Comments on: Overthink It (Dot Com) With Me If You Want To Live!

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:54:08 +0000

See this thread on a message board as an example of why, in the case of time travel, it might be wise not to overthink it:

http://www.killermovies.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-14761-which-is-the-date-of-judgement-day-in-all-of-the-3-movies.html

Basically, posters try to pin down the dates of Judgment Day in the movies, then point out all the sequencing/timeline issues posed by the different dates.

It becomes quickly obvious that such debates quickly devolve into pointless exercises that miss the larger points of the movies, i.e. the points that ARE worth overthinking, like man vs machine, destiny vs fate, the value of human life, etc.

By: Stokes

Stokes — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:52:35 +0000

The nice thing about a time travel plot is that it’s really, really hard to make anything inevitable.
Having a whole movie set in the future doesn’t guarantee that Judgement Day will “really” happen any more than the post-apocalyptic sequences in T1 and T2 do.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:13:06 +0000

The season finale just dated the new Judgment Day as April 2011…and it also showed a young Kyle Reese on Judgment Day, which already distorts the events described in T1, in which Kyle says he has no recollection of the pre-Apocalyptic world.

And speaking of the season finale, all I have to say is…

DAMN THE STRIKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The season was clearly not supposed to end that way. TOO MANY QUESTIONS, NOT ENOUGH ANSWERS!!!!

Also, Drimmer, I agree: they should use this series as a way to erase T3 from the timeline.

But the proposed T4 movie also raises an important question: have the keepers of the Terminator Franchise already agreed with weenie T3 John Conner in that they have accepted the inevitability of Judgment Day?

By: Chops

Chops — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:46:44 +0000

Hopefully the beginning of the series was set between T2 and T3, and the jump from the bank vault re-arranged the timeline and has re-ordered the universe.

The show has already stated that they jumped into 2007. Originally, Judgement Day was in 1997 (I think, correct me if I’m wrong) and supposedly the actions of Miles Dyson in T2 pushed it back to T3′s Judgement Day. So, after the bank vault in the show, they’re already somewhere AFTER T3′s Judgement Day, with no explaination for how it was avoided that time.

Hopefully there will be some kick-ass Brian Austin Green flashbacks of him blowing stuff up and pushing Judgement Day into the show’s timeline.

By: Drimmer

Drimmer — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 02:17:49 +0000

What a mighty beast could be created with the combination of the thunky TR808 and the deadly T-101. A bot that could make you dance your ass off, before dislocating your ass from your body.

The producers of the show have indeed stated that the Chronicles are meant to be between T2 and T3 in the T-timeline. The hope remains that they will be an excuse to erase T3 from all existence and manage to restart/rewrite the series. Y’know, like Rocky Balboa negated Rocky V.

By: Stokes

Stokes — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:28:34 +0000

Those are good points, especially about the character of John Connor. Also, I’d like to be the first to point out that the “T-808″ mentioned in my post does not exist. I had confused the T-101 (the Arnold robot) with the Roland TR808 (the synthesizer that provides the thunderous basslines to “Baby Got Back,” “Me So Horny,” and countless other classics of the booty-bass genre). Producers of Terminator 4, if you’re reading this, take note: the T-808 would fucking own.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:54:45 +0000

While I agree that SC has some similarities in tone with T3, I would say that the differences outweigh the similarities:

OVERALL THEME:

T3: “Judgment Day is inevitable” – The Terminator
“Our destiny was never to stop Judgment Day. It was merely to survive it.” – John Connor, as the nuclear bombs fall around him at the end of T3

SC: A constant struggle to fight Skynet and change the future. T3 essentially rejects the central tenant of the first 2 movies (“the future is not set; there is no fate but what we make”) and replaces it with this kind of sad fatalism.

JOHN CONNOR’S CHARACTER

T2: JC is a punk kid, full of spunk and ingenuity, fully involved in the fight.
T3: JC is sad, whiny, and generally pathetic.
SC: JC is again a punk kid, full of spunk and fight. A welcome correction.

SARAH CONNOR’S CHARACTER

T1: Alive, kicking, badass, and central to the story.
T2: ditto.
T3: Dead, virtually forgotten from the story.
SC: Again, alive, kicking, badass, and the driving force in the story. Also a welcome correction.

I would speculate that the writers of TTSCC took this series as an opportunity to correct the above deviations from the Terminator canon, and I would argue that they’ve done one helluva job.

Enough commenting, time to watch the season finale!!!!