Official Terminator Thread

[ckent22]

Originally Posted by DVDave

Probably because they used Austrian Mr. Universe Roland Kickinger.

Don't you mean Chip from Son of the Beach? I think more people know him as that.

[ckent22]

Originally Posted by DVDave

Never seen it.

A Howard Stern Production.

[GORT]

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

I had thought of that too - that Marcus went that way because Reese was there - but if Skynet knew where Reese was - why not just go get him? Or, simply kill him when they did finally catch him? The machines had their #1 target and did nothing?! Why wait for John Conner to show up? Kill Reese and Conner doesn't matter anymore.

Even if they kill reese In 2018 john conner will not simply vanish into thin air you can't undo what has been done thats why the terminator was sent BACK IN TIME.

[derelicte]

Originally Posted by DVDave

You forget the Grandfather Paradox...

Careful - think too much about these movies and it collapses on itself. In order for John Connor to be conceived, he has to send Reese back to impregnate his mother. Reese doesn't go back, JC doesn't exist - but JC has to exist in order to send Reese back. It doesn't really make sense.

Just gotta sit back and enjoy the ride. That being said, on a recommendation I re-watched T1 just before seeing this one. There were several direct references to the original - the T-800 foot on the step, etc. I'm glad they kept the T-800 design the same - just gave it more freedom of motion, etc.
While I acknowledge that this film exists in the same reality as the first 3 movies, I also take it as it's own entity. Much more of a broad, epic scope - and as such, I enjoyed it. I also agree with the choppy editing - here's hoping for a longer cut on blu with more character developement.
Not sure how they'd do it, but I hope they bring Marcus back for sequels. He was an interesting character.

[Show spoiler] (science-y nitpick - doesn't the EMP blast from a nuclear explosion knock out electronics? Wouldn't the helicopter have crashed at the end? Silly thing to pick on in a movie such as this, but it bugged me for some reason

[dgator783]

Originally Posted by DVDave

It's a predestination or ontological paradox.

A predestination paradox, also called either a causal loop, or a causality loop and (less frequently) either a closed loop or closed time loop, is a paradox of time travel that is often used as a convention in science fiction. It exists when a time traveller is caught in a loop of events that "predestines" or "predates" them to travel back in time. Because of the possibility of influencing the past while time traveling, one way of explaining why history does not change is by saying that whatever has happened must happen. A time traveler attempting to alter the past in this model, intentionally or not, would only be fulfilling their role in creating history as we know it, not changing it. Or that the time-traveler's personal knowledge of history already includes their future travels to their own experience of the past. In Layman's terms, it means this: the time traveller is in the past, which means they were in the past before. Therefore, their presence is vital to the future, and they do something that causes the future to occur in the same way that their knowledge of the future has already happened. It is very closely related to the ontological paradox and usually occurs at the same time.

The Terminator

* Movies in the Terminator series deal with predestination paradoxes. In the first movie, Kyle Reese, the soldier sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor, the future mother of his commander John Connor, ends up fathering John Connor with her. Paralleling this, the Terminator cyborg sent back to kill Sarah is destroyed, but its components are salvaged to form the basis of the artificially intelligent computer network Skynet that will, in the future, send it back in time on its murderous mission. Although this second predestination paradox was established in the movie, the characters managed to destroy the components and prevent it. However, in the third movie, the Terminator reveals that the rise of Skynet is inevitable, and that the events of the second movie only postponed it. He turns out to be correct, as the movie ends with Skynet coming online.

* The Terminator cyborg sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor is destroyed, but its components are salvaged to form the basis of the artificially intelligent computer network Skynet that will, in the future, send it back in time on its murderous mission. The knowledge of how to create an artificially intelligent machine therefore has no ultimate source.
* Kyle Reese, having traveled forty-five years into the past, gives Sarah a message from his commander John Connor. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John says that his mother made him memorize the message — which, ironically, says that the future can be changed — in order to give it to his father, so that his father might then pass it on to her. At no point do we learn when or how the message was originally composed. Similarly, Kyle shows Sarah how to fight Terminators. Sarah teaches the same methods to John, who trains Kyle in the future.
* In the movie Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the Terminator tells John Connor and Katherine Brewster that he was sent by Katherine herself after she reprogrammed him to serve the Tech Comm resistance. Later in the movie, he takes the couple to Sarah Connor's grave and tells them that Sarah buried her weapons there. Since Katherine knew about the weapons location because the Terminator told her, then she told this same information to the Terminator before sending him to the past, the origin of the information about the weapons location remains a complete mystery.

In the Terminator films, Skynet, a computer program that controls nearly the whole world in the future, sends a machine to the past in order to kill John Connor, the future leader of the human resistance, at different points of his life: once before he is conceived (by killing his mother, Sarah Connor), again when he is 10 years old (in Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and a final time a few days before Judgment Day happens (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines). In the second movie Dr. Dyson (Joe Morton), the lead scientist for the Skynet project, explains that the surviving arm (used to strangle Sarah Connor near the end of the first movie) and CPU chip of the original Terminator was analyzed and found that the technology was so advanced, they (humans) would have never invented the technology themselves and was used to create Skynet in the first place. In the final movie, the humans, who have successfully invaded the complex in which the time machine is placed and have finally defeated the machines, always manage to send someone else to the past so that the Connors can be protected, which is what starts the series. In The Terminator, the machines send the T-101 and the humans send Kyle Reese: the first will give the people in the past the necessary components that will end up starting the Skynet project, and Kyle will be John Connor's father (that is, if the time travel hadn't happened then Skynet wouldn't have been created and John Connor wouldn't have been born). However, (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) does somewhat negate any paradox by showing that the American military have secretly developed the technology independently, suggesting that Skynet was always developed this way and not from the arm of the T-101.

Cyberdyne could have had a military contract and when Cyberdyne was destroyed with its research, the military could have advanced with the research.....

[derelicte]

Originally Posted by DVDave

In the second movie Dr. Dyson (Joe Morton), the lead scientist for the Skynet project, explains that the surviving arm (used to strangle Sarah Connor near the end of the first movie) and CPU chip of the original Terminator was analyzed and found that the technology was so advanced, they (humans) would have never invented the technology themselves and was used to create Skynet in the first place.

I haven't watched T2 in a while, but I thought the gist was that the arm helped them develop the technology sooner than they would have otherwise. I figured that it Judgement Day would happen eventually, but each time they time-travel the technology just gets more advanced more quickly.
Maybe that explains why the machines managed to develop Marcus (seemingly far more advanced than the T-800).

I also feel I should congratulate you, DVDave, on such a well thought out (ridiculously detailed) understanding & explanation of the whole Terminator time-mindf***...

[Diesel]

you know....i'm surprised the series has held up as well as it has in view of the "rules" of time travel theories

hats off to cameron and the others

[Diesel]

Thought this was kind of funny, Arnold's kids liked this one better than the other 3:

Action star-turned-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated America's Memorial Day weekend (23-25May09) by taking a family trip to the cinema - to check out the latest movie in the franchise that shot him to superstardom.

The former actor went to watch Terminator Salvation with his wife Maria Shriver and their four children, and he's given director McG's work the thumbs up.

But the original Terminator star admits he was left with a bruised ego after his kids declared the new movie their favourite.

He says, "Oh yeah, the whole family went to see it. It's a great film, I was very excited.

"The only thing about it was, I was a little upset because when we came out, I said, 'What did you think of it?' and they said, 'That was the best Terminator movie ever!' So that's really, like thanks a lot, that really helped (my ego)."

Schwarzenegger starred in the first three Terminator films - 1984's The Terminator, 1991 sequel Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003.

He makes an appearance in Terminator Salvation - but didn't film a single scene. Instead, producers used footage from the original trilogy and spliced it into the new movie.

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0801336/

[Diesel]

i wouldn't say he has to be in the sequels
but i wouldn't mind it if he was

like the Robert Patrick cameo they talked about, if they could work something out that was plausible and believable for arnold, i'd love to see him in it, but do i think its a necessity? nah

until the original T-800 goes back that is (if they choose to show that)
which by then the technology will be more advanced and the rendering of his young self will be much easier and even better looking.

[Diesel]

yea, i'd say the chances of arnold lending his voice if asked are dead certain
he still loves the franchise afterall

if they could pull it off it would be amazing to see "him" as the terminator one last time
or even the modern him as some kind of human in the film, i mean the T-800's image had to come from somewhere

i was talking to a friend while leaving the theater yesterday and talking about arnold maybe having involvement in the next movies and she asked "does he really have a big fan base that just loves almost anything he does?"

[Tru2theBlu]

Originally Posted by DVDave

It's a predestination or ontological paradox.

A predestination paradox, also called either a causal loop, or a causality loop and (less frequently) either a closed loop or closed time loop, is a paradox of time travel that is often used as a convention in science fiction. It exists when a time traveller is caught in a loop of events that "predestines" or "predates" them to travel back in time. Because of the possibility of influencing the past while time traveling, one way of explaining why history does not change is by saying that whatever has happened must happen. A time traveler attempting to alter the past in this model, intentionally or not, would only be fulfilling their role in creating history as we know it, not changing it. Or that the time-traveler's personal knowledge of history already includes their future travels to their own experience of the past. In Layman's terms, it means this: the time traveller is in the past, which means they were in the past before. Therefore, their presence is vital to the future, and they do something that causes the future to occur in the same way that their knowledge of the future has already happened. It is very closely related to the ontological paradox and usually occurs at the same time.

The Terminator

* Movies in the Terminator series deal with predestination paradoxes. In the first movie, Kyle Reese, the soldier sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor, the future mother of his commander John Connor, ends up fathering John Connor with her. Paralleling this, the Terminator cyborg sent back to kill Sarah is destroyed, but its components are salvaged to form the basis of the artificially intelligent computer network Skynet that will, in the future, send it back in time on its murderous mission. Although this second predestination paradox was established in the movie, the characters managed to destroy the components and prevent it. However, in the third movie, the Terminator reveals that the rise of Skynet is inevitable, and that the events of the second movie only postponed it. He turns out to be correct, as the movie ends with Skynet coming online.

* The Terminator cyborg sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor is destroyed, but its components are salvaged to form the basis of the artificially intelligent computer network Skynet that will, in the future, send it back in time on its murderous mission. The knowledge of how to create an artificially intelligent machine therefore has no ultimate source.
* Kyle Reese, having traveled forty-five years into the past, gives Sarah a message from his commander John Connor. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John says that his mother made him memorize the message — which, ironically, says that the future can be changed — in order to give it to his father, so that his father might then pass it on to her. At no point do we learn when or how the message was originally composed. Similarly, Kyle shows Sarah how to fight Terminators. Sarah teaches the same methods to John, who trains Kyle in the future.
* In the movie Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the Terminator tells John Connor and Katherine Brewster that he was sent by Katherine herself after she reprogrammed him to serve the Tech Comm resistance. Later in the movie, he takes the couple to Sarah Connor's grave and tells them that Sarah buried her weapons there. Since Katherine knew about the weapons location because the Terminator told her, then she told this same information to the Terminator before sending him to the past, the origin of the information about the weapons location remains a complete mystery.

In the Terminator films, Skynet, a computer program that controls nearly the whole world in the future, sends a machine to the past in order to kill John Connor, the future leader of the human resistance, at different points of his life: once before he is conceived (by killing his mother, Sarah Connor), again when he is 10 years old (in Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and a final time a few days before Judgment Day happens (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines). In the second movie Dr. Dyson (Joe Morton), the lead scientist for the Skynet project, explains that the surviving arm (used to strangle Sarah Connor near the end of the first movie) and CPU chip of the original Terminator was analyzed and found that the technology was so advanced, they (humans) would have never invented the technology themselves and was used to create Skynet in the first place. In the final movie, the humans, who have successfully invaded the complex in which the time machine is placed and have finally defeated the machines, always manage to send someone else to the past so that the Connors can be protected, which is what starts the series. In The Terminator, the machines send the T-101 and the humans send Kyle Reese: the first will give the people in the past the necessary components that will end up starting the Skynet project, and Kyle will be John Connor's father (that is, if the time travel hadn't happened then Skynet wouldn't have been created and John Connor wouldn't have been born). However, (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) does somewhat negate any paradox by showing that the American military have secretly developed the technology independently, suggesting that Skynet was always developed this way and not from the arm of the T-101.

Nerd Alert!

[GreenScar]

This thread continues out of control. It takes forever for me to catch up each evening.

Originally Posted by CYMBOL

The whole "false prophet" idea was never even touched on in the film - as far as I could tell, everyone followed Conner - except the higher ranking guys. And John's speech to the troops made no sense. He asks them to "stand down" - he never explains why (that they want to free the prisoners first). And, everyone just does it. That kind of would have been a good time to show the different idealogies in conflict - people arguing whether to follow him or not.

Maybe it will grow on me with repeat viewings.

Actually, Connor gives a speech that what sets us apart from machines are the decisions we make and why we make them. That we are not cold like machines. He does explain to them why he's asking them to do what he's asking them to do. Maybe, you do need another viewing When I saw it a second time I saw a lot more development of Connor. There's really a lot going on in this movie.

Originally Posted by Sussudio

my point overall, it seemed like CGI and action ran the show in the new one, whereas the special effects were more selectively placed in T1 and T2, putting the characters forward and devoting time to their stories, not just near nonstop action. like i stated in a previous post, the CGI in T4 was very well done and this was a thrilling, fun movie. but to me, that's all it was. T1 and T2 just felt more meaningful

I think a lot of people that enjoyed it enough to buy it on blu will really see that there's a lot more to the story with repeat viewings. As far as the CG. There was actually very little CG in the movie (that's why it looked so real. It was ). Stan Winston and his team worked very hard on this movie. Stan even has a Cameo in the movie (but I think it may have been cut) before he died. They did a tremendous job.

Originally Posted by natedog543

maybe they did make him a little bigger then they thought. Here's a pic right after his Arnold skin was burned off

then the one a few scenes after

If you look closely at the two pics, you'll see that the first one just has the front part of his flesh burned off. The back of him still has it so he looks thicker. As he steps forward it continues to fall off leaving the T-800 you see in the second picture.

Originally Posted by Diesel

oh man.....internet shame lasts forever

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-261398


this lady is "appalled" because arnold was naked in the new movie
yea....because arnold was really naked in the movie....

Originally Posted by DVDave

That's not true. They didn't splice footage from the other films. It was a CGI rendering.

Anyway, Arnold HAS to get involved in the sequels now to find Salvation for his bruised ego.

and it was AMAZING!

[GreenScar]

McG spoke to Mtv about the movie

Q: In the earlier movies, Skynet is not aware of Kyle Reese. So, why are they aware of him now?
It’s a function of their recon during the dark period, and a function of their awareness of the events that had happened since Kyle Reese traveled back. By virtue of John Connor being alive, that means Kyle Reese did meet Sarah Connor and impregnate her. That data exists, and was brought into the fold at Skynet.
Q: During the shooting of the film, Common said he was recording a song for the soundtrack (http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2008/12/10...n-soundtrack/). What happened to it?
McG: I just didn’t think it would be appropriate to have pop music in a post-apocalyptic world. My primary focus was to establish this world of the first of three movies; we wanted to establish the story first, and I didn’t want to do anything that had the smell of traditional pop conventions. In this world it just didn’t seem appropriate. Barnes, the character Common is playing, is going to be a much, much bigger character in the second picture. I’m not sure [if he ever finished the song], he was just working on it. Recording these days has gotten to the point where you can do so much at the personal level. I’m sure he’s got it in his deck; [whether it will ever be released] is a question for him.
Q: At the end of the film, is John Connor ever made aware that Marcus was an infiltration unit? Or does the secret die with him?
McG: That’s an interesting question. But I think it’s of very little consequence. What Connor is focused on [at the end of the movie] is that Marcus did come through for him and Kyle Reese. It wasn’t clear, when he gave his word at the riverside, whether that was an example of Skynet using the best of ourselves against us…his action transcends the question, if you follow me.
Q: If Kyle Reese had been killed in “Salvation,” what would’ve happened to John Connor? Would he simply cease to exist?
McG: Will he be erased in the photograph, like in “Back to the Future”? That’s an excellent question that theorists have been bandying about for the ages. We play it more simply. Kyle Reese must be kept alive, so he can be sent back in time from 2029 to protect Sarah Connor, impregnate her and she’ll give birth to John Connor who will save us all. And the simplest way to understand that is to protect the triangle of Kyle, John and Sarah. Any deconstruction of that leads to more headache than satisfaction.

[GreenScar]

Found some more interesting questions and answers:

With that in mind, we had fans submit questions to the MTV Movies Blog and took them straight to "Salvation" director McG.

Q: Is the footage of Arnold as the Terminator actually taken from the first film? - Donna Haynes

McG: That was done by scanning pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger from that period, taking the scans from that original picture and studying the original film on a very minute level. But that was created synthetically, in the spirit of "Benjamin Button" or "Forrest Gump," and that was our offering to the visual-effects world. That's a synthetic character that we worked very, very diligently on and that ILM created.

Q: How come lava melted a T-800 in "T2," but it doesn't in "Salvation"? - Germain Lussier

McG: That's not lava. There are different characteristics of molten steels, and that was an earlier steel process after it had been separated from the coke. We went over this with a metallurgist, discussing which metals burn at which degrees. And also, if it had stayed on [the T-800], perhaps it would've melted him, but it was frozen quickly enough by the [liquid nitrogen]. Plus, we make the transition from the molten metal to the cooling property so quickly — as a function of the T-800 being on [John] Connor — that it wouldn't have had time to melt the existing titanium exoskeleton in time.

Q: If there are sequels, will you follow what was said in "T3" in regards to John Connor being killed by a T-850? - Franco Portaro

McG: Likely, yes. There's a lot of value in the mythology put forward in "T3." Listen, I respect [director Jonathan] Mostow and everything — it's hard to make three good movies. Look at "Godfather 3." It's trash.

Q: When Marcus is inside Skynet and learning about how he was created, the visage of Dr. Serena Kogan mentions that he's managed to do something that none of the other Terminators have been able to. Is Skynet aware of the alternate futures and other events that have taken place? - Pierce Arner

McG: Skynet is aware of the alternate futures, and the way that we play it is in the spirit of parallel worlds, as theorized by Einstein. We try to pay attention to that approach to a fundamentally theoretical construct. So yes, they are aware of the other attempts on the life of John Connor, and they've always subscribed to a bigger-gun philosophy, from the T-800 to the T-1000 to the TX. Now they've decided to bring in a machine with enough humanity in it to properly infiltrate the Resistance and lure John Connor to their lair. That's why Serena speaks of thinking differently, thinking radically.

Q: What did Marcus do to earn his death sentence in 2003? - Jack Richlin

McG: He was a car thief that took his brother along for the first time. His brother panicked when the police showed up. Marcus ended up killing the police officers, and his brother was shot in the melee. So his brother and the police officers are dead, he's very down on himself, and he's the type of character who would never appeal the death sentence. Which is why he made the choice he did to accept death. ... We didn't shoot [the scene], although we always talked about it. I even storyboarded it; in fact, I'm going to put the storyboards into the DVD.

[TheForce8686]

For those people in this thread complaining about the lack of story in this movie it amazes me how there have been 58 pages of discussion about the story.

[GreenScar]

Originally Posted by DVDave

That is total BS. There were no records that Kyle Reese impregnated Sarah. He died in the past as a John Doe.

As for the photograph hypothesis, as I've said before, could never happen because of tangential timelines and the Grandfather Paradox.

He's saying it's something that happened since he traveled back (not necessarily recorded in the movies). He mentions during the dark time.

[Offender_Mullet]

Q: If there are sequels, will you follow what was said in "T3" in regards to John Connor being killed by a T-850? - Franco Portaro

McG: Likely, yes. There's a lot of value in the mythology put forward in "T3." Listen, I respect [director Jonathan] Mostow and everything — it's hard to make three good movies. Look at "Godfather 3." It's trash.

So let me get this straight. In Salvation, John Connor

[Show spoiler]gets a heart transplant

at the end of the movie, right? So going off McG's answer, I'm guessing this trilogy will end a'la Matrix cheesy martyr-style. My heart can't take it anymore. Ohhh the humanity.

[GreenScar]

Some more

Q: In "Salvation," was John Connor aware that time travel would someday exist? Was he just waiting around for it?

Christian Bale: Yes, it hasn't been invented in this movie, so it can't be utilized yet. He knows entirely that there's a bizarre situation where he knows Kyle Reese — who is a teenager but who is his father — and that he'll have to send him back in time. But Kyle Reese is not aware of that.

Q: Skynet made Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) so he thinks he's human, and there are huge strategic benefits to that. So why didn't they do the same with such future models as the T-800 and the T-1000?

McG: The reason they made Marcus the way they made him is because they wanted to keep enough humanity intact for him to be an infiltration unit. He's not necessarily a "Terminator." It's almost as if Skynet had a big gun theory: Let's throw a T-800 at him; didn't work. T-1000 liquid metal? Came up short. T-X, the girl who can adjust her cup size? Still didn't work. So, they've thought in a revolutionary capacity, which is articulated by the Serena (Helena Bonham Carter) character that will lure him in by using trust — the most human out of all human characteristics. Marcus was never there to overtly kill — he was there to infiltrate.

Q: If Marcus Wright is such a threat to the Resistance, why didn't Kyle Reese warn Sarah to tell John to watch out for him when he went back in time in the first "Terminator"?

Anton Yelchin: When Connor sent Kyle back, that was a world in which Kyle wasn't Connor's father. So when he sent him back, it then started this chain of the Connor that you have in [all the sequels] where Kyle Reese is his father — it'll be interesting how they tackle that [in future sequels] if we ever get to a point we have to send [Kyle] back.

Q: If the purpose of a Moto-Terminator is to bring stray humans back to the Harvester, how does it do that? Does it have arms that we just aren't seeing?

McG: There's a mechanism built into the Moto-Terminator that is something that's almost catapult-like in nature, designed to use the actual weight of the machine itself to haul that which it is pursuing until the Harvester can come and collect it. Then [the humans] will be placed into transport and taken back to a Skynet facility where they'll be doing nasty testing on our stem cells — in the interest of creating tissue that can live in a titanium chassis.

Q: Why can't John tell Kyle Reese that he'll someday become his father? Would that knowledge change their future or something?

Christian Bale: Exactly, exactly. [Reese] shouldn't know that — there's no benefit to him knowing that.

Q: Over the last few months, we've heard a lot of "Salvation" talk from actor Terry Crews, but he's not in the film. Where'd he go?

McG: He's there; he's just got a bullet in his head. He's lying there dead at the top of the [movie]. There was a beat where he interfaced with John Connor, going into the foxhole. It was designed to be a misdirect [with Crews saying] — "Are you Connor? The John Connor? The one who was supposed to do this, that and the other?" And you would realize, "Wow, Connor is now leading this mission." But ultimately I felt that it was slowing down the opening thrust of the film. That Terry scene will be on the DVD.

[pradeep121]

I saw Terminator Salvation yesterday for world premiere screening and it was awesome. The sound was superb and movie was actually good. Now i want it in Blu-ray to be DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 .

[CYMBOL]

Originally Posted by pradeep121

I saw Terminator Salvation yesterday for world premiere screening and it was awesome. The sound was superb and movie was actually good. Now i want it in Blu-ray to be DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 .

I think TS is Warner - which means True HD 5.1.

I wonder how it is that this soundtrack sounded so much more bombastic then many other movies. Everyone seems to have noticed the killer sound in this movie. What'd they do different?

I saw TS in THX Surround - Whoa!