# Terminator 2: a couple of questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 28, 2014, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508 "2014-02-28T10:48:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/123 "2014-06-19T02:57:55Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > We also find out that Skynet can develop a Terminator so sophisticated it does not even know that it isn’t human. Ask it to describe in single words only the good things about its mother. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/124 "2014-06-19T04:36:33Z")
They were all bad. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/125 "2014-06-19T15:28:49Z")
> [@AndrewL](#): > > Completely impossible given the actual technology of the phone system at the time. In the 1980’s phone systems still were mostly analog switching networks. Hacking the phone system consisted of tricking the switching system into letting you make long distance calls for free. Listening to a specific phone line usually required you to physically install a tap. Listening to all the phone lines at once was physically impossible, the phone network simply didn’t support that function, and even if it did you’d just get an impossible to decipher wall of noise from combining all those phone signals onto a single line. And somehow hacking the phone system to listen for a specific name would of course be completely impossible. The hardware didn’t exist in the phone system to do that kind of voice recognition, especially not on all the phones in the area at once. The Terminator might easily be able to recognize the name “Sarah Connor” being spoken, but even if it somehow had complete control over the phone network it could still only listen to a single conversation at once simply due to the way the phone system worked. Also, IMO, once he starts bumping off Sara Connor’s, that name is going to be said quite often over the phone, by law enforcement and journalists in the normal course of their duties. So even if somehow (by being _Advanced Technology!_) he _can_ listen to millions of physically separate analog phone calls at the same time, he is going to have to have a plan to sort out a lot of false positives. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/126 "2014-06-19T15:41:02Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Ask it to describe in single words only the good things about its mother. What’s a tortoise? ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/127 "2014-06-19T16:12:15Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > So I would guess the real pivotal person is Sarah Connor, not John. > > Let’s call our normal time sequence “A”, this is one in which SkyNet is developed organically, starts a nuclear war, and enslaves mankind but is ultimately defeated by John Connor–the son of Sarah Connor. We don’t know who fathered this John Connor. > > When SkyNet sends the T-800 back in time, it immediately branches us off onto a new time sequence from the moment of the T-800s arrival in 1984. Depending on your view of movie time travel it creates an “orphan” time sequence that continues on in the future from that point, never knowing the consequences of its actions, or that future is immediately overwritten by the ripple effects of its changes which are instantaneous from the perspective of someone in that point in the future. The new sequence we can call “B.” > > In “B”, it is Kyle Reese that fathers John Connor. Since it couldn’t have been Kyle Reese that fathered John in “A”, it means that genetically John Connor isn’t the same John Connor from A any longer but a new distinct one. The only thing they have in common is Sarah Connor. This suggests to me it’s more Sarah herself and the way she raises John that is important, and in a sense also makes eliminating her the far more important goal of SkyNet than later eliminating John in T2. The Kyle who was sent back owned a polaroid of Sarah, that was given to him by John in the A reality. But that picture was taken at the end of the movie, in the B reality. So the A and B realities must be the same. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/128 "2014-06-19T16:56:18Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > The Kyle who was sent back owned a polaroid of Sarah, that was given to him by John in the A reality. But that picture was taken at the end of the movie, in the B reality. So the A and B realities must be the same. Not necessarily. A common theme in time travel stories is the unavoidability of it all. Things happen because they’re supposed to happen and couldn’t have happened any other way, going back just makes them happen a bit differently but still somehow the same. History fixes itself. So in reality A, Sarah Connor maybe met a roguish stranger who threw her life upside down with loooove, and she went on a daring road trip/adventure with him whereupon he took that picture of her. In reality B, the Terminator-related events prevented her from ever meeting that roguish stranger and instead threw her into the arms of Kyle Reese who took that picture of her. At the exact same spot, for the exact same reasons. Either way, there’s no disconnect from the future’s point of view. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/129 "2014-06-19T18:03:58Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > So I would guess the real pivotal person is Sarah Connor, not John. > > Let’s call our normal time sequence “A”, this is one in which SkyNet is developed organically, starts a nuclear war, and enslaves mankind but is ultimately defeated by John Connor–the son of Sarah Connor. We don’t know who fathered this John Connor. > > When SkyNet sends the T-800 back in time, it immediately branches us off onto a new time sequence from the moment of the T-800s arrival in 1984. Depending on your view of movie time travel it creates an “orphan” time sequence that continues on in the future from that point, never knowing the consequences of its actions, or that future is immediately overwritten by the ripple effects of its changes which are instantaneous from the perspective of someone in that point in the future. The new sequence we can call “B.” > > In “B”, it is Kyle Reese that fathers John Connor. Since it couldn’t have been Kyle Reese that fathered John in “A”, it means that genetically John Connor isn’t the same John Connor from A any longer but a new distinct one. The only thing they have in common is Sarah Connor. This suggests to me it’s more Sarah herself and the way she raises John that is important, and in a sense also makes eliminating her the far more important goal of SkyNet than later eliminating John in T2. Taken only on it’s own Terminator 1 is a self consistent time loop story, it is elegantly perfect. Reese was ALWAYS John’s father, Skynet wouldn’t exist if it didn’t send a terminator back and John wouldn’t if the resistance didn’t send Reese back. We see that the picture of Sarah Reese had in the future, given to him by John, is the EXACT same picture taken in Mexico at the end of the film. Sarah told John story Reese told her about him falling in love with her through the pic, so John gave it to him to make sure he would. 🙂 Even John’s inexplicable knowledge of terminator and machine weakness and effective combat makes sense, Reese taught Sarah who taught young John who taught Reese and the rebels who taught Sarah… There are some I think deleted scenes that establish the factory at the end is Cyberdyne, and some employees discuss finding an arm. Looking only at the first film, it is an obvious time loop, and was intended to be. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/130 "2014-06-19T18:13:14Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Not necessarily. A common theme in time travel stories is the unavoidability of it all. Things happen because they’re supposed to happen and couldn’t have happened any other way, going back just makes them happen a bit differently but still somehow the same. History fixes itself. > > So in reality A, Sarah Connor maybe met a roguish stranger who threw her life upside down with loooove, and she went on a daring road trip/adventure with him whereupon he took that picture of her. In reality B, the Terminator-related events prevented her from ever meeting that roguish stranger and instead threw her into the arms of Kyle Reese who took that picture of her. At the exact same spot, for the exact same reasons. > Either way, there’s no disconnect from the future’s point of view. The problem I have with that theory is chaos. There’s so much going on in that picture that’s a direct result of the experiences she just had with Kyle and the Terminator, that for history to rebuild the scene so it looked exactly the same would require a ridiculous, Rube Goldbergian amount of set up. At the end of the movie, she’s in a jeep (which, IIRC, we’ve never seen before) with a dog (whom we’ve also never seen before) and with enough survival gear to last for several years in the most desolate part of Mexico she can find - all of which (except Mexico) are visible in the photo. For two wildly different timeline to produce exactly the same photo, not only would she have needed to meet a guy who owns exactly the same jeep, and exactly the same kind of dog, and who’s into adventure vacations in the middle of nowhere, and can talk Sarah into going on such a vacation (which is unlikely, given her initial characterization in the film), and have him pack all of their sexy time weekend vacation supplies in _exactly_ the same manner Sarah would later pack weeks of food and water and guns, _and_ she would also have to be sitting in the jeep wearing exactly the same pensive expression she has thinking about the near extermination of the human race in nuclear holocaust, as she would thinking about seeing her hot new boyfriend with no pants on. Usually, sf works that use the “time always fixes itself” trope have some small clues to indicate that things aren’t exactly the same - in _Terminator_, it might mean the jeep is blue, instead of red, or she has a Doberman instead of a German Shepherd, or even that she’s simply smiling. Instead, the picture is identical in all it’s details, which strongly suggests that all the details of her life that led up to it being taken are, also, identical. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/131 "2014-06-19T18:39:28Z")
Actually, Kyle Reese didn’t take that picture. A small Mexican boy does (for the low price of $4, a bargain, considering that he initially asked for a whole $5) after Reese is dead and Sarah Connor has presumably gone on the run, or at least gone to get herself trained up. We have no reason to assume there was any guy with her who provided the Jeep, dog or supplies. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/132 "2014-06-19T18:50:05Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Actually, Kyle Reese didn’t take that picture. > > … > > We have no reason to assume there was any guy with her who provided the Jeep, dog or supplies. I’m not sure if this was meant to be a response to my post, but FTR, I didn’t say either of those things. ---
**Author:** ![edwards\_beard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@edwards\_beard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwards_beard)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/133 "2014-06-19T19:18:34Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > For two wildly different timeline to produce exactly the same photo, not only would she have needed to meet a guy who owns exactly the same jeep, and exactly the same kind of dog, and who’s into adventure vacations in the middle of nowhere, and can talk Sarah into going on such a vacation (which is unlikely, given her initial characterization in the film), and have him pack all of their sexy time weekend vacation supplies in _exactly_ the same manner Sarah would later pack weeks of food and water and guns, _and_ **she would also have to be sitting in the jeep wearing exactly the same pensive expression she has thinking about the near extermination of the human race in nuclear holocaust, as she would thinking about seeing her hot new boyfriend with no pants on.** Bolding mine…and adding a few details to emphasize this point. Sarah was visibly pregnant when the picture was taken, as she was making tapes for John while driving. Earlier in the movie Reese is telling Sarah about the picture and says “I always wondered what you were thinking about in that picture” The kid took the picture when Sarah decided Reese deserved to have John know who his father is, as she was worried he may not send him back to protect her. Unfortunately he never knew that she was thinking about him. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/134 "2014-06-19T19:26:36Z")
If you guys want to make some heads explode, try writing Terminator/12 Monkeys crossovers. I got a headache just from the concept. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/135 "2014-06-19T20:19:17Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Actually, Kyle Reese didn’t take that picture. A small Mexican boy does (for the low price of $4, a bargain, considering that he initially asked for a whole $5) Go Go Gadget foot. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2014, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/136 "2014-06-19T23:20:43Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The problem I have with that theory is chaos. [snip] Oh, absolutely. But T1 was always meant to be a stable time loop when it was written and shot. It’s the following movies that shat all over the neatness of the self-contained story. So trying to reconcile the time loop set up in the first movie with the “fight the future !” of the second, back to the stable loop of the third and then the timey-wimey balls of parallel… stuff of the series is always going to require advanced fanwankery and reinforced suspension of disbelief 🙂 > [@](#): > > At the end of the movie, she’s in a jeep (which, IIRC, we’ve never seen before) with a dog (whom we’ve also never seen before) and with enough survival gear to last for several years in the most desolate part of Mexico she can find - all of which (except Mexico) are visible in the photo. Which is not altogether “out there”. It’s not like she had a rocket launcher in the back and a SkyNet tattoo across her cheek. Since she (presumably) bought the Jeep and the dog in one time line, the factors that led her to choose that model and colour would be the same in the other - e.g. she wants an off-road car and she just likes red. Same for the dog : sure, in the Reese TL she very likely bought it as a Termie alarm. In the original TL maybe she just wanted a friend. Maybe the Dark Handsome Stranger dumped her and she was feeling lonely. Maybe she just wanted protection on the solo road trip. But why she chose to have a dog does not influence what \*kind \*of dog. Besides, she might not have had a choice of dogs to begin with - maybe she always found it by the side of the road somewhere around Mexicali, we ain’t know. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/137 "2014-06-21T15:36:29Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m not sure if this was meant to be a response to my post, but FTR, I didn’t say either of those things. It was in response to that whole thread of conversation, mostly what **Kobal2** said, but partly your reply, too (see your whole second paragraph). Both of you were talking about a man traveling with her, which we have no reason to assume happened, but it was only **Kobal2** who mentioned Kyle Reese taking the picture. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Go Go Gadget foot. Sorry, I’m not sure what this means (except that it’s a reference to Inspector Gadget). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/138 "2017-07-24T16:11:45Z")
Bumped. Just saw T2 again, and loved it all over again. A couple of things I hadn’t noticed in my previous viewings: the T-1000 has a third hand when it’s flying the helicopter right behind the SWAT van - one hand holds the helicopter joystick, and the other two are reloading its machine gun. And Ahnuld can just barely be heard saying “Oh, shit,” when the SWAT van is starting to overturn on the freeway. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/139 "2017-07-24T17:12:57Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Bumped. > > Just saw T2 again, and loved it all over again. A couple of things I hadn’t noticed in my previous viewings: the T-1000 has a third hand when it’s flying the helicopter right behind the SWAT van - one hand holds the helicopter joystick, and the other two are reloading its machine gun. Four hands total. You need two to fly a chopper. I didn’t catch it the first viewing, but I applauded (internally) when I caught it later. A nice detail that they didn’t need to do, and was subtle, but correct. And clever, that the T1000 wasn’t constrained to a set number of limbs like a conventional Terminator. On another hand (so to speak), I reread some of my posts from three years ago, and not only do I not remember writing one of them, it doesn’t even sound like me. Maybe we’ve had a time travel incident in the last three years? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/140 "2017-07-24T17:14:05Z")
Hmm. I looked carefully and only noticed three hands. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/141 "2017-07-24T17:50:14Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Hmm. I looked carefully and only noticed three hands. Hmmm. I’ll have to check. I swear I saw both. I could be wrong. Well, I’ll believe they did two extra hands anyway. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508/142 "2017-07-24T18:41:09Z")
I noticed the 4 arms thing awhile ago. However one thing I didn’t notice until relatively recently was that John’s stepmom was played by the same actress who played Vasquez in Aliens (Jenette Goldstein). Apparently she’s in a bunch of James Cameron films. One question I always had was, given the release date of Aliens, why the role of Vasquez wasn’t played by Rachel Ticotin (Total Recall, Con Air) or Maria Conchita Alonso (Running Man, Predator 2). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terminator-2-a-couple-of-questions/682508.md?page=8)