A timeline of the deterioration of the Terminator timeline (spoiler for every Terminator movie)

[Kyrian007]

My theory remains the same, and intact. The entire Terminator franchise is fiction, therefore no plot holes exist. Fiction does not have to follow the same rules as reality. Anything anyone calls a plot hole in fiction is actually either "something that was inadequately explained by the writer," "something intentionally left as a dangling thread by the writer," or "a wizard did it." Those 3 explanations are sufficient to explain any so-called "plot hole" I've ever encountered. I mean if you need to "explain" how the terminator franchise fits together, it's continuity, then... uhh, parallel realities. Each movie exists in it's own parallel universe and doesn't impact any of the others at all. And in the movies that seem to contradict their own internal consistency... the film had to follow several different possible realities to show all the scenes the author wanted to while at the same time choosing realities that keep the main characters alive and lead to the ending the author or authors wanted. BAM, done, it all fits. It only exists in the first place because the writers chose to create it in the first place. That's why things happen the way they do, because the writers SAY they happened that way. Because the story exists in a reality where that's just how things work.

That's why I say there's no such thing as a "plot hole" in fiction. But in order not to be too much of a killjoy, working out how things in a franchise or movie or series of books or whatever... is part of the fun. But in something like Terminator (where so many things are left to the imagination) I personally have to find enjoyment in something other than trying to understand the physics and cosmology of a reality that doesn't exist. Like watching robots firing lasers, blowing up trucks, powersliding vehicles... typical action movie stuff. Which, in my opinion, the Terminator franchise delivers better on than it does explaining it's own internal logic. Which was a very roundabout way of agreeing with the OP, trying to work out how the terminator universe "works" is like beating your head against a wall.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

I just figured every time you use the time machine you ceased to have your own existence tied to history. In such a way that you could time travel back and shoot yourself as a child, and continue to exist, because you are now a person from another universe.

Otherwise it would be impossible to ever kill Skynet, because that only happens in response to its time travel assasination attempts and judgement day really would be inevitable.

I think the best thing for the Terminator series to do is to just say that we do not understand how time travel works, and may never be able to from the perspective of our three dimensional view of the world.

What from our point of view looks like a paradox may have been caused by untold numbers of multiple alterations of the time line, maybe this time war with Skynet is repeated untold numbers of times with variation upon variation piled on top of each other until you end up with a pattern that is stable enough to repeat the same way infinite times. Like a man drawing lines of all different shapes and sizes infinitely until he happens to draw a perfect circle.

Every single Terminator in every single movie could have been sent by a different Skynet from a different future. Remember in Terminator 1 Kyle Reese said that the machines had already lost? Sending off the T-800 was its last chance to win by killing Sarah... Only it failed to kill John, changed who his father was(instead of a random guy its now Kyle) but also brought about its own creation on a sooner date thanks to Terminator remains. So now human technology has become more advanced and John has forewarning of the machines, so both sides became stronger. In this new timeline thanks to more advanced tech(because Skynet inherits more advanced human technology to iterate upon) it can build a liquid terminator. That t-1000 gets sent back but this time the result is that Cyberdyne is destroyed and Skynet should be never built, except that all they did was set back research, not destroy the idea and Skynet was made before timeline alterations anyway. So judgement day gets pushed back, way back because destroying Cyberdyne set the company back so far it cant even build Skynet on the date it was supposed to, but ideas are hard to kill. Turns out this is to Skynets advantage because the later its made, the more powerful it is(the further human tech goes before Judgement Day the better tech it inherits and people are mostly left with a few laserguns and eating rats in sewers) and the best terminator it can produce is now the mighty T-X.


Salvation sucks so I dont count it. Genisys is caused by Skynet attempting new tactics somehow, prehaps it has found a way to travel between universes or it sent something into the future rather than the past. Prehaps a Skynet that wins in another universe is attempting to help one that loses?

I was half expecting the terminator John Connor to reveal it isnt actually on Skynets side, but is simply a John Connor who, after winning the war against the machines, wishes to preserve that timeline(and upgraded himself to have the strength to do it) a timeline where skynet loses. He doesnt want to allow skynet to be destroyed in the past because it risks a more powerful skynet being created, one that might win and wipe out the human race. It would be interesting to see him acknowledge, yes billions will die and suffer, but eventually the human race will win and survive.

 

[Hoplon]

Snipped for brevity

Terminator as a franchise only works if each film takes place in a different universe, branching from the first one from the moment the first terminator is sent back. each subsequent attempt to travel back spawns a new branch. it's the only way causality isn't violated.

 

[Zontar]

Snipped for brevity

Terminator as a franchise only works if each film takes place in a different universe, branching from the first one from the moment the first terminator is sent back. each subsequent attempt to travel back spawns a new branch. it's the only way causality isn't violated.

That leads to a paradox though, since the first Terminator sent to 1984 would logically have to have never been sent in such a setup, yet at the same time the creation of Skynet and the birth of John Connor only happen because of that, which are the reasons it was sent back in the first place.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Snipped for brevity

Terminator as a franchise only works if each film takes place in a different universe, branching from the first one from the moment the first terminator is sent back. each subsequent attempt to travel back spawns a new branch. it's the only way causality isn't violated.

That leads to a paradox though, since the first Terminator sent to 1984 would logically have to have never been sent in such a setup, yet at the same time the creation of Skynet and the birth of John Connor only happen because of that, which are the reasons it was sent back in the first place.

Unless there was going to be a John Connor anyway, sired by a different father but with the same name and without the advantage of forewarning and such extensive training but a natural leader. The machines just helped build a better John.

 

[Zontar]

Snipped for brevity

Terminator as a franchise only works if each film takes place in a different universe, branching from the first one from the moment the first terminator is sent back. each subsequent attempt to travel back spawns a new branch. it's the only way causality isn't violated.

That leads to a paradox though, since the first Terminator sent to 1984 would logically have to have never been sent in such a setup, yet at the same time the creation of Skynet and the birth of John Connor only happen because of that, which are the reasons it was sent back in the first place.

Unless there was going to be a John Connor anyway, sired by a different father but with the same name and without the advantage of forewarning and such extensive training but a natural leader. The machines just helped build a better John.

But then that begs the question of how that first John managed to have his waitress of a mother teach him the skills he learned which where critical to him forming and leading the resistance. And I don't care what the circumstances are, there's no way in hell she had a sudden change from just meeting a new person and having a kid with them in the same general time-frame leading to a similar result. Plus it begs the question why the result in Terminator 2 seems unchanged if the John Connor of this new timeline is a different one then the one of a previous one, or how Skynet took the same time to develop despite this new timeline having a large head-start.

If anything, it makes the plot make less sense to use that as an explanation.

 

[Hoplon]

Snipped for brevity

Terminator as a franchise only works if each film takes place in a different universe, branching from the first one from the moment the first terminator is sent back. each subsequent attempt to travel back spawns a new branch. it's the only way causality isn't violated.

That leads to a paradox though, since the first Terminator sent to 1984 would logically have to have never been sent in such a setup, yet at the same time the creation of Skynet and the birth of John Connor only happen because of that, which are the reasons it was sent back in the first place.

I disagree, I think the events of the first film push the time table up from 1997 to like 1994, i mean Dyson is well on the way with skynet in 91 in the second movie. probably a more advanced version too. what with now having room temp superconductors.

It happened differently the first time. how we don't know.

 

[Asita]

Unless there was going to be a John Connor anyway, sired by a different father but with the same name and without the advantage of forewarning and such extensive training but a natural leader. The machines just helped build a better John.

Doesn't work. The first movie very strongly implies a single timeline. Kyle directly comments on Sarah being a legendary figure who took John off the grid and taught him the skills that made him so effective in the future. Sarah herself comments on how utterly implausible that is based on who she was at the start of the film. Kyle mentions a picture that John had inexplicably given him a long time ago. At the end of the movie Sarah is seen recording messages for her son that explained that Kyle was his father and that he needed to send him back in time so he could exist, hence giving him the picture. That same scene also reveals the origin of the picture - glimpsed in Kyle's flashback - as having been taken while she was recording those very messages. There is nothing in it to suggest multiple timelines and the idea wasn't given any support at all until Terminator 3 (unless we count the deleted scene at the end of Terminator 2, or Sarah's monologue about her newfound hope for the future). As far as the first film is concerned, it doesn't exist. You only have the time loop.

Trying to explain it with alternate timelines for the sake of preserving some kind of linear sense of causality is like trying to explain a shot of someone walking on water by suggesting that he's walking on a submerged pier. Invalid. As Roger Ebert aptly put it with that example, "the movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the image it is not permitted to devise explanations for it". The movie doesn't show or imply a pier, so there is no pier, no sandbar, no stepping stones. There is the man walking on water. Similarly in Terminator, there is no hint of an alternate timeline, so no alternate timeline exists.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Snipped for brevity

Terminator as a franchise only works if each film takes place in a different universe, branching from the first one from the moment the first terminator is sent back. each subsequent attempt to travel back spawns a new branch. it's the only way causality isn't violated.

That leads to a paradox though, since the first Terminator sent to 1984 would logically have to have never been sent in such a setup, yet at the same time the creation of Skynet and the birth of John Connor only happen because of that, which are the reasons it was sent back in the first place.

Unless there was going to be a John Connor anyway, sired by a different father but with the same name and without the advantage of forewarning and such extensive training but a natural leader. The machines just helped build a better John.

But then that begs the question of how that first John managed to have his waitress of a mother teach him the skills he learned which where critical to him forming and leading the resistance. And I don't care what the circumstances are, there's no way in hell she had a sudden change from just meeting a new person and having a kid with them in the same general time-frame leading to a similar result. Plus it begs the question why the result in Terminator 2 seems unchanged if the John Connor of this new timeline is a different one then the one of a previous one, or how Skynet took the same time to develop despite this new timeline having a large head-start.

If anything, it makes the plot make less sense to use that as an explanation.

Prehaps these versions of the Connors dont learn the same way, prehaps surviving in the post apocalypse turns them into badasses through learning as you do it in the way untrained resistance fighters in occupied countries can become badass without training thougj sloppy technique might never mske them as good as a trained soldier they could still become badass. Perhaps sarah just decides the military stuff is cool one day life changes happen or she marries a soldier. People change, its not impossible for someone who is 'just a waitress' to raise the saviour of humanity.

A thousand monkeys writing on type writers for a thousand years... The circle of T1 looks perfect from our perspective but prehaps it had a near infinite amount of iterations caused by the chaos of the butterfly effect but because it was infinite the tiniest chance of a repeating perfect timeloop existing becomes a certainty eventually. So we get what looks perfect and stable but prehaps there were trillions of versions of T1 that are even more chaotic than Genisys until inevitably you get a stable repeating pattern.

But time travel doesnt have to result in a time loop because it creates parralel universes, T2 happens prehaps only once, Time travel can be a straight line or a a circle and you cannot predict which thanks to the butterfly effect but free will is an illusion so its inevitable which it will be. because it causes itself to not happen in its own universe(but time travel creates alternate universes so thats fine. Which might explain why yhe Arnie there tells the same future history as T1.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Unless there was going to be a John Connor anyway, sired by a different father but with the same name and without the advantage of forewarning and such extensive training but a natural leader. The machines just helped build a better John.

Doesn't work. The first movie very strongly implies a single timeline. Kyle directly comments on Sarah being a legendary figure who took John off the grid and taught him the skills that made him so effective in the future. Sarah herself comments on how utterly implausible that is based on who she was at the start of the film. Kyle mentions a picture that John had inexplicably given him a long time ago. At the end of the movie Sarah is seen recording messages for her son that explained that Kyle was his father and that he needed to send him back in time so he could exist, hence giving him the picture. That same scene also reveals the origin of the picture - glimpsed in Kyle's flashback - as having been taken while she was recording those very messages. There is nothing in it to suggest multiple timelines and the idea wasn't given any support at all until Terminator 3 (unless we count the deleted scene at the end of Terminator 2, or Sarah's monologue about her newfound hope for the future). As far as the first film is concerned, it doesn't exist. You only have the time loop. Trying to explain it with alternate timelines for the sake of preserving some kind of linear sense of causality is like trying to explain a shot of someone walking on water by suggesting that he's walking on a submerged pier. Invalid. As Roger Ebert aptly put it with that example, "the movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the image it is not permitted to devise explanations for it". The movie doesn't show or imply a pier, so there is no pier, no sandbar, no stepping stones. There is the man walking on water. Similarly in Terminator, there is no hint of an alternate timeline, so no alternate timeline exists.

You would have to be able to view time from outside it to know if I am right. Having a control in time travel expirements is a bit hard. If this were true its entirely possible that it would be impossible to prove.

 

[Asita]

Unless there was going to be a John Connor anyway, sired by a different father but with the same name and without the advantage of forewarning and such extensive training but a natural leader. The machines just helped build a better John.

Doesn't work. The first movie very strongly implies a single timeline. Kyle directly comments on Sarah being a legendary figure who took John off the grid and taught him the skills that made him so effective in the future. Sarah herself comments on how utterly implausible that is based on who she was at the start of the film. Kyle mentions a picture that John had inexplicably given him a long time ago. At the end of the movie Sarah is seen recording messages for her son that explained that Kyle was his father and that he needed to send him back in time so he could exist, hence giving him the picture. That same scene also reveals the origin of the picture - glimpsed in Kyle's flashback - as having been taken while she was recording those very messages. There is nothing in it to suggest multiple timelines and the idea wasn't given any support at all until Terminator 3 (unless we count the deleted scene at the end of Terminator 2, or Sarah's monologue about her newfound hope for the future). As far as the first film is concerned, it doesn't exist. You only have the time loop. Trying to explain it with alternate timelines for the sake of preserving some kind of linear sense of causality is like trying to explain a shot of someone walking on water by suggesting that he's walking on a submerged pier. Invalid. As Roger Ebert aptly put it with that example, "the movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the image it is not permitted to devise explanations for it". The movie doesn't show or imply a pier, so there is no pier, no sandbar, no stepping stones. There is the man walking on water. Similarly in Terminator, there is no hint of an alternate timeline, so no alternate timeline exists.

You would have to be able to view time from outside it to know if I am right. Having a control in time travel expirements is a bit hard. If this were true its entirely possible that it would be impossible to prove.

...Did you really just respond to a statement that - to put it briefly - "all evidence suggests a single timeline, and it's not valid to project unsupported interpretations into a movie" with "you can't prove that I'm wrong"? Seriously? Come on now. If you're going to argue the point then your support should be better than claiming uncertainty and then claiming that the uncertainty somehow supports your position.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Unless there was going to be a John Connor anyway, sired by a different father but with the same name and without the advantage of forewarning and such extensive training but a natural leader. The machines just helped build a better John.

Doesn't work. The first movie very strongly implies a single timeline. Kyle directly comments on Sarah being a legendary figure who took John off the grid and taught him the skills that made him so effective in the future. Sarah herself comments on how utterly implausible that is based on who she was at the start of the film. Kyle mentions a picture that John had inexplicably given him a long time ago. At the end of the movie Sarah is seen recording messages for her son that explained that Kyle was his father and that he needed to send him back in time so he could exist, hence giving him the picture. That same scene also reveals the origin of the picture - glimpsed in Kyle's flashback - as having been taken while she was recording those very messages. There is nothing in it to suggest multiple timelines and the idea wasn't given any support at all until Terminator 3 (unless we count the deleted scene at the end of Terminator 2, or Sarah's monologue about her newfound hope for the future). As far as the first film is concerned, it doesn't exist. You only have the time loop. Trying to explain it with alternate timelines for the sake of preserving some kind of linear sense of causality is like trying to explain a shot of someone walking on water by suggesting that he's walking on a submerged pier. Invalid. As Roger Ebert aptly put it with that example, "the movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the image it is not permitted to devise explanations for it". The movie doesn't show or imply a pier, so there is no pier, no sandbar, no stepping stones. There is the man walking on water. Similarly in Terminator, there is no hint of an alternate timeline, so no alternate timeline exists.

You would have to be able to view time from outside it to know if I am right. Having a control in time travel expirements is a bit hard. If this were true its entirely possible that it would be impossible to prove.

...Did you really just respond to a statement that - to put it briefly - "all evidence suggests a single timeline, and it's not valid to project unsupported interpretations into a movie" with "you can't prove that I'm wrong"? Seriously? Come on now. If you're going to argue the point then your support should be better than claiming uncertainty and then claiming that the uncertainty somehow supports your position.

Fair enough. If you only take the first movie everything seems predetermined and trying to change things is futile. Kyle Reese may as well have sat back at the start of Terminator and waited for things to work out somehow.

But I am trying to create a unifying theory of all the movies so I am considering them all just as canon. Alternate reality is the only way to explain how a liquid terminator could exist. Skynet was supposed to have lost in the first movie and only just managed to send off a t-800 before the resistance captured the time machine. Proof could be in the T2 t-800 having history data of that cyberdyne engineer who created skynet, but failing to mention he undid all his work(and even when the guy agreed to stop working on it history should have immediately changed Arnies memorie)

 

[Asita]

Fair enough. If you only take the first movie everything seems predetermined and trying to change things is futile. Kyle Reese may as well have sat back at the start of Terminator and waited for things to work out somehow.

Eh...common misconception, actually. If Kyle had sat back and waited, it would have turned out very differently. The concept of fate is not that people can't act another way, it's that for whatever reason they don't. It's a prerecorded video, not a drunk on the street who gets told "I don't know who you are, but we need you on stage in five minutes".

But I am trying to create a unifying theory of all the movies so I am considering them all just as canon. Alternate reality is the only way to explain how a liquid terminator could exist. Skynet was supposed to have lost in the first movie and only just managed to send off a t-800 before the resistance captured the time machine. Proof could be in the T2 t-800 having history data of that cyberdyne engineer who created skynet, but failing to mention he undid all his work(and even when the guy agreed to stop working on it history should have immediately changed Arnies memorie)

That's one possibility, but far from the only one. Alternate explanations include the idea that Kyle was operating off of incomplete data and Skynet had another holdout that the resistance hadn't discovered yet, the more advanced terminators had been sent back before the T-800 was[footnote]Time travel's funny like that, with different possible time destinations and all[/footnote], and another possibility is that the various terminators were sent back in rapid succession. This third possibility seems to be the canon explanation, as a scene showing the resistance doing much the same was scripted but cut because it ultimately "was a narrative tangent to the main story of the film and would have cost an inordinate amount of time, money, and effort to produce".

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Fair enough. If you only take the first movie everything seems predetermined and trying to change things is futile. Kyle Reese may as well have sat back at the start of Terminator and waited for things to work out somehow.

Eh...common misconception, actually. If Kyle had sat back and waited, it would have turned out very differently. The concept of fate is not that people can't act another way, it's that for whatever reason they don't. It's a prerecorded video, not a drunk on the street who gets told "I don't know who you are, but we need you on stage in five minutes".

But I am trying to create a unifying theory of all the movies so I am considering them all just as canon. Alternate reality is the only way to explain how a liquid terminator could exist. Skynet was supposed to have lost in the first movie and only just managed to send off a t-800 before the resistance captured the time machine. Proof could be in the T2 t-800 having history data of that cyberdyne engineer who created skynet, but failing to mention he undid all his work(and even when the guy agreed to stop working on it history should have immediately changed Arnies memorie)

That's one possibility, but far from the only one. Alternate explanations include the idea that Kyle was operating off of incomplete data and Skynet had another holdout that the resistance hadn't discovered yet, the more advanced terminators had been sent back before the T-800 was[footnote]Time travel's funny like that, with different possible time destinations and all[/footnote], and another possibility is that the various terminators were sent back in rapid succession. This third possibility seems to be the canon explanation, as a scene showing the resistance doing much the same was scripted but cut because it ultimately "was a narrative tangent to the main story of the film and would have cost an inordinate amount of time, money, and effort to produce".

But the idea of multiple universe Skynets each having one shot at the time machine helps explain why only a single terminator is sent each time and why they become better. Otherwise why not send a dozen T-X terminators? And why send less advanced models for a mission that ensures its own survival? Why is John and Sarah Connors entire lives not constand, unending war against machines from start to judgement day?

Unless I suppose The TX and Liquid Terminators are hard to make. And The TX is actually the first attempt makes some sense.

 

[Asita]

But the idea of multiple universe Skynets each having one shot at the time machine helps explain why only a single terminator is sent each time and why they become better. Otherwise why not send a dozen T-X terminators? And why send less advanced models for a mission that ensures its own survival? Why is John and Sarah Connors entire lives not constand, unending war against machines from start to judgement day?

Unless I suppose The TX and Liquid Terminators are hard to make. And The TX is actually the first attempt makes some sense.

As described in the first movie, the time machine was a desperate gambit Skynet made once it became apparent that it would lose. Logically this means that for all intents and purposes time and resources would be limited and a good deal of both would have to be devoted to holding off the resistance long enough for Skynet to actually attempt that gambit. And as you well note, it also makes a great deal of sense that more advanced Terminators would be harder to make, even harder when on an effective budget with time constraints. I think it's fairly safe to assume that sending an army of T-Xs/T-1000s back was simply not an option.

 

[Souplex]

A major reason Terminator 3 sucked was because James Cameron lost the rights to the franchise in his divorce, and the movie was made by studio hacks instead.

 

[J Tyran]

I believe there was a deleted scene that showed Cyberdine workers (the company that owned the factory where the T-800 was crushed) finding the remains of the Terminator, which basically would have explained the missing info of "how it started". I'm sticking with the causality loop, that it had to happen. The thing is with time travel and such, you end up with the chicken/egg debate, and the loop alone is enough to drive someone mad trying to discern which came first, Cyberdine making Skynet or Skynet in the future causing its own creation. Causality loop explanation exists to keep heads from exploding... LOL.

Maybe the premise is that any and all machine intelligence (in the Terminator Universe) would end up becoming Skynet, the same motivations and logic and way of thinking. However its created, whatever its intended function it eventually takes over all globally networked computers and then either tries to defend itself or attempts to take over?

Thats the only thing that makes sense to me.