to the author because they can 'see' inside the characters heads. But to the audience it comes out of no where, due to there being no on screen indication that was the case.

Except apply that to the love story and time travel rules.

 

[Guy Gardener]

it all had to start without a John Connor who was fathered by Kyle Reese.

No, it didn't.

That's the whole nature of a predestination paradox - it never had a 'start'. The original film, before they muddied the waters with all these sequels, WAS an absolutely closed loop. It had no beginning and no end. That's what paradoxes are all about.

The original movie was "intended" to be a predestination paradox, and it really seemed like it had been, but after/during the second movie the future had become a different destination, and then after/during the third movie, the future was yet still a different destination.

That's three different destinations, that Kyle from the first movie didn't come from the destinations (futures) generated by the goings on/arrivals of time travelers during the first three movies.

Temporal contamination is helpful, but unless the contamination is identical, the timeline will play out different.

 

[DWF]

Wasn't Arnie a TX at the end? And with all the time travel shenanigans, I don't know what counts anymore. Wiped from existence by the plot maybe, but I didn't see it as being flat out contradicted like Salvation was.

Xmen, Star Trek etc kept their rules pretty clear - Everything we saw before happened, and had to happen in order for the new timeline to occur. If they never happened, no new timeline. Inconsistancies in the plots up to the reset were just that - inconsistencies to be ignored.

With this film, (1) not only are past not-great, but pretty straightforward adventures been maybe flat-out ignored/maybe overwritten in universe, (2) not only have the characters themselves thrown up their hands and said 'fuck if I know' as to how the time travel actuallyworks, (3) but an assload of plot apparently happens completely off screen.

There's just so much unnecessary shit, considering what the filmmakers were trying to do. It almost feels like something that wasn't proofread.

Here's a question - why couldn't they just go to 1997? They didn't know that Skynet in the future could still send Terminators after them. If Sarah was right, they'd stop Judgement day. If she was wrong, they'd have 10 years to prepare for what Kyle had seen. Sarah could have got herself some Hamilton-sized arms during the wait.

There's no reason to go to 1997, teh chip Cyberdyne used to create Skynet was used in the time machine made by Pops.

The characters didn't know that. Pops might have, but he never brought it up. We're just meant to accept that from their perspective 2017 is a good idea, because Reece saw it in his flash forwards...where he also saw that 2017 was really approaching the 'last minute' to do anything.

The only 'evidence' Reece had supporting his argument was that the future was now probably a blank slate. Which still isn't a good reason for why 2017 is a better choice than 1997 or 2007 or any other possible time.

There was a lot of telling and not showing in this movie. It was kind of like a fanfiction where the author has this fully expanded and detailed story inside their head, but completely forgets the audience isn't privy to all that. In fanfiction you usually end up with stuff like characters saying 'I love you', which makes sense to the author because they can 'see' inside the characters heads. But to the audience it comes out of no where, due to there being no on screen indication that was the case.

Except apply that to the love story and time travel rules.

No, they need the chip from the original terminator to make the time machine work. And really since they needed to go to 2017 it's a moot point. The scene was needed to have Sarah start to trust Kyle. I wasn't too happy about the lack of the lack of the Kyle/Sarah relationship because Cameron wrote a really beautiful love story as well as an awesome action movie.