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  • Timeline Issues- Movie Vs Show

    Movie did a good job of continuing off of the first 2 terminator movies. Thoroughly enjoyed it for what it was. Loved that we were introduced before the T-800 models showed up.


    That being said?


    The movies definately screwed themselves when it came to explaining time travel. The first movie deals with destiny and having to send Reese back to create John Connor. It is a loop and in that form of time travel theory is required to make the future happen the way it did.


    In T-2 judgemend day shifted. This means that the time line theory in T-1 was thrown out the window. Why you ask? Because in T-1 they claim that Reese MUST be sent back to ensure that John Connor is born, however because he is sent back now Judgement day had shifted to a new date..... The problem with this is that if he was required to be sent back to bring John Connor to life and save Sarah Connor then it should have always happened in the way it did, and judgement day shouldn't have shifted and John Connor would have been born to be the savior of mankind. Because they shifted judgement day they jumped to a string theory form of time travel in which there is one reality and it can continually change depending on changes that are made by people sent back in time. As the viewer you are only privy to the true time line that you see on the screen, but in reality there can be an infinite amount of timelines that have made numerous changes to the timeline you are watching just so your timeline could exist.


    The television show worked off of T-2 theory of time travel. Where people sent back have stable memories of what happened in their timeline, but just by being sent back they may have changed the future in small or large ways. Such as Andy Goode being killed and then never being alive when Jessie travelled back and altering the future. That way both Derek and Jessie had different memories about different events, both of them existed but neither of them remember events in the same way. This leaves ALOT up for interpretation and plot holes, but it is fundementally the best way to keep moving on a television show that deals in time travel.



    T-3 seems to have been ignored on every level by both movies and television shows. May change for the movies and we may see some refferences come up in T-5 but we wont know till we see it.



    Now on to T-4. The people who truly loved T-1 should truly love T-4, story wise I dont know what day judgementday happened, the only possible refference to this could be bounced back to T-3 but we don't know. T-4's time travel brings us back to T-1, it seems to completely ignore string theory time travel which, if it went by the string theory, John Connor would exist in this reality regardless of who he sends back to save his mother. Why? Because his past does not write his future. His future has already written his past. He exists which means that an alternate future sent reese back to save his mother and he was born. The only reason to send reese back would be if they found in this timeline that a terminator was sent back to kill his mother. But if Skynet understands that Kyle Reese is John's father then why bother sending a terminator back to kill Sarah? This is a game of chess, if you know a move isn't going to work, why bother?



    I love time travel stories, and terminator really is one of the best examples that tries to deal with all the 'what if's' but I completely understand why they would cancel Terminator: SCC if they felt the movies would be harmed by its production, and the show was already losing its viewer base before the movies made more 'cannon' you can't explain John Connor's adolescence in an alternate timeline, and still keep everything lined up with the movies..... when the movies havent even been written yet.


    That is the problem with this set up, they think the viewers can't tell the difference in alternate futures and how SCC was outside of the movies, and they might be right considering how many viewers they lost this season.

  • #2
    The movie was damaged by the brutal editing. Too much material was left out of the final cut. From what I understand, the novelization contains scenes that actually deal with the issue and these scenes are in the script and at least some (if not all) of them were filmed too . John talks about how this is not the future Sarah warned him about, that the T-800's are going online too early. Kate tells him that, he saved mankind in the other future and he will save them in this one too, basically acknowledging an alterable timeline instead of a perfect loop. These scenes should never have been cut out/edited.

    The movie seems to go out of its way to be vague about the timeline. Skynet knows about the previous time travel incidents and its failures, it knows that Kyle Reese is important for John Connor. Yet no explanation is given as to how it obtained this information. Did Skynet send information back to itself in the past via time travel? How? I hope the extra scenes are included on the DVD and that they have answers to these questions. :|
    Last edited by Exedore; 05-26-2009, 06:18 PM.

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    • #3
      The TV series actually did a pretty good job about explaining how Skynet sent information back to itself. I don't think a movie has the time to get into the kind of detail a TV show can.

      ----- Added 3 Minutes later -----

      Originally posted by Yoshua
      Movie did a good job of continuing off of the first 2 terminator movies. Thoroughly enjoyed it for what it was. Loved that we were introduced before the T-800 models showed up.


      That being said?


      The movies definately screwed themselves when it came to explaining time travel. The first movie deals with destiny and having to send Reese back to create John Connor. It is a loop and in that form of time travel theory is required to make the future happen the way it did.


      In T-2 judgemend day shifted. This means that the time line theory in T-1 was thrown out the window. Why you ask? Because in T-1 they claim that Reese MUST be sent back to ensure that John Connor is born, however because he is sent back now Judgement day had shifted to a new date..... The problem with this is that if he was required to be sent back to bring John Connor to life and save Sarah Connor then it should have always happened in the way it did, and judgement day shouldn't have shifted and John Connor would have been born to be the savior of mankind. Because they shifted judgement day they jumped to a string theory form of time travel in which there is one reality and it can continually change depending on changes that are made by people sent back in time. As the viewer you are only privy to the true time line that you see on the screen, but in reality there can be an infinite amount of timelines that have made numerous changes to the timeline you are watching just so your timeline could exist.


      The television show worked off of T-2 theory of time travel. Where people sent back have stable memories of what happened in their timeline, but just by being sent back they may have changed the future in small or large ways. Such as Andy Goode being killed and then never being alive when Jessie travelled back and altering the future. That way both Derek and Jessie had different memories about different events, both of them existed but neither of them remember events in the same way. This leaves ALOT up for interpretation and plot holes, but it is fundementally the best way to keep moving on a television show that deals in time travel.



      T-3 seems to have been ignored on every level by both movies and television shows. May change for the movies and we may see some refferences come up in T-5 but we wont know till we see it.



      Now on to T-4. The people who truly loved T-1 should truly love T-4, story wise I dont know what day judgementday happened, the only possible refference to this could be bounced back to T-3 but we don't know. T-4's time travel brings us back to T-1, it seems to completely ignore string theory time travel which, if it went by the string theory, John Connor would exist in this reality regardless of who he sends back to save his mother. Why? Because his past does not write his future. His future has already written his past. He exists which means that an alternate future sent reese back to save his mother and he was born. The only reason to send reese back would be if they found in this timeline that a terminator was sent back to kill his mother. But if Skynet understands that Kyle Reese is John's father then why bother sending a terminator back to kill Sarah? This is a game of chess, if you know a move isn't going to work, why bother?



      I love time travel stories, and terminator really is one of the best examples that tries to deal with all the 'what if's' but I completely understand why they would cancel Terminator: SCC if they felt the movies would be harmed by its production, and the show was already losing its viewer base before the movies made more 'cannon' you can't explain John Connor's adolescence in an alternate timeline, and still keep everything lined up with the movies..... when the movies havent even been written yet.


      That is the problem with this set up, they think the viewers can't tell the difference in alternate futures and how SCC was outside of the movies, and they might be right considering how many viewers they lost this season.
      Just because the future changes, doesn't mean the past does. The timeline doesn't shift until AFTER the events in T1. Sarah still needs A Kyle Reese to impregnate her. Which Kyle Reese is irrelevant. The genetic material is identical, even if his life's experiences aren't.
      Last edited by HeroesUnlimited; 05-26-2009, 07:07 PM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

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      • #4
        It wouldn't take too long to give us the explanations. I'd rather have that than a Bond villain Skynet (which is what it was in TS).

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        • #5
          [QUOTE=HeroesUnlimited;4892115]The TV series actually did a pretty good job about explaining how Skynet sent information back to itself. I don't think a movie has the time to get into the kind of detail a TV show can.

          ----- Added 3 Minutes later -----



          Just because the future changes, doesn't mean the past does. The timeline doesn't shift until AFTER the events in T1. Sarah still needs A Kyle Reese to impregnate her. Which Kyle Reese is irrelevant. The genetic material is identical, even if his life's experiences aren't.[/QUOTE]

          Right. Bolded. The thing is skynet could have sent more back to change more, but in the true timeline we are watching? they didn't. In an alternate future/present they could have changed it and we the viewers don't know about it, because we are watching the story of John Connor of this present. Not one of the alternate futures. For all we know the original John Connor wasn't fathered by Kyle Reese, but that future was wiped out when this John was. That means that we don't know what happened before T-1. We will never really know if the movie creators intended to do a loop or string theory. Not unless they make it much more clear on screen.

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          • #6
            "From the Ashes" is supposed to be official, and it does acknowledge that Salvation is based after the events of T3.

            To those that read the Salvation novel, does it say anything about Orozco?

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Yoshua
              Right. Bolded. The thing is skynet could have sent more back to change more, but in the true timeline we are watching? they didn't. In an alternate future/present they could have changed it and we the viewers don't know about it, because we are watching the story of John Connor of this present. Not one of the alternate futures. For all we know the original John Connor wasn't fathered by Kyle Reese, but that future was wiped out when this John was. That means that we don't know what happened before T-1. We will never really know if the movie creators intended to do a loop or string theory. Not unless they make it much more clear on screen.
              I think you may be running the risk of "losing" your audience if you turn the show (or the movies) into a lesson in time travel theory or temporal mechanics. People ultimately want a show that's "smart" but also one they can follow without having to take notes. Personally, I dig time travel too. We are probably more alike on that than different. We could probably handle such a show or movie. But the average person would get bored the moment it got too hard to follow.

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              • #8
                This time travel stuff reminds me of the saying "what was first, chicken or egg"?

                IMO the terminator movies have always made me feel that there are only 2 timelines.

                A present day/current. And Future. 2 Timelines in terminator and in all this time travel stuff. The confusing part of this all is, which was first? The Past or Future?

                John Connor is older than his father cause old kyle reese gets sent back from the future to make John while kyle reese of that present 1984 year was probably just a thought and not even concieved of yet. In TSCC Kyle Reese was about 5 or 6 when John was 16.

                This gives John an older age than his father. This is pretty understandable but which was first? Past or Future?

                I guess the moment John and Skynet sent back their soldier and killer in time to 1984 to do "their thing" is when the loop or 'NORMALCY" of time was changed and started.


                1984 was the normal time to follow everything by IMO. If 1984 is the normal time and it was to go through it's normal course of events and years to end up into the future of the machines, then how is there another such future of the inevedible?


                Unless you can speed up time with a machine and start from there and then send elements back from what has come of that future to mess up stuff in the past...geez what a mindjob.

                It's like the same exact book but writen a bit different here and there to jumble things around.

                Terminator makes you feel like the Future sometimes was around before the past. It's like it just suddenly started up like that in the late 20**'s with humans fighting machines.

                It is true though that if we were able to go back in time that we would mess all sorts of things up and change the course of the flow of life and possibly the universe.


                I think that McG needs to hire some genius people to calculate all this time travel stuff in such a way that could end all this mixup of time travel and this cluster F*ck of a mess that these movies have made. IMO, I don't find it hard to understand this stuff at all but it's much too hard for me to type it all here without having carpal tunnel at the end of it all LOL.


                I enjoy these movies for what they are. But I can understand why James Cameron wanted to stop after his first 2 movies. He probably knew where they were going with this time travel stuff. He started it all LOL! But he's not stupid enough to get back into it to try and figure it all out. But sometimes I think that if he DID take back the movies from T5 and T6 that he'd figure it all out and end all the mess of questions that people have started. If he thought about it all, then he SHOULD be the one to end it all IMO.
                Last edited by Johnold; 05-27-2009, 09:20 PM.

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                • #9
                  The answer is the future.

                  Here's the timelines...it was in another thread, don't want to type it up again.

                  The multiverse (multiple timelines) takes precedence here unless your making T1 a stand alone.

                  t0: Sarah Connor gives birth to a child named John Connor. The father of this child is unknown. Skynet is started up naturally. The human resistence with the leadership of John Connor defeats Skynet. As its losing, Skynet decides the best course of action is to send a Terminator back in time to kill John Connor. Connor sends his own man Kyle Reese back through time.

                  t1: Reese, from the original timeline, arrives before the Terminator (there's a stipulation on this). The moment he lands, another timeline is created. In this timeline, Kyle Reese in protecting Sarah, falls in love with her and she ends up pregnant with John Connor. Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor destroy the T-800 leaving pieces of it behind. These pieces are transferred to Cyberdyne Systems.

                  t1-1: In this time, Cyberdyne Systems activate Skynet and ends up causing Judgment Day. Again, Skynet finds itself losing to the human resistance and it sends a Terminator back through time to kill John Connor and because of the interference of the the first T-800, Skynet is able to send the more advanced T-1000. John Connor sends a reprogrammed T-800 to be his protector.

                  t2: The T-800 and T-1000 arrive in 1991. Their arrival creates a new timeline. Here, John and Sarah are given information about Cyberdyne Systems. Instead of allowing the research to continue, John and Sarah decide that they will stop Judgment Day. They destroy Cyberdyne Systems believing they prevented Judgment Day.

                  t2-1: The events of T2 didn't stop Judgment Day, only delaying it. The information that Cyberdyne had was passed on to the military. They decide to fully integrate it into all of their systems. Judgment Day occurs. John Connor, leading the resistance, defeats Skynet. However, before Skynet is defeated it sends a T-888 to assassinate John Connor, it succeeds, and it also sends a T-X to the past to eliminate all of the resistance leaders. Kate sends the T-888, having been captured and reprogrammed, back to stop the T-X.

                  t3: The T-X arrives and so does the T-888. The T-X proceeds to kill some of the lieutenants. It finds John Connor and makes him the number one target. However, the T-X is stopped by the T-888. John Connor and Kate Brewster fail to prevent Judgment Day. However, they survive in a military bunker. (I can't remember 100%, but I also think the T-X activates Judgment Day quicker than it was suppose to be because it was playing around with the internet systems.)

                  t4: What we know is that it'll be based off of T3. From the previews, we know that the future John Connor comes out to is different from the future his mother had told him about. This is probably because he believed the future would be the same as the one Kyle had told Sarah.

                  The stipulation here is that two time travelers will always fall into the next timeline over. The arrival of one time traveler creates a new timeline, and the arrival of the other traveler will fall into that newly created timeline. For example, if the T-800 in the t0 timeline lands in the t1 timeline before Kyle Reese then a new timeline is created where it finds Sarah and kills her. John doesn't exist, Skynet wins. However, the moment that Kyle Reese appears into that new timeline another timeline is automatically created where John lives, but his father is in fact Kyle Reese.

                  Also, note while we as the viewers see multiple timelines for John Connor, the one who's father is Kyle Reese, he only sees a single thread.

                  The single timeline creates some weird issues. Especially, if we are taking into account the entire franchise thus far. For example, the T-X eliminating the lieutenants. If the T-X was sent to eliminate some of the lieutenants then the moment it kills any of them, they are deleted from the T-X's memory, which means she couldn't have killed them in the first place. It would also make John Connor invincible (I guess he already pretty much is). Meaning, he could stand right in front of a Terminator with a gun. The Terminator would pull the trigger and John Connor would never ever die. He might get wounded, but he'd survive.

                  Also, I'm only starting with t0 as the original timeline leading into the movies. There could have been infinity more possible timelines before it.

                  I'm sure there's something wrong here, too.

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                  • #10
                    Yeah, try shortening this all up for the more simpler huge crowd that goes to these movies with a minimal amount of "need to know" wonder.

                    I personally find the Terminator franchise facinating CAUSE of this brain workout.
                    If a movie can keep your mind guessing and wondering, then it is worth loving and remembering.

                    So 1984 was the normal timeline and ofcourse when Reese and the T-800 came into the past everything changed. I guess thats why in these movies, it's REALLY important that the characters NOT leave any trace of these machines and their tech behind cause that could REALLY speed things up.

                    Sometimes I wonder if Skynet would've ever been developed if the first T-800's chip was never recovered.

                    In the end, it doesn't matter about skynet or machines. In the end, WE win not them. Thats all that counts. Machines still fail.

                    I don't understand why JC didn't try to figure out how to make synthetic living tissue and try wraping a plasma gun with it and send it back with a resistance fighter to give to young John so he can EASILY rid of ANY machine sent back to try and kill him. Since these plasma rifles seem to take out Terminators very easily. Or even Video of the future to show him what it's like and to give him pointers. I know I would have done this for my younger self. I would've been sending back all sorts of stuff in balls of skin LOL. Sounds pretty nasty.

                    Maybe in T5, Old John will somehow meet young John for the first time. Wouldn't THAT be trippy?

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Johnold
                      Yeah, try shortening this all up for the more simpler huge crowd that goes to these movies with a minimal amount of "need to know" wonder.

                      I personally find the Terminator franchise facinating CAUSE of this brain workout.
                      If a movie can keep your mind guessing and wondering, then it is worth loving and remembering.

                      So 1984 was the normal timeline and ofcourse when Reese and the T-800 came into the past everything changed. I guess thats why in these movies, it's REALLY important that the characters NOT leave any trace of these machines and their tech behind cause that could REALLY speed things up.

                      Sometimes I wonder if Skynet would've ever been developed if the first T-800's chip was never recovered.

                      In the end, it doesn't matter about skynet or machines. In the end, WE win not them. Thats all that counts. Machines still fail.

                      I don't understand why JC didn't try to figure out how to make synthetic living tissue and try wraping a plasma gun with it and send it back with a resistance fighter to give to young John so he can EASILY rid of ANY machine sent back to try and kill him. Since these plasma rifles seem to take out Terminators very easily. Or even Video of the future to show him what it's like and to give him pointers. I know I would have done this for my younger self. I would've been sending back all sorts of stuff in balls of skin LOL. Sounds pretty nasty.

                      Maybe in T5, Old John will somehow meet young John for the first time. Wouldn't THAT be trippy?

                      The only way old john could meet young john is if he time travelled BACK in time. If young john was plucked out of the past and put into the future then that time line would be altered and old john wouldnt exist.

                      As for sending back plasma rifles that could very well kill all humans if a terminator got their hands on one before they were invented and no defenses existed for them. It would take one, maybe 2 terminators to destroy all of mankind if they had access to a weapon the humans had zero defense against.

                      Also that ball of skin needs to be alive, which means it would have to have the organs to keep it alive, or the mechanics to pump nutrients to it.


                      One of the things I never liked about terminator was that they do not require organic materials to live. To keep that flesh alive they should be required to process organic materials, but meh, it's sci-fi.


                      My other hiccup is why bother sending one person? send 10 to make sure that first terminator was destroyed and no remains left. It's not like altered John wouldn't know about that and as soon as he had the ability to send people back, just send 20 back to help kyle out.



                      My reasoning for this is manifest destiny true loop theory or whatever you want to call it. The story is about how mankind abuses their privilages and take for granted everything they have. Sort of like battlestar galactica. Humans are doomed to destroy themselves and only the few who truly appreciate life and what they strive to live for have the ability to overcome and live through the devestation we would create.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Yoshua
                        Humans are doomed to destroy themselves and only the few who truly appreciate life and what they strive to live for have the ability to overcome and live through the devestation we would create.

                        This is me exactly. I don't take 1 day for granted.

                        I like Technology but can find it very useless and troubled at times.

                        The first humans in the world had it right, no tv's no ipods no cars etc.

                        I believe that one day, we will make our first humanoid robot and send that into the field so that way we could spare human lives.

                        Then afcourse a virus will send those machines outa wack and they'll start killing everyone and everything in sight.

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                        • #13
                          The reason they can't send 10 guys or 10 terminators, at least what I remember from the first movie was because they didn't have enough power. However, even if they did, sending more and more ends up messing more and more with the timeline. Both Skynet and John Connor need the timeline to at least be stable. Skynets needs it that way to ensure that it will be made, and John needs it that way so that his life experiences aren't changed. They are only sent back when they need to be.

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Yoshua
                            The only way old john could meet young john is if he time travelled BACK in time. If young john was plucked out of the past and put into the future then that time line would be altered and old john wouldnt exist.
                            He would, if he eventually returned to the past.

                            Originally posted by Yoshua
                            My other hiccup is why bother sending one person? send 10 to make sure that first terminator was destroyed and no remains left. It's not like altered John wouldn't know about that and as soon as he had the ability to send people back, just send 20 back to help kyle out.
                            Probably because they want to keep the damage to the timeline to a minimum. At least by sending just Kyle back, most people could write him off as just some nut job. You start sending back too many people from the future (and terminators for that matter), then the timeline gets wrecked. Time travel to the past only really "works" when the people living in the past aren't aware you're from the future. Once they become aware of it, it alters the way "normal" time plays itself out. It's kind of like the prime directive on Star Trek. They don't interfere in the evolution of other cultures (whenever possible).

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Jigga
                              t0: Sarah Connor gives birth to a child named John Connor. The father of this child is unknown. Skynet is started up naturally. The human resistence with the leadership of John Connor defeats Skynet. As its losing, Skynet decides the best course of action is to send a Terminator back in time to kill John Connor. Connor sends his own man Kyle Reese back through time.
                              I like that someone else realizes that this is likely the way things started, I have proposed this before and it seems to really piss off some people. It is the only logical beginning to the story, it explains John Connor initiating his own conception and does away with the whole paradoxal loop issues.

                              What's cool is that it leaves room for a pretty sweet bombshell as far as John's original father. We will likely never know for sure who it was, but it leaves room for some interesting story telling.

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