Amph Come with me if you want to live: The Terminator Thread

Always in motion is the consistency in the Terminator franchise.

 

Even though the movie has the "Terminator" name on it, I do think it's a tad unfair to complain that the more recent Terminator installments aren't as good as the two Terminator installments Cameron made when he was arguably at the top of his game. you ain't gonna get many movies like that from anybody, really. So I actually really like that Genisys gleefully explodes and destroys it's own continuity. It's time travel / alternate timelines, etc. those first two flicks still "exist" anyway because time travel. Connor, when he goes evil, has a great line about how they're marooned in time, and another great flat-out slam later on to Pops where he says "You are a relic from a deleted timeline." This is the most time-travel heavy installment in the series but I'm okay with how it goes all buggity boo.

That's probably why I think Genisys is at it's strongest for the opening stretch to about when they jump forward. I kinda love seeing a really upside-down take on the original Terminator flick. You could say that the opening Future War bit of Genisys can fit in rather nicely alongside the original continuity and then Matt Smith shows up at the last moment and proceeds to completely explode the series continuity. which I totally enjoyed and I think the 1984 portion of Genisys is it's strongest, you're seeing these moments of the original Terminator happen and then get sideswiped by something unexpected, such the Pops vs. T-800 scene up to Sarah's entry. I think it's kind of awesome that Pops and Sarah have been training for this day for about a decade and their plan actually comes together, couple of glitches here and there but I love how they have it planned out and go through the motions. (aside, Sarah implies that her parents were killed by a T-1000 so I'm gonna assume the T-1000 we see in Genisys is the same one, they just managed to ditch him for a decade until both Pops/Sarah and the T-1000 knew what was going to happen on 1984 and all ended up in LA)

As for the humans, a key element of a great Terminator story is getting the right chemistry of the main trio - Sarah, "Uncle Bob" and John do it great in T2. Here, two of the actors work great, I love the back and forth banter between Pops and Sarah. Clarke I thought was really good too, she's basically been trained as a weapon to kill Terminators for a decade and she's damn good at it but sort of stunted emotionally. She has some pretty fun lines throughout ("Don't listen to him, he has a head wound!") and I even liked her "go in a straight line" moment. Oddly Pops is a really fun and appropriate father figure and Schwarzenegger still nails the character with it's terse responses and kinda-emotion. And they even had a decent workaround for him aging! Courtney as Reese has some good banter with both of them but buying Courtney AS Kyle Reese I think is harder, especially compared to how damn great Michael Beihn was as a twitchy Kyle Reese in the original Terminator. Courtney gets in a decent scene with his younger self at the end and a couple of decent one liner reactions ("is there an off switch for him to talk like that?") but he's definitely a tad bland. That being said, I do like him as the baddie in the Divergent series. He works better that way. JK Simmons is always fun to watch play loud but the character is really damn superfloous.

I think 2nd half of the film isn't as inventive with the script, but it does provide some decent spectacle (Pops jumping THROUGH a helicopter is pretty darn entertaining). Seeing Connor twisted into a Terminator is interesting and suitably horrific; John Connor has been a series hero in every installment since T2. To go back to the moment when Matt Smith jumps him with "You didn't think it'd be that easy, did you?" it's a pretty big beat for series fans, although your enjoyment of the twist is dependent upon if you're okay that John "dies" and is replaced as a Terminator, which Sarah does accept. The screenwriters have been saying that Matt Smith's "Skynet" is from an alternate reality and is just jumping around timelines, which is a cool idea but the movie never states that. I just saw it as Matt Smith's character is a final twist by the OG universe Skynet but apparently his Skynet is such an evil so-and-so he's taking over different timelines and dimensions. Anyway, the point is Smith gets to monologue menacingly, and Clarke gets to do a really twisted inversion of Reese's "It can't be bargained with" speech so the baddies in the 2nd half are effective. I even liked Byung-hun as the T-1000 in the first half, maybe even a bit more, he had the mannerisms and movement of the T-1000 down pretty cold (and he restarted the broken OG T-800 on his own.). Because Pops and Sarah's Way Awesome A-Team actions in 1984 (they acid-bathed the original T-800 which was neat) Skynet couldn't "make itself" by basing off the chip and the hand so it had to take the "long way" and emerge on it's own (but maybe probably also with some help from Terminator John Connor). But it's cool how the original Skynet was a nuclear cold war military industrial complex boogeyman, which totally fits the era, but now Skynet emerges from everyone being obsessed with inter connectivity and burred in their handheld devices. Instead of Skynet taking over forcefully, now humanity opens the door. Neat twist, that. (However, you can see pieces of this "Skynet came from us" in T3 where Skynet took over from not having a core, Skynet was basically software on the Internet hiding in everyone's machines that created Skynet in T3. But I think the same basic premise of Skynet's origins is done better in Genisys).

Some things kinda drove me batty, the Pops becoming T-1000 in the end is fun but really nonsensical even in a Terminator movie and that's saying something. I'm a big fan of the series in general so I'm biased but I really don't see where the hate for this installment comes from. (Unless people are uppity about how it destroys it's own continuity but as I said I'm okay with that) It's a solid entry to the franchise that, yes, ain't gonna be as good as the first two.I would actually be okay if there aren't two more Genisys movies, I think this installment works pretty darn well as a solo piece, even with one or two unexplained questions (they're time travelling robots, weird stuff happens) Like Jurassic World, Genisys leans a bit heavily between inspiration and flat-out steals from the series history but it manages to land on something unique.

 

Yeah, there shouldn't logically be any way for him to interact with the liquid metal, as there wouldn't be any need to. That's not what he's built for. Plus, there's no programming in his brain for "driving" a T-1000 body. It's kinda like if a human brain was put in the body of a different species. Even if it was somehow possible, we would have to re-learn everything. But, like you said, it's a movie about time-traveling killer robots, so whatever.

 

What if whoever sent him back in time knew he'd become a T-1000 so they upgraded his programing to be ready for that?

 

The "Everything Wrong With" video for Terminator Salvation is 19 minutes long.

 

When Kyle Reese opened his birthday gift to reveal a box labeled "GENISYS", I was totally hoping he would pull out a video game system just as a shout out to Sega.

 

That could be interesting. Pops sez that the liquid metal is harmless in it's inert state without programming, and the last shot of Pops face before he sinks into it focuses on his exposed chip so it's sort of implying chip = make liquid metal move now. And even the writers said:

Kalogridis: I don’t think we even have a name for what he is now.
Lussier: T-awesome.
Kalogridis: I don’t know. I don’t think we actually came up with…because the models are Cyberdyne design and he’s not a Cyberdyne design now.
Lussier: T-Pops?
Kalogridis: The organizing principle is his CPU, that’s what makes the liquid metal obey what he tells it to be.
Lussier: He’s a prototype now.
Kalogridis: I guess he is. An unintentional one. But yeah I think.

I'm going with the T-800 chip is what told the liquid metal what to do. The real question is, is Pops now a liquid metal terminator with a chip floating around there, is he a half-destroyed T-800 upper toro floating encased in shape-shifting liquid metal, or is he just full liquid metal Terminator that the chip imprinted on.

 

I've been watching the Terminator movies in preparation for seeing Genisys.

Watching The Terminator, it struck me. How could John have existed, fought the machines, and won the war (sending the original T-800 was an act of desperation on Skynet's part) in the original timeline before Kyle Reese was sent back.

Answer: John must have been fathered by someone other then Reese originally. That's fine. So John Connor's parentage changes thanks to the events of the The Terminator (just as Skynet's does).

What's MORE puzzling. Is Reese tells Sarah he volunteered for the mission to "meet the legend". As Sarah trained John to be a leader before Judgement day even occurred. This makes ZERO sense. In the original timeline (before either the original T-800 or Reese is sent back) why would Sarah train John (who was at this point fathered by someone other than Reese) to fight and be a leader before judgement day?

Riddle me that.

 

Yeah, I was gonna say that the act of time traveling itself might have triggered the timeline of T1, so that we'll never know how the original turn of events were.

This line of thinking itself causes a loop, though. If events and memories change ad hoc, then the simple act of deciding to alter the past makes the present and memories change, which necessitates a different strategy to account for the different reality, which in turn causes new memories and events once that strategy has been decided on, and so on ad infinitum. Which reminds me of Arnold's line in T3 about Judgement Day being inevitable.

 

I just figured this out, because of the picture Reese is shown to have in the future. So it IS Reese's son John Connor who is on the verge of defeating the machines.

So you're suggesting they might not only be transversing time, but realities as well. Interesting.

Ha! Neat.

Still begs the question of how a loop like that could start in the first place.

 

John has always known who his father was, the minute Sarah chose to tell him. That's why he's on the lookout for him in "Salvation". According to the novelization for the second film, John gave copies of Sarah's photo to different soldiers to serve as inspiration in times of doubt. But when he and Reese first met, John gave him the original one.

Here's what Cameron wrote in the original opening sequence. This is after Reese is sent back.

FUENTES, one of the officers, turns to Connor.

FUENTES: "Now what happens to Reese? I mean, what did happen?"

Connor's gaze seems far away from this time and place.

CONNOR: "He accomplishes his mission and in doing so, he dies."

FUENTES: "He is a good soldier."

Connor solemnly nods.

CONNOR: "Yes... He's also my father."

FUENTES: "Mother of God!"

Fuentes stares at Conner in amazement. He has just been given a glimpse into his leader's private Hell. Connor turns from the smoking chamber. He seems suddenly ten years old as his features drain of strength, shoulders sagging.

Fuentes shouts an order to a waiting Sapper team.

FUENTES: "Sapper team. Set your charges. Let's blow this place back to Hell."

Connor shakes his head no. Mustering his strength.

CONNOR: "Not yet. There's one more thing we have to do."

TIGHT ON MASSIVE DOORS OF STEEL, covered with a thin sheet of ice. Locking bolts slam back. Ice shatters like glass as the doors begin to open. We are in--

INT. COLD STORAGE FACILITY

Connor walks into the darkness, followed by a few technicians. They are in a vault-like cold-storage room. Hanging in steel racks from ceiling tracks are hundreds of what appear to be men. They are in rows of ten. Within each row, each of the bodies are absolutely identical. Connor signals the techs to remain by the door and walks out among the dark bodies. They are UNACTIVATED TERMINATORS. He stops at a row in which they are identical to the Terminator which was sent to kill Sarah (the Arnold model). He walks to the end of the row. There is one empty rack. He faces the Terminator in the next rack. Its eyes are closed. John seems distant as he studies that face. Fuentes enters the chamber, pushing past the technicians. Calls for his leader in the darkness.

FUENTES: "John?... John?... "

TIGHT ON CONNOR, his face pensive as Fuentes calls his name. Fuentes voice slowly dissolves to ANOTHER VOICE. A woman's. Echoing as though from a great distance...

CUT TO: This audio transition takes us directly to the scene of young John Connor in the Voights' garage in the present- day. The use of a sound dissolve between the two voices calling John's name while holding a tight shot on his face works as a flashback-style transition to bridge the future and the present.

The novelization would use most of this, but add that when John sags, he's remembering the picnic table much like Reese remembers the warning about Genysis. There was a sequence where John asks about the signals, which refers to the Terminator being sent back to 1984 and then a second one, which is the T-1000. There's also a sequence where John finds the assembly line where the Terminators are given their flesh and finds the machine is covered in icicles, one of which melts onto the plasma rifle when touched. John then leads the group to where the storage facility is. I'm not sure how much was made up by the book's author and how much came from Cameron.

 

I have to confess, the idea of your soldiers having photos of your mom always seemed a bit... weird... to me.

 

Well, with the others, I think the idea was that John was making a point that she is the reason they're surviving and will win the war. The sacrifices that she made to raise him, resulted in their winning the war. With his father, well, she told him that was most likely the picture that Reese saw that made him fall in love with her. Ergo, he needed to close that loop.

 

I did like Connor's line in Genisys when he says "I cheat" as to how he knows what Skynet is going to do and flat out admits that the time displacement facility is the end of the line for his knowledge. Which is what kinda makes Skynet's attack on him a bit more horrific.

I saw some grumblings that there's no reason Kyle Reese and the T-800 should be sent back in time since Skynet has already attacked Sarah in the 70s with the T-1000 (and Pops saved her), that act would have changed the timeline (and Skynet wouldn't know where Sarah is anyway since Pops took her "off the grid") and therefore the OG T-800/Reese moment wouldn't happen, but I just view it as sometime in 1984, in any timestream, there's gonna be a T-800 and a Kyle Reese landing in LA. It just always happens that way.

 

Ok, well that's as plausible as anything. I never really thought about the chicken and the egg aspect before today. But when the Skynet FIRST takes control and judgement day occurs, the John Connor living on the planet at the time is not fathered by Kyle Reese. But the events shown in The Terminator are already in the looped continuum. My brain hurts.

 

Some interesting bits from the Genisys writers from brief chat with the website The Arnold Fans (great site for everything Arnold!). Great tidbit - original the 73 flashback was more expansive (wish that had happened), the timejump to the freeway in 2017 was more chaotic (wish that had happened) and if there's a (probably not anymore) sequel may get bad Arnold again (really would like to see that happen)

http://www.thearnoldfans.com/news/2015/7/5/we-chat-with-the-writers-of-terminator-genisys.html

TAFs: Did you have, in an early draft, some great action scene that you wish made it in that didn’t make the cut?

Laeta: Oh there’s a list, we always write something that would cost $300 million, that’s what we do! I don’t know if I can pick one! There are so many fun unbelievably expensive and ambitions things that we messed with.​

Patrick: Let’s say that when Byung-Hun Lee (T-1000) came back, he did not come back alone. He had reinforcements that made that 1984 sequence so expensive, that it wasn’t filmable at this time.​

Laeta: Even bigger, yes yes.
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TAFs: Are you aware of anything that was shot, that will make it into the final blu-ray?

Patrick: No actually. All the big action that was shot is in the movie. Very little of the great moments didn’t make it in. Especially Arnold’s moments. Everybody rediscovered that every Arnold moment is pure gold, so it’s like “My god, we just need more Arnold because it’s pure gold!”​

Laeta: Yeah, keep adding Arnold!​

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...During the after-party, we again talked to Patrick Lussier. This time we mentioned we were fans of the TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Very small Genisys spoiler: In the film, a couple of the actors time-travel and when they arrive, the are on a freeway! So we spoke about T:SCC also having a similar scene. Lussier told me that in the original script, it had the character’s time-travel energy sphere appear inside of an upper freeway overpass so there was a little more danger happening there when the nude characters were hanging for life on exposed rebar from the crumbling overpass....​

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...One last great tease we got from him was regarding Arnold playing a BAD T-800 again. We mentioned that we (and many fans) think there has been enough of Arnold as good-guy/protector/guardian Terminator and we'd love to see him back as a ruthless killing machine again in possible future films. You can't really count his brief moment in T3 being reprogrammed to kill John Connor by tossing him around and pounding a car to death. Well, Patrick was understandably cagey, as he does have ideas for the next 2 films, but he basically said that we may be getting what we want, but they would save it for a point "when it's the most gut-wrenching." Sounds promising!​

 

That's a given. After all, John's death was never even remotely hinted at when Cameron was writing the first two and the third film could get away with that. The fourth film did it well with the inclusion of Marcus, who was never mentioned as the transition between the 600 and the 800 series.

I think the implication was that

Spoiler

the T-5000 had allowed John and Skynet to do what they did, and then moved in himself as he already suspected or was aware of the Guardian's arrival in the 70's. Since it would alter the timeline then, he would alter it further.

That's why there's no, "Originally it went like this." It was always a loop that couldn't really be broken. It could be bent, but not broken entirely.

 

RedLetterMedia takes on the Terminator timeline: