Then again, if we start questioning the plot mechanics of modern action movies – every one of which is more full of plotholes than some over-dramatic cheese – the we aren’t going to have very much fun anymore.

I think what will ultimately happen is we will find out that in order for Skynet to exist John Connor has to exist and vice versa. Their existence is tied to each other. Thus if they prevent a Terminator from going back in time then Skynet wont be created AND John Connor won’t be created.

OR all they knew about Reese at the time was Connor was looking for him, and Skynet had NO knowledge about Reese being Connor’s father. As you can see, this could go on and on.

That’s a loose quote because I don’t have the DVD with me at the moment, but Reese said for sure that there could be multiple futures in the FIRST Terminator film.

It’s not rocket science, you’re just over thinking it. Nolan’s no idiot, even if McG is.

But, this is a movie people are going to RUN into the ground, trying to find any and EVERY reason to hate it, they don’t even think through what their saying, so long as it’s trashing the movie.

Almost as bad as forcing a reboot of Superman on us (even though it made over $300 million and had GREAT reviews) for the simple reason that it “sucked”… becuase y’know, that’s the “thing” to do with some films for some reason…

There are 2 pieces of physical evidence in the 1st movie to support this. 1) The photo of Sarah that Reese had before going back in time. The one that was taken at the end of the movie, that Reese watched burn in the flash back/foward scene of the Terminator attack in the bunker. That photo would never have come to exist , because Sarah would not have been traveling out to the middle of no where in a jeep with a german sheppard for terminator detection if he and the terminator hadn’t shown up already.

Item number 2) John. He wouldn’t exist if Reese hadn’t come back. Not as the man he was, because Sarah would not have had the drive to train him to be the future leader if she hadn’t already encountered the terminator. Given how crappy her dating life was going she also probably wouldn’t have ended up pregnant either.

It was only under the single timeline theory that the movie worked.

That’s my $.02 at least.

Each terminator movie takes places on its own time line.

The first time line, Skynet starts a war, humans fight back, at the moment when humans are about to win, skynet sends back a terminator, john connor sends back Kyle reese. John connors father is unknown.

Time line two.) terminator 1. Kyle becomes Johns father. Sarah connor becomes a badass. The future has changed because of these two facts.

Time line three.) Sarah connor has started to raise john with the planning that there will be an uprising by machines. Time line 2’s skynet sends a terminator to eliminate john connor and sarah connor. The humans send back a terminator to protect john and sarah, while also providing better information to try and prevent skynet. Cyberdyne is destroyed

Time line four.) sarah connors is dead, John connor is underground(also he has been killed in time line three’s future by the terminator sent back in time) machines send back a terminator to eliminate the know where abouts of the resistance fighters leaders, humans send back a terminator to protect them and get them out of the known(third time lines) skynet ground zero. John and kate find out they eventually get married, get trapped in a bunker leading into terminator 4.

The reason skynet takes Kyle reese is because it knows that kyle reese is the father of john connor in this current time line. Simply killing him now would do nothing. He holds onto kyle reese because humans have emotional bonds. It knew that john would try to save him.

As for marcus. Mcg said this is going to be a trilogy. Maybe you should save judgement till after it plays out a little bit more. who knows how convulted skynets plan might really be.

1) They didn’t need to keep Reese alive. Once he was on the transport and directed to Skynet, Marcus directed John to a fake (unbeknownst to Marcus) cell number at Skynet. When John arrived at Kyle’s cell, he found a T800 inside. So why keep Kyle alive? The only reason they needed Kyle was so Marcus could get John to Skynet so they could give him a fake cell number which lead him to the T800 and kill him. Kyle was completely expendable once he was on the transport.

2) How the hell did Skynet know Kyle Reese was John Connor’s father? The list of people Skynet wanted to kill showed Kyle as #1. It’s not until AFTER that point that John tells Marcus that Kyle is his father. So how did they know beforehand?

My first question is – how does a machine that has no will – runs on logic – creat a machine with free will.

as time travel – who the heck will ever know – present, past, future – time lines leave that for star trek ..

Or maybe its just a movie with time travel in it, which afaik has never been done ‘properly’

Obviously Skynet and Connor do not agree with the assumption put forward above by some, in which they assume that killing Reese won’t eliminate Connor. Therefore the movie also doesn’t support that assumption.

There’s also an assumption some are making that Skynet and/or the Resistance already have the ability to time travel at this point in time. They may be close, but they don’t seem to be there, yet.

While they didn’t quite achieve it, I think the goal with Wright was to show the machines being capable of making the same mistake the humans did when they developed the AI that led to Skynet. The idea of making an infiltrating machine so close to human that it’s indistinguishable in every way is great in theory. In practice, it’s humanity is what will distinguish it from the machines.

I agree with other people on this post. This was still a good movie over all.