General Discussion

Before I start my little rant, let me explain that I am not the kind of person that normally picks holes in movies, and annoyingly broadcasts the impossiblilty of situations to fellow viewers.

I can quite happily suspend my knowledge of what is possible, and enjoy a movie.  Be it sci-fi, fantasy, horror, you name it.  However, although I can suspend my disbelief, the rest of the movie has to make sense within the realms of its own made-up world.   Otherwise it is just lazy writing.

Now, on to the point at hand.  I loved The Terminator when it first came out.  But then this problem I have with the franchise began to emerge with the sequals.  Now there is the Chronicles of Sarah Connor, and I have not been able to watch even one episode.  Why?

Simple really.  If we play along with the concept of time travel, I am fine with that. 

So imagine the enemies sitting there in the future, and they send Arnie back in time to kill Sarah Connor.

He fails.

So they send another terminator back, only this time it is more advanced.  Hmmm, still possible.  Although, why didn't they just send Arnie back again, until he succeeded?  But, let us for the sake of argument say that they wanted to wait until they had this super-duper new terminator (the one from T2).

That one was unsuccessful.

So why did the people in the future wait so long before they tried again?

Why didn't they just keep sending terminators back until they were successful?

If this was explained to me in a satisfactory way, then maybe I would look upon the sequals afresh, and even give the tv show a chance.

The only thing that would make sense would be if something is happening in the future that means that they cannot keep sending terminators back in time, but this has not been explained.  At least not to my knowledge.

Originally posted by Majestico

Before I start my little rant, let me explain that I am not the kind of person that normally picks holes in movies, and annoyingly broadcasts the impossiblilty of situations to fellow viewers.

I can quite happily suspend my knowledge of what is possible, and enjoy a movie.  Be it sci-fi, fantasy, horror, you name it.  However, although I can suspend my disbelief, the rest of the movie has to make sense within the realms of its own made-up world.   Otherwise it is just lazy writing.

Now, on to the point at hand.  I loved The Terminator when it first came out.  But then this problem I have with the franchise began to emerge with the sequals.  Now there is the Chronicles of Sarah Connor, and I have not been able to watch even one episode.  Why?

Simple really.  If we play along with the concept of time travel, I am fine with that. 

So imagine the enemies sitting there in the future, and they send Arnie back in time to kill Sarah Connor.

He fails.

So they send another terminator back, only this time it is more advanced.  Hmmm, still possible.  Although, why didn't they just send Arnie back again, until he succeeded?  But, let us for the sake of argument say that they wanted to wait until they had this super-duper new terminator (the one from T2).

That one was unsuccessful.

So why did the people in the future wait so long before they tried again?

Why didn't they just keep sending terminators back until they were successful?

If this was explained to me in a satisfactory way, then maybe I would look upon the sequals afresh, and even give the tv show a chance.

The only thing that would make sense would be if something is happening in the future that means that they cannot keep sending terminators back in time, but this has not been explained.  At least not to my knowledge.

Interesting points.  I'm really an advocate of time travel movies because in most situation, when well thought through you'll see holes in the plotline.  I can't think of any time travel movie off hand that didn't have some type of hole, which doesn't stop them from being good movies.

I guess you can argue that time travel can take years for a successful jump to the past.. but that wouldn't hold any relevance because you should be able to jump back to any single point, so however much time you spend in the future on time travel wouldn't hold an ounce of relevance in the past.

Also, if they've already sent a machine back, and no doubt they knew where it was destroyed why not send a second machine back at the same point and time from when the last machine was destroyed.  Or why not send 2 machines instead of 1.

Basically though, in spite of things, the machines should or.. would know automatically after sending the machine back whether or not the machine succeeded instantaneously.... or something of the sort.

I always took it that sending the Terminators back in time was more of an act of Desperation then a normal occurrence.  I would assume that it would require massive amounts of energy to send them back in time.  Plus there is the whole distraction of the War that the machines are fighting and losing to the human resistance. 

Also, they pick points where they think the target will be vunerable.  Remember in the first movie they go after Linda Hamilton but after the Terminator being defeated they probably mark her as too dangerous of a target.  Plus she goes into hiding and "falls off the grid" after that first terminator attack. 

Then they try when John is a boy because he seems to be a ripe target.  Then he "falls off the grid" for years after that failed attempt.  So they attempt to go after other targets in the third movie.  Namely his LTs in the future. 

The machines think with Cold Logic and no emotion involved.  So they are going to assume if they failed the statistically chance of failing again is pretty high.  Which means they need to make a new plan and a new method of attack.  That is why each attack is different.  Remember they aren't waiting years in their Time line.  For all we know there might only be days or weeks in between each terminator being sent back.  Of course it could also be longer since they send upgraded Terminators each time. 

But the major reason is the "falling off the grid" so there is no way for them to know where they went after that first failed attack, until John is in foster care at an older age. 

So technically speaking is John Conners(Christian Bale) going to send back Kyle Reese(Michael Biehn) in this next movie??

What alwaays bugged me is.  A guy fighting with John Conner goes back in time and gets Sarah Conner pregnent with John Conner. Huh?! Or am I remembering it wrong?

Originally posted by Cabe2323

I always took it that sending the Terminators back in time was more of an act of Desperation then a normal occurrence.  I would assume that it would require massive amounts of energy to send them back in time.  Plus there is the whole distraction of the War that the machines are fighting and losing to the human resistance. 

Also, they pick points where they think the target will be vunerable.  Remember in the first movie they go after Linda Hamilton but after the Terminator being defeated they probably mark her as too dangerous of a target.  Plus she goes into hiding and "falls off the grid" after that first terminator attack. 

Then they try when John is a boy because he seems to be a ripe target.  Then he "falls off the grid" for years after that failed attempt.  So they attempt to go after other targets in the third movie.  Namely his LTs in the future. 

The machines think with Cold Logic and no emotion involved.  So they are going to assume if they failed the statistically chance of failing again is pretty high.  Which means they need to make a new plan and a new method of attack.  That is why each attack is different.  Remember they aren't waiting years in their Time line.  For all we know there might only be days or weeks in between each terminator being sent back.  Of course it could also be longer since they send upgraded Terminators each time. 

But the major reason is the "falling off the grid" so there is no way for them to know where they went after that first failed attack, until John is in foster care at an older age. 

That combined with the logic that Skynet is attempting to maintain a low profile lest history be changed and it never get created seem like decent reasons.

My Problem with the Whole thing is that Skynet is Unstopable... No its not. All you gata do is take out the Internet Hubs and then Shut down the Sub stations. Granted I can see the First Nuke attack but as far as it Staying Online after that, Just kill the power.... 2-3 days tops and all the backup powers are down.. Skynets dead

Ah well

Originally posted by Vemoi

What alwaays bugged me is.  A guy fighting with John Conner goes back in time and gets Sarah Conner pregnent with John Conner. Huh?! Or am I remembering it wrong?

No, you got it right....in the words of John Conner in Terminator 2 regarding that issue
"it kinda messes with your head huh?"

Majestico, how can you rant about the flaws in those movies and not even mention the most obvious flaw of all?

The terminators Skynet sends back in time are absolutely 100% guarranteed to fail and Skynet should know it! 

It's simple logic.  Skynet of the future is losing the war with John Conner and the humans.  This gives Skynet a motivation to send a terminator back in time to kill Johnny boy before the war begins.  But if the terminator is successfull in killing John in the past then Skynet would never know about John in the future and wouldn't have any reason to send a terminator back to kill him.  Paradox.

Thus it is inevitable that the terminators cannot succeed in killing John.  The very fact that they were sent back to do it is the proof of their inevitable failure.  Why can't Skynet, a supposedly super intelligent sentient AI, figure this out?