Movie: The Terminator... Explain this to me
 

So today I'm watching The Terminator on TV and I just couldn't wrap my head around something. Can someone explain the logic to me?

I'll explain...

The whole premise is that Arnold comes back in order to kill Sarah Connor before she has her son (John Connor). However, that other dude (Michael something or other) comes back and saves her.

During the rescue, they fall in love, have sex... and in turn conceive John Connor.

My question is this... why would the Terminator come back in the first place? If he never came back, then that dude would never have screwed Sarah Connor ultimately bringing John to ever exist.

It makes sense if Sarah screwed some Marine in her time in order to conceive John, but does it work when a dude comes back from the future? Why in the world would the Terminator come back to begin the cycle in the first place?

If the Terminator never came back, then Sarah would probably just die of old age never knowing anything about any of this.

- PornAddict

DUDE - It is just a movie

maybe she woud've met him anyway....cant really know...


but really...why worry about that LOL.

because there's not much of a plot if it didn't happen that way

Right... I'm not slamming it or anything. I mean I'll all for suspending belief, but to me this is a pretty big hole in the plot.

- PornAddict

it's way too late for me to think about this, but every movie has some aspect of it that doenst make any sense, or is completley unbelieveable.

that's what makes it a movie.

It's like Armageddon. Why the fuck would we train oil diggers to be astronauts when it would be much easier, quicker, and cheaper to train the astronauts to be oil diggers? My astronomy/physics professor in college a few years ago said that, pretty funny shit.

I don't agree with that 100%. I mean she could have banged any dude... why did it HAVE to be him? Why couldn't she be married to some Drill Instructor or something... or a manager at a Rite Aid. At least then John could have realistically been born to raise some hell regardless.

- PornAddict

I think the point of it is that to them (the machines and the survivors) this was their future (to fight in our past). They had no way of knowing that John Conner was conceived in this way as records of his and Sarah's life had been destroyed during Judgement Day. By going into the past they fulfill their destiny to spawn the future resistance. On the other hand, I could be wrong.... :1orglaugh

i think a better question should be...why do you care?

95% of movies have plot holes in them or discrepencies, why do you have a hard on for this one?

Thats what happens when you mess with the space/time continuim :)

DUke

Because she was a promiscuous tramp that would have gotten pregnant anyway?

:glugglug

ARnold is a Dark Sith Lord. The shroud of the Dark Side had fallen cloduing everyones judgement. He could not see that the other guy was going to father John Connor.

Thing is in the end it all never happens anyway if you watch Terminator 3 so that really fucks the story up as then how did Sarah get pregnant in the first place if no-one had any reason to come back in time and bone her.

Think of the Matrix when the Oracle says "Would you still have broken the vase if I hadnt told you?"

Trust me... it's not like I'm going to lose any sleep over this or hang myself if I don't get a good answer. It was just a question...

- PornAddict

its called suspension of disbelief

all i want to say i that terminator 3 sucks.

Shit I didnt mean Terminator 3 in my first post I meant 2 which I thought rocked. I actually havent seen T3.

Do yourself a favor and wait for it on TV, don't even rent the DVD.

Because there is no "first place". What happened already happened an infinite number of times. You can never go back to the beginning. So it was already too late, he had to go back and will keep going back forever.

Dr. Who told them, he stopped by for some tea and the machines liked his elevator.

If the Terminator hadnt gone back, he wouldnt have got crushed in the big machine in the end, and they wouldnt have found his processor and invented Skynet in Part 2.

Dont you mean, phone booth?

it has to begin at some point. so it was stupid, unless she banged someone at a bar and that was really john conner's father.

Very True

If backwards time travel were possible, actually, it would not have to begin at some point, since that would imply that time was a single static whole, which humans just perceive as moving.

ok another possibility would be if there was time travel that happened before the movie settings which led to the time travel causing john conner to come about the way he did.

so maybe its not so stupid, just incomplete info

Time is a man made concept.

but even with time travel there would always be a starting point since time travel would have to be invented

No, because a "starting point" presumes linear, moving time.

where's the Tylenol? :winkwink:

who said he made her pregnant? immaculate conception...

My guess is she just fucked that guy for the sake of it, and was either already pregnant.. or got knocked up later on.

if the T800 would't have done that than this would have happend
1. he would have adjusted time and space as he/we knew it
2. John would be alive to be his best friend in T2 en TIII
3. Arnie would never became the govenator

oh and its against the Star Trek Prime Directive to temper with time to get your way easy ;)

Fate.....everything that happened was going to always happen. You can't change the future is the theme that every terminator is based on.

Fuuuck,I never thought about that. Now I can't enjoy that movie.



Yeah right. ;)

you're looking at it the wrong way. there has to be a starting point which is before time travel. everything that happens before time travel can alter the past is 100% linear and you can't have events that are altered by time travel, ie going back in time in the way the movie did.

once the box is opened there's no turning back, but there is a time before the box is opened.

no wonder The Fellowship set off to Mordor by foot instead of Gandalf calling all those giant eagles

they were booked up on a charter flight

I went to a scriptwriting seminar years ago and I remember the speaker telling us about watching movies "never rationalize everything coz you'll just end up frustrated"

It is the standard Predestination paradox history is written, time travel can not change history because it is part of history.

Skynet was not aware of the paradox it assumed that if it killed sarah conner it would eliminate the threat. It did not realize that it was faithed to send the t-800 into the past and not only fail to kill sarah conner but the use of the device would send john conners father back in time to sire his son or that the experience of being hunted by the terminator would cause sarah conner to aquire the skills that she ultimately passed on to john that helped him win the war.

It was a perfect time travel paradox until the studio got greedy and released T2. That stinking pile of crap ruined the series.

I can't believe this thread is still going on... last night people were busting my balls but it looks like today some people are weighing in.

I'm gonna go through and re-read the posts.

- PornAddict

At the very end of the movie she stops at the Mexican gas station and is recording her thoughts. She mentions that she struggles with the fact if she should tell John about the other dude and if that would affect John's judgement on sending him back since he's his father.

So with that, it's pretty much implied that he is responsible for her pregnancy.

- PornAddict

That's how I feel about it, too.

- PornAddict

That is exactly my point...

- PornAddict

let me check on it again... this thread replies made me forget everything about that movie...:1orglaugh

Time is indeed a man made concept. In reality time doesn't move, we do..

it not a hole it the entire point of the plot.

the movie is about a temperal paradox, skynet could not change the future by sending the terminator into the past, because the entire event was part of history.

if you want an example of predesidation paradox being done really well check out the childrens cartoon gargoyles


if you watch the movie there are a lot of other things that would never have happened if the terminator had not been hunting Sarah Conner.

Sarah Conner would never learned all of the combat tactics she taught john, or become the bad ass leader (remember the scene where she start yelling at micheal to get up solider)

Sarah Conner would never have gone into hiding allowing her and her unborn child to survive. (end of the movie)

Sarah Conner would never have taken the picture, to give to her son, which resulted in Micheal falling in love with her so he would volenteer for the mission in the first place.


The most interesting part of that movie was the fact that it was a paradox. When you watch it over and over you can find an ever increasing number of things that are dependent on the paradox to exist. That actually what is so cool about the original movie, all of these characteristics were hidden until the big reveal of the primary paradox.

It only when you watch the movie over and over again do you notice all of the other dependent characteristics which confirm/support the paradox fully.

time traveling is full of paradoxes, that's why it can't exist but in the movies ...

FINALLY someone who gets it :thumbsup

I can't believe someone would go through and say "oh yeah! well it's a plot hole!" like they are so smart and uncovered something the screenwriter forgot about.

That being said, the Doc would have a field day with this paradox.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...x-Doc_1985.JPG

I prefer the jetsens

according to Einstein theory of relativity time travel is possible.