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Terminator: What happened?

It's the same reason it took forever to get Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, because they all thought that the failure of Elektra and Catwoman meant people didn't want superhero movies with women in the lead role.

Catwoman hurt. A woman as sexy and sensual as Halle Berry, in the role of Catwoman... that's a slam dunk if there ever was one. You would have to WORK to screw that up. But they managed it.
 
That was what I was saying, because those kind of people are notorious for not looking beyond the surface of a movie. It's the same reason it took forever to get Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, because they all thought that the failure of Elektra and Catwoman meant people didn't want superhero movies with women in the lead role.
I didn't mean my post as a defense of that thought process, I think it's stupid and has probably cost us the chance for a lot of potentially great movies, but sadly it's the way they tend to do things in Hollywood.

This idea sounds interesting.



I'm not sure if they're any good, but there have been a few Terminator novels.

I've read them all, and while it's been a few years, I remember enjoying them to varying degrees.
 
Killing John Connor off and just doing the same thing again just feels very lazy. Genysis at least had a more interesting idea.
I dunno. That movie turned him into a Terminator which, in my opinion, gutted the point of the series every bit as much as the next movie killing him off did.
 
But we were sliding into the multiverse.

In the following movies, that are never going to be made, we would have have met dozens more John Connor, and they would have teamed up to fight Mat Smith.
 
Catwoman hurt. A woman as sexy and sensual as Halle Berry, in the role of Catwoman... that's a slam dunk if there ever was one. You would have to WORK to screw that up. But they managed it.

Wasn't it because that wasn't supposed to be a Catwoman movie to begin with and they used the name for brand recognition?
 
I dunno. That movie turned him into a Terminator which, in my opinion, gutted the point of the series every bit as much as the next movie killing him off did.
He turned a John Connor. They were dealing with multiple timelines there.
 
John Connor dying after the Resistance won... that didn't upset me so much. He had done what Reese and the T2 Terminator saved him to do. But it was touch seeing him die in DF. For one thing, of course, he was a kid. For another, after stopping the war and saving humanity, he and his mom deserved some peace.
 
John Connor dying after the Resistance won... that didn't upset me so much. He had done what Reese and the T2 Terminator saved him to do. But it was touch seeing him die in DF. For one thing, of course, he was a kid. For another, after stopping the war and saving humanity, he and his mom deserved some peace.
Yeah, that was fine as it was a good twist and made sense with his relations with the T-800. It's also something that wouldn't happen now in that new timeline since he's aware of it now.
 
Well said - I think the fact the series is based on time travel means that it's almost destined to end up in a tangle. Can you imagine if they'd made another three back to the future films for example? It would have ended the same way - a convoluted mess.

Even, 'Back to the future' has some tendencies to create two time travel scenarios in one film, e. g. that old Biff could return to his origin timeline in 2012. And while the story shows unmistakable, that timelines are changeable, some of the better gags - Godie Wilson's idea of becoming mayor or the legendary 'Marvin-Barry-call' - just work with the 'time is a circle'-theory in mind. But other than Terminator, 'Back to the future' was much more comedy, so these little details had never any impact to the 'franchise'. The priority of consistent worldbulding seems to be much higher to me in the case of the Terminator film series.
 
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Even, 'Back to the future' has some tendencies to create two time travel scenarios in one film, e. g. that old Biff could return to his origin timeline in 2012 And while the story shows unmistakable, that timelines are changeable, some of the better gags - Godie Wilson's idea of becoming mayor or the legendary 'Marvin-Barry-call' - just work with the 'time is a circle'-theory in mind. But other than Terminator, 'Back to the future' was much more comedy, so these little details had never any impact to the 'franchise'. The priority of consistent worldbulding seems to be much higher to me in the case of the Terminator film series.

You're correct - The BTTF franchise can be forgiven a lot more inconsistency with it being essentially a light hearted family comedy series.

For me the Terminator franchise has been repeating itself since the first movie and tried to hide that fact with gimmicks, or in the case of T2, groundbreaking technical prowess. It's entire concept doesn't have 6 film's worth of worthwhile material in it.
 
I dunno. That movie turned him into a Terminator which, in my opinion, gutted the point of the series every bit as much as the next movie killing him off did.
Why? John Connnor won the war, and he sent Kyle Reese back in time to stop the Terminator sent back to kill his mother. What else is there to do, send a few more Terminators back in time? I loved the idea of circling back to T1 with more time travelers, rebooting the franchise. I didn't mind evil John Connor. He was assimilated by Skynet technology. John Connor effectively died, leaving behind a Terminator believing itself to be John Connor. That's how I see it anyway.
 
Well for John in Terminator 473 (genesis) did any organic survive? or was a complete take over, ala complete copy of John and his memories in to the hard drive?
Sounds like it was a robot copy with Skynet running a takeover program. Would have been more interesting if he overcame Skynet's reprograming and helped Sarah.
But with Genesis it confirms alternate realities, cuz if Sarah time jumps into the future, John will never be born, effectively canceling that future that was shown. And that future, he apparently didn't send back the second Terminator for T2 since he just sent back Reese.
 
Let me explain Genesis.

Skynet sends the Terminator back to 1984. John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to stop the Terminator.

Random resistance soldier grabs John Connor as Kyle Reese is going back in time. After assimilating John Connor, Skynet sends a T-1000 back in time to kill Sarah Connor as a little girl in 1973. Unknown people send "Uncle Bob" back to 1973 to protect Sarah. Yes, pretty sure the intention was that the T-1000 and Arnold in Genisys are the same characters from T2, but sent to the 70s instead of the 90s. Uncle Bob is now "Pops."

In 1984, the Terminator and Kyle arrive from the future. Sarah and Pops kill the Terminator, meaning Cyberdine Systems never get the arm and chip. Skynet, anticipating this move, sent John Connor back to 2015 to build Skynet, hidden in the Genisys app.

Make sense?

For me, Terminator ended with Genisys. Dark Fate was a fun "what if this happened instead" story.
 
Not a bad thought. Given the amount of time shifting, reality splintering, and alternative future creation that the Terminator saga has, due to the sheer number of humans, Arnold clones, and other assorted cyborgs time warping about, there's no reason why all the movies can't all be equally true. Hell, you could even fit in the T2 alternative ending with grandma Sarah in it.
 
Timeline A: T1-4
Timeline B: T1&2, TSCC
Timeline C: Genisys (reboot)
Timeline D: T1&2, Dark Fate
Timeline E: T1&2 (alternate ending where Judgment Day never happened)

Can we tie these timelines together?
 
Let me explain Genesis.

Skynet sends the Terminator back to 1984. John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to stop the Terminator.

Random resistance soldier grabs John Connor as Kyle Reese is going back in time. After assimilating John Connor, Skynet sends a T-1000 back in time to kill Sarah Connor as a little girl in 1973. Unknown people send "Uncle Bob" back to 1973 to protect Sarah. Yes, pretty sure the intention was that the T-1000 and Arnold in Genisys are the same characters from T2, but sent to the 70s instead of the 90s. Uncle Bob is now "Pops."

In 1984, the Terminator and Kyle arrive from the future. Sarah and Pops kill the Terminator, meaning Cyberdine Systems never get the arm and chip. Skynet, anticipating this move, sent John Connor back to 2015 to build Skynet, hidden in the Genisys app.

Make sense?

For me, Terminator ended with Genisys. Dark Fate was a fun "what if this happened instead" story.

It hurts my head for sure.
 
Sorry, Admiral, forgot to quote you and I can't edit it in. But this is for you:

I didn't see T4 or TSCC, but I think I can handle some of that. We will assume that Kyle Reese and the original (bad) T-800 are a predestination paradox, since Reese caused John and the T-800 caused Skynet.

The original timeline, with the war, was T1 only.
Skynet tried to manipulate time again, with the T-1000. Humanity responded with Uncle Bob. They stopped the war. The DF timeline resulted. Skynet never was, Legion took its place. (DF occured).
Several more Terminators were sent back by Skynet. Each created a timeline upon arrival, most notably the one where Skynet targeted Sarah at age 9. Another of these Terminators went to 1998, killing John. Other Terminators arrived, each creating a new timeline. Sarah took out most of them, but one left enough physical evidence that Skynet's construction was back on track. T3 and T-Salvation were the result.
Skynet, still defeated in the future, attacked John personally, creating the T-3000 and fundamentally shifting the timeline. It wound up in a timeline where it had sent a T-1000 to kill Sarah as a child. It set out to ensure that it would exist in that timeline. Kyle, Sarah, and a reprogrammed T-800 were also in that timeline, and stopped it by stopping Genesys.

TSCC, you're on your own.
 
Timeline A: T1-4
Timeline B: T1&2, TSCC
Timeline C: Genisys (reboot)
Timeline D: T1&2, Dark Fate
Timeline E: T1&2 (alternate ending where Judgment Day never happened)

Can we tie these timelines together?
You missed one. At the end of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, John ended up in a future where the Reeses and the human version of Cameron had never heard of him.
 
Because of this thread I've decided to bang a terminator film on. I've gone for salvation as I've just realised I've only ever seen it once.

Do you know what? It's a hell of a lot better than what I remembered. It's well acted, looks really, really nice and has barely aged, visually. I go back on my earlier comment on the films not expanding the story and franchise much, as in retrospect this actually was an attempt to do just that with the different setting.

I think this is a better film than genysis and probably even T3 (which I really like also)
 
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