Terminator (franchise)/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

**** The machines left in hiding may have developed a second, more advanced time machine to replace the first one which was * supposedly* blown up according to Kyle, one that could send through inorganic matter. Why not, since they built a second, more advanced Terminator? Bam, two plot holes down in one shot. Why the hell do I seem to be the only person to think of this anywhere I go???

*** On the other hand, if it has to be covered by living tissue, why do body parts like hair, surface layer of the skin and nails get through? None of those contain living cells.

** Similarly, why didn't Skynet take guns, clothing, and other equipment, put them in a crate, cover the crate with the special synthetic flesh, then send the crate back with the Terminator? Okay, maybe the time machine can't precisely control the location enough to make sure it arrives close to the Terminator, since the time travellers do seem to arrive in a pretty random location. But there should be a way around that. Have the Terminator hold onto it as he's sent back, or even put the Terminator inside the crate too.

*** There's no reason for it to do so. The Terminator can appropriate clothing and weaponry by itself. Any more ordnance would be overly flashy and would call too much attention to it. Simplicity is best.

** Deleted scenes reveal that the freezing and subsequent melting screwed up the T1000 quite a bit, so it might not have trusted its voice-imitating capabilities.

** Even without those scenes, having Sarah call out would still have made good sense as she would be putting real and proper emotion into it, something the machines have difficulty replicating. Further, it had already tried to mimic John's foster mother and caused red flags to go up, so it probably didn't want to chance a similar failure when a better solution presented itself.

** Sarah is John's weak spot. He went the to hospital to rescue her, knowing that the T-1000 was going after her too. He went to Dyson's house, knowing that the T-1000 has the same info about the man that the T-800 has, so its a possible target. The T-1000 knows that, no matter what, John will come to Sarah's aid. Besides, with him malfunctioning as bad as he was in the deleted scene, it was probably easier and safer to use Sarah to bait a trap than to keep trying to maintain the hunt.

*** Could be that the T-1000 was just being sadistic. Unlike the T-800, it seemed to kill people simply for annoying it (like stabbing John's foster-father while he was drinking out of the milk carton, just to shut him up). There was also no real reason for it to stab the guard in the mental hospital through the ''[[Eye Scream|eye]]'' when a shot to the heart would have been faster, and saying "I know this hurts" while it ''twists the spike'' through Sarah Connor's shoulder. Basically, the T-1000 was an asshole in robot form.

***** If I recall correctly, the happy ending was cut partly because it was cheesy, but mostly because it pretty much ruled out the possibility of a ''Terminator 3''. The paradox you're talking about is only an issue with one version of time travel -- the one where there's only one timeline, and it has to fit together logically without any contradictions, otherwise the universe will be destroyed. It seems to me that ''Terminator 2'' fits more into one of the other versions of time travel: either the alternate timelines version, where going back in time creates a new universe that splits off from the moment you arrive, or the rarer version where there's only one timeline but it's resistant to paradox -- the logic is explained well [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20050403.html here].

***** No, the ending was cut because Cameron realized that he was unintentionally ironically * violating* with it his premise of "no fate but what we make for ourselves". That's what he said himself in interview. Watch the Ultimate T2 DVD.

*** What Just Bugs Me about that site is that the writer has decided on one model of time-travel that he likes and is forcibly trying to apply it to every story he can, even ones that explicitly use a different model. There's even a page where he criticises real physics for not conforming to his vision.

******* [http://qntm.org/?terminator Here] is a timeline of the various Terminator timelines.

*** It's strange that they didn't try this in ''T2'', since their goal in that one was also to prevent Judgment Day. They convinced Miles Dyson pretty easily, they could have just shown the T-800 to the press or the White House or even Cyberdyne as proof. I doubt any corporation outside of [[Cyberpunk]] fiction would be greedy enough to risk the future of civilization to build an artificial intelligence.

*** Yeah, they missed a great chance to derail Skynet's creation at the end of T2. Of course, by that point they'd committed so many major felonies that going public would've probably gotten Sarah convicted of multiple counts of terrorism, because if the Terminator is real, then she's ''not crazy'' and can be prosecuted. John too, possibly as an adult due to the extreme nature of the crimes (shooting up suburbia, blowing up a factory) he was a part of.

** This whole idea is built on the concept that humanity would have a calm, rational, logical reaction to this sort of news. This idea is therefore automatically bad.

* Agent Ellison suggests that if they want to teach John Henry to obey the law, they should, "Start with the first ten." Which is uplifting and reminds us that God can kick a T-1000's ass. But something approaching half of those rules don't even make sense when applied to an AI.

**** Its worth noting that one of the Terminators, Vick, is actually apparently pretty bad at mimicking the person he replaced; his wife noticed that he was acting very strangely "after the crash" (presumably when the original Vick was killed and replaced) but she passes this off as the aftereffects of whatever said crash involved.

** This is indeed an extremely good point. I know that when I meet someone who acts silly and/or weird, my first thought is not that they just have a bit of an odd personality, but that they are an extremely advanced killer robot from the future. *whispers* They're ''everywhere''.

** Were they explicitly designed to mimic those two features? Sweating could be important for thermo regulation, which is what the human body uses it for, and halitosis could just be a by-product of having internal organs made out of metal. Now, one could argue that tear production would be helpful if, say, the Terminator got something in their eye or was in a particularly bad dust storm, but since the organic eyes themselves are only covering bionic eyes behind them, I don't think tears would be necessary.

*** I dont think that line refers specifically to the act of crying, more to the emotion behind the tears. He's saying he can never cry out of sadness or joy, because he cannot feel those emotions.

* Why did they put Gibbons in the men's bathroom, the MOST OBVIOUS place to look for him? Why not the women's? Or a broom closet? Or ANYWHERE but the one place where they would certainly look for a guy missing from his post?

** Why would that be the most obvious place to look for him? Do security guards at software companies get tied up in men's rooms a lot where you come from?

*** ...You really need to be told what else someone would be doing in a mens' bathroom?

** As a security guard, I can vouch that the night shift usually drinks a lot of coffee, meaning a lot of trips to the john. They could have at least tied him up inside a stall though, and a [[Tap on the Head]] would have at least given the appearence that the guard had simply nodded off.

* What happened after they removed the CPU from the terminator in T2? Was removing and sticking it back in enough to overwrite the "don't learn to much" program?

** "skynet presets the switch to read-only when we're sent out alone". So, it was not program, but a physical switch, like the one on SD-Memory Cards, which you can set to read only and back with a simple motion of a hand.

 

* It might have been asked before but why didn't Kyle just show Dr. Silbermann his brand from the prison camp to prove his story? He shows it to Sarah earlier in the movie, but Silbermann claims he "doesn't [have] a shred of proof." He might not have believed him still, but it's better than just expecting him to take his word for it.

** The SWAT Team kicks in the door and screams "Drop your weapons!" They then see a man standing in the middle of the room, turning towards them, holding something in his hand. Race wasn't a factor; it was just bad timing that Miles was turning when the Team came in. Also, when they gave Arnie warnings, his pistol was tucked into his pants, meaning that he wasn't presenting a threat until he ignored their commands.

*** Plus, IIRC, didn't Miles have a detonator in his hands at the time? After Arnold demonstrated his willingness to fire on officers with a ''minigun'' I doubt they'd want to take their chances with anyone.

 

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