This week we take on the the Terminator Salvation premiere. Highlights: We wonder if there isn’t any way to save humanity beyond simply protecting John Connor, question the inevitabiliy of Skynet’s evil, ask whether sentience by definition might include “feelings,” enjoy large-scale robot destruction, wonder why non-skinned terminators have teeth, and suggest in injection of techno music might perk the movie up. Up next week: The start of our Transformers primer arc — perfect for getting you ready to enjoy Fallen!
We saw the Terminators being assembled back in a teaser trailer for Terminator 2.
It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’ve been outside doing yardwork with the nano engaged, listening to the Terminator 'Cast #167.
At the 1h 40m mark, or just thereabouts, a brief discussion of the various T models comes up. Without hesitation, Sean pulls an almost perfect Kyle Reese quote (from T1) right out of thin air. He even got the tone and cadence down.
I had to stop and come in and give you some props, Sean. It’s moments like that when I know I’ve been hanging with the right Crew. 
Just to clear up some confusion:
T-800 is the Schwarzenegger model.
T-1000 is the Robert Patrick model.
Sean was correct that the T-800 was the new model. That is the model Conner saw in the data they were stealing at the beginning.
Yea the Arnie model is a T-800 model. I think the Marcus was more of a T-800 alpha if anything. Dr Kogan told him he was unique so he may have been a totally new model .
Also addressing the dog issue. The reason they didnt have the dogs yet was because Skynet didnt have infiltrator units yet. At that point there would be no need for them just yet. Outside of pets.
Arnold was entirely digital, made from a full-body cast they made back in the original movie (thus avoiding the traditionally problematic thing in sci-fi/fantasy with characters that aren’t supposed to age, heh). I can’t seem to dig up an exact link again, though.
Edit: As far as Chuck’s comments about John Connor and Skynet and how fated their roles/directions are, not only do you have very good points, but (okay, mild spoilers but I shan’t be specific) the questions around that are very extensively addressed in the later bits of Sarah Connor…which is very cool (yeahhh, the show was way too thoughtful for FOX).
Not all the way through the cast yet, but I’m loving it! The movie was sweeet!
As far as Chuck’s comments about John Connor and Skynet and how fated their roles/directions are, not only do you have very good points, but (okay, mild spoilers but I shan’t be specific) the questions around that are very extensively addressed in the later bits of Sarah Connor…which is very cool (yeahhh, the show was way too thoughtful for FOX).
Yeah, by the end of season two of T:TSCC, I’d say the John question is pretty much answered. 
Glad to hear Chuck et all are finally watching that series! (another mini arc? eh? eh?)
As for the movie, I hate to say it, but I was kind of ambivalent towards Christian Bale as JC. On the one hand, he was a believable badass and a great leader, but on the other, he wasn’t much of a character. That has a lot to do with the writing I’m sure, but I didn’t get a whole lot of of Bale’s performance (when he wasn’t shooting things, that is:)
Oh, and one random note: LOVED that they used “You Could Be Mine”!
Just downloaded the podcast. Looking forward to listening.
Saw T-4 2 nights ago and loved it.
I cheered when I saw “Arnold”.
Another enjoyable podcast, guys. Way off the “cute scale” was Audra’s love talk about Brian Austin Green. Thanks!
On another note, is the Cookies and Beer experiment over after one episode? Inquiring minds want to know.
Ummm…IMDB trivia says different about Ahnold’s cameo : Roland Kickinger was chosen to portray the Terminator’s body, while Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face was digitally grafted onto the body. Coincidentally, the former portrayed Schwarzenegger in the biographical film See Arnold Run (2005) (TV).
And yeah I know anyone can put stuff on IMDB but I haven’t found anything different elsewhere…yet.
Still working my way through the podcast, so I don’t know if you discuss this yet, but why is Kyle Reese on the machines’ hit list? I thought only Sara and John would know that Kyle is John’s father. Are the machines only going on the fact that Kyle was arrested at one point by LAPD and had the mission to protect Sara Connor???
I’d like the hive mind’s input…
There is no good story reason for this. This is my big problem with the movie. Take that out and have Skynet have any other plan than this ( or do they have to have an antagonistic plan. Can’t John Conner just be fighting them and them be cluless about the future? Isn’t this what gives him some advantages as a fighter… that he knows the future and they don’t?
The answer is POOR FILMMAKEING! We can try to make up a reason for Skynet to know it… but all those answers take away from what could have been a movie without these plot points. If we have to think up a reason for this to make sense… that, in and of it’s self equals bad filmmakeing.
Some movies are thought provokeing, they make you think about what they may be trying to say. “Thought provoking” isn’t supposed to be where the watcher has to make excuses to themselves and their friends as to why something that makes you go “WTF!” makes sense. We shouldn’t have to invent our own senerios in order to just make the movie’s plot work!
I’m not hearing any ringing endorsements for T4.
Great discussion though.
I’ve often thought of that: So often in science fiction AI strives to be human or to experience human emotion. It’s great allegory, as long as you overlook the fact that the desire itself is emotional.
There’s a really good movie “The Iron Giant”. You may have overlooked it as a “kid’s movie”. I got it for my son and was surprised at how well it handles these themes. If you haven’t seen it, check it out (it’s just like transformers).
Making my way through a very good podcast, but I had to stop because I kept talking back to the podcasters and figured I should just write it here.
Its an interesting discussion about whether AI can feel or learn to feel. But yet we operate on the assumption that Skynet felt threatened when it came online when the humans did the logical thing to say “wait a minute we weren’t ready for the AI to have this much control so lets take it offline to figure things out.” To me that seems that Skynet overreacted, that’s a display of irrational fear on the part of a computer.
About the alternate ways to avoid Skynet/Human war. I think the problem has been that John Connor and the Resistance were sending back, initially, Kyle Reese and T-800 to assure that John is 1) Born and 2) Survive Judgment Day. Trying to stop Skynet from going online is something that Sarah and young John Connor came up with on their own. The Resistance and John Connor were trying to make it clear through the T-800s in T-2 and T-3 that Skynet was going online no matter what and he needed to survive the assassination attempt.
I don’t know if anyone has thought of this, but doesn’t it seem that Skynet assured its on destruction by actually having a hand in the birth of John Connor. Had it not planned on going back to kill John Connor, the resistance would have never sent back Kyle Reese to protect Sarah. The only reason, this is important, that Skynet even decided to go back into time to kill Sarah was that the war was over, Skynet had lost. John Connor was the key to victory. The time displacement device was a last ditch effort in which Skynet poured all of its resources into because it knew the only way to have a chance against the humans was to keep John Connor from ever existing.
There is also one line of dialogue in Terminator 1 that covers why the future in Terminator franchise seems malleable. And that’s when Sarah asks Kyle is he from the future and he says “One possible future.” That covers any discrepancies between the future that Kyle is from (John teaching people how to fight the machines and escaping from prison camp) and the future we see in Salvation.
In the Star Trek tie-in Spock explains this in that there are somethings that are inevitable and the timeline tries to fix itself, like the Enterprise crew being together. So, lets just say for arguments sake the samething applies in Terminator. 1) John Connor is born to lead the resistance 2) Skynet goes online. 3) Judgment Day Those three events are going to happen not matter what either side does to the time stream, the dates may change, the circumstances may change, but those three key events are going to happen no matter what.
Is it me or did Anton Yelchin (Young Kyle Reese) sound like he listened to Michael Biehn’s tone and inflection and sounded a lot like he did in Terminator 1?
Edit: And why was Kyle Reece number one? Because Skynet would know, most likely because of police records and Sarah’s crazy house tapes, it was he who went back to save Sarah Connor, and was probably the reason she survived the first attempt on her life. Whether or not he was John’s father would be irrelevant.
remember, skynet didn’t feel theatened and kill everyone IIRC, the T-X activated it wiht her nanaites and started killing everyone… and that’s why it started killing. That’s right… the future terminator causd skynet to be bad! Am I remembering poorly?
re: the terminator hardware design specs, most of the designs/plans/templates were up & running already, so they were working from an assembly line. as T3 showed us, most of the models were in production before Judgment Day.
The T-X only activated one T-1 if I remember correctly.
Right… we see her activate 1, but a few scenes later we see all the oter models activated ( as in she acivated others off screen) as well and working with the t-x to rein hell. This helped prompt the humans to want to shut everything down. They say skynet comeing online and in control of everything, while they saw machines going ape-crazy so they tried to pull the plug on skynet. Also… I believe that skynet had it’s code adjusted by the t-x… but I am not sure. Like I said… I saw it in the theatres and not since.
All the other models didn’t activate until Skynet was online. And she didn’t do anything to the code. If anything, she uploaded information, but I don’t recall.
Something I’ve always wondered about the Terminator series…
After Skynet’s plan in Terminator failed with the T-800, why did they send the T-1000 a few years later when Sarah Connor was forewarned and (way) forearmed? Why didn’t they send liquidboy farther in the past, and kill her as a child or something? Hell, why not send him 1000 years in the past and kill Sarah Connor’s great-great-umpteenth-great-grandmother? I’d like to see a medieval knight try to take on a Terminator.