Knight76

I fully understand all of Terminators plot twists but have one question.

If in terminator Reese comes from the future as a direct result of the war and then fathers john connor. At the end of T1 the future has been changed and the war is at the very least postponed. So wouldnt that change the need for reece to come back from the future when he did and father John at all.

Some will say the war happens eventually. But the actual war date got postponed as explained in T3 and judgement day is inevitable. So even though the war still exists in the future, reese would not have come back when he did and therefore the instant they affected the future the present in T1 should have changed instantly and john connor would not be around.

Confused?

jaeufraser

I think most time travel movies end up having paradoxes and such. Nature of the beast. Just run with it, otherwise you'll go cross eyed. I just assume that anything in the past can be explained by divergent time lines...or something of the sort.

Knight76

Divergent timelines wont work in this case because of the fact a guy came back from the future and affected the present, then the future was changed.

John-In-VA

You'll end up in a mental hospital if you try to piece together the logic of time travel movies. Just turn off your brain and have some popcorn.

silentbob007

I don't think the war was postponed in T1 ... Sarah simply survived. I don't think the timeline would be that screwed up with the war postponed. After all, even if the war is shoved back to a later date, Reese and the original T-800 could travel back to the same date that they did on the alternate timeline.

UAIOE

Silent Bob has a point, the war wasnt postponed and actually it wasnt really effected at all by the time travel in the first movie. What happened in the first movie simply set the course for the war.

The Terminator was sent back to kill Sarah and his attempt failed. Had he succeded then there would be a huge mess of a paradox that would make Doc Brown cry like a baby.

kninestile

In T2 the scientist from Cyberdine (sp) pulls out the arm and chip that was recovered from the crushed T-800 from T1. He says something to the effect of "we have learned so much from these that Cyberdine woundn't be where it is today if it weren't for these".

If that is the case then wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the Cybernet System (or whatever it was called) that started the war in the first place would not have been created if the scientist didn't have the two artifacts to study.

And if that is the case then there never would have been a T-800 to send back in time in the first place.

THIS IS HURTING MY HEAD.

Unless I'm missing something

modfather

For those of you who are Christian:

Did Adam & Eve have belly buttons?

...discuss...

Knight76

Dont post threadcraps modfather.

UAIOE and Silent bob.

The war wasnt postponed at the end of T1 you are correct. But it was at the end of t2, which would mean john would not have been born when he was. Unless no matter when the war happens the machines still choose the same date to send the terminators back to.

Which is possible as machines would sort of think the same way no matter when in the timeline they were created.

chanster

Its nearly impossible to figure out.

You almost have to assume there was another war prior to the one we see in T1, because as soon as somebody came back, they screwed up the original timeline and started the tock ticking on the war that was described in T2 (this was the war that was started because of the terminators coming back in T1).

Terminator was a self-contained story, and it made reasonable sense.

Terminatior 2 kinda screwed things up, saying there was a way of altering the future (both positively and negatively)

Terminator 3 went back to the original idea IMHO - that war was destined to happen.

Dates of John Conner's birth are all over the place anyway in the movies, they are wrong in T2 - the ages don't match up.

BRAISKI

Well T1 was a warning for the war to come
T2 "delayed" the war
T3 the war started

UAIOE

In T3 what year did the war start? I think it was 2029 in T1.

msdmoney

Austin: So, Basil, if I travel back to 1969 and I was frozen in 1967, I could go look at my frozen self. But, if I'm still frozen in 1967, how could I have been unthawed in the 90's and traveled back to the Sixties? [goes cross-eyed] Oh, no, I've gone cross-eyed.

Basil: I suggest you don't worry about those things and just enjoy yourself. [to camera] And, you too.

NEW BALTIMORE

yo

UAIOE

I don't see what the problem in Austin's case is.

He is frozen in '67 and he travels to '69 from the the 1990's... This affects what exactly?

Unless he thaws out before the 1990's there is nothing there that is that confusing.

Giles

squi23

I agree that this is a pretty head spinning topic to wrap your mind around.

Everything everyone has said is just speculation and guesswork.

Some people's logic is better than others of course.

But I think approaching a topic like this requires some fundemental assumptions about the way time/space works before you can make any headway.

If you search google, you'll find a few pages where 1 person tries to explain it all as he/she sees it, providing the the assumptive framework, and taking plenty of details from the movies to prove his/her theories.
These pages can get pretty lengthy and mind numbing, but are fun reads nonetheless.

Mittman

How about this . . .

Destroying the machine in the first film left behind a chip. That chip was found by Cyberdyne and sped up the advancement of the technology. Perhaps the war was inevitable, but since a chip was left behind, it sped it up. T2 destroys that chip, delaying the war back to it's previously scheduled time. Then the war begins at the time it was originally intended to in T3.

There is a flying Deloran that factors into this whole scenerio, but I need to work out that theory.

UAIOE

What about a TARDIS?

Eplicon

There's no definitive space-time continuum law when it comes to the movies; everyone just makes up their own. At least from the first and third film, what seems clear(?) is that the machines come back in time for twofold purpose: to kill their threat to ensure their future existence, and secondly, to have a piece of their technology left behind to ensure their future existence, too.

I dunno...at the end of T2, it seems implied that everything was destroyed. Even if Cyberdyne was wiped out, the third film didn't explain much other than events were simply postponed for a later date. What's to say Cyberdine and the government didn't do some covert research, which was why things still happened anyway? At least that could be implied from the third film.

GuessWho

Reese didn't come back to save Sarah Connor.

He came to put this to use:

steebo777

Yo.

POWERBOMB

In the updated Time Machine, the albino freak towards the very end of the movie gives an answer to the time traveler which, and I'm paraphrasing tremendously here, he says that even when we travel into the past to change something the end result will always be the same.

It stands to reason that no matter how many time travels are done by humans or terminators their success or failure will in no way change the inevitable.

Fok

I have more questions regarding part 3:

why would the terminator kill John in the future?

Puzznic

Why wouldn't he? He was the leader of the rebellion, so the machines sent an assassin to kill him. They used a T-100 to confuse John as to the Terminators intent.