It’s only a paradox if Kyle is the father. What if Sarah was already pregnant when she met Kyle? The bad date she had the week earlier?
It’s not a paradox, it’s a causal loop.
Inside the causal loop, “free will” doesn’t necessarily exist (see the section on the Novikov self-consistency principle in the link above), which is why it’s a suboptimal solution for dramatic presentations except as part of a twist ending - like The Terminator, or Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
The reason why time travel is such an attractive thing in dramatic terms is the possibility of changing the past to alter the present. But, if the act of time traveling doesn’t admit the possibility of changing anything that has happened already, there’s no point in traveling into the past.
So - to take The Terminator as an example - Skynet had no chance to stop the human resistance even with time travel; John Connor already existed and could not be snuffed out - indeed, the twin acts of sending the Terminator followed by Reese back in time were what caused him to come into existence, which is why they had to be sent back. And there was no real decision that caused it to somehow happen; it always happened just the way it did. Both Skynet and John Connor had no choice in the matter. The entire thing is internally self-consistent, if you accept that there was no real free will being exercised to make the causal loop happen.
(Oh, a causal loop can also be part of a humorous presentation of time travel, as in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure - “Trash can. Remember a trash can”)
According to the most definitive source I can find - I.e. the Terminator Wiki, the John Connor who sent Kyle Reese back in time is the “original timeline” John, a different individual than the “alternate timeline” John who is Kyle’s son.
I’d say the sequels disprove the argument that time travel is a closed loop, because they demonstrate that the future can be changed. The events of T2 either caused Skynet to never come into existence or for its becoming self-aware to be delayed by 10-15 years - in either event, the future Kyle Reese came from cannot be the same future that John is going to experience, because Judgment Day didn’t happen in 1997 like it did in the timeline he came from.
Terminator 2 changed the physics of time travel - in a sense, it had to, because things are very boring if you know nothing that has already happened can be changed.
I’m simply stating that T2 is a retcon, and in the original Terminator, the most parsimonious explanation for what is seen on the screen is a causal loop.
The Terminator Wiki is only as definitive as its last modifier.
IIRC, we don’t really know that Judgment Day happened in 1997 in that timeline; all we really know is that Terminators sometimes lie.
The T-800 in T2 certainly believes that Judgment Day occurred in 1997. Kyle Reese is supposed to have been born around 2002, and never knew a world before the rise of the machines (except in the Sarah Connor Chronicles, where he’s shown as a young boy in 2007 in a timeline where Judgment Day doesn’t happen until 2011). His first scenes in the original movie fit that; upon arriving in LA in 1984, he’s seeing a world that he’s only seen in pictures and old movies, a world that he’s only personally experienced as charred ruins.
The T-800 in T2 certainly says that. The T-800 in T2 also says that it can hear Wolfie barking, during a conversation that echoes the one in the original where Sarah Connor thinks she’s talking with her worried mom — which echoes the conversation where a cop at the front desk gets told that he’s talking to a friend of Sarah’s. Near as I can tell, Terminators (a) have missions, and (b) just sort of say things: sometimes true, sometimes not.
What’s the latest date you figure is possible for a guy’s earliest childhood memory?
What do you mean by “before” any time travel? The whole point of time travel is that it takes you to “before”.
I have yet to see a definition of “free will” that supports this claim. Actually, it’s very seldom that one ever even sees any definition of “free will” at all, but in the rare event that one does, it’s always perfectly consistent with the possibility of foreknowledge.
Skynet first used time travel in 2029. Everything before that is the “original timeline”. !984 originally came and went with no Kyle Reese. If the same John Conner exists after Kyle is sent back, then Sarah must already be pregnant. Probably by the guy she had a date with the previous week that she and her roommate talk about early in T1.
Most of what we see in most of the movies is before 2029. Are they all the “original timeline”?
In order for the concept of “original timeline” to even make sense at all, there must be some sort of “time” other than the sort of time we’re traveling through.
The T-800 asking about Wolfie was to determine if he was talking to the T-1000. The dog’s actual name was Max. There was a corresponding scene that was cut (but can be seen in the extended edition) where the T-1000 goes outside, sees the dog wearing a collar that says Max and kills the dog, in what looks to be an act of anger.
One weirdly extraneous thing the T-1000 says is when he is handed the picture of John and comments “he’s a good looking boy”. I think this was put in to sell the audience on the idea that he was the good guy (even though the trailers had already spoiled that he wasn’t) but it is an odd thing for a Terminator to say. There’s also the scene where the T-800 says “I need a vacation” and we don’t get any context for where he picked that up.
I know. That’s my point: sometimes the T-800 says things that it knows full well aren’t true.
When the Terminator and Kyle arrive in 1984 they either create a new branching timeline or they wipe out the “original timeline” from that point forward, replacing it with whatever changes they cause.
This is all just my opinion, of course. I love these kind of discussions.
When I first saw the first movie, I was open to the possibility that things had always played out the way we were seeing it: that, in the original timeline, the Terminator and Kyle showed up in 1984; and that, decades later in the original timeline, a time machine got invented, and the Terminator and Kyle left for 1984 via it. Because maybe that’s how that time machine works, y’know?
And when I saw the second movie, I just sort of remained open to that possibility.
Well, they certainly can’t have wiped out the “original timeline”, because they’re part of that timeline.
It all depends on how time travel works. How does one jump back to 1984, when it no longer exists? Does the time machine somehow roll back the entire Universe to 1984?
Does it?
It’s been quite a few years since I’ve seen these movies, so my memory is suspect. But the only time I recall the date 1997 being thrown out there is when Sarah says it. In a video she is watching of herself. Meaning the date is first mentioned well before the events of T2 even start.
I don’t recall Arnie stating Judgement day occurs in 1997, but maybe I’m not remembering it. Regardless, the only place Sarah could have gotten this information was from Kyle. So there’s no reason to think the original date of Judgement Day isn’t 8/29/97.
Simple, you just jump back to 1984, which does still exist. Why wouldn’t it still exist?
I mean, I took it as just being one of the things it was programmed to say to seem human and put people at ease.
The Wolfie/Max thing was, I thought, pretty clear; the T-800 literally turns to John, asks the dog’s name, and says a different name. It was a simple trick to determine who he was really talking to, and the T-1000 then goes and figures out it was tricked by the T-800. The T-800 wasn’t “just saying” it, it was engaging in a ruse.
Or imagine a timeline in which a Terminator is elected Governor of California!