I'm confused, because in order for this all to happen...the events need to unfold first...correct? Like in the future John Connor is alive and humans are about to make there final attack on skynet and destroy it. But in a last ditch effort the machines send back on machine.
Now I'm confused on how John Connor exists in the future if his father was never sent back yet to make him...
And if it's sknyets last effort before we win and the machine loses, that would be skynet gets defeated in the future as well as destroyed in the past.
But it seems that Skynets plan was not to kill Sarah Connor, but was to get caught in that press...in doing so skynet sets into motion it's own creation, if the terminator's arm and CPU was never salvaged than Cyberdyne would never have started down that path in doing so skynet would never be.
The machine had to fail and get caught or else, skynet would have never existed...because humans would have never gotten the technology to do so.
I have a theory on how this could all have come to pass. There is not a consistant closed loop. It changes with each replay even if the changes are only slight.
Here it is:
There was an original time line. It could be almost identical to the one we are now living in. Sarah has a normal life and meets a normal guy in 1984. She gets pregnant, but the father does a runner. She has a boy that she calls John. She gives him her last name as the father is not around. Time progresses slowly and John lives a normal life.
Far in the future AI is created and time travel is invented. Travelers from this future travel back to the early 1980's with some form of AI technology. This technology falls into hands of Cyberdyne or another similar company that uses it to advance AI faster than the natural progression.
Sarah still meets the same man as before and has the same biological John Connor as before. The unnatural progression of AI technology results in Skynet being created and Judgement day happening on an unknown date, but still while John is a reasonably young man. This John Connor without any knowledge of the future becomes the leader of the human resistance soley on natural fighting and leadership skills. Kyle Reese also ends up under Johns command. And the humans are on the verge of winning the war against the machines either in or around the year 2029.
Skynet devises the time travel plan of sending a terminator back through time to remove John from existance as it believes that if John never existed then it will win the war.
Either by luck or from military inteligence John finds out about the assassination plan that Skynet is formulating. He chooses his best soldier who just happens to be Kyle Reese to go back in time and stop the terminator. He gives Kyle an old photo of Sarah to learn what she looks like around the early 1980's during the lead up to the final assult on Skynet and gain access to the time machine.
Kyle goes back to 1984 and through a series of events and the fact that he shags Sarah, he replaces her original lover. Due to everything that Kyle has told her about John in the future she names her son John Connor even though he is not even the same biological John Connor from before. Also the terminator ends up in the hands of Cyberdyne.
Due to Sarah telling John about the future, who he will be, all the military training and the inevitable creation of Skynet this new John Connor has no choice but to become this leader of mankind, give Kyle an old photo of Sarah and send Kyle back in time to stop the terminator and become his father.
The loop will now stay almost the same from here on. It might have variations, but now that stories of future events and stories about John are being passed from future Kyle too 1984 Sarah too young John it remains almost constant.
I know it's only just a film, but that is how my thought processes get around the fack of John being able to exist either with or without Kyle Reese.
Even though it is not as exciting as T1, but in my theory all the terminator has to do is walk into Cyberdyne headquarters in 1984 and hand him self over as a piece of future technology that can be disasembled and studied. Either the original John or replacement John will still exist and fight the war.
What do you think. A load of rubbish or feesable?