# So ... about The Terminator (1984)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** movies
**Created:** [December 23, 2022, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017 "2022-12-23T19:59:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/21 "2022-12-24T00:00:10Z")
Yes and yes
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/22 "2022-12-24T00:03:19Z")
And Connor knew that, and that’s the reason he chose Reese for the mission.
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/23 "2022-12-24T00:25:54Z")
Is this how George Washington became the father of our country?
I’m goin’, I’m goin’.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/24 "2022-12-24T03:57:34Z")
> [@mbh](#):
>
> And Connor knew that, and that’s the reason he chose Reese for the mission.
Weeeeelllll…
In a closed loop time line, yes.
But if you bring T2, or simply assume Terminator is a branching timeline scenario, then when Connor sent Reese back, _at that time_ Reese was not John’s father. His father was…who knows?
As soon as Reese hit 1984, that act created a new timeline. And that timeline led to a slightly different Skynet, which sent a T1000 terminator back this time. And John sent a terminator back instead of Reese (who maybe was alive in 20-something). And then it diverges even more.
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### Author:  [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/25 "2022-12-24T04:07:57Z")
> [@mbh](#):
>
> And Connor knew that, and that’s the reason he chose Reese for the mission.
…and they address that in the very first movie, in the end scene where a pregnant Connor is recording tapes for her soon to be born son. “Will it affect your decision to send him back, knowing that he’s your father? A person could go mad thinking about this…”
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/26 "2022-12-24T04:48:04Z")
Going by just the first movie, it’s apparent that Skynet believed its plan could succeed, and the human resistance at least didn’t dare take the risk that it might.
P.S. why there, why then? I think they should have had a scene showing Sarah getting a parking ticket; then cut forward to Skynet’s machines digging through the charred rubble of former Los Angeles and finding a copy of that ticket: the one data point Skynet had of when and where it could find John Connor’s mother.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/27 "2022-12-24T09:13:07Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> Going by just the first movie, it’s apparent that Skynet believed its plan could succeed, and the human resistance at least didn’t dare take the risk that it might.
My guess is that neither side. Skynet or the resistance, really knew how time travel worked and whether the timeline could be changed - that the whole thing was sort of a Hail Mary by the machines.
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### Author:  [@TwoCarrotSnowman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoCarrotSnowman)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/28 "2022-12-24T10:44:55Z")
As an aside, I’ve long thought that a workaround for the “only flesh and blood can travel back in time” restriction would be to take a large metal box, fill it with weapons and equipment… and grow flesh around it, same as they do for terminators. Then you send it back in time with the agent.
That way, all the person / cyborg back in time needs to is locate the box and find a sharp knife. They might want to acquire an apron as well, since it’s going to be messy, but once they’re done they’ll be nicely tooled up with their plasma rifle in the 40w range.
ETA, I haven’t seen any of the movies after T3, so if this actually happens, _I thought of it first._
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### Author:  [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/29 "2022-12-24T11:02:02Z")
Maybe T2 (haven’t seen it) John Connor wanted a self-upgrade so he picked the coolest person he knew to be New Dad.
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/30 "2022-12-24T14:22:31Z")
> [@TwoCarrotSnowman](#):
>
> I’ve long thought that a workaround for the “only flesh and blood can travel back in time” restriction would be to take a large metal box, fill it with weapons and equipment… and grow flesh around it, same as they do for terminators.
The writers sort of forgot this rule. The T1000 doesn’t have any parts that aren’t liquid metal, so how did it make it?
I always figured the T1000 formed a sphere, then they grew flesh around it, sent it through, and it immediately discarded the skin.
Somewhere in LA the next day, they found fifty pounds of skin and muscle in a hole in the ground, and a mystery they never solved. Ewww.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/31 "2022-12-24T16:41:37Z")
> [@TwoCarrotSnowman](#):
>
> As an aside, I’ve long thought that a workaround for the “only flesh and blood can travel back in time” restriction would be to take a large metal box, fill it with weapons and equipment… and grow flesh around it, same as they do for terminators. Then you send it back in time with the agent.
You really can’t think about this for too long because then you cannot adequately explain why they couldn’t send back weapons with the first Terminator. Just have gun parts under the flesh. It doesn’t care if it has to cut itself to get them out.
This is part of the reason why the first movie is by far the best. T2 was fun but the first movie is much, much better, a near perfect action film. It does not fuck around; there isn’t a wasted moment.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/32 "2022-12-24T16:56:54Z")
I actually prefer T2 to T1, but they’re both great flicks.
“When it comes to understanding temporal paradoxes, my advice is: don’t even try,” - Capt. Kathryn Janeway
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/33 "2022-12-24T17:03:51Z")
I think it’s pretty clear that whatever the property is of flesh that makes it valid for time travel, the liquid metal stuff also has that property. And in fact, in T3, the terminator does have a bunch of high-tech weaponry built into a solid-metal skeleton, under the liquid-metal skin, a much more sensible design than in T2. I may be alone in this opinion, but I think that T3 was the movie that T2 should have been.
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### Author:  [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2022, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/34 "2022-12-24T17:14:30Z")
Maybe it’s water content. The liquid metal may be infused with water by some process that makes it stable, and allows it to solidify, somehow, when necessary.
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### Author:  [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2022, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/35 "2022-12-25T00:47:30Z")
> [@TwoCarrotSnowman](#):
>
> As an aside, I’ve long thought that a workaround for the “only flesh and blood can travel back in time” restriction would be to take a large metal box, fill it with weapons and equipment… and grow flesh around it, same as they do for terminators. Then you send it back in time with the agent.
>
> That way, all the person / cyborg back in time needs to is locate the box and find a sharp knife. They might want to acquire an apron as well, since it’s going to be messy, but once they’re done they’ll be nicely tooled up with their plasma rifle in the 40w range.
>
> ETA, I haven’t seen any of the movies after T3, so if this actually happens, _I thought of it first._
This is in T3, it’s just that the box of weapons has legs. And boobs.
In the TV show, Terminators were shown burying weapon caches in the past. I presume some of this was happening on the Resistance side as well although I don’t recall if they showed it happening.
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### Author:  [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)
#### Post date: [December 25, 2022, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/36 "2022-12-25T04:18:50Z")
Well, there are lots of silly bits that aren’t really self-consistent, especially if you factor in all the other media - we’ve mentioned the movies, the tv series, but no one even touched on the factors in the Novels (actually pretty darn good) and a metric ton of comics (most of which are bad).
For example, you _do_ know that [Skynet became sentient due to the upload of Robocop’s fading engrams, right](https://terminator.fandom.com/wiki/RoboCop_versus_The_Terminator_(comic))???
But anyway, one of the prevailing fan theories is that apparently there is the presupposition of a ‘river of time’ - the timeline is self correcting, trying to keep getting back to some ur-timeline, and all the changes made eddies and small tributaries that eventually re-merge into the main timeline.
So you can change little things, make things happen earlier or later, but in the long run the net change will end up being zero.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2023, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/37 "2023-05-17T13:25:21Z")
Never knew this before:
> **[Arnold Schwarzenegger says his 'I'll be back' tagline was an 'accident'......](https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/16/entertainment/arnold-schwarzenegger-ill-be-back/index.html)**
>
> The sunglasses. The leather jacket. The stone cold demeanor. Arnold Schwarzenegger in “The Terminator” – the 1984 science fiction movie that cemented the actor’s status as a box office juggernaut – is about as iconic as it gets, but it turns out one...
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### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2023, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/38 "2023-05-17T13:42:20Z")
That’s _Meshuggeneh_
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### Author:  [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2023, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/39 "2023-05-17T14:18:51Z")
I don’t get it. He wanted to change the line, and the director said no. So how is following the script an “accident?” An accident would be ad-libbing the line or something.
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### Author:  [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2023, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-about-the-terminator-1984/977017/40 "2023-05-17T14:50:07Z")
Because it’s CNN and they need to have the clickbait headline.
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