“Sense and Cyborgs” coming soon to a bookstore near you.
I think that there could be as many different Artificial Intelligences as there are different programmers for them. I don’t think that Sean and Chuck would like to hang out with an AI that liked to talk about last night’s episode of John and Kate plus 8 for several hours. Although they might enjoy Kryten talk about his favorite soap opera “Androids”. I’m sure there could be a psychopathic AI just as there are “real intelligence” people who are homicidal maniacs and care nothing or have no feelings toward anyone or anything.
I don’t think the movie is a study in the cause and effects of AI or time travel, you can make up a reason for anything that happens but the real reason that Arnold shows up is that its cool. The reason the terminators have teeth are because they look cooler and fiercer with them. The reason John Conner can hop on a motorcycle terminator and start shifting it is because its cool.
Me and the wife’s 15 year old experiment in creating intelligence took me to see the movie for my birthday and he thought it rocked and he couldn’t care less that Terminator movies always seem to end in a factory with lava and liquid nitrogen in it. His only complaint was that he was hoping that there would be more all out war scenes of humans vs. Terminators like the battle scenes in the Lord of the Rings.
Hey, I have one of those 15 year-old experiments, too. Mine seems to like movies that blow things up good. I guess he’s more of a Teen-800 than a Teen-1000…
What if Skynet is unable or unwilling to go back that far? Some thots:
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Has their been any information or explanation regarding the time displacement machine that lets Kyle Reese and the Terminators use to go back in time? Is there some kind of technological restriction for the time machine? From what I remember, this was Skynet’s last ditch effort to frak the humans because they lost. If so, it is possible that Skynet could not refine the tech before they were forced to use it.
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To take someone’s previous theory that time is self correcting in certain events, going back 100, 200, 500, or 1000 years to kill of John Connor’s great-great-whatever is no guarantee that John Connor, or some version of him would not exist.
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If we disregard theory 2, it is possible that the farther back Skynet goes into the past to assassinate John Connor, the more risky it becomes for Skynet. They could change something that brings their own existence into jeopardy. So basically, there could be a butterfly effect and Skynet could calculate that the risk is too great to try.
Would Skynet exist if it weren’t for John Connor? Would John Connor exist without Skynet? Did the Chicken (John Connor) beget the Egg (Skynet) or the Egg the Chicken?
My brain hurts now.
I think it’s been stated that the accuracy of their method of time travel gets much less precise the further out you go, so Skynet may be staying with a certain time band in order to get close to where it wants to go.
Sky net is staying with whatever year the movie is filmed… it’s cheaper that way. That’s the REAL answer. They don’t want to do a period peace and they haven’t explained a reason for it. It’s simple studio economy. They could for T:SCC because it was almost all interiors… but a whole movie would suck for them. ( unless they went to the past out in the desert…then it would be as cost efficient as this one)
I’ve always wondered if, despite our first impressions, that Skynet’s plans to send back terminators actually does appear to work for them. Given what we know from the first movie, Skynet was almost completely defeated by John Connor. So they send back the T-800 to take out Sara Connor, and John sends back Reese. However, the original time line gets mucked up a bit such that now Reese fathers John and not the original guy to must have sired him in the original (unseen) time line, in addition to leaving the T-800 arm for Cyberdyne. Apparently, this new mucked up time line is actually somewhat favorable for them because Skynet lives to fight another day and (7 years later? (the difference between the events of T1 in 1984 and T2 in 1991) send back a T-1000 to kill John. Now this seriously mucks up the time line by actually changing the date of Judgment Day. Again, this also appears to be favorable for the machines because they continue to exist about another 12 years to send back the T-X. Finally, as we see in the new movie T:Salvation it appears that the machines actually have the upper hand, because they are aware of all the changes made to the time line and that negates the advantage John thought he had by getting updates from the future from Reese in T1 and the T-800s in T2 & T3…
So who knows, maybe the twist is all this time travels is actually leading towards a machine victory???
According to the website, “Robot Suit” is one of their registered trademarks??
So now I owe them a quarter?
If Skynet succeded in killing Sara or John Connor in the past. then in the ‘new’ future they would not know to send someone back to kill them so they would be alive again to undo skynet…
time travel is fun in movies but if you try to pull it apart it will make your brain hurt and the movies less fun…
Some thoughts on why terminators have teeth.
The podcast explanation is good in that the orginal T-600’s had rubber skin but skynet soon figured out that they weren’t nearly good enough to fool actual humans. So after a while they kept the design and didn’t do the rubber skin anymore. Or the rubber skin on most models out there had been burned off etc…
The other reason to make a killing machine that resembles a human is simply that it is more terrifying. It’s easier to shoot humans that are running away in a panic than ones who are dug in. Edward Teach (Blackbeard the Pirate) used to put wicks in his beard and light them on fire during battle. Why? Because it scared the craaaap out of his enemies. Some surrendered before a shot was fired. Which would you find more scary, a metal box hovering toward you with guns, or a two ton indestructable metal dude with a minigun walking or running at you with big , scary metal teeth he is going to use to eat you!
I really loved the movie depite some of the flaws. I think when you start doing time travel films, there is no way to reconcile a lot of the plot details. A lot of ret-conning therefore goes on because it’s somewhat necessary. With that said, I’ll throw in my time travel ret-con as to why Skynet didn’t send back terminators earlier in time, etc. I like to think that because the time travel technology is relatively new to Skynet, it has some serious limitations. Maybe they can only send back to certain eras with any accuracy and the late 20th century is one of those eras?..
Anyway, loved the movie, but then again I love anything with terminators in it.
david
After listening to the Podcast I rewatched Terminator 3. A couple of things were apparent. The T-X did not do anything that brought Skynet online or upload a virus. Skynet was infiltrating all computer networks and needed for the humans to flip the switch and give it control of the military. Also, when Skynet came online, it didn’t attack because it was threatened or because the humans were trying to shut it down. It was a preemptive nuclear attack. It’s first thought was to kill anyone who would potentially be threat, thus the preemptive nuclear attack. Anyone disagrees should watch it again. And if you watch it again and disagree with me still, I guess I watched a different version of the movie.
I loved the movie. Seriously enjoyed it. Here is my review breakdown:
Pros
[ul]
[li]Action sequences. All of them[/li][li]Marcus. Great character, great actor (nice touches in his mannerisms to T1 and T2)[/li][li]Reese: Could have blown it, but he pulled it off beautifully[/li][/ul]Cons
[ul]
[li]Missed opportunities. Marcus wakes up in a wasteland after being killed…perhaps a moment of confusion thinking that he is actually in hell for example? Connor as false messiah as another?[/li][li]Major MAJOR plotpoints spoiled in trailer. In fact, I have trouble with the fact they could have had Marcus be a huge reveal as a Terminator and they blew it. If he was the first of his kind shouldn’t the audience have found out along with Connor that he was actually a Terminator? Who frakking cool would that have been?[/li][/ul]Nitpicks
My three nitpicks were:
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“We don’t travel at night…the HKs have infrared, make us easier targets”
“Gotcha…so what do we do now?”
“Hunker down and make a bonfire”
Wha, wha, wha!?!?!? Seriously. C’mon.
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How did Skynet know about Reese being Connor’s father? It hasn’t happened yet. The only person who knows this is Connor, so how did Skynet find out?
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How did Reese and an eight year old girl lift a two ton set of railcar wheels as their trap?
They could grip it by the husk. (?)
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but have been thinking about the “why didn’t they go waaaaay back in time to the Middle Ages to wipe out the whole Connor clan” question. In T1, Reese told Sarah that Skynet had almost no personnel records available that pertained to the time before the war. (Why I don’t know, but that was the deal), and that all Skynet had was a rough time, a name and a place. (I’m assuming that place was Connor’s city of residence, rather than the entire state.) If that was the case, sending a terminator back at any time previous to T1 (the time Skynet had a solid lead) would be much more of a crapshoot as far as location and geneology, and make for a much tougher mission for Arnie or the T1000.
What a ridiculous question. You know full well that Connor McCloud, forefather of the Connor Clan is immortal. He couldn’t be wiped out.
No good whatsoever is gonna come from looking at the movie too closely.
Except for the instant field-surgery heart transplant. That’s totally plausible.
Terminator heart transplant instruction manual:
1: Remove power cord
2: Unplug heart from chest cavity
3: Install new heart in dying patient
4: Plug in power cord
5: Evac in chopper to safe location