Monday, June 15, 2009

Terminator Time-Travel Explained

I have called myself "the smartest man alive" in the past - this was done in a very tongue-in-cheek-way (depending on whether or not you consider Stephen Hawking alive*).
Although I know this not to be true, I believe the study I have recently conducted is done from an educated standpoint, and was done with great attention to detail.
I have dissected the Terminator quadrilogy.

"What dissecting is there to be done?" one might ask.
There is a list of problems, concerning time travel and the "rules" of said time travel, with the film, and I'm going to attempt to solve them. I'll deal with the original three first, and the fourth afterwards.
The Terminator television show, "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" is part of an "alternate timeline" than the movies in the Terminator universe, so it will not be included here.

First - a very short plot rundown.


The Terminator
(known in Poland as "The Electronic Murderer")
James Cameron wrote and directed this movie in 1984. Sarah Connor is attacked by a machine (a terminator - Arnold Schwarzenegger) was who sent back in time from the year 2029, by Skynet. Skynet is a computer-based defense system, developed by humans to have incredible artificial intelligence - because of this intelligence, it eventually started eradicating the human race, and a huge "humans vs. robots" war broke out.
John Connor (the son of Sarah Connor) becomes the leader in the war against Skynet in the future, and Skynet is taking a precautionary measure by sending back a terminator to murder Sarah in 1984 before she can give birth to John. Fortunately (no offense to any terminators reading this), John Connor and the humans found this out in 2029, and John Connor sent back Kyle Reese (a soldier) to protect Sarah Connor.
The terminator kills many people (including an out-of-character and very punk rock Bill Paxton), but fails to kill Sarah. She crushes the terminator to death, and shortly after, Reese dies from a fatal wound - BUT before he dies, he bangs Sarah good and hard, and from this, she gets pregnant with John Connor.
Final grade for Terminator (it's an old movie, so I realize it's hard to grade it properly): B -

Questions I Will Adress:
- How was John Connor born, if he was the one to send back Reese, who only fathered him because he went back in time?


Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Easily the most popular movie of the series, winning four Oscars (yes, four Oscars), this film is where it all gets turned around.
In this movie, it's 1995 and John Connor is 10. His mother has been training him all his life for the robot war (which she now knows about thanks to Reese and the terminator in T1), and she has been put in a mental institution. He is with foster parents.
Again, in the future, the machines have sent back a terminator (the T-1000, a more advanced model than the original film), this time, to kill John Connor as a ten-year-old. Also, the humans have sent back another protector: except now they've also sent back a reprogrammed terminator (Arnold) who is programmed only to protect John Connor from the T-1000.
The T-1000 kills many in his attempt to kill John Connor, and Arnold, John and Sarah Connor are all trying to find the man - Miles Dyson - they believe is responsible for the Skynet uprising (which will happen in the future). Miles Dyson has found pieces of the terminator sent back in the first film, which has prompted his research towards terminators and a more advanced Skynet system.
Arnold and the Connors get to Tyson, they tell them about the whole deal with the future war, and he agrees to help them destroy his research at Skynet. They all go there and destroy the materials. The T-1000 gets killed, and Arnold lets the Connors kill him, so there will be no terminator evidence for future research to be based on.
Final grade for T2: B+

Questions I Will Adress:
- Does this mean that Skynet never figures out this technology? Does that make sense? How did they form/invent it in the first place


Terminator 3
Very similar to T2. In this movie, it's 2003 John Connor is 23 (age difference will be explained). His mother has died of leukemia and John is a piece of crap, working under the table and doing nothing, because he's scared of terminators being sent back to get him again.
Well guess what - the machines have sent back ANOTHER terminator (the Terminatrix, a an even more advanced model than in the second film) this time, to kill John Connor, as well as Kate Brewster - John's future wife - and other important officers on the future human army. Guess what again? The humans have sent back ANOTHER protector: another reprogrammed terminator (Arnold) who is programmed to protect John and Kate.
We find out that in the second film, blowing up Skynet's research (based on the terminator they found in the first film) only set them back to their original research, which eventually started a war with humans on its' own - this makes sense, as the original terminator existed in the first place.
The Terminatrix kills many in her attempt to kill John and Kate. Arnold, John and Kate are all trying to get to Kate's father - a military leader in charge of Skynet - that they believe is is at least partly responsible for the Skynet uprising (which will happen in the future).
They don't get to Kate's father in time, but he tells them to get to a military base where they believe they will be able to stop Skynet. They get there just as Skynet is taking over and kills Kate's father.
The Terminatrix reprograms Arnold, and he attempts to kill John Connor, but his conflicting objectives ("protect John Connor" - given to him by the humans, and "kill John Connor" - given to him by the Terminatrix) do not allow him to complete this task.
The Terminatrix and Arnold follow John and Kate to the military base. Both terminators get killed. John and Kate realize the base was just there for protection - there is no defense to take. The world is being taken over and they just have to watch it happen and wait.
Final grade for Terminator 3 (in terms of overall movie): B -
Final grade for Terminator 3 (in terms of action movie): B +

Some questions to answer:
"Terminator 3 sounds like a shitty rip-off of T2. Is it?"
People hated it and I totally did not hate it. It definitely was born from the T2 storyline, but 1991 and 2003 are very different in terms of what you can do with action movies, and T3 is an action movie.
It had a lot of awesome sequences, and some really cool ideas. I really thought the ending was very different than the previous "everything's wrapped up" endings and added a new, more unpredictable element to the series.

"In T3, the opening voice-over states that John Connor was 13 in T2, even though he was born in 1985, T2 takes place in 1995, and he is said to be 10 years old in T2. Why is this?"
The director of T3 (Johnathon Mostow) said the decision was made because Edward Furlong (John Connor in T2) was 13 during filming. This makes a little sense, considering that Edward Furlong was going through puberty during T2, and his voice changed very much throughout filming (which, in the end, caused him to re-record almost all of his lines). The problem was that his look also changed very much during it.
Although, in my eyes, if T2 (the movie in which he looked 13) stated he was 10, then he was 10. Don't fuck it up later by saying "No, he was 13".

"Skynet finds the Terminator arm/chip after T1 (which was left by the remains of the squashed/squished Terminator), and starts to delve into developing this machinery (as shown in T2), even though that arm/chip could have only existed there because the Terminator was sent back - how did Skynet originally send it back!?"
There is a fairly easy explanation for that problem; Truthfully, it's never stated that the Terminator arm/chip specifically led anywhere or created the Terminators (especially since this research was destroyed in T2). They never stated that this finding was an important step for them in the film, so I think it's okay that it was a small part. In fact, to be honest, it makes a lot of sense - SOMEONE had to find the dead Terminator remnants, and that someone would obviously have questions (and either give it to someone to look at professionally, or professionally look at it themselves).

"Why were Terminators continually sent back in time, if in the very first movie, the Terminator was explained to be a "last-ditch-effort" of the machines? They seemed to keep sending back Terminators pretty easily."
A. Reese said this line about the machines, so I believe it could have to do with an opinion. Reese just BELIEVES it's a last-ditch effort (or was told by John Connor, where that info could have also been opinion, or simply to motivate Reese - John Connor WAS his leader). On top of this - niether Reese nor Connor necessarily know what's actually going on behind the scenes with the machines' plans, and they also doesn't know what happens after 2029 yet (example: I know in T3, the female Terminator is sent back from the year 2032, a year that they would obviously have no knowledge of in 2029) so maybe they actually believe that without knowing, or maybe that is the case in 2029 but then things change. So it could be opinion, or they could simply be wrong that it's a "last-ditch" effort, or they also don't know what happens later.
B. I also really think that all the time-traveling changed the story of what happenned. Yeah, BEFORE Reese and Terminator went back, that may have been war the where was at that time (machines almost being completely beaten), but who knows how the time-traveling affected it? Originally, Sarah Connor didn't know anything about this machine-war, and after Reese/the Terminator came back, she was completely informed and lived a very different life afterwards. And (proven by T2) Skynet may have also gotten a jump on the technology after finding the original Terminator's arm/chip in that factory (even though the data was supposedly destroyed in T2 - there was a still a whole company of inventors/scientists working with it and must have known some things about it, it easily could have changed the timeline in development, or changed the development in general) - we don't really know, but we do know that Reese and the Terminator didn't originally exist in 1984, and definitely changed things.

Okay - so my biggest problem with these movies is this:
How did John Connor send back Reese in the original film, if Reese had never originally been there to father him?
There are basically two "sides" to take here to justify the events.
1. The theory that time doesn't really happen chronologically. In other words, if John Connor sends back Reese from 2029 to 1984, Reese has ALWAYS existed (as a time traveler) in 1984. There was never a timeline without Reese time traveling back to 1984, and Reese was always there to father John Connor. I hate this theory. This will be reffered to as the "Reese Was Always There" theory.
2. This second theory, my theory, is loosely based on the Back To The Future time travel theory. My theory is that you can go back in time and change things. If today, Brad eats a hot dog, and then later I time travel back to yesterday and kill Brad, then when I come back to today, Brad is not there to eat the hot dog, and I can eat it myself. This will be reffered to as the "Things Can Be Changed" theory.
So how does that theory explain Reese coming back from the future and banging Sarah Connor?
Reese was, simply, not John Connor's original father.
Sarah Connor and (an un-named male) had John Connor in 1985 who grew up and led the resistance. That John Connor (JC1) sent back Reese, and Reese banged Sarah Connor. Reese immediately died, and when she got pregnant from this banging, she believed the son of the Reese to BE John Connor, so she named him "John". This new, alternate John Connor (JC2) was bore of Sarah Connor, and was always taught (by her) to grow up and lead the resistance, so he did!
The original father-of-John-Connor, and the original John Connor both never existed after Reese went back in time, because Reese came back and changed the timeline completely!
I also note favoring this method of time travel because the entire point of all the movies is that there is no fate, and John Connor (and pals) is (are) writing their own future. They say in each movie things like "The future is not set in stone", and James Cameron himself has said that the moral of the story is that the future can be changed (and even that Arnold started making his own decisions - to be killed, specifically - in T2). The entire tone of the movies is that things are not set in stone.
Honestly, I do not think that this was the plan when they wrote the original movie. I think James Cameron had an idea and wrote the movie without much time-travel-responsibility-thought. I know that the studio made him "heat up" the relationship between Reese and Sarah Connor. And where could that go? If Reese just dies at the end, Sarah would be bummed but so what? She'd known him for a couple days. The only way for a romantic storyline between those two characters to hold any weight, is for it to end up with John Connor - John is the only link between the two whatsoever. Reese doesn't even have any relatives/friends in 1984. So I can see how the script kind of crappily found its way to that point, but I wish they had remedied it somehow.
1984 was a different time period for film and I think the ideas and story were original in themselves enough to be popular (obviously), without them really delving into why it was possible for Reese to father John Connor. I really feel like movies back then often didn't explain themselves, and were more just for entertainment. I know this sounds like a generalization but I really feel that way.
I also feel that Terminator was definitely not written to have sequels, and that T2 was definitely DEFINITELY written to finish the movie (and honestly, I think the ending of T2, where they blew up the Skynet research, was meant to mean that the war was avoided - which would not have made ANY sense).
Anyway - my theory us that originally it was a different John Connor before Reese came back, and I think it completely makes sense - except for one, nagging, shitty, fact.
In the beginning of Terminator, Reese finds Sarah Connor with a picture that John had given to him in 2029. This picture is taken at the end of Terminator, where she's now driving to the dessert and has given her old, normal life up to raise John Connor and prepare him for the robot war.
This picture was obviously taken AFTER she was affected and informed by Reese, and was in his possession when he traveled through time, therefore creating a hole in my theory.


Terminator Salvation
(spoilers ahead)
There's no time traveling in the new one so it didn't alter anything there, but here's my opinion on the film:
It's been said that this is the beginning of new trilogy and that contracts are signed for a trilogy. If this is so, I'm really happy with it.
It's a new feel than the older films, but I feel like it keeps the tone of the machines and the menace very similar. That's what you need with good sequels - you have to brave new ground without abandoning the roots.
I thought the action was pretty good - lots of fast paced stuff (which is not always easy when you're surrounded by desset). The fact that it was PG-13 didn't bother me much, as the previous films are really only rated R because of the word "fuck" and that doesn't always make a movie better.
I thought the story was good. I liked the new character, and I hated the fact that they revealed him to be half-human/half-robot in the trailer, because I feel like the movie could have a new element of power if that was surprise to the audience.
I thought Reese was well-cast, I thought Christian Bale (who I used to dislike) was great. I liked how they dealt with the past (John Connor knowing Reese was his father, studying his mother's tapes, etc) and I liked that they really made it feel like the first in a trilogy. By the end, you had a new story, a new atmosphere for the terminator lore to exist in, and the war is going on even harder than when the movie began.
I liked the story in general and to me, it was not predictable. I thought the CGI Arnold looked amazingly good, and I the T-800s at the end were the most frightening of the series. The Terminators were very off-putting and scary, and I think that's a neccessary feeling to convey (and definitely how the first Terminator was meant to feel). They also introduced new awful robots that were great.
Overall, very happy with it. It didn't blow me away. I liked Wolverine more, but definitely good. I really am definitely looking at it as part of a new trilogy, and as a first, I think it's the smart way to do it - they introduced stuff that was extremely important but went nowhere so far - a very neccessary element to any trilogy. You HAVE to have things in some films that aren't explained/put to use until later films, that's what makes them feel rich and actually planned out.
I feel like McG is a good guy, a very mainstream director - which does not neccessarily mean bad. I like the Charlie's Angels movies (as boob/butt-based PG-rated action-comedy) and I think he knows what he's doing and he can tell what type of project something is supposed to be - not everything is The Godfather, which is how I think he went into Charlie's Angels. I think he knows the depth of what could be a new Terminator trilogy.
Final grade for Terminator Salvation (in terms of starting a trilogy): A
Final grade for Terminator Salvation (if it's a stand-alone film): B

Questions about T4:
- "Why did Skynet go after Reese and John Connor in this movie? It's only 2018, how do they know that they'll be a threat yet?"
A. Reese went to the police and told the entire Skynet story to them in T1, so it would be recorded by the police. Plus, Sarah Connor also told the entire story of T1 and T2 in mental institutions, repeatedly, for years, while death, destruction, explosions and robots followed her and her son everywhere. There have to be tons of documents on this, and I'm sure the FBI (and whoever else) had crazy tabs on the Connors for all the murders/insane accidents that have happenned around them. Skynet would easily have access to this stuff, as eventually - "Skynet didn't take over the internet, they became the internet". They would have known simply from that.
B. If Skynet was sending back electronic murderers to 1984, I'm sure they sent back simple info to themselves earlier in time when they knew a single person would lead to their downfall.
- "Why was the inside of Skynet city developed for humans? Big glass TV screens, touchpads, etc?"
I don't know. I mean there were human-based machines (terminators, half-terminators, etc) policing the areas, so I guess that makes sense a little but it still a little bit odd.
- "If Reese dies, John Connor ceases to exist, right!!?"
I don't know - but the answer is not "definitely yes." The Terminator series has never dealt with this before so it's hard to tell - but, through everything that has happenned in the the Terminator films, nothing changed because of it. Even though Skynet and John Connor went through a lot of shit (all the time traveling murderers and different deaths and setbacks surrounding them), everything still ended up the same so far. The proof? The fact that the history remains the same - the original Terminator/Reese/the terminators in T2/etc, all still came back through time from way in the future, so everything is still leading there, despite the fact that things have happenned to alter the storyline. We don't know what happens if Reese dies, so I think this is a great thing to play off of in the upcoming two movies (although I think it will be incredibly hard to write this aspect and explain it well).
- "The movie bombed!!!! Good! I'm a gay fanboy who think they're murdering the series!"
The movie made $43 million the opening weekend. I hardly call this a bomb, but I understand it's low for a movie with a $200 million budget. I know that the PG-13 rating is an admitted mistake by Warner Bros (it drove away hardcore fans, yet only 14% of its audience were under the age of 18).
People are saying "This is surely the (deserved) death of the series" - hold your horses, Honcho. T3 made $44 million it's opening weekend ($1 million more) and that wasn't it's death so shut your mouth (T4 also grossed another $10 million on Monday). I think people are only calculating this as a failure because so many people went to Thursday midnight showings ($13 million from that one time) so it got a "projected $80 million". I think it was good, I hope it has a longer life than normal, and $43 is nothing to sneeze at (although I was a big shocked when I found that Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull, opening last year during the exact same weekend, grossed THREE TIMES as much over the four-day weekend - $152 million). And that's that.

The questions about the series that I can't answer:
- If machines can time travel, why didn't they just send back another terminator to 1984 to kill Sarah when the first one failed? Why didn't they send one at the exact point where Reese (her only protector) dies? Why didn't they send one back every day until they knew she'd be dead?

The questions I want answered, but that no one else wants answered:
- What happens if the Terminator eats? Is it the same as when the creepy kid eats in A.I.?
- Why did they make a dick on the original Terminator? Was it to make him completely human? Why would someone see him naked? Even if it was for like, him to pass as a human in front of a doctor, wouldn't he just kill the doctor if the doctor gave him shit? The Terminator is super-tempermental. Can the dick get a boner?

My favorite fact about the Terminator:
"O.J. Simpson was considered for the role of the Terminator, but the producers feared he was 'too nice' to be taken seriously as a cold-blooded killer."

*I feel horribly about the Stephen Hawking joke. I think he has a great sense of humor, but this was too mean - yet too funny to remove. I'm so, so sorry.

2 comments:

Brad said...

I'll be enjoying my victory hot dog while looking at the picture of Sarah Connor taken in the desert.

Chuck Staton said...

Yes, hooray for a lack of foresight in story-telling. Congrats.