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The Terminator 2 paradox issue.

Sorry, I apologise for using logic rather than submitting to wishy-washy Doctor Who theory :p

If everything that happened, happened and always did, then why does Skynet send any Terminators back at all - it knows they fail and always will fail?

Face it, the plot is holier than Forbidden Valley :p
 
Because it's an option. The plot line is they always send them back when they know they're about to lose the war. It's a last desperate effort or three.
 
But there is always the chance they might not fail so it sends the 2nd one back to change the future again.

But Skynet did not know they would send a protector back, how would it as at that time it had not happened yet. In the future it would know as history would change and it would then be recorded.

They did not stop Skynet as they never ended the story thanks to the end being cut.

Skynet is a computer and cannot think or react like a human. It had no idea that they had captured the 2nd terminator at its time in the future until they sent it back.
 
It does think like a human though. That's the scary and intriguing premise behind the whole franchise <3.
 
marc said:
But there is always the chance they might not fail so it sends the 2nd one back to change the future again.

But Skynet did not know they would send a protector back, how would it as at that time it had not happened yet. In the future it would know as history would change and it would then be recorded.
Click to expand...

This is the issue. History has changed, but until the end of T2, history was fixed; what has been will be.

As soon as that chip was destroyed, Skynet's history and the Conners' future is thrown into complete flux and turmoil, into paradox. As soon as that happened, there is no way, logically, that Kyle was ever sent back in time. Whether Skynet was eventually built or not, Kyle was not sent back, John was not born and therefore Skynet had no reason to send back Terminators.

The whole "what was going to happen will always happen" thing is pure deus ex machina. It's plot hole filling bollocks ;)

marc said:
They did not stop Skynet as they never ended the story thanks to the end being cut.
Click to expand...
I've not watched the Cameron ending, did Sarah just die old and lonely in a peaceful world?

marc said:
Skynet is a computer and cannot think or react like a human. It had no idea that they had captured the 2nd terminator at its time in the future until they sent it back.
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True, as the time line changed and shifted forwards seven years and it hadn't sent the first terminator back, or the second one because there was no need as it had succeeding in disrupting the time line and eliminating John Conner ;)

If it thought like a human, it would have sent an army of Terminators back in time to conquer the planet right from the very start and have no competition :)
 
No the ending shows an ancient Sarah, a middle-aged John and presumably Sarah's granddaughter (unless John's on some sort of register...)

That's why I don't like it. John shouldn't exist.
 
Phil watch the ending I posted, they end that time line and change the date.

In T1 Kyle said they destroyed the time machine once they sent him through. So T2 never ever happened in the original timeline so Kyle existed and went back and made John. T2 happens due to a change Skynet makes and the humans counter it.

Kyle John whatever has already happened and even though they destroy the chip etc it's already happened and it does not change events in T1.
 
The alternative ending actually works Neal.

There's a school of thought that if you were to travel back in time, then you don't go back on your own time stream, but instead create an alternative parallel universe that splits at the point you go back.

In this case, there is one universe created by T1 which leads directly to the creation of the second universe which is in T2. In this case, the Cameron ending works because there is no (unpleasant) paradox. As Marc says, the past is past and the future never occurs but the time streams are clean because there are three universes, each with their own futures.

T3 completely ruins this :)

marc said:
Kyle John whatever has already happened and even though they destroy the chip etc it's already happened and it does not change events in T1.
Click to expand...

Which is the grandfather paradox, and the main issue here ;)

Ben said:
It was God's will, and she's not impressed with your questioning, Phil.
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Every day I am smited form on high... Or is it smitten?
 
Now you're just cheating and seeing it as multiple universes. All the subsequent Terminators know the back story - including what those sent back did. Which makes it one universe.

Yes your theory DOES work on a multi-world basis. But not as it is written.
 
My reply was so awesome, so intense and inequitably, mind blowingly correct that it actually made the server hardware fail.

I dare not repeat it (in fact, just by copying the post to the clipboard caused the extinction of several large land mammals. It was a seriously dangerous post.

Instead, this will have to suffice :p

Ignoring logic and mathematical theories such as chaos theory and large numbers is also cheating Neal :p

I also don't subscribe to the multiverse theory, as T1 has a closed loop creation paradox which would spawn an infinite number of multiverses and make your head explode.

T1 goes back in time - Multiverse 1
Kyle goes back in time - Multiverse 2
T1 chip makes T1 (eventually) which allows it to go back in time - Multiverse 3.
Kyle is John's father, that creates the resistance which allows for Kyle to go back in time - Multiverse 4.

Repeat ad infinitum. They have to repeat infinitely because otherwise John is never born and Skynet is never created. In a multiverse it doesn't work, who made the chip and was John's father in the very first universe?

So while T2 and T3 are satisfied by using a multiverse, it's inconsistent with the rest of the Terminator "world" and unsatisfactory.
 
I'm watching this now, because of this topic ¬_¬

I've noticed something that I feel really takes the greatness of this film and breaks it over its knee.

It's a huge revelation.

It'll change the course of this topic.

That kid is really fu!cking annoying
 
How have i missed this for so long. The problem is that if Miles Dyson had remembered one thing while creating skynet there would be no need for any of the Terminator films.
Why didn't he add in Asimovs 3 Laws of Robotics?
or even better include the Zeroth Law that Giskard added in the later books

"A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."

Simple :)

Ok I've not seen these films in ages and I'm thinking aloud here but why wouldn't this work? The robots and Humans in the future war have one way of knowing that any of their plans work right? In essence if they still exist then the plan didn't work?

We could assume they have a fundamental misunderstanding of time travel, that if you send someone back it will change your future. But I prefer the parallel universe theory, every time they send someone back it splits off into 2 universes. So no matter what they do they will never change their own future but will cause a split timeline. In the new timeline you could have any future you like war or no war.

If they don't take this into account and nothing ever changes in the original future then the robots would assume that their missions failed because JC exists and would send back another one causing another branch off their own timeline.

I guess the way this falls down is Kyle being JC's dad.

Anyway thats my sprout of rubbish for the day.
 
Well if you listen to Kyle's speach in the original Terminator movie he said that the defence grid was smashed and they found the time displacement device and that skynet had just sent the T-800 Model 101 through which was the most advanced Terminator created up until Skynets destruction Kyle volunteered and went through straight after with the facility being destroyed behind him. So it was just him and the T-800 no way back and no one else comes through...

So in itself T2 should not have ever even existed as the war was already won in the future and no more time changes could happen. If Skynet still existed and was learning from the time travel then It would know it caused its own destruction by sending the T-1000- (Which should not have existed) back through therefore causing the resistance sending the T-800 M101 back through and instead of John not believeing his mother and Sarah not being imprisoned in an asylm (Therefore probably would have both died in 1997) they are reunited and the T-800 and sarah plan to stop JD... Skynet and the T-1000 destroy themeselves from existence...

T1 is the definitive movie and while I love T2 it actually does not make sense and originally it was never set up as a movie franchise, it is once again proof Hollywood re-writes to make money rather than good cinema..

Its all an asumption that time is not a straight line and that the chip and john cannot exist without the other the only function of the arm surviving is that it gives them ideas in robotics not skynet.. There has to be multiple strands in time otherwise the events of the first movie could not create the second...

T1 clearly states nobody else comes through (No more time changes)

LMAO nice topic Furie...
 
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