Catfood220 said:
Wait, I'm confused. Is this a reboot? Or is this supposed to be set in between the first and second film? If its not, didn't Sarah Conner die between the second and third film? This trailer made my head hurt, I have no idea what's going on.
It's not a reboot.
Here's how Terminator (The Setting) works - Skynet gets made. No matter what. If we were talking Doctor Who, they'd call it a 'fixed point in time' (There was a series of books that were rendered non-canon by Terminator 3 where they found out Skynet hadn't just sent back a Terminator to kill the Conners, by several others who remained in infiltration mode, and basically assured Skynet got made by leaking the technology needed and manipulating events. These, in turn, were able to keep track of all Terminator activity, so every time Skynet is reborn, it knows Connor is the threat, and it knows how 'past' versions of itself failed to get the job done. Which is why it keeps sending back Terminators of different types to different times to try different things). However, Skynets defeat is also inevitable - Its happened 3 times that we know off (Every Terminator sent back to kill the Conners is sent as Skynet dies). That's the basic setting.
There's 3 factions present in the movies: Skynet, who want's to be born and win, 'Present' Conners who want to prevent Skynet from being born, and 'future' Conner who wants Skynet to be born, but to still win the war. And all 3 are vying for power by attempting to use knowledge of the future, and all 3 are stuck in a stable time loop, the broad strokes of the conflict always playing out the same, even as small things change.
The premise of this movie is that instead of trying to hit Conner later in life, adding to history in the process, it try's to go back even further (Which it shouldn't be able to do. 1984 is the earliest it can find Sarah Conner), and and in the process destroys all the history that led to this particular Skynet. Apparently, this destabilizes everything, and the universe gets split, and everything goes to shit. Where the other Terminators were about trying and failing to change the future, this one starts off with snapping the future, and the universe, in half.
The premise, to me, sounds a bit wonky, but its fits with the time travelling stuff going on. My problem with these new Terminators is that they missed the point of the first two entirely. While the setting provides fertile ground for a lot of Sci-Fi shenanigans, Terminator was at its best when it was a chase action thriller, and I don't like what they've done when they tried to get away from that. It's like creating a Romantic Comedy movie in the Warhammer 40K universe - Its completely plausible in the setting, but you're kind of missing the point.
Will probably still see it though. I'm a sucker.
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