History Headscratchers / Terminator

** Thing is, no one really knows ''exactly'' how time travel works in the Terminator-verse. Maybe not even [=SkyNet=]. The different takes on it in different installments don't help: Going by ''Film/Terminator3'' and ''Literature/T2Trilogy'', time deals with paradoxes by reforming towards its original shape. Going by ''Film/TerminatorDarkFate'', artifacts from now-erased timelines can remain, but may be eliminated over time to correct things ([[spoiler:John being killed by another T-800, remaining T-800s eventually destroyed as well]]). Either [=SkyNet=] understands how time travel works and has given its time-traveling Terminators "detailed files" to prevent invoking LogicBomb with a temporal paradox, or [=SkyNet=] has no idea, but is desperate enough to try anyway, and has instructed its time-traveling Terminators to ignore any potential temporal paradoxes brought about by their actions.

** "The 600 series had a rubber skin. We spotted them easy. But these are new. They look human. Sweat, hair, bad breath, everything." With the T-600, [=SkyNet=] was going for what we call a "50/50 paint job:" looks good from fifty feet away going fifty miles an hour. But it wasn't good enough to fool the Resistance, so the T-800 goes all-in on replicating the exterior of human physiology with absolute precision. Not just skin, hair, sweat, blood, and so on, but you can see muscles and tendons moving beneath a Terminator's skin. Likely, [=SkyNet=] decided at the start of the T-800 project that it was going to omit no detail, no matter how small, in making these Infiltrators as lifelike as possible. That, or the first few production models were found out precisely because they lacked genitals (or some other minor detail [=SkyNet=] might have considered irrelevant), so [=SkyNet=] made sure to get all the details right on future runs. And if you're [=SkyNet=] and expending all the tech and resources making killer robots covered in organic flesh to fool the humans you're trying to eliminate, adding a penis and some nipples isn't all that greater of an expense.

*** The T-800 blended in perfectly well; no one ever suspected it was a machine or anything other than a human at any point, up until the police station attack, and that ended with all the witnesses dead save Sarah and Kyle.

** That's the problem with the franchise post-''T2'' in a nutshell. ''The Terminator'' works when you realize time travel is a Hail Mary play by [=SkyNet=] to do ''something'' to prevent its defeat. ''T2'' works under the premise the [=SkyNet=] sent two back for redundancy. ''T3'' is where things start to break down, but you can rationalize it as being in a "mopping up" phase of the war, with TheRemnant of [=SkyNet=] trying to delay the inevitable. The more expanded the universe becomes, the father beyond "their defense grid was smashed, ''we'd won''" it gets, the harder it is to buy the reason behind this given TerminatorTwosome plot. Even the otherwise-exceptional ''Literature/T2Trilogy'' contains the NecessaryWeasel that, somehow, [=SkyNet=] in the future, post-defense-grid-smash, realizes that the circumstances leading to its creation have changed, its very existence in the past is imperiled, and it has to send an Infiltrator back in time to ensure its own creation. Notably, this is perhaps the only time in the franchise [=SkyNet=] pulls off time travel without the Resistance figuring it out and responding in kind. In short, it's why the franchise had rough times since ''T2''... the premise for recycling the formula gets weaker and weaker each time, and moving the story into the actual Future War has been too risky (and after ''Film/TerminatorSalvation'', not a risk studios would be eager to greenlight again).

*** But it does bring up a legitimate JBM as regards T3. Ah-nold says he was specifically selected for the mission ''because'' Connor's childhood experiences with the 101 would make Connor hesitate long enough for the Terminator to make a kill shot. Minor problem with that: ''he's just told John Connor.'' So why the hell doesn't Connor, when he gets to be the leader of the resistance, then just say "By the way, guys, if you see someone who looks like a T-101, [[KillItWithFire KILL IT WITH FIRE]] AND DON'T LET HIM WITHIN FIFTY YARDS OF ME , BECAUSE HE'S GOING TO KILL ME!"

*** IIRC one of the deleted scenes from T3 portrays an Army major (played by Arnie) who's advertising the T-101 model. It's similar to the proposition that the Bishop android of ''Aliens'' was modelled on the original Weyland of Weyland-Yutani ([[FanonDiscontinuity depending on how seriously you take Aliens vs. Predator.]])

* One thing that's always bugged me is the upgrade of capabilities for the Terminators as the movies continue. Even the fact there are multiple Terminators at multiple points in the timeline seems to be against Kyle Reese's original statement that the Resistance had already won by the time the "first" Terminator went through. Still, here's a theory which might resolve it: it's TimeTravel we're talking about, so possibly the Terminators were sent through in ''reverse'' order to how they appear in the film. Consider: Skynet only sends back a stock standard T-101 when it appears that the war is lost and it has no other options. The other Terminators are advanced or experimental. The T-X gets sent back first, more as an experiment than anything else -- hence its primary mission is only to try and take out Connor's associates, since the machines didn't know where he was. That plan fails, and the war continues to go badly for Skynet. So this time it sends one of its better models, the T-1000, back to when John was 12 or 13 and locatable, though this was a riskier move since Skynet knew even less about the decade prior to the war. The resistance got hold of that time travel facility, discovered that information, and managed to send back a captured T-101 instead. That mission also fails, so, Skynet having built a replacement time travel unit, it then decides on a desperation move as the Resistance breaks its defence grid and sends back a last T-101 to try and get Sarah Connor instead. Connor sends back Kyle Reese ... and then is killed by the T3 terminator, which Katherine Brewster then sends one final time through the time travel device to just before the war.

* Is there a reason why the T-1000 and TX keep using the same form? It would have been a lot harder to evade them if they'd stopped showing up as the same person and honestly taking the form of one of the people it's hunting would have been convenient. Imagine if Sarah and the Terminator had to confirm John was John and not the Terminator before taking a shot.

*** Actually depending on what precisely qualifies as touch the T-1000 touched both Connors at the mental facility. He knicks Sarah while he's punching through the roof and John grabs the hook off the car and tosses it. Now since that wasn't in contact with the rest of the T-1000 that may not have counted. Even taking the form of the T-101 would have been highly advantageous.
*** Except until the very, very end, all three of them are together constantly, keeping an eye on each other. It doesn't do him any good to impersonate Sarah or the T-101 and approach when John hasn't been out of sight of either of them.

** If it's any consolation, the genatalia just has to look normal, not be functional. It's in their best interest as infiltrators to sell the whole image of "being human" rather than cut corners on the gamble that resistance won't be checking for sexless humans. Not to mention that, while they weren't originally designed with time travel in mind, the laws of time travel in-universe dictate that Terminators ''have'' to travel back naked; something that could potentially cause some oddities in history reports if a sexless human was seen mugging some thugs for clothes.

** Not to mention all the people who'd look at a Terminator tearing the skin off it's metal arm on TV and say "Now, that was some impressive special effects. . . uh. . . what was that commercial trying to sell me, again?"

** That's the problem with the franchise post-''T2'' in a nutshell. ''The Terminator'' works when you realize time travel is a Hail Mary play by [=SkyNet=] to do ''something'' to prevent its defeat. ''T2'' works under the premise the [=SkyNet=] sent two back for redundancy. ''T3'' is where things start to break down, but you can rationalize it as being in a "mopping up" phase of the war, with TheRemnant of [=SkyNet=] trying to delay the inevitable. The more expanded the universe becomes, the father beyond "their defense grid was smashed, ''we'd won''" it gets, the harder it is to buy the reason behind this given TerminatorTwosome plot. Even the otherwise-exceptional ''Literature/T2Trilogy'' contains the NecessaryWeasel that, somehow, [=SkyNet=] in the future, post-defense-grid-smash, realizes that the circumstances leading to its creation have changed, its very existence in the past is imperiled, and it has to send an Infiltrator back in time to ensure its own creation. Notably, this is perhaps the only time in the franchise [=SkyNet=] pulls off time travel without the Resistance figuring it out and responding in kind. In short, it's why the franchise had rough times since ''T2''. . . the premise for recycling the formula gets weaker and weaker each time, and moving the story into the actual Future War has been too risky (and after ''Film/TerminatorSalvation'', not a risk studios would be eager to greenlight again).

** Except that doesn't really work. By the time the T-X arrived, Judgement Day had happened several years prior originally. What's more likely is that ''Terminator'' and ''T2'' are in one timeline, and ''Terminator 3'' is in another. In the first timeline, [=SkyNet=] sent two Terminators back at the same time in its last gasps before final defeat, as a last-ditch effort to preserve its existence. They both failed. Now, in the original timeline, ''T2'' didn't play out quite the same way for whatever reason. . . Sarah smashed the T-800's chip in the deleted scene, Sarah actually killed Dyson (but left all his research to be continued by others), Sarah was getting better treatment and less meds at Pescadero so wasn't as violently fixated on destroying [=SkyNet=], whatever, so Judgement Day happens as scheduled. Then, in the second timeline as the result of ''T2'', Judgement Day is delayed. The war is very different. . . more advanced technology means [=SkyNet=] has a leg up at the beginning, but nuclear disarmament treaties also mean humanity suffered fewer casualties. Now, after the Resistance smashes [=SkyNet=]'s defense grid, [=SkyNet=] is still able to act and resist. It sends the first two as it did before, but now, as the war grows more desperate for it, it steps up its Terminator research and development to counter the Resistance making extensive use of captured and reprogrammed Terminators, resulting in the T-X, "an anti-Terminator Terminator." [=SkyNet=] sends one of these back in time later, trying to do whatever damage it can to the Resistance in the future and maybe buy itself some more time, sway odds in its favor. Essentially, T-X was the first shot of the "Temporal Guerilla War" that was the focus of The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

** Kyle explains this in the first movie. "Most of the records were lost in the war. [=SkyNet=] knew almost nothing about Connor's mother. Her full name, where she lived, they just knew the city." (Personally, I find it ''more'' unbelievable there '''only''' three "Sarah Connor"s in all of Los Angeles.) Combined with the other notations that time travel doesn't appear to be entirely exact. . . you can't spawn a Terminator through time at a precise place and time, within five seconds/feet. . . and [=SkyNet=] is pretty limited in its ability to target Sarah and John. I.e., even if [=SkyNet=] knew when and where Sarah Connor gave birth to John, it couldn't put a Terminator precisely at that place and time to kill them. It might end up two days early or late (early is not a problem, late '''is'''), twenty miles away. Once a Terminator is in the right time, they can use the resources available to track their target (getting addresses from phone books, police databases, and so on), but to even make the initial trip, [=SkyNet=] needs to know, within what such an advanced AI would consider an acceptable margin for error, that if it aims a Terminator at these relatively precise chronospatial coordinates, that Terminator will have an acceptably high probability of acquiring and Terminating its targets.