Poll of the Day > Do they explain why the T-800 looks older in the new Terminator movies?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I only consider the first two movies canon so I havent watched any of the others, but that machine looks mad old in the recent previews
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https://www.gamespot.com/articles/why-arnold-schwarzeneggers-t-800-looks-older-in-te/1100-6470754/

because arnold schwarzenegger aged, ok?
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It just looks that way to blend into humans
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Havent seen the new one but in terminator 3 or one of the others they explained the skin ages because its organic.

It looks older because it has aged just like a person would
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The T-800 in the new movie succeeded in killing John Connor. Then he just sort of retired and lived as a regular human. The real question is why the organic material lasted as long as it did. That model was designed for short term infiltration missions. As in once they got close to their target they didn't need to maintain cover anymore. Certainly not for years on end like this one did.
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The timeline is just so bullshit at this point I can't imagine ever caring again.

Though I kind of half-want them to just make a total remake/reboot of the first movie, in which Kyle Reese is killed saving Sarah Connor, and John is entirely erased from existence in the future, but in a shocking swerve it turns out that he's actually been a pretty shitty resistance leader all along, and that his absence makes room for a better one that beats Skynet in about a week and saves the future forever.



SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

The real question is why the organic material lasted as long as it did. That model was designed for short term infiltration missions. As in once they got close to their target they didn't need to maintain cover anymore. Certainly not for years on end like this one did.

Not really an answer (and the real answer is that Cameron just said "Ehh, fuck it"), but it is interesting to note that, within the continuity of the universe, the Terminator in this movie is only 20 years older than the "baseline" model, yet it's clearly aged about 45 years worth of aging (because of Ahh-nold's age in each movie). So while it's outer skin didn't just slough off in a week or two, it still seems to be aging much faster than an actual human would (which might be partly a function of how it was vat-grown at accelerated speed in the first place).
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

The timeline is just so bullshit at this point I can't imagine ever caring again.

The problem is that each movie uses different rules for how time travel works.

The "organics only" rule was contradicted by the T-1000 and T-X.

The first movie was a predestination paradox. John Connor sent Kyle Reese, Kyle Reese is John Connor's father. John Connor is never born to lead the resistance if Skynet hadn't tried to kill Sarah Connor.

The 2nd and 3rd movies say history is iterative. Different iterations of Skynet were created and averted, which delays Judgment Day each time.

Another issue is the bunker John Connor arrives at in T3. This is explained as the reason John leads the resistance because from this location he organized the survivors of Judgement Day. Yet before the T-1000 Lieutenant General Robert Brewster would have been assigned to an unrelated project and killed in that timeline's Judgement Day before achieving his current rank in T3. Or after the T-1000 John doesn't have the connection to Kate Brewster.

Then by Genisys you have characters from the predestination timeline arriving in an altered timeline and new iterations of characters creating other timelines.
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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

The first movie was a predestination paradox. John Connor sent Kyle Reese, Kyle Reese is John Connor's father. John Connor is never born to lead the resistance if Skynet hadn't tried to kill Sarah Connor.

The first movie is most likely the result of earlier time travels, it is at least the third timeline.
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Foppe posted...

The first movie is most likely the result of earlier time travels

It would almost have to be, by definition.

First, you need the timeline where John Connor is never born and Skynet wins (though how do the humans manage to travel through time to fix things in that timeline?), then the second timeline is one where Kyle Reese travels back in time and John Connor is born (though how and why would they even KNOW they need to send Kyle back at all, to save someone they don't even know was ever going to exist, or have any impact on the future?), thus convincing Skynet that it needs to send a Terminator back to kill him in the first place, then finally you get the third timeline where it's finally possible to have what appears to be a causal loop (except the later movies then shit all over that anyway).

It's tempting to assume the "baseline" is one where John was born and survives and the first attempt to change it is the Terminator sent back to kill him (which is what the movie seems to suggest), but the twist with Kyle makes that impossible (John cannot exist until Kyle is sent back). Unless we assume the first loop in the chain involved a different John Connor somehow, and Kyle's interference creates a different Kyle who is better/worse/somehow exactly the same as the original when it comes to fighting Skynet.

Conversely, if time was fixed and we accept ontological paradoxes are possible, meaning that Kyle Reese ALWAYS traveled back and John Connor ALWAYS survives and there was NEVER a timeline before that loop began, or any MEANS of that loop beginning, other than as something which has always existed exactly the way it does, then no other movie in the franchise makes sense, because every temporal interference would render the future exactly the same, because it ALWAYS happens the same way, and you'd think a super-intelligent computer would eventually figure that out and stop sending robots back into the past because it's kind of futile. But then later movies imply the future CAN be changed, or at least delayed/reflavored a bit.

The current assumption is that meddling with the past just creates different timelines, but that kind of renders everything a bit meaningless, because traveling back in time is never going to alter your own present, so why bother doing it?
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Fucking time travel
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SunWuKung420 posted...

Fucking time travel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYJ6dIw_A6s" data-time="
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Foppe posted...

The first movie is most likely the result of earlier time travels

It would almost have to be, by definition.

First, you need the timeline where John Connor is never born and Skynet wins (though how do the humans manage to travel through time to fix things in that timeline?), then the second timeline is one where Kyle Reese travels back in time and John Connor is born (though how and why would they even KNOW they need to send Kyle back at all, to save someone they don't even know was ever going to exist, or have any impact on the future?), thus convincing Skynet that it needs to send a Terminator back to kill him in the first place, then finally you get the third timeline where it's finally possible to have what appears to be a causal loop (except the later movies then shit all over that anyway).

The first timeline got nobody coming back in time. Sarah gets a kid with somebody. Perhaps the father is a military that makes John interested in making a military career, perhaps it is an abusive drunk bastard that ruins Johns childhood and he sees the military as the family he needs, it doesnt really matter except that he is interested enough to be a highranked military. Skynet is created much later in this timeline and Judgement Day happened much later. Since it is the future, the resistance got access to more advanced weapons, and their guerrilla warfare tear downs Skynet faster than it expected. Even if it is a more advanced future, Skynet doesnt have the resources to build enough Terminators of high quality to fight back the resistance, so it decides to put a majority of its resources to create timetravel and remove the biggest threat it got, the leader of the resistance, John Connor.
Which in turn gives the resistance an upper hand, and they make their final attack against Skynet. John and his group enters a room just as Skynet sends back a Terminator in time. John reads the logs and realize that he must send back somebody to defeat the Terminator in the past.
Why does he chose Kyle? Perhaps Kyle was his right hand, perhaps he was the only one alive, perhaps he was the only one he could "sacrify".
Kyle goes back in time and manages to destroy the Terminator and survive, because this one was less advanced. Since he had nothing else to do, he decided to stay by Sarahs side, protecting her and her future child in case Skynet sent another Terminator, telling her what he knows about the future so she could prepare John better for his future role. As time went on, they fell in love and produced John, and they decided to train him from young age. But scientists found the remains of the first Terminator, which kickstarted their technology, Skynet got created earlier and Judgement Day happened earlier than what Kyle expected. John was still somewhat prepared and managed to get together a resistance. Since Skynet had a boost in future technology, it could create more advanced Terminators than in the original timeline, and it took longer for the resistance to be able to fight back. But they managed to tear down Skynet slowly, all thanks to John. So Skynet decided to invent timetravel and remove John once again. But this John had lived with Kyle as his father, so when he rescued him (and others) from a death camp, he just simply couldnt sending out Kyle on missions. Perhaps he was worried about if he would still live if Kyle got killed, perhaps he couldnt send out his own father, doesnt matter, this Kyle got less experience, which in the end got him killed when he defeated the Terminator. And since John had talked about Sarah so much with Kyle, he was manipulated into falling in love with Sarah.
Anyway, this timeline John sent back his father in time, and the third timeline starts, which is the first Terminator movie.
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Foppe posted...

The first timeline got nobody coming back in time. Sarah gets a kid with somebody. Perhaps the father is a military that makes John interested in making a military career, perhaps it is an abusive drunk bastard that ruins Johns childhood and he sees the military as the family he needs, it doesnt really matter except that he is interested enough to be a highranked military. Skynet is created much later in this timeline and Judgement Day happened much later.

Except that isn't correct. Kyle Reese is John's father, period. It is a time paradox; the future that Kyle Reese comes from is one in which Sarah Connor has already had his baby in the past. The photograph of Sarah that he swoons over before ever being send back is the one that he himself took of Sarah in the past.

John Connor would be two completely different people if "some guy" was his father in one timeline, and Kyle Reese was his father after being sent back.
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FrozenBananas posted...

I only consider the first two movies canon so I havent watched any of the others, but that machine looks mad old in the recent previews

The T-800s are covered in living tissue, which, like any living tissue, will age over time.
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GEKGanon posted...

Except that isn't correct. Kyle Reese is John's father, period. It is a time paradox; the future that Kyle Reese comes from is one in which Sarah Connor has already had his baby in the past. The photograph of Sarah that he swoons over before ever being send back is the one that he himself took of Sarah in the past.

John Connor would be two completely different people if "some guy" was his father in one timeline, and Kyle Reese was his father after being sent back.

I think the latter is exactly what he was trying to suggest.

In other words, the original "untampered" timeline has Sarah give birth to John via an unknown father. In that timeline Skynet takes over, then tries to use time travel to screw with the past, so "John A" sends Kyle back to stop it. Kyle winds up boning Sarah, so she gives birth to a completely different version of John with different genetics, personality, personal history, etc.

So THAT John ("John B") lives through the new timeline, which is now different. When he meets and recruits Kyle, he recognizes him as the man who will eventually be his own father, and thus takes the actions we hear about in the first movie (giving him the picture of his mother, causing him to fall in love with her before they even meet), then sending him back in time to save her/become his dad. In THIS reality, because events are different, Sarah basically winds up giving birth to a THIRD different version of John ("John C"), and we've effectively wound up in what looks like a stable time loop.

Then T2 basically implies the time loop is anything but stable, John C's future winds up being completely different from either John A or John B.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

GEKGanon posted...

Except that isn't correct. Kyle Reese is John's father, period. It is a time paradox; the future that Kyle Reese comes from is one in which Sarah Connor has already had his baby in the past. The photograph of Sarah that he swoons over before ever being send back is the one that he himself took of Sarah in the past.

John Connor would be two completely different people if "some guy" was his father in one timeline, and Kyle Reese was his father after being sent back.

I think the latter is exactly what he was trying to suggest.

In other words, the original "untampered" timeline has Sarah give birth to John via an unknown father. In that timeline Skynet takes over, then tries to use time travel to screw with the past, so "John A" sends Kyle back to stop it. Kyle winds up boning Sarah, so she gives birth to a completely different version of John with different genetics, personality, personal history, etc.

So THAT John ("John B") lives through the new timeline, which is now different. When he meets and recruits Kyle, he recognizes him as the man who will eventually be his own father, and thus takes the actions we hear about in the first movie (giving him the picture of his mother, causing him to fall in love with her before they even meet), then sending him back in time to save her/become his dad. In THIS reality, because events are different, Sarah basically winds up giving birth to a THIRD different version of John ("John C"), and we've effectively wound up in what looks like a stable time loop.

Then T2 basically implies the time loop is anything but stable, John C's future winds up being completely different from either John A or John B.

There aren't separate timelines, there is no John A, B, or C; it is one jacked up loop. That's what it means to be a paradox. John only exists to send Kyle back because Kyle went back to father him in the first place. The entire reason Kyle has the photo of Sarah and is the one chosen by John to be sent back in time is because John already knows from Sarah that Kyle is his father, there is no unknown father.
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GEKGanon posted...

There aren't separate timelines, there is no John A, B, or C; it is one jacked up loop. That's what it means to be a paradox. John only exists to send Kyle back because Kyle went back to father him in the first place. The entire reason Kyle has the photo of Sarah and is the one chosen by John to be sent back in time is because John already knows from Sarah that Kyle is his father, there is no unknown father.

Which, again, asks the question, how did the loop begin in the first place? How can John Connor send Kyle Reese back to become his father before he exists in the first place to send Kyle Reese back?

And if it IS an ontologically stable time loop with no beginning and no end, then how could they alter events at all in T2, when literally everything they did should have been part of a preexisting stable time loop that couldn't be broken, because that's how ontological paradoxes work?

And like it or not, Cameron's explicitly said that multiple timelines exist in the Terminator films, which gives rise to this sort of thinking in the first place.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

GEKGanon posted...

There aren't separate timelines, there is no John A, B, or C; it is one jacked up loop. That's what it means to be a paradox. John only exists to send Kyle back because Kyle went back to father him in the first place. The entire reason Kyle has the photo of Sarah and is the one chosen by John to be sent back in time is because John already knows from Sarah that Kyle is his father, there is no unknown father.

Which, again, asks the question, how did the loop begin in the first place? How can John Connor send Kyle Reese back to become his father before he exists in the first place to send Kyle Reese back?

And if it IS an ontologically stable time loop with no beginning and no end, then how could they alter events at all in T2, when literally everything they did should have been part of a preexisting stable time loop that couldn't be broken, because that's how ontological paradoxes work?

And like it or not, Cameron's explicitly said that multiple timelines exist in the Terminator films, which gives rise to this sort of thinking in the first place.

Because it is a loop. That's the point.

When Kyle is in the future, swooning over a photo of Sarah, about to be sent back in time by John, that is the exact same timeline in which Kyle already intervened in the past.

The problem with time travel in movies and books is that there are different ways time travel can be depicted, and the people writing it don't necessarily stick to just one. The Terminator franchise seems to deviate wildly between different types. In the first film, it appears there is one looping timeline, in which the future that Kyle comes from is the future that directly stems from his intervention in the past. Skynet thinks it can score a victory against John by preventing him from being born, but why would it even think this is a viable strategy if John's birth is only prevented in a DIFFERENT timeline, one in which the Skynet that sends back the assassin DOESN'T BENEFIT?

The second film introduces the idea that the loop can be broken, which creates all sorts of other paradoxes. By the time T3 rolls around, they've basically just thrown out all time travel logic (Judgment Day still happens, just a different way, at a different time, duhr!). Then there is Genisys, which is even jankier.

I haven't seen the new film yet, so I can't speak to the logic there, but my understanding is this film renders T3, Salvation, and Genisys as non-canon.
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>_>
<_<
<_>

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GEKGanon posted...

Skynet thinks it can score a victory against John by preventing him from being born, but why would it even think this is a viable strategy if John's birth is only prevented in a DIFFERENT timeline, one in which the Skynet that sends back the assassin DOESN'T BENEFIT?

Either Skynet doesnt know that it wont affect the current timeline, or it doesnt care as long as it results in a timeline where it wins.
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Foppe posted...

GEKGanon posted...

Skynet thinks it can score a victory against John by preventing him from being born, but why would it even think this is a viable strategy if John's birth is only prevented in a DIFFERENT timeline, one in which the Skynet that sends back the assassin DOESN'T BENEFIT?

Either Skynet doesnt know that it wont affect the current timeline, or it doesnt care as long as it results in a timeline where it wins.

Skynet is fighting a war, and the entire premise of the film is that Skynet sends an assassin back in time as a means of breaking a stalemate in the war. It would be absolutely pointless for Skynet to drum up this plan as a means of winning another Skynet's war, just as it would be silly for John to send Kyle back to stop it, since doing so wouldn't even matter in his own timeline. But John sends Kyle back anyway, because he already knows from Sarah that Kyle is his father, and needs to go back in order for John to be born.

Regardless, the entire time travel plot is very silly to begin with; John Connor's very existence in the future should be a big red flag to Skynet that the plan to kill him doesn't work. Even if the assassination did work, Skynet wouldn't even know it worked, because it would simply exist in a world that never had a John Connor in it. Although, that then creates the paradox that, if John Connor never existed, Skynet would never send a Terminator back to kill Sarah in the first place... it becomes the entire paradox whereby if you invent a time machine to fix something, fixing that thing means you no longer have the reason to invent the time machine, which means you never go back and fix it.
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A wizard did it.
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dedbus posted...

Havent seen the new one but in terminator 3 or one of the others they explained the skin ages because its organic.

Makes sense to me.
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