History Headscratchers / Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines

** I think the original poster was reffering not so much to that specific fight loss, as just chose it as an example of John's rather lackluster role in this movie. He doesn't really show any combat or other skills his mom spend years teaching him and doesn't really have the presence of the future badass leader of humanity either. And TookALevelInDumbass too, being apparently incapable to get that the T-850 isn't his resurrected pal from ''T-2''. He does do some stuff in the movie, so he isn't useless, but he still comes off as ActionSurvivor tops instead of ActionHero. In-story it ''is'' justified by him becoming a drifter after his mom's death instead of keeping to train with her friends and becoming a professional warrior.

* At the end of Terminator 3, it is said that Skynet could not be shut down, as it has spread itself across computer networks all around the world. If that's the case, then wouldn't it have done a great deal of damage to itself when it nuked the whole world?

*** I've always thought maybe Sarah had just interpreted John's message wrong. Keep in mind Kyle was ordered to merely protect her, not help her destroy Skynet. John obviously knew that the future war could not be stopped. John had lived the majority of his life in a dark future, becoming accustomed to the war and his role within it. Perhaps he didn't really mean for Sarah to try to change the past, when he told her that the future was not set he merely meant that they would keep fighting. I always saw his message of "No fate but what we make" as him meaning it differently. Given the context, I thought he would've used this line as more of an inspiration to his troops in the future, to tell them that their fate was still theirs to control not by changing the past, but by taking control of the present and future. Salvation seems to corroborate this with Johns use of the line as he talks to the Resistance.

* Terminator 3: Sending the Terminatrix back to kill John Connor's future lieutenants is a fine plan. But why did they send her back to 18 hours before Judgment Day? That's a ridiculously short amount of time to run down several people spread across Los Angeles as well as killing off all the other people who share their name. Besides, wouldn't it be more likely that those people would have been out of Los Angeles that day, considering it was nuked to hell?

** Thanks to Dark Fate, we know that even if Skynet is successfully removed, another AI will take its place. Seems that canonically the Judgment Day is hardcoded into the timeline, it HAS to happen no matter what.

** The Terminator in T2 couldn't self terminate but nothing in the first three movies indicates that that's true for any other terminators.

** In the original timeline, John would've been with Kate already -- remember, she recalls making out with him at a party just a few days before Terminator 2 starts. Most likely, they would have ended up childhood sweethearts who ended up together.
** Seems straightforward-- the ones that became John's lieutenants are the ones that somehow survived. There might have been dozens of other potential lieutenants that died. We just didn't see any of the survivors' stories. Maybe they all went camping immediately before the attack?

** As said above, they probably could not procure a usable T-1000 unit. They managed to send hijacked Arnie Terminators because, according to the ''T2'' script, they found a stash of them in the [=SkyNet=] basement. But if Skynet distrusted T-1000 models, it probably destroyed the rest of prototypes. And of course, we have to wonder if the Resistance could have reprogrammed such a freakingly advanced thing as a mimetic polialloy.

** Keep in mind that in the final confrontation the T-x has also lost its outer 'skin' of poly-mimetic alloy. That stuff may not look like much, but presumably it adds some form of 'armor' to the T-X that helped it take blows from the T-850 in their prior confrontations; take that away and it makes sense that the T-X would become more fragile.

*** Let's face it- T3 is IdiotPlot all over.

* The film wastes no time and opportunity to show off the T-X's overwhelming strength advantage against the obsolete T-850. Yet in their final encounter, the T-850 successfully forces the T-X to free John by gripping her arm '''and crushing it'''. Perhaps the T-850 is actually way stronger than what Skynet actually believes?

** Nuclear blasts aren't quite as big or as fatal as people like to think. Sure they are measured in terms of miles not yards but Los Angeles is an incredibly big city with lots of buildings. Yes our nukes are lots and lots larger but there were survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The reality is that Connors' advisors all happened to live/be at the exact right points. It was just extreme sums of dumb luck.

*** Nah. In the movie it is pretty clear that spreading throught the internet was for Skynet to be 100% sure that it couldn't be stopped during that three-hour time window between fully going online and actually engaging in nuclear war. It's a sensible extra step to assure the plan will work, one that didn't require much effort because it's an AI that can multitask.

*** That does put future John in a really morally weird position. By sending Kyle back in time, he guarantees his own existence - but he also knows that his father died in the past before he was born, so he's signing Kyle's death warrent at the same time. I guess preserving the survival of LaResistance was the tiebreaker in deciding whose life is more important (and maybe Sarah's "we loved more in those few hours" message made him feel a little better about it), but if John has any decency, he must've at least ''felt'' like a dick when he gave Kyle his orders.
*** I've always thought maybe Sarah had just interpreted John's message wrong. Keep in mind Kyle was ordered to merely protect her, not help her destroy Skynet. John obviously knew that the future war could not be stopped. John had lived the majority of his life in a dark future, becoming accustomed to the war and his role within it. Perhaps he didn't really mean for Sarah to try to change the past, when he told her that the future was not set he merely meant that they would keep fighting. I always saw his message of "No fate but what we make" as him meaning it differently. Given the context, I thought he would've used this line as more of an inspiration to his troops in the future, to tell them that their fate was still their's to control not by changing the past, but by taking control of the present and future. Salvation seems to corroborate this with Johns use of the line as he talks to the Resistence.
*** Yes, John knows that by sending Kyle Reese back in time he's also sending him to his death. On the other hand, he knows that if he doesn't send Reese back he's signing ''Sarah's'' death warrant. So it's either the death of his father or the death of his mother, himself and by extension probably man kind as well. I don't see how making that choice makes him a dick.
** Since Cameron's not all that opposed to ripping off other sci-fi writers...Why didn't someone think to go back in time to re-write the code that makes humans a threat? By that I mean create the Isaac Asimov "no robot shall hurt a human" business.
*** SkyNet is intended to be a military/defence setup. Putting that kind of code in there would really hamper its job.

*** In SCC they ''do'' start self-destructing...sort of. The mechanical body is undamaged, but there's a passive defense system that destroys the terminator's processor chip if anyone tries to remove it, in order to prevent the resistance from reprogramming them. Without the chip the Terminator in question is a hunk of scrap.
** I can think of two reasons: One, a huge explosion could be seen as having too much potential for destabilizing the timeline via collateral damage. Granted, the terminators so have been far from surgical precision in their strikes anyway. The second reason I could think of is that Skynet takes the "s/he's not dead until I see the corpse" stance. If a terminator blows itself up to eliminate a target, it cannot confirm the kill.

*** This would be the case, except the Terminator in T3 is not the same series as the Terminators in the first two movies. In T1 and T2, the Terminators are series 800 terminators (or T-800s), [[ClosetGeek with a compact nuclear iridium power-cell]], whilst the Terminator in T3 is a series 850 (T-850), which has two hydrogen fusion power-cells. The confusion arises in that the '101' referred to denotes the ''Model'' of the Terminator (i.e. the physical appearance). The resistance shorten it to "T-101", but the full designation of any terminator would be CSM-(model number) T-(series number) Version (version number), (where CSM stands for Cyberdyne Systems Model). So in T2, the Terminator is a CSM-101 T-800 Version 2.4 (you can see this displayed on its HUD when it reboots in the movie), whereas the Terminator in T3 is a CSM-101 T-850 whatever version it is. We do briefly see another model of T-800 in the opening sequence of T1, but we don't know what model it is. This has been confirmed via WordOfGod by Creator/JamesCameron.

** Wasn't it obvious to anyone else? Skynet sent her back because she could John Connor's future lieutenants at a time when their locations would have to be relatively anchored in order for them to survive a nuclear war. Also, perhaps most tellingly, she activates the T-1s and the proto-HKs to begin their rampage and prevent humans from getting the opportunity to deactivate SkyNet, in effect being the spark that ignites Judgement Day. SkyNet had to send her back to that particular time because SkyNet would not have risen without her there to kill everyone who could have stopped it.

** Speaking of Connor's lieutenants, how did the T-X know exactly how to locate them? In the first movie it was a plot point that Skynet sent the T-800 with limited info, it basically knew Sarah's name and that she lived somewhere in LA, and that was it.

* Judgement day can't be avoided, my ass. If the Terminator in T3 had bothered to steal something - ''anything'' other than a RV, they would have gotten to Skynet in time to stop its deployment. They only had to get there a few seconds sooner.

** Thanks to Dark Fate, we know that even if Skynet is sucessfuly removed, another AI will take its place. Seems that canonically the Judgment Day is hard coded into the timeline, it HAS to happen no matter what.

* What was the deal with Skynet's behavior in T3? The previous Judgment Day was originally brought about as an act of self-defense by Skynet after an attempted shutdown when the AI became self-aware several weeks after being activated. T3's Skynet meanwhile appears to go homicidal and order the extermination of humanity the ''moment'' it goes online, which just has to beg one to question the competency of the scientists who created it and just ''what'' its purpose was supposed to be.

** It's still an act of self-defense, but for a different reason. What the humans were attempting to do was remove a virus that was infecting the net, unbeknownst to them Skynet itself. Skynet realized that they were attempting to destroy it, to it's benefit with itself, but were still trying to destroy it. As a result it decided to start trying to eliminate the humans to prevent them from making any further attempts at it's destruction, which of course backfired.

*** Actually, the Virus!Skynet is what the T-X is doing with the phone, downloading the list of targets and uploading the Virus, being software, it can spread very quickly, unprotected systems, such as the Civilian internet, fell pretty fast, mainly because the internet boom was just beginning, so a superadvanced program like the Skynet Virus blew through systems like flu in an antivaxxers kid, once General Brewster activated Skynet for the first time, it found the Skynet Virus, but instead of destroying it, the Skynet Virus overwrote the just activated Skynet, being one and the same, basically, the Skynet Virus probably had a few key pieces of code needed to turn Skynet Genocidal along with mostly the same programming Present!Skynet had, using basically "You Cant Fight Yourself" to overtake and advance Skynet into a true hostile A.I. basically a systemwide version of what the T-X did to other machines in the movie.

** You answered your own question. He didn't self destruct, he killed the T-X and was too close to survive. Apparently that distinction is sufficient.

* How were John, Kate, and their lieutenants supposed to survive the Judgment Day? Kate and the lieutenants all lived in L.A. John was locked in a cage and Kate seemed ready to call the cops on him, so he probably would've been under arrest in L.A. until the bombs started to fall. All of these people were supposed to be in a big city that would've certainly been destroyed by Skynet's attack - so how would any one of them have survived the apocalypse if the terminators hadn't shown up to interfere? None of them seemed like they would've had access to a military fallout shelter...
** Nuclear blasts aren't quite as big or as fatal as people like to think. Sure they are measured in terms of miles not yards but Los Angeles is an incredibly big city with lots of buildings. Yes our nukes are lots and lots larger but there were survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The reality is that Connors Advisors all happened to live/be at the exact right points. It was just extreme sums of dumb luck.
** General Brewster definitely had access to a military fallout center and it's a safe bet he took his daughter with him. The military would be aware that the nukes were launched and therefore counter-attack was imminent, so they'd sound the 'Get to your nearest fallout shelter' alarm. At least some people would make it to civilain shelters that were built en masse during Cold War. John's lieutenants probably were among them. As for John himself, it's possible Kate didn't call the cops on him after all and he was with Kate when her dad came to take her to his shelter.

** It's stated in the novels that even Skynet is wary of deploying the T-1000 as it is an experimental prototype and can't be locked out of learning since it's composed fo several billions of nano components; the whole body of the T-1000 is the CPU in a way. The T-X is an intermediate model between the 900 series and the T-1000.

** As said above, they probably could not procure an usable T-1000 unit. They managed to send hijacked Arnie Terminators because, according to the ''T2'' script, they found a stash of them in the [=SkyNet=] basement. But if Skynet distrusted T-1000 models, it probably destroyed the rest of prototypes. And of course, we have to wonder if the Resistance could have reprogrammed such a freakingly advanced thing like a mimetic polialloy.

** Was the T-850 active anymore? It had one stated purpose to kill Future John—and it succeeded. For all we know, after the completion of its mission it powered down or became entirely compliant.

* During the scene at the cemetary why did T-X morph back from Scott's shape to her default one? Especially since Kate was mere yards away from her, believed she was her fiance and T-X didn't need a plazma gun to kill her. Just keep the ruse for a few seconds more before shoving your hand through her heart.
** The T-X realises that its cover is blown once it sees Kate reacting to the bloodied police corpses in the car behind it. At that point, the T-X probably figures a ranged attack will be quicker than chasing her down, and morphs back to use its canon.

* Early on, Kate simply does not believe that the Terminator is a machine, until she sees her fiance turn from, well, her fiance into the T-X, why didn't the T-850 do the easiest proof in the world, lift his T-shirt? not that long after the car chase, the T-850 had just carved off a massive chunk of its skin on it's chest to remove a damaged power cell, I would believe pretty quickly if someone lifted up their T-shirt and had a massive, gaping hole full of mechanical parts in their chest instead of the usual torso.

* The film wastes no time and opportunity to show off the T-X's overwhelming strength advantage against the obsolete T-850. Yet in their final encounter, the T-850 successfully forces the T-X to free John by gripping her arm '''and crushing it'''. Perhaps the T-850 actually way stronger than what Skynet actually believes?

** It is a contrived coincidence, but one that ties with the film's theme that fate does exist.

** I think the original poster was reffering not so much to that specific fight loss, as just chose it as an example of John's rather lackluster role in this movie. He doesn't really show any combat or other skills his mom spend years teaching him and doesn't really have the presence of the future badass leader of humanity either. And TookALevelInDumbass too, being apparently incapable to get that this T-101 isn't his resurrected pal from ''T-2''. He does do some stuff in the movie, so he isn't useless, but he still comes off as ActionSurvivor tops instead of ActionHero. In-story it ''is'' justified by him becoming a drifter after his mom's death instead of keeping to train with her friends and becoming a professional warrior.

** Of course, the ''real'' reason is that the previous writers hadn't thought of it yet. But what bugs me about the whole situation is, instead of implying that all T-101's have dual nuclear reactors, it would have been much easier to simply state that this particular Terminator had been outfitted with a couple of nuclear detonators by the resistance before being sent back; all it would have taken is a few lines of dialogue switched out for new ones. In other words, there was ''absolutely no reason'' for the writers of T3 to shoehorn in a gigantic plot hole that does nothing but undermine several key scenes in the earlier films. (For instance, in T1, surely there would have been some fairly unsavory consequences to crushing a couple of nuclear reactors in a hydraulic press? Even if they didn't explode, I would imagine that breaching their containment would have released massive amounts of radiation which would necessarily have affected Sarah, since she was less than three feet away from the damn thing.)
*** This would be the case, except the Terminator in T3 is not the same series as the Terminators in the first two movies. In T1 and T2, the Terminators are series 800 terminators (or T-800s), [[ClosetGeek with a compact nuclear iridium power-cell]], whilst the Terminator in T3 is a series 850 (T-850), which has two hydrogen fusion power-cells. The confusion arises in that the '101' referred to denotes the ''Model'' of the Terminator (i.e. the physical appearance). The resistance shorten it to T-101, but the full designation of any terminator would be CSM-(model number) T-(series number) Version (version number), (where CSM stands for Cyberdyne Systems Model). So in T2, the Terminator is a CSM-101 T-800 Version 2.4 (you can see this displayed on its HUD when it reboots in the movie), whereas the Terminator in T3 is a CSM-101 T-850 whatever version it is. We do briefly see another model of T-800 in the opening sequence of T1, but we don't know what model it is. This has been confirmed via WordOfGod by Creator/JamesCameron.

** That problem exists already in the first movie. Had the original T-800 terminated Sarah, Jhon would not exist so the mission couldn't happen. In general, it is VERY difficult to write a time travel plot that holds once you think about it.

** At the very least Skynet must have knowledge that the rebels had send a reprogrammed Terminator to the past to defend Jhon Connor. Skynet certainly wouldn't know that Jhon saw Uncle Bob as a parental figure, but it was a fair guess that he would hesitate upon seeing the same guy that once saved his life.

* If the rise of the machines was inevitable, as revealed in T3, what the hell was the point of the whole series? I've never seen a franchise undermine its own existence like that.
** The franchise undermine its own existence like that in Hollywood? Easy: MoneyDearBoy. It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with. It doesn't feel pity of remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until the franchise is dead.
** It wasn't revealed, merely ''hinted'', but yes, it was inevitable if you think about it: if there was no Skynet, where would the Terminators come from? The point was probably that humans eventually won.
*** But the whole point of T2 was that the future could be changed, possibly using a multiple timeline version of time travel. The inevitability wasn't ''hinted'', the Terminator came right out and said it. Honestly, that movie was fun, especially the ending, but it wasn't the classics T1 or 2 was.
*** Wrong. The point of T2 was providing hope that the future could be changed. There's nothing actually in the movie that suggests it can. The point of the series is examining the destructive nature of humanity and the possible consequences.
*** The future ''was'' changed. It was ultimately not Cyberdyne that eventually developed Skynet. However, ''someone'' had to create Skynet from scratch "before" the first Terminator went back in time and allowed Cyberdyne to reverse-engineer its remains. And if they prevented Skynet from being created at all, it would mean that the Terminators wouldn't be sent back in time, resulting in a paradox. T2 did have a "happy" ending scripted in which the war never happened, but it was reportedly cut for precisely this reason.
*** If I recall correctly, the happy ending was cut partly because it was cheesy, but mostly because it pretty much ruled out the possibility of a ''Terminator 3''. The paradox you're talking about is only an issue with one version of time travel -- the one where there's only one timeline, and it has to fit together logically without any contradictions, otherwise the universe will be destroyed. It seems to me that ''Terminator 2'' fits more into one of the other versions of time travel: either the alternate timelines version, where going back in time creates a new universe that splits off from the moment you arrive, or the rarer version where there's only one timeline but it's resistant to paradox -- the logic is explained well [[https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-04-03 here]].
*** No, the ending was cut because Cameron realized that he was unintentionally ironically * violating* with it his premise of "no fate but what we make for ourselves". That's what he said himself in interview. Watch the Ultimate T2 DVD.
*** I had a long-winded reply here, but it has apparently been lost in Archive/TheGreatCrash. I don't feel like retyping it from scratch, so I'll just point whoever it may concern to [[http://www.mjyoung.net/time/ this page]].
*** What Just Bugs Me about that site is that the writer has decided on one model of time-travel that he likes and is forcibly trying to apply it to every story he can, even ones that explicitly use a different model. There's even a page where he criticises real physics for not conforming to his vision.
*** [[http://qntm.org/?terminator Here]] is a timeline of the various Terminator timelines.
*** The point of the franchise was not "the Apocalypse must be averted", at least originally. That was tacked on in ''Terminator 2'', but it wasn't part of the premise from the start. Remember that the humans actually * win* the war against Skynet in the future and it is a desperate last throw of the dice to send the T-800 back in time. John Connor must be born (and survive) to go on to win the war. That's why I think that even though T2 is technically a better ''film'' than T3, T3 fits far better with the original premise.
*** And yet, when the female Terminator eliminates a number of people who will prove to be useful allies to John during the war, no one worries about whether or not this will be enough to turn the tide of battle. If they're not John or wife, they're expendable?
*** What were they supposed to do, just give up and say "oh well, guess we're all screwed now, let's just go walk into a mushroom cloud"? Of course there's the possibility that things got screwed up too badly to be salvaged, but John still has to ''try''.
*** I was referring more to the main characters doing absolutely nothing to try to protect them, or even mention them again afterward. Basically, they only existed to be onscreen victims, and the movie tried to justify their murders in a significant manner, only to promptly forget about them minutes later. (Or maybe it's FridgeBrilliance. Maybe there was no reason for the main characters to care about them or protect them. I mean, it's not like they did anything significant in the future if they were shot dead in the present...)
*** There's a couple of reasons why the other allies aren't significant:
*** First, it's implied that because Connor has stayed "off the grid" for so long, Skynet can't, from partial postwar records, determine an appropriate place or point in time to send back the T-X with a decent chance of getting him. It's Connor who, throughout the entire series, is Teh Target; without him, the Resistance doesn't win. Skynet isn't above desperation tactics -- indeed that's the reason the "first" Terminator was sent back in the original movie. Therefore, without Connor available, Skynet sends a T-X back to try and kill all his known associates on the off chance that the absence of one or more of them might alter events significantly enough for Skynet to win anyway. Connor is not the T-X's primary target; Katherine Brewster is, at least until the T-X detects his presence and shifts (logically) to eliminating him instead. After that point the allies don't matter, since it is Connor who is the linchpin of Skynet's defeat; even on mathematical efficiency it makes more sense to go after Connor and win rather than kill twelve-odd teenagers and maybe win.
*** Second: there are huge logistical problems if John and/or Katherine had thought to try and warn the remaining "allies". One is that they don't know where they are, or exactly who is being hunted -- the Resistance, courtesy of the StableTimeLoop, only has Katherine Brewster's two-decades-old memories to go on when defining a mission for the Terminator that's just killed John Connor. (And no, they can't get the information from the Terminator -- the T-X is assigned to the time travel mission, not "Connor's Terminator". Another is that Connor's Terminator would likely stymie any attempt to help the allies: its only task is to ensure John and Katherine's survival, and it is able to lie, with some subtlety, in order to achieve that objective. Trying to warn or bring others of the allies into hiding merely puts Connor at greater risk of death by T-X or nuclear attack; the Terminators are strategic enough -- on Connor's past history in warning Miles Dyson -- to appreciate that Connor might try and warn his future allies, and therefore set a trap.
*** Thirdly, in a sense Connor is being as efficient as the T-X by trying to go after Skynet rather than rescue twelve-odd teenage stoners from a nuclear attack that's due in about twenty-four hours or so. He's been brought up on "no fate but what we make for ourselves"; he doesn't have time to find and bring in the twelve; he doesn't know if any of them would believe him anyway (although he could always pull the Ah-nold single glove trick...); and he wants to ''stop'' Judgment Day, not set up for it.
*** Fourthly: the other allies just ''aren't that significant.'' Connor doesn't know any of them personally except for Katherine Brewster; Katherine ''doesn't'' know any of them; and the Terminator ''might'' know them but isn't programmed to give a shit.
*** The death of the other allies ''did'' make a difference, as we saw in ''Terminator: Salvation''. In the previous iteration of the timeline, John's new father-in-law General Robert Brewster presumably acted as a vital liason between John and the surviving military command, paving his way to leadership. In the fourth film, with Brewster dead, the incompetent General Ashdown was the senior surviving member of the military, and John consequently had considerably more trouble being accepted as a leader.
** The point was never about preventing Judgment Day. They decide to give that a try in the second movie, and think they've succeeded, but that was never the point of the original attempt. The point was always to make sure John Connor lived, so that he could win the war against the machines ''after'' Judgment Day. ''That's'' the point of the movies... not keeping the machines from rising to power, but eventually winning against them.