So now Kyle never existed... - Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) Discussion

[–] maximmm (3186) 5 years ago

He didn't write the script - so his interpretation should largely be ignored. Ask Cameron to explain this fucking mess - but aha, Cameron no longer talks of TDF - he only did so prior to everyone seeing the film.

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[–] bozo_500 (12571) 5 years ago

hes already saying he clashed with miller over the film (pretty much suggesting he wasnt in favour of what was done/decisions that were made)- soon he'll probably be denying he had much to do with it beyond offering a few nuggets of where the plot could go (that weren't followed up properly) and his name being used as one of the many story writers and for a tenuous exec producer role..

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[–] maximmm (3186) 5 years ago

Curiously enough, he hasn't mentioned any clashes prior to the film's release (a film he's seen and approved, by promoting it a fair amount). Now that the film has bombed.... @@

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[–] 10200 (656) 5 years ago

Well, the question was asked if the writers had ever considered having Sarah look for Kyle in the present day and he responded , no because Kyle was dead and then added he had never existed. I think this probably was the mindset of everyone involved and apparently they didn't think too hard about that.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

[deleted]

[–] PaladinNJ (20767) 5 years ago

But John does exist, so Kyle exists.

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[–] Goliard (1413) 5 years ago

To be fair, this essential paradox is present in EVERY Terminator movie. Arguably, the only one that doesn't suffer because of it is the first one, because it presents a closed loop, if we consider the movie as its own separate entity.

Every Other One fails, creating progressively more absurd causal impossibilities. Don't even get me started on the "created alternate timelines" nonsense. . .that sort of comic book pseudo-science is really not worth even discussing.

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[–] 10200 (656) 5 years ago

I have always considered T1 to be a stand alone story - there was only one terminator ever sent back and Kyle was always John's father - the timelines of T2 and subsequent movies do not exist. To me T1 was perfect - BUT T2 was so much fun and a great movie.

T2 has it's plot holes but as long as Judgement Day is only delayed, John still becomes the leader of the resistance and sends Kyle back to me it's still a closed loop with the same events happening over and over. Why do you think differently?

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[–] Goliard (1413) 5 years ago

Several reasons. I'll restrict myself to one, for simplicity. . .

The reasoning of Skynet is flawed at its core. Sending a machine back to prevent its enemy from being born doesn't work:

A) If they succeed
*John's never born
*The resistance never wins
*Skynet doesn't send a terminator back
*John is born
*The resistance wins
*Skynet decides to send a terminator back
. . .etc, etc, etc
B) If they fail (as in the first movie):
*John is born
*He leads the resistance
*They win
*Skynet sends a Terminator back to try to (absurdly) rewrite history

The movie asks us to believe that a computer doesn't understand recursion, but as I said: that's forgivable, for any number of reasons. Essentially, the narrative logic of T1 works because it follows (B).

NOW: Given this, T2 fails IMMEDIATELY. First of all, T1 is predicated upon ONE cyborg being sent back, as a last-ditch effort. Then the resistance sends Kyle, and they blew up the time machine.
If you handwave that away, you *still* have the problems outlined in (A), except now it's worse: a magical liquid metal machine is now dropped into existence from who knows where, with who knows what consequences. T1 established a well-defined set of circumstances; adding this new Terminator simply ignores them, in order to tell an (admittedly) entertaining story.

This is hardly a "closed loop." It's a "willing suspension of logic," with a movie attached. One of my favorites, for all that. . .but fatally flawed.

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[–] 10200 (656) 5 years ago

Well looks like we are in agreement about T1 and the biggest problem I have always had with T2 is exactly how the T1000 was sent back when Kyle said the time machine was destroyed? However, how would Kyle have known for certain that really happened after he left? There is always the possibility that it wasn't destroyed or there was a second time machine allowing more terminators to be sent back through time. Just a possibility and better in my mind than just leaving it hanging. T2 would have been a little more satisfying if that plot hole had been explained/eliminated.

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[–] bozo_500 (12571) 5 years ago

Ever since 91 that feeling of 'convenience' has bugged me. T1 is like the perfect cause&effect loop, but T2 its like oh wait there was another super magic liquid metal terminator (that seemed a generation or 2 beyond what skynet was capable of) and the resistance sent a T800 after it (and then T3 and DF we get even more) that fubar's the loop. Of course I guess if Cameron had been like 'hmm.. this doesn't really make sense' then there'd be no T2 (or there'd have been a future war 'Terminator II' charting the end of the war sending back terminator/Reese)

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Parallel timelines is one of only three time travel models that 'work' so as not to produce paradoxes. The other is based on the concept of the light cone.

Another model is the Looper model which AFAIK is unique to Hollywood scriptwriters.

Anyway the first move isn't a closed loop. Each feedback produces a new timeline that differs very slightly from the previous one. I don't have the time to break it down but a simplified version:

The minute that the T800 from future v0.0 traveled back to 1984, he erased the future he came from and started a new one -- future v1.0. It's just that the new one so closely resembles the previous one that they would be impossible to tell apart... the differences might exist just at the molecular level. For example, in arriving he displaced a certain number of air molecules, raised the temperature of the surrounding air a little bit, etc. (I'm neglecting a discussion of the Butterfly Effect here to keep it simple.)

The Kyle Reese that arrives after him, IS NOT the same Kyle Reese v0.0 from the original 2029. He's the Kyle Reese v1.0 from the new future created by the arrival of the T800. Any differences between him and the original Kyle Reese -- the one we never see -- are probably so minute as to make them indistinguishable.

Here is where the logic of the first movie breaks down... Skynet v0.0 can't change its own past. It can only create an alternate Skynet v1.0 in another timeline that it will never know of, or experience. As far as Skynet v0.0 is concerned it sent a Terminator into the past that never returned. Nothing changes. Hence, the whole idea behind the mission is flawed.

As far as Skynet v1.0 is concerned, the history books show that a mysterious machine showed up one day in 1984, full of strange microchips that were reverse engineered by humans to create a supercomputer that became sentient in 1997.

(No understanding of physics required here... you can flowchart this out for yourself on a piece of paper.)

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

In the above model, the Terminator v0.0 retains the memories of his original future v0.0. He's now an orphan in this new timeline v1.0 moving forward to a future he can guess at but never really be sure comes to pass.

The Looper model is rather complex, but essentially any changes in the past ripple up and down the timeline so as to keep it all consistent.

Simplified version:

Skynet in 2029 decides to send a Terminator back into the past with advanced microchips to create itself sooner. Terminator succeeds. There is only one time line. The Terminator now has memories of a different future in which Skynet was created in 1995. The Terminator is now in the present for some other mission created for it by the new Skynet of 1995. No one anywhere is aware that reality has been changed since everyone's memories are instantly overwritten to reflect this new reality.

This model is complex because any changes can't be so dramatic as to "break" the internal consistency. I'm not even sure it works... the original Looper ended with some loose strings that weren't explained in the interests of a better story.

It's probably the reason, I've never come across such a model in any serious physics articles that I've read.

(I'm a physicist, but not an astrophysicist which is what this stuff is about...)

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[–] 10200 (656) 5 years ago

Well okie dokie -I'm not a physicist - LOL and since I'm not, I won't even attempt to debate what you just said. But, from your viewpoint are you stating you believe some version of Kyle was always John's father or something else? Because if you are saying that a "Kyle" always traveled back to father John, then to my very unscientific mind, that seems like a loop.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

From a physics standpoint, it's not a loop. It's always separate timelines... it's just that the changes could be so minute that it seems to be a loop. The same argument that it was pointless of Skynet v0.0 to try to change its own past also holds true for John Connor v0.0. It's pointless for him to send back anyone. It will never change the past that HE knows.

i. He sends Kyle Reese v0.0 back, but that Kyle Reese doesn't become HIS father... he becomes the father of a different but very similar John Connor v1.0 in a new spun-off timeline. Which would appear as a closed loop to a movie viewer.

ii. Or, he becomes the father of Jack Connor v1.0, a completely different person in a different timeline. This could be the start of a new apparent loop, if that Jack Connor sends someone back in time.

iii. Or, he doesn't father anyone and a resistance leader is never born. Or, is born to another female. The apparent loop from the original movie has 'collapsed.

As interesting as the above scenarios are though, none of them will affect or have any influence on John Connor v0.0. His past is fixed.

As fun as it was Skynet and John Connor in the first movie have no motivation to send back time travelers.

This would apply to any time travel movie that involves the parallel timelines model.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Sidenote: Remember at the end of Back to the Future? Through his meddling in the past, Marty v0.0 creates a new but similar future -- timeline v1.0 -- that he returns to via the Delorean. He, of course, still retains the memory of his original future so is surprised to see his 'new and improved' parents, siblings, in this new and different future.

What a lot of people don't give much thought is that there are briefly TWO Marty's in that future. One is Marty v0.0 -- the one we follow through the movie. He's the one that returns to his home at the end. He's not actually the son of those parents in timeline v1.0. that we see.

The other is Marty v1.0 who we just get a glimpse of at the end in the mall parking lot as he disappears back into the past in the Delorean. He's the version that was born and raised in that timeline... the actual son of the parents.

Those parents might grieve to know that the son living with them now is a doppelganger with no shared memories of the good times they had growing up together as a family. Which would make a downer of a movie if the film makers focused on that.

Anyway, the point is this more clearly shows the idea of an apparent 'closed loop' which isn't really closed at all.

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[–] 10200 (656) 5 years ago

I've always believed that each time something is changed from the original story, a new timeline develops but I've always considered T1 to be one timeline because nothing ever changes.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

"I've always considered T1 to be one timeline because nothing ever changes."

With an infinity of timelines radiating outward from every point in time, it's means that an infinity of timelines will resemble each other so closely that they will appear indistinguishable from each other, except maybe on an atomic level. To the 'naked eye' they will appear to be loops, even if strictly they aren't. Changes are happening, you just can't see them.

As far as script writing goes, it gives the film makers an out to make any Terminator film they want and claim that it's a different timeline.

With DF they are trying to claim that it takes place in the future created directly from the events of T2. Strictly speaking though that claim could be made also for T3 and Salvation. Each one could rightfully say they are the 'sequel' to T2 but all are happening in different timelines. All are proper sequels to T1.

I can't remember the awful GeneSys at all. I seem to remember it jumping back to 1984, yes? If so, GeneSys would be a timeline different from the events of T2 and possibly T1.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

It's all irrelevant now, but would have been cool if the film makers had tried the Looper approach way back then.

As there is only one timeline, no one -- not even the time traveler him/her self -- are aware of the changes that they created. The stakes are higher... if a future is created in which time travel is NEVER invented then events are fixed and nothing can be done about it.

Not sure but I think it was Carl Sagan who advanced this hypothesis to answer the question: If time travel is invented, why haven't we encountered any time travelers yet?

Sidebar:
The concept of a light cone would allow a limited type of time travel to the past but without all the headaches of paradoxes, etc. It could mean, for example, that we could eventually space travel, and arrive at distant planets to find human colonies from the past already established there!
I came up with the idea on my own about a decade ago and contacted a astrophysicist in the US about it. He was nice enough to reply and tell me that my idea wasn't new... it had actually been proposed about 15 years before me.
It has its own problems related to the uniform properties of space-time (above my head I admit) but I'm ever hopeful that my idea will eventually prove true and that I'll be acknowledged as a genius centuries ahead of my time.
;) :D

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

But that makes no sense. Kyle does exist because his birth is irrelevant to the events in T1 and T2 and even Dark Flop.

Kyle is John's father, not the other way round.

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[–] maximmm (3186) 5 years ago

Agreed - but Millier is an idiot, so what do you expect?

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Haha yeah. Gotta love that 2017 interview he had where he told ppl that he was a huge fan of the Terminator story! When he clearly isn't! If anything, he is a fan of only T2 due to his apparent hard-on for making Sarah Connor over the top in Dark Flop.

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[–] 10200 (656) 5 years ago

But I don't think Sarah was over the top in DF at all - the biggest disappointment of the movie to me. I was expecting Sarah from T2++++. Crazy and nuts - too bad all we got was Sarah on Prozac.

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[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Well, they placed her in situations which felt over the top. Like her casually walking down a roadside hill towards a terminator (rev9) armed with only a pump action shotgun. Really? This lady supposedly hunts terminators but doesn't know by now that a shotgun won't damage a robot? They only showed us that scene to make it believable that she is an expert now at destroying robots (with only a shotgun) and it failed. Plus her "I'll be back" line after dropping a grenade was unnecessary.

Secondly, her standing on the ramp of a plane shooting is just a big no no. This was over the top for me.

Thirdly, I jumped skipped the rest of the movie after the plane scene so I'm not sure if she did anything else over the top near the end but, it wouldn't surprise me if she did.

Also, her character felt off. The way she was interacting with Dani and Grace didn't feel natural.

Sarah being insane would have been a better, more realistic character arc for her.

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