Besides getting back in the Terminator mood (just in time for next week’s new movie release!) we take a few Trek calls to wrap up the arc. (Look for our Trek bonus call show soon.) Highlights: we tackle the Terminator Salvation trailer’s take on what it means to be human, discuss various modes of time travel and how they affect characters in sci-fi stories, wonder if previous Terminators lack personality (and if dogs can sense this as well as the smell of metal), bash on Bazooka Joe gum, re-visit bras-in-space, address the Enterprise built in Iowa canyon and why Nero is bent on revenge issues, hear Chuck’s objection (as an Eve miner) to Trek’s portrayal of space miners, and discuss the new Mass Effect 2 E3 preview trailer.
Chuck plays EVE? 
I’m 6 minutes in and glad you guys weren’t offered to be sponsored by Bazooka Joe gum 
That aside, it’s all true.
Is it still? I thought they changed it in the eighties or nineties.
There was a Terminator preview when we saw Trek again this afternoon (there wasn’t one the first time we saw it) - it looks like it’s going to be fabulous! 
Plus one of the pre-show interview thingies was about it, too, though as is usually the case in those kinds of things, they didn’t say anything interesting.
Just one note about the Bazooka Gum, I believe the white powder on the gum is not sugar, but corn starch which is used to keep the gum from sticking to the wrapper.
I’m confused about the timeline of the new movie. You guys seem to think that it ignores T3: Rise of the Machines. As I understand it, it’s a direct sequel to T3. If not, where did Skynet come from? It’s the end of T3 when Skynet finally came on line, and John and that girl are in that bunker, presumably to go on to join and help form the resistance, which is where they’re at in Salvation. I think the only Terminator not recognized by the new movie is the TV show, Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Ick! I never particularly cared for Bazooka. And it always came so hard to chew at first!
Apparently in the new Star Trek movie Iowa is a western state.
P.S. Thanks for the boob talk Audra. May I request more Catholic schoolgirl stories in future podcasts? 
Just dropping in a note to say that I, again, enjoyed the heck out of the podcast. For the record, Dean Stockwell’s character was Al.
Like Sean, I played Mass Effect as the female character and tried to get with Ashley. It was very disapointing. Also, I think I’m the only one to beat Mass Effect without a romance with anyone. I might have been able to get Kaidan, but then
[spoiler]I choose to sacrifice him. But my Wrex made it to the end! [/spoiler]
I agree with the studio as this was the “trek for everyone”
My mom had been a lifelong trekkie up until St 6, but never got into TNG.
First contact thru nemisis was not for her… she didn’t know who those characters were. Those movies were good if and only if you were a trekkie ( ok first contact was good anyway, but isn’t the movie that we think it is when viewed by a laymen)… if you wern’t, you were missing a lot. Listen to the podcasts for the last few months. The thing we all said we liked about these movies all involved situations involving the characters. We only get the characterization (if any for the minor characters) of the characters if we watched TNG and maybe the other TNG movies. Listen to Chuck, Audra and Sean even talk about them as well. The points our hosts made when discussing these movies don’t apply to a non trekkie that just walked into Insurection having not seen trek since the whales ( or if ever) and didn’t know the context to any of the “cool” things you pointed out. And if not for some of the cool stuff you pointed out in say Insurection, or nemisis… what else was there?
Our own podcast and discussions prove that the studio was dead right in that assessment. My girldfriends 16 year old little sister was able to walk into that movie and enjoy it as much as my mom… but probably not as much as me.
Half way through the podcast, and its great as usual. Two thoughts so far:
• I’m not sure what the big deal with the quarry is. Clearly Iowans would need stone too, and given 200 more years of digging, I’d imagine a quarry could get quite deep. A google maps search identifies at least 9 quarries in the state.
• Regarding the time line: Given that New Spock now knows about Spock Prime’s plot to save Romulus I don’t think he’ll try that again. At the very least, he knows not to try to use ‘red matter’ because he realizes who dangerous it is by blowing it up to destroy Nero’s ship. So if New Spock doesn’t try to save Romulus in the same way and create the black hole that sends Nero’s ship back in time, then Kirk’s father lives, Vulcan isn’t destroyed and then everything is sent back to normal. So truly there are two separate time parallel time lines. Huh, so it would almost seem that any time travel situation can create a situation with parallel time lines. Does this mean there is no such thing as canon in a fictional universe that incorporates time travel? You can always argue you’re just in a parallel time line from what came before…
I think the problem was that it wasn’t very clear that it was a quarry. (Sure looked like one to me, but I imagine a lot of people have never seen one.)
• Regarding the time line: … Huh, so it would almost seem that any time travel situation can create a situation with parallel time lines. Does this mean there is no such thing as canon in a fictional universe that incorporates time travel? You can always argue you’re just in a parallel time line from what came before…
That’s one theory. The other is that the first is overwritten by the second. The first theory is in line with current physics theories, while the second isn’t. Trek has used both since the beginning.
Actually, I think there’s been a very straight-through & linear continuity throughout the Terminator franchise. The story has always been centered around John Connor. Check this out :
[ol]
[li]The Terminator - this movie covers John Connor’s conception.
[/li][li]Terminator 2 - covers John Connor’s formative years, explaining the gap years in Nicaragua where Sarah & John received guerilla training. T2 highlights John’s intimate relationship with the Uhnold Terminator model (800 series), as well as his love/hate relationship with his mother.
[/li][li]The Sarah Connor Chronicles - the tv series looks at John Connor from the viewpoint of his mother. Though I’m not sure how they’re gonna ret-con Summe Glau’s terminator model into the movie timeline (?)
[/li][li]Terminator 3 - Judgement day. The title is self-explanatory and examines John Connor’s character arc as he faces with “inevitable” (as Uhnold puts it) with his new-found wife.
[/li][li]Terminator Salvation - brings the movie franchise full circle and continues from T3. I take it that Salvation is the first iteration of all the terminator timelines, since every other movie this year is a prequel.
[/li][/ol]
Here are also some notes from the Terminator 2 novelization I had :
[ul]
[li]In each successive movie, John & Sarah hope manage to stave off Judgement day. Timelines do get altered; but Judgement day itself merely gets postponed.
[/li][li]In a deleted scene in T2 (and this is mentioned in the T2 novel), Arnold instructs John to remove an inhibitor chip that Skynet put in all it’s terminators (sic. Yes, Terminator had this idea first, then RDM did a “homage” to it). Skynet lobotomized it’s own robots to prevent them from being self-aware.
[/li][/ul]
True story: when I was working at a major financial institute (which in retrospect the screws-ups there should have warned me of the future) I manged to collect a whole series of Bazooka Joe comics. I even had people bringing their comics to me to help out the “wall O’ comics”.
And in regards to time travel and timelines and such, maybe it’s time to consult a Doctor:
(or, maybe not)
Actually, TSCC is a separate timeline which begins after II and leapfrogs past III. I imagine the movie will do something similar.
really? I always thought it was before III. The John in III was older than the JOhn in TSCC. Especially since they bring up Sarahs cancer and in III, John says she dies of cancer…
but I could be wrong…
That’s because of the leapfrogging. They’re younger in TSCC, even though it’s after III in time, because they jumped forward after the events in II. (The constant alterations of the timeline are an interesting, but confusing, part of TSCC.)
timelines give me a headache