The "All things TERMINATOR" thread.

Collector Freaks Forum

Help Support Collector Freaks Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I wonder if we'll ever see a Terminator film set in the Cameron future, like the one shown in that fan made video?

Even the future sequence in Genesis failed to capture the look, feel and sound effects shown in the fan movie. :(
 



edit - I have no ****ing idea why this share starts playing at some random point in the interview. That's not deliberate on my part.
 
@ajp4mgs

Hey ajp. I was attempting to rewrite my big post about the 3 timeline Theory (3TT). ( The "All things TERMINATOR" thread. ) I wanted to take that same post and try to clean it up, reword some things (of my own sometimes clumsy writing) and make some additions after my T1 and T2 theatrical double bill recently so that it could actually serve as a comprehensive resource that doesn't require someone to read our entire conversation in this thread. Then I could send the link or email it to any friend who might be interested.

There was some new discussion points I didn't put in that big post inspired by my aforementioned theatrical viewings and in the process of trying to work through those I just today hit upon 2 potentially highly problematic issues for which I don't know what our workaround would be...both come from T2.

Silberman - ''Dreams...of cataclysm - the end of the world - are all very common''
Sarah - ''It's not a dream you moron, it's real..I know the date it happens''
Silberman - ''I'm sure it feels very real to you''
Sarah - ''On August 29th 1997 it's going to feel pretty ****in' real to you too!''

This is Sarah early in T2 (before she meets Uncle Bob T-800) giving a specific date of Judgment Day, which she can only have heard from Kyle Reese - I don't remember a line of dialogue in the first movie but if there wasn't one we're obviously just meant to assume Reese told her this offscreen.

Now, later on from the T-800 himself....

''The Skynet funding bill is passed. The system goes online on August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate.. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 am eastern time, august 29th.. In a panic they try to pull the plug..''

''Skynet fights back''

''Yes. It launches its missiles against the targets in Russia''

^Judgment Day, the beginning of the Nuclear War on August 29th 1997, the same day Kyle Reese apparently told her it would be.

So Sarah's information from Kyle Reese was from what we call the original timeline. But her information from the T-800 we're saying is based on the second timeline. Now, we previously brought up the photograph of Sarah (the exact same photo existing in 2 timelines) as being one ridiculously coincidental thing that we were willing to accept....but what are the odds Judgment Day occurs on the exact same day in the original and 2nd timeline of the 3TT?? Especially when Skynet's origins had changed and one might have expected it to develop faster/sooner in the 2nd timeline if anything. Further to that we could ask why does the war against the machines culminate in 2029 in both timelines?




The second matter I've stumbled upon is something of an issue irrespective of the 3TT.



If John Connor was conceived in May 1984 it means he was born in early 1985. In T2 the T-1000 looks up the Police car computer and it states John's age as 10. This places the events of T2 in 1995. Now consider the T-800's line

''In 3 years Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems''

Waitaminute...if this is 1995, 3 years later will be 1998 and yet as he continues...

''All stealth bombers are upgraded with cyberdyne computers becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet funding bill is passed. The system goes online on August 4th 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defence. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14am Eastern Time, August 29th.''

Sigh....so what's going on? Did they actually intend that T2 is set in 1994? Was John a premature birth or something because T1 is definitely set in may 1984



its in a line of dialogue! John should have been born sometime in february 1985, right?
 
Yeah the dates don't line up for John's age.

You can either say that he was born December 1984 (two months early) to keep his birth year at 1984 (though he still wouldn't technically be 10 unless T2 also took place in December) or maybe just say that Sarah found a way to falsify his birth certificate into saying 1984 instead of 85 as a way of hopefully hiding him from Skynet.
 
@ajp4mgs

Hey ajp. I was attempting to rewrite my big post about the 3 timeline Theory (3TT). ( The "All things TERMINATOR" thread. ) I wanted to take that same post and try to clean it up, reword some things (of my own sometimes clumsy writing) and make some additions after my T1 and T2 theatrical double bill recently so that it could actually serve as a comprehensive resource that doesn't require someone to read our entire conversation in this thread. Then I could send the link or email it to any friend who might be interested.

There was some new discussion points I didn't put in that big post inspired by my aforementioned theatrical viewings and in the process of trying to work through those I just today hit upon 2 potentially highly problematic issues for which I don't know what our workaround would be...both come from T2.



This is Sarah early in T2 (before she meets Uncle Bob T-800) giving a specific date of Judgment Day, which she can only have heard from Kyle Reese - I don't remember a line of dialogue in the first movie but if there wasn't one we're obviously just meant to assume Reese told her this offscreen.

Now, later on from the T-800 himself....



^Judgment Day, the beginning of the Nuclear War on August 29th 1997, the same day Kyle Reese apparently told her it would be.

So Sarah's information from Kyle Reese was from what we call the original timeline. But her information from the T-800 we're saying is based on the second timeline. Now, we previously brought up the photograph of Sarah (the exact same photo existing in 2 timelines) as being one ridiculously coincidental thing that we were willing to accept....but what are the odds Judgment Day occurs on the exact same day in the original and 2nd timeline of the 3TT?? Especially when Skynet's origins had changed and one might have expected it to develop faster/sooner in the 2nd timeline if anything. Further to that we could ask why does the war against the machines culminate in 2029 in both timelines?




The second matter I've stumbled upon is something of an issue irrespective of the 3TT.



If John Connor was conceived in May 1984 it means he was born in early 1985. In T2 the T-1000 looks up the Police car computer and it states John's age as 10. This places the events of T2 in 1995. Now consider the T-800's line



Waitaminute...if this is 1995, 3 years later will be 1998 and yet as he continues...



Sigh....so what's going on? Did they actually intend that T2 is set in 1994? Was John a premature birth or something because T1 is definitely set in may 1984



its in a line of dialogue! John should have been born sometime in february 1985, right?

There are multiple ways to reconcile the "Judgment Day" being the same in both of the timelines. Choose the one you like best:

1.) Congress moving to pass the Skynet funding bill could've happened at the same point because the politicians willing to do it would need to have been elected and go through the same time-consuming bureaucratic steps in order to gather the necessary votes. This could easily be seen as independent of how developed Skynet is in the second timeline (relative to its rate of advancement in the original timeline). You can look at the funding bill passage as the catalyst for Skynet autonomy in both timelines, and just assume Skynet would need however many days that interim represents before being able to overcome unavoidable human-caused delays and become autonomous.

2.) Skynet could've reasoned that August 29, 1997 would be an advantageous day to stick with because its algorithmic reasoning in both timelines show that political, cultural, and technological progress need to converge at a certain point to optimize effective takeover. And again, these could be factors independent and irrespective of the difference in Skynet's rate of advancement.

3.) Skynet AI could've extracted data from the original T-800's Neural Net CPU and felt it better to stick to certain specific time frames despite being more advanced. You can justify this as the AI being better able to anticipate with precision the human's moves in order to construct even better responses based on those expectations. It arguably could indeed be advantageous to proceed that way.

Hope one of those works for you. If not, I can come up with others. :lol

As for the issue of John's age relative to the specific dates provided by Arnie, you can just assume that T2 was happening early enough in 1995 for the T-800 to count that as "year one," then 1996 as "year two," and 1997 (up until August) as "year three." Part of the fun of T2 was his form of reference and nomenclature being different from humans, thus making him seem awkward when trying to pass as human, so you can just look at "three years" in the same way and just excuse it as a computer relating passage of time differently than we do.

Sometimes we have to be really limber with our mental gymnastics. ;)
 
Oh, I agree with most of what you are saying, the action set pieces and iconic moments/looks are undeniable. It's the overall writing and acting that get worse with every viewing for me. I understand the father figure idea, but as far as I'm concerned, it still doesn't work, because it's so (true to form for Cameron) heavy handed. I actually like the idea of Arnold's Terminator being the good guy in this one (learn how to subvert expectations RJ!), but did he really have to be good to be the good guy? And we circle back to the father figure idea... IMHO, John could've latched on to the Terminator without it having to become a "nice" Terminator. Actually, it would've made more sense for his character's development into the guy who sends his father back in time to die if his role model had been this cold machine...








I agree with you, the "Uncle Bob" thing doesn't really work on multiple levels.

IMHO, Arnie is a more than capable "movie star", but he's not a particular effective dramatic actor. He's got charm and charisma, but there's quite a bit of nuance required to play a much more complex "Father T-800" role. Furlong is a C list actor. Even as a kid. Casting child actors is incredibly difficult, so it's kind of hard to be too punitive with Cameron on this one. ( You find a Hailee Steinfeld type once in a generation )

To be fair to Cameron, the T2 story is taking the characters where their natural evolution needs to go. Sarah Connor can no longer be a victim. In order for Kyle Reese to be swayed by the older Connor, there has to be something beyond survival and war. In that regard, Reese needs to see actual compassion from Connor. Pieces of humanity that the machines can't take from you. Even in the face of pure annihilation. That really can't come from his mother and maintain a practical story arc for Sarah so it has to come from a surrogate father figure. Given there were still limits from a practical technical standpoint, from that filmmaking era, there was only so much "future war" that could be shown. Also Arnie refused to play a "bad guy" again. And Cameron needed the cash injection to make the films he really wanted to make.

I see it as Cameron made the absolute best out of the circumstances he was in at the time. He could have written some other workarounds, but it would be fair to say that he'd lose narrative cohesion and deviate from where the characters were developed so far and where they needed to be in the future. His wonky dialogue is a bit of his own limits as a writer, but also his desire to build his films for international audiences. ( For example, CSI Miami, when it aired, lots of people in America just laughed at David Caruso making millions by taking his sunglasses on and off, but it was a huge hit OUTSIDE of America, the groan worthy dialogue simply translated better to other markets)

Cameron makes films built for movie stars, and sometimes he lucks out and ends up with a few really outstanding actors as well ( Weaver, Kathy Bates, Winslet, etc, etc)

Where Cameron excels is a type of pure industry "cost certainty". If you give him a little budget, he'll still give you a lot. If you give him a lot of budget, he'll give you even more incredible spectacle. The more resources you give him, the more he raises the bar. He's the tide that lifts all boats. Someone like Renny Harlin, if you give him a little budget, he'll make a sexy looking film from rusted tin cans that is impressive at it's relative scale, but if you give him a big budget, he'll give you the same film. It will just be guaranteed to lose money. Cameron does what few can do in the industry, no matter the expectations, he delivers a "result" no matter what. He's the quarterback that just finds a way to get you into the endzone. Unfortunately it also means he have full creative freedom, which causes some extremes in both the things he does well, and things he does somewhat poorly.

IMHO, someone who was criminally underrated as a surrogate father figure was Cliff Robertson in Raimi's first Spiderman. It's just devastating to watch Uncle Ben die. In a few short scenes, he completely captures the audience and makes them give a damn. You feel the loss. Which is, IMHO, the most critical part of that Spiderman series. If Robertson failed, the entire series would have collapsed under that weight. But he really knocked it out of the park. So you can have a "Uncle Bob" that works. That resonates with the general audience. Even in limited screen time. But you need an actor and not a movie star to do it.

What I do love about T2, despite it's tendency to stall just to make it from set action piece to set action piece, is it did everything it could, with it's limitations and Cameron's limitations, to center around a kind of empathy and duty within John Connor that would make the human race worth saving. From a narrative standpoint, the only way an older John Connor can convince adult Kyle Reese to go on a suicide mission is to be a daily example that survival alone is just not enough. When you break down hope into it's logistical components, the core of it is that humans will absolutely break in half if they have nothing to look forward to in life. This conflict is the basis of Sarah's nihilism and "Uncle Bob" and his final sacrifice.

In T2, I don't believe Cameron made a great film, but I do accept he made an honest one. And it would have been so easy for him to just shovel something forward that lied to the audience instead.

Just some thoughts.
 
There are multiple ways to reconcile the "Judgment Day" being the same in both of the timelines. Choose the one you like best:

1.) Congress moving to pass the Skynet funding bill could've happened at the same point because the politicians willing to do it would need to have been elected and go through the same time-consuming bureaucratic steps in order to gather the necessary votes. This could easily be seen as independent of how developed Skynet is in the second timeline (relative to its rate of advancement in the original timeline). You can look at the funding bill passage as the catalyst for Skynet autonomy in both timelines, and just assume Skynet would need however many days that interim represents before being able to overcome unavoidable human-caused delays and become autonomous.

2.) Skynet could've reasoned that August 29, 1997 would be an advantageous day to stick with because its algorithmic reasoning in both timelines show that political, cultural, and technological progress need to converge at a certain point to optimize effective takeover. And again, these could be factors independent and irrespective of the difference in Skynet's rate of advancement.

3.) Skynet AI could've extracted data from the original T-800's Neural Net CPU and felt it better to stick to certain specific time frames despite being more advanced. You can justify this as the AI being better able to anticipate with precision the human's moves in order to construct even better responses based on those expectations. It arguably could indeed be advantageous to proceed that way.

Hope one of those works for you. If not, I can come up with others. :lol

''So what'll it be?''
''All''

Are they mutually exclusive? Seems to me they could all work in conjunction with eachother. I may have follow-up questions but I have to go to bed soon.

As for the issue of John's age relative to the specific dates provided by Arnie, you can just assume that T2 was happening early enough in 1995 for the T-800 to count that as "year one," then 1996 as "year two," and 1997 (up until August) as "year three." Part of the fun of T2 was his form of reference and nomenclature being different from humans, thus making him seem awkward when trying to pass as human, so you can just look at "three years" in the same way and just excuse it as a computer relating passage of time differently than we do.

Sometimes we have to be really limber with our mental gymnastics. ;)

Maybe a bit acrobatic but the alternative is having to say that T2 is in 1994 and having to accept that John is even younger than the already plausibility-stretching 10 we're told he is in T2. This would mean the information on that Police car computer was wrong or maybe based on false information provided by Sarah as Khev suggested. The other alternative doesn't really help matters - the idea that John was born premature, perhaps in December of '84 - but again like Khev said that means he wouldn't turn 10 till December '94 - T2 isn't set at Christmas - and it would therefore still conflict with the stated age on that police car computer. Also, and I'm no expert on this but being born premature isn't a good start in life so you'd have to accept that John managed to avoid the health complications that can come with that.

Anyway, thanks for the response ajp. I'll be back.
 
''So what'll it be?''
''All''

Are they mutually exclusive? Seems to me they could all work in conjunction with eachother. I may have follow-up questions but I have to go to bed soon.



Maybe a bit acrobatic but the alternative is having to say that T2 is in 1994 and having to accept that John is even younger than the already plausibility-stretching 10 we're told he is in T2. This would mean the information on that Police car computer was wrong or maybe based on false information provided by Sarah as Khev suggested. The other alternative doesn't really help matters - the idea that John was born premature, perhaps in December of '84 - but again like Khev said that means he wouldn't turn 10 till December '94 - T2 isn't set at Christmas - and it would therefore still conflict with the stated age on that police car computer. Also, and I'm no expert on this but being born premature isn't a good start in life so you'd have to accept that John managed to avoid the health complications that can come with that.

Anyway, thanks for the response ajp. I'll be back.
I suppose there's no need to consider those three rationalizations as being mutually exclusive. But I think that #1 makes the other two pretty much irrelevant. Skynet autonomy seems to have been largely predicated on certain government authorizations, so it's very plausible that those milestones would've been reached at the same points in both timelines. The difference in sophistication of the AI wouldn't necessarily change the pace of bureaucracy or the need for specific election results and/or appointments to various committees.

Even as just a thought experiment, there'd be just as much validity to the argument that a more sophisticated AI would increase caution and actually delay those votes as there is to the argument that it would speed up any sort of urgency. I find it very plausible that the timetable would indeed be the same in both.

As for the age of John, yeah, the premature-birth notion is one that doesn't work because of the absence of otherwise-obvious holiday cues in T2. Whereas there are plenty of context signs in the movie pointing to something closer to early summer (likely June).

Also, the idea that Sarah would've changed John's D.O.B. on his legal documents would need some sort of logical foundation, and I don't see it. If she wanted to put a veil of false identity over him, she wouldn't have named him "John Connor" and prepped him in that way for the Skynet future. Plus, as you noted, suggesting that Furlong's John was even younger than 10 would further stretch suspension of disbelief about an already laughable character age for the actor/portrayal.
 
I am sure some of you are familiar with PT Studio. I just got their battle damaged T2 head with light up eye. It is incredible. I plan on getting just about everything they offer. There is a big surprise in the near future. For now I want to give you a heads up about the T3 full figure with real leather outfit. Unless you have the Pop Salute figure, there isn't much out there. Check them out on Facebook.
 
Is it a private group on Facebook?

Yeah, you need an invite and a deep, DEEP wallet.
I asked for their T2 full BD head too: 250 fully painted, fully machined endo when it was available: 4000 bucks, but, I mean, FULLY machined, outta metal.
They're doing a T1, which I will probably grab hold off and get rid of my Genisys.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, you need an invite and a deep, DEEP wallet.
I asked for their T2 full BD head too: 250 fully painted, fully endo when it was available: 4000 bucks, but fully machined, outta metal.
They're doing a T1, which I will probably grab hold off and get right of my Genisys.
Oh yeah, the Endoskeleton guys. Personally, in my circumstances, I don't think I could bring myself to lay down that amount of money for any one item. I've never gone into the 000s for anything. I had recently been considering it with Jazzinc's 1989 Batmobile (pretty much 2000 after VAT and shipping) but I think I've chickened out there.
 
You definitely need a deep wallet, but I'm tired of constant upgrading. I'll take one and done. Everything looks pretty much top of the line. I will be dropping the money for the fully articulated all metal T1 endo. That has to be the ultimate Terminator collectible for me.
 
Oh yeah, the Endoskeleton guys. Personally, in my circumstances, I don't think I could bring myself to lay down that amount of money for any one item. I've never gone into the 000s for anything. I had recently been considering it with Jazzinc's 1989 Batmobile (pretty much 2000 after VAT and shipping) but I think I've chickened out there.

Happy new year, dude
Yeah, the only for me was the Hulkbuster, but this is such a grail: I'd probably do it.

Maybe get the McFarlane Batmobile and put the Ramen Toy upgrade on?
 
Happy new year man.

I'd love to have an accurate, non-goofy, chrome endoskeleton but I can't justify that magnitude of an expense for one. The year has only started and it's already shaping up poorly on the finances front. I'll just have to hope Hot Toys or InArt has a decent crack at it somewhere down the line at a lower price.

I didn't see the McFarlane Batmobile available on any of my usual sites. Maybe I'd have gone for it if I had. The canopy looks too tall though, I guess to fit the figure inside.
 
Happy new year man.

I'd love to have an accurate, non-goofy, chrome endoskeleton but I can't justify that magnitude of an expense for one. The year has only started and it's already shaping up poorly on the finances front. I'll just have to hope Hot Toys or InArt has a decent crack at it somewhere down the line at a lower price.

I didn't see the McFarlane Batmobile available on any of my usual sites. Maybe I'd have gone for it if I had. The canopy looks too tall though, I guess to fit the figure inside.

Yeah, the regular, straight out the box, is WAY too high. Looks goofy.

Dude, I hope that too and I feel InArt is the best bet, but I don't think anything is gonna happen this year at all.
Which is a damn shame.
 
Does this piss anyone else off?

421715558_1069083194201097_2713288412136667719_n.jpg
 
Does this piss anyone else off?

View attachment 686019
Sheesh, I'd have at least Photoshopped some improvements while in the program.

I was finally able to see Prime 1's 1/2 Arnie up close at a collectible shop today. They had a number of pieces I'd previously written off based on photos and videos, but this was the only one that still didn't impress in person. No amount of natural light or real-life presence can fix that hair.

Wonder if anyone with salon experience has ever customized one of these.
 
Back
Top