Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Thread

I'm not worried about that. It would seem that she's alive enough to heal -- otherwise, whatever wounds she accumulates as the show progresses will get very awkward to explain in school. And her skeleton's clearly not too massive to preclude a normal human from throwing her around. I am curious as to what her actual orders are; what John needs to do or achieve to become "her" John to the extent that she takes his orders; and what abilities she actually has. A wireless internet connection would be very useful for instance. . .

 

That was one thing that bothered me a little - these robots have a lot of metal in them, and yet they were able to even pick her up - she should be a lot heavier.

I did like how they threw in the metal on metal sound effects for the fight though, that was good thinking.

 

I enjoyed the first two episodes for what they were, a good sci-fi action adventure and I'm sure I'll keep watching, but I have a hard time watching it in context of being part of the Terminator timeline even if its intent is to ignore T3 and take place after T2.

There is too much in terms of continuity and timelines that are horribly wrong even from the T1, T2 perspective.

While Reese may not have been aware of the Terminators sent in T2 if they went through before he did, we do know Skynet was destroyed and it is reasonable to assume that they went through with the destruction of the tempral displacement unit in the original future, to prevent more Terminators from going through later.
So who is sending these inventors and freedom fighters back? And how are they doing it? And why? It can't be John (or it shouldn't be) b/c that is jeopardizing his existance b/c he needs Judgment Day to happen and it can't be Skynet cause Skynet was destroyed. I think it takes away from the lore of "we were this close to going out...."
Unless all these fighters were sent prior to the Humans winning, maybe if the machines realized they were losing??? Seems kind of weird and really takes away form the "I can't go back...no else goes through... it's just him and me..."

Also there is no way in heck Sarah should be trying to prevent Judgment Day. It has to occur in Aug 1997. The mere thought of preventing it puts John's existance into question since Reese would never be sent back in time.

Also Reese said he never saw the war and grew up afterwards, this appears to be null and void now, right? And wouldn't that potentially change Reese?

It would be really cool if this all get sorted out to coincide with T1, but I think that is a pretty tall order.

I have no probablem watching it as a sort of an alternate take on the Terminator series but do have a hard time trying to make the actual connections to the first two T movies.

 

Well, I actually enjoyed it...(first two episodes).Especially for what it is...a Terminator series adapted for television. I've read the comics following the movie series in the 90's...Now Comics, and Dark Horse. And my belief in what Josh Freidman is doing: reinventing the series for a whole new audience, and continuing the "franchise" is a good one. One can nit-pick all one can about "time-line", and "errors" but as long as the essence of the "Terminator" mythos remains intact, that's o.k. The first episode threw me, since they jumped ahead from 1999 to 2007, until it "was" explained that this would "solve" Sarah Conner's death. (Freeing up creative blocks). But then there IS a time-travel element to the "Terminator" series. Which accounts even in the very first movie, starring Linda Hamilton and Micheal Bien. Bien's character's Reese, inadvertedly creates alternate timeline when "he" father's John Conner himself, after being sent back in time. Time travel issues aside= headaches, the show is still satfisying: more info. about Sarah Conners'character, John's "fascination" with Cameron "terminator" etc. As long as the "Sarah Conners Chronicles" proves to be entertaining...I'll watch.

Plus...Compare this show to what is out there....dismal "Bionic Woman" and now the WGA strike...what else is there?

Exactly how many episodes are there before the strike happened?

 

They probably have a full dozen+ episode half-season.

And Eli Stone starts sometime in the next couple weeks. That may be good.

 

The Sarah Conner Chronicles should prove "a winner" and hopefully sustain the duration of the WGA strike (hopefully).

 

When was Skynet destroyed?

In T2 Cyberdine (Sp?) Systems was destroyed, along with Dyson's work. Are people on here talking about the future, when Skynet sends T's back to kill John and Sarah? I think I remember Humans winning the War at that point.

 

In T1, Reese explains that "their defense grid was smashed, we'd won. Taking Conner out then wouldn't have mattered..."

It might have been the police interregation scene. Perhaps destroyed is a bit strong of a word, but my impressions, while some killer machines may still have been around in the future, that the humans were well in control of the situation at that point.

 

I am watching the second episode now. And I just noticed that during the intro as the head of the terminator is being assembled, just after you see Cameron, Sarah and John strutting, before the eyes are put into place as the head is turning, there is a very breif and very feint use of the sound effect of the Neutrona Wand burst from a Proton Pack from Ghostbusters.

 

He meant that the human victory was unavoidable at that point. Skynet was still around.

 

I just want to see the governator get shot by Sarah cause she thought he was a terminator disguised as the governor of Caleefornya. what an episode that would make.

the 9/11 thing was interesting as well.

 

Fox had ordered 12 - they got 9 done before the strike ended production. Josh Friedman told me that they don't have any more scripts. Ep 9 ends on a big cliff hanger so it works for a finale, even if they didn't want to end it there. They're anxious for the strike to get over so that they can get back to work on next season.

 

I will watch patiently and with stern devotion...to Terminator: The Sarah Conners Chronicles. I really don't believe there are any "must-see" television anymore..last time a Writer's Strike occurred, it gutted the "Moonlighting series". This strike I fear will continue l-o-n-g-e-r than anyone can predict.

 

I tend to use the Back to the Future 2 explanation that Doc Brown gave for the Terminator movies. The original Terminator Timeline was destroyed when Reese came back and established himself as John's father (it was made better like Marty McFly made his parents lives better). The second Terminator Timeline was destroyed when Cyberdyne industries and Miles Dyson were killed. The Third Terminator timeline was destroyed when Sarah Conner was brought into the future and thus Clair Daines/Edward Furlong never got together.

Thus, we're on the 4th timeline.

The original timelines that Reese, T-1000, and T-X are from have all been destroyed. Something similar exists but they're all different thanks to the various Skynet(s) meddling and the various incarnations of John Conner. It's really a bizarre game of temporal chess that is being played by dozens of slightly different players.

Or you can just assume it's various mediums with only slight relationship to one another.

And this series rocks.

My fun explanation suggests that because they blew up Cyberdyne Industries and Dyson, Skynet got built by lowest bidder contractor nerds instead of a super-genius that's happily married. Which means that instead of developing the Super powerful T-1000, he had to make do with nerdy fantasy sexbot girls.

 

I'd just like to pipe in and suggest a new television series for people on Monday nights. Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, which sounds like an absolutely abyssmal idea for a television series.

1. The Terminator movies are R-rated and very violent.

2. The plot of "monster after John Conner" only made it past 2 movies thanks to the simple fact that Terminator-2 had the greatest special effects of all time, Linda Hamilton is my wife despite her not knowing it, and Edward Furlong is the only child character in history not to be annoying (but awesome) in a sci-fi franchise.

3. Terminator 3 more or less killed the franchise even if it took it to its inevitable end.

4. Continuity must be a nightmare.

Well, I didn't expect much from this series due to these factors. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the series as its completely not what I expected. Fundamentally, they chose to emphasize the relationship of John Conner with Sarah Conner rather than focus on the "running from unstoppable killer Cyborgs."

This is actually rather brilliant as we get to see the effects of lifestyle rather than have it only hinted at. Sarah Conner is a woman that's desperate to protect her son from a threat that she can't ever really be safe from. No one believes her that robots are after her child and Skynet can send a new killer at any time to execute him.

Sarah Conner is paranoid, tough as nails, and as capable as her Linda Hamilton counterpart. But there's a very large emphasis on the love she feels for her son. It's a beautifully acted relationship and very powerful on the screen.

I also like the character of Cameron, played by Firefly's Summer Glau. Summer Glau is quite possibly the least threatening looking girl on the planet. Yet, she's already played a super-assassin (albeit a mad one) on Firefly and now she's playing a Terminator. The cutest Terminator in history. There's a lot of fun physical comedy like when the Terminator (the "Good") robot needs to be tossed out the window when she's temporarilly deactivated and they're fleeing.

The character of John is, unfortunately, saddled with being the straight man in the series. He has to be the normal kid whose expected to become King Arthur. He's no Edward Furlong, who conveyed that "yes, at some point this child could be the ultimate warrior" but he doesn't have to be for his role.

Nevertheless, the series is working despite it's two episodes being all that's "in the can."

I heartily recommend it.

 

Two different threads deserve two different posts, sir.

 

What was the Zelda 3 reference? Missed that.

As far as the episode as a whole, I?m not really digging the whole terminator goes to high school thing. I liked the scene where John questioned his mother for not letting him be the hero he has to be in the future, but you think they could have gotten to that point without resorting to a Dawson?s Creek subplot. Three episodes in, and I still think T3 puts the series to shame.

 

I loathe the fact that they've made the Summer Glau character your typical, emotionless, everything-is-literal machine. She was perfectly capable of acting like a totally believable human being in the first episode, I would've liked to see her keep that up. It would have been interesting to have a Terminator who John could keep forgetting was a Terminator -- maybe even to the extent of trying to protect her instead of the other way around.

Seems like a much more interesting thing than basically having her play River again.

 

Zelda 3: The computer guy talks about hacking Zelda 3 to make the characters say something funny (I don't remember the specifics).

Dawson's Creek my foot! It's T2 meets Buffy, which is a good thing! I'm enjoying John's frustration with Cameron's awkwardness. And you KNOW there's going to be more going on at that school than just one suicidally depressed girl.

I think you're on the right track by using "T3" and "shame" in the same sentence, but you're a little mixed up in how you relate it to the series. Having Arnold say "Talk to the hand" no less than five years after that phrase had gone stale is one of the worst franchise ideas since Greedo shooting.

 

Eh, I took "talk to the hand" in the same vein as "hasta la vista, baby" and the like. Least come context was given for the quote coming up in the first place, unlike the terminator in the first episode of the series who takes the time to stop pursuing John to drop the "class dismissed" one-liner. More pertinent to me were the ways in which I found T3 to be pretty bold, including the casting of Claire Danes rather than a Jessica Alba-type, Stahl?s capturing of both John?s leftover childhood weakness and the leadership qualities that will become more evident in the future, as well as a rather poignant ending that finally seemed to put an end to the time-travel retreading and move the story and series into brand new territory.

I have to agree with DorkmanScott, doing something like John developing immediate feelings and in turn wanting to protect the terminator because of its seeming humanity would have been a fresh idea. He?s also right about the Cameron character acting like a normal teenage girl during the first episode. Maybe that program was deleted somehow during a wall crash-through scene? Surely she?d rather revert into that mode while going to the new school.

I don?t know, I never got into Buffy, so maybe that?s why I?m missing something. Only thing I know is that I hate the established series goes back into high school. That?s why Smallville didn?t work for me in the least bit.

 

Terminator 3 was more like a TV movie, or an episode of "The Outer Limits". While Nick Stahl did a good job with what he had to work with, the script was abominable. Poorly-paced and poorly-structured; it, like a lot of sequels, felt more like a Terminator fan film than an actual part of the series. It just wasn't on the same level as Terminator 2 at all -- and if you're going to make a sequel, it should at least try to equal its predecessor if not surpass it.

I agree with James Cameron: T2 told the story. The rest of this is just a cash-in, and as much as I'm watching Sarah Connor Chronicles and willing to be entertained by it, I simply don't accept it as part of the Terminator continuity. To me, the official story is Terminator and Terminator 2. All this other stuff is just a what-if.