spankyj

I've been thinking about the original Terminator for awhile, but I cannot make sense of part of the plot. I'm hoping someone here has the answer.

Kyle Reese is sent back to the past by John Conner to protect his mother Sarah Conner.

Sarah Conner becomes pregnant by Reese, resulting in the birth of a child, John Conner.

How can someone from the future be sent by his eventual son, if the son is never born in the first place?

Groucho

This is what's known as a "time travel paradox." Believe me, one of the biggest perils of time travel are situations just like this.

tor_greg

Just one of those paradox things that's present in every time travel story.

spankyj

Huh.

I'd have thought Cameron would have considered this and I was just missing something.

Fair enough though - I, too, will have to deal with this paradox.

bothanspy

thats why I say no to time travel.

Groucho

Yeah, I wish I had that foresight to do that. Now I'm raising my old great-grandmother!

chanster

Well, there is no way around the paradox if you are dealing with "cause and effect time travel stories"

There is another explanation though - that there are multiple universes where the Terminator movie is set. It is really a headache. Check out the search button and you will see some interesting arguments.

jfoobar

Ahem:

"So you're from the future?"

"One possible future."

Shoveler

Actually, in T1, there is no paradox. The paradox would have been if Reese had been killed before the "act", or if Sarah had been killed before the birth. I believe that T1 was written with the paradox very much in mind, and I think that John sent Reese back 100% confident that he would succeed. Also knowing that he was sending his own father to his death, but there was no way around it.

shimmoril

If I go back in time to kill the father of my greatest enemy and suceed, what reason did I have to kill him?

NCMojo

The whole movie is full of paradoxes -- heck, it's about paradoxes. The machines sent a terminator back in time to kill the mother of John Conner because he was the rallying point, the man who taught all the others how to fight back. He learned how to fight back because his mother dragged him around to guerilla camps and militia groups all of his life. She only did this because she knew the end of the world was coming -- and she only knew the end of the world was coming because the machines sent a terminator back in time to kill the mother of John Conner.

Now comes the fun part -- in T2, the machines send another Terminator back into the past because the firstTerminator did not succeed. So evidently they knew this because five seconds after Arnold disappeared in all his naked majesty... the war was still going on? So they loaded up the next year's model?

And then John Conner knew to send back the "good Arnold" because... well, because he knew the machines had sent back the new, improved T-1000 and the old Terminator... and because he had been saved by the "good Arnold" earlier... who in turn was melted down, supposedly ending the whole "rise of the machines"... which means, umm...

And now we have T3, where the world does end, so...

As John Conner says in T2: "It messes with your head."

GuessWho

The Terminator movies always bothered me for a few reasons...
If the 1984 attempt to kill Sarah didn't work, why did they try again in 1991? And 2003?

Just keep going back to '84 over and over and over again!

Or to hell with that, go to 1944 and kill grandma.

Geofferson

Good point!

jiggawhat

What I don't understand is that in the first movie the time travelling machine is said to be destroyed, however, they are able to send two more terminators out. I don't remember them saying they had a spare time travelling machine. I mean having a spare time travelling machine isn't the same as having a spare tire.

collven

If you really want to fry your brain thinking about it, John never should have had a chance to send Kyle back. The instant the Terminator was sent through, whatever he did in the past would have affected the future. In other words, say the Terminator had been able to find Sarah and kill her within 2 days. It would not have taken 2 days to affect the future, it would have changed immediately. John would not have had any time to send back Kyle. At least, I think that's the way time travel works.

einTier

Yes, that's true. If Reese was John's kid, then we'd have a paradox, but as it is, Reese is no direct relation to John, so no paradox fathering him in the past.

But, the problem described is the concept of "jinn", or objects with no end or beginning, and is a fundamental problem in time travel. Think of the watch that Christopher Reeves gets in "Somewhere in Time". It is given to him by old woman, which prompts him to travel back in time, where he gives the woman the same watch he recieved in the future, so that she can give it to him many years later. But, where did the watch originate from? Who originally bought it? Does the item age? How much? When?

It's real noodle-baker.

zero

yarrgghh...this thread has...corrupted my head....just...like..the..Matrix...threads...

In all honesty I think Cameron tied up the entire story line in T2 theres no need for T3, but Im curious as to how it is all done.

UAIOE

:::: head explodes ::::

rennervision

A lot of these paradoxes have entered my mind before, but I never gave them much thought due to the risk of suffering brain damage.

Anyone have an explanation for this one however? (This has always sort of bothered me.) In the first Terminator, Kyle doesn't know what the Terminator looks like, and has to wait for him to make a move on Sarah before he can react. But exactly how is it he doesn't know what the Terminator looks like? Since an identical-looking one was sent in part II (and now part III as well), is Kyle the only numb skull from the future who hasn't noticed big Arnold-looking dudes = Terminator???

Brain Stew

I have a question, if the Cyborgs wanted to create the ultimate killing machine why did they create a 6'5" robot with an Austrian accent?

If I were going to make the ultimate stealth humanoid cyborg, I would build a 5'5" Jewish man named Morty who has an MBA in economics and is a CPA on the side. No one woud expect this mutha to rule their world .

Groucho

In the deleted scenes for the first Terminator there's a flashback (flashforward?) that shows multiple "looks" for the Terminators. It seems that concept was abandoned by the time that the second movie rolled around.

As for the original post, yes folks...this IS a paradox. John Conner cannot be born unless he send Kyle Reese back in time. But if John Conner was never born, Kyle Reese would never have been sent back.

Of course the big paradox in these films is the Terminator itself. By finding the remains of the first Terminator, Cyberdyne gets a jump start on their technology, triggering the eventual rise of the machines. In other words, the future was caused by the first Terminator being sent back in time...but how could he have been sent back in time before that future existed?

nice_skis

A wizard did it!

Save Ferris

The most accurate time travel movie (blockbuster/hollywood movie) is perhaps 12 Monkeys

Mad Dawg

Don't forget about the little people here when you get co-writer credit on T4.

jfoobar

"Hey buddy, you got a dead cat in there or what?"

"Zalts im in di oygen, feffer im in di noz, schmuck!"