The Sarah Connor Chronicles picks up four years later and it’s revealed that John and Sarah have been skipping from hick town to hick town all that time. At the end of the pilot, they travel forward in time to 2007 and use their Summer Glau-bot as a bodyguard in order to live a more normal life in LA.
I guess I’m not a very smart human being (or possibly a terminator), because I’m not sure what those methods would be.
Infiltration unit, not ultimate killing machine. I think we can safely state that humans would spot an infiltrator in the shape of a giant ant :), and you gotta admit that as assassins go the T-1000 is hard to top this side of a nanite cloud (and even that can be dealt with to ensure it doesn’t come inside - the central concept behind Terminators is that humans voluntarily let them into human bases).
The Screamers of the eponymous movie evolved into the same tactic the better to use human emotions against them.
Which methods ? Plus that’s not SkyNet thinking. It’s an Arnie-bot and an early model at that. Nobody ever accused the Terminators of being particularly bright.
Well, nobody said SkyNet wasn’t a petty dick :).
But resource-wise humans *can *feed themselves (Soylent Green’s also on the table), so the slave population only needs a handful of whipbots to extract mineral resources. Tactically it could also be useful (e.g. surrender and you won’t be killed immediately). Finally, even SkyNet is limited by available resources - it’s possible it can only build so many robots per diem and chooses to build all murderbots, all the time.
Who’s to say pulsed plasma rifles in the 40 Watt range aren’t superbly energy efficient ? What methods did you have in mind ?
While it’s never been shown on screen, a fan theory (which worked its way into semi-official Terminator fiction by SM Stirling) states that SkyNet used human slaves to build the first bipedal Terminators. Can’t do very much building when you’re just a server in a box.
Aside from government records, the phone book was probably the best way to find someone in the 80s.
i loved the series and i would rate it over T3 and T4, but if your main concern are plot holes then perhaps you should avoid it.
in addition to the answer upthread, it also uses multiple timelines/worlds. so all versions of the franchise are valid as there are multiple versions of you in different timelines.
It’s a few years later with the assumption that John and his mother are moving around the country using fake IDs for temporary cover. John is still in high school, but definitely older than he was in T2. I tend to assume John was middle school/junior high during T2, but I’m not sure if this is stated outright.
He was 10 in T2. It was stated on screen.
Most of the records were lost in the war! Skynet knew almost nothing about Connor’s mother - Her full name, where she lived. They just knew the city.
The Terminator was just being systematic.
[quote=“nevadaexile, post:20, topic:682508”]
[li]Reese states that humans were used as slave labor by SkyNet - This serves no purpose except to horrify the audience as a machine wouldn’t waste the resources necessary to keep a human workforce alive. They need food and water, they are inefficient and they require rest.Machines would machines…[/li][/QUOTE]
Your post makes Morpheus, Neo and Trinity sad.
It’s established quite clearly in T1 that Terminators are infiltration cyborgs, not the ultimate battle wagons of the SkyNet forces. They show flashback (or flash forward I suppose) scenes to the future and some of the much heavier machinery Reese was fighting against at the time.
Among them:
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Genealogical tracing - Had SkyNet bothered to understand humans keep fairly decent ancestry records, it could have used records extant at the time to locate a “Sarah Connor” in the LA Basin far more efficiently than randomly choosing names from a phone book.
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Blood typing match - If SkyNet knew or suspected that john Connor was a real human being, then it could have obtain a sample of his blood and then used that to ensure that the Sarah Connors it killed were likely to have been the one it needs to have killed. Simply killing every Sarah,Sara, Zara, Zarrah,etc in the LA Basin not only could have taken months or even YEARS, simply starting to kill “Sarah Connors” would have caused the survivors to actually flee the area.
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Computer records search - The Terminator was (wait for it) a computer. Sarah Connor was “in the system” meaning that the T-800 could have hacked into the DMV database and tracked her down within minutes (she had a scooter according to the film and thus a license to operate it)
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Voice matching - SkyNet can imitate voice patterns which also has to mean that it would have to be able to recognize them. It could have hacked into the telephone system and simply listened for the name “Sarah Connor” to be uttered over the phone lines. While somewhat less interesting (read:sexy) than shooting up a nightclub and then later a police station, it does have the added benefit of being stealthy and avoiding the attention which would have slowed or prevented the Terminator’s rampage.
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A personal ad - The least “sexy” of the myriad methods as it simply would have required the Terminator to place a personal ad in one or more newspapers (it clearly was used to financial transactions as it was shown checked into a motel room in a flophouse) and wait for Sarah Connor to come to it.
There are also numerous chemical tests that it could have done to determine that she was the person it was seeking. But given that film was previously going to star OJ Simpson as the Terminator and then changed its collective casting decision as no one would have bought him being a murderer, we aren’t talking about a masterpiece of subtlety.
Ancestry.com didn’t exist in 1984, genealogy would have probably involved lots of legwork travel to different county courthouses for records requests, libraries for birth announcements etc. Considering he knew Sarah Connor lived in Los Angeles and there were only 4-5 of them in the phone book I think his chosen method was actually far more effective. Especially since we are told that SkyNet only knew the first and last name of the intended target, not her date of birth or any other biographical information. How would he know he was looking up the genealogy for the correct Sarah Connor?
If SkyNet could get a blood sample of John Connor it could have easily killed him before he “smashed its defense grid.” Safe to assume based on the story SkyNet is not omnipotent in the future.
How? Is it your impression that the DMV database was connected to the internet in California in 1984? Since the internet was restricted to research institutions and the military in 1984 I can assure you it probably wasn’t. Do you think it had a dial-in system? If it did, do you think the T-800 came preloaded with 1980s era dial-up protocols or the ability to interface with said systems? No, he’d need to break into a DMV building to do what you’re talking about which would go against the concept of him as an infiltration assassin robot. He was willing to go to war with a police station because at that point he knew his Sarah Connor was right there, so the time for giving a shit about drawing attention was over. But the T-800s were designed to sneak into human bases and then kill them, so it’s safe to assume they wouldn’t want to immediately start shooting their way into a government office on the off chance they might find DMV records. Plus, as it is said, SkyNet only knows first/last name, Reese had seen a photo of Sarah but SkyNet never had. All breaking into the DMV would effect is him having the DMV records for the 4-5 Sarah Connors he already knew about through the phone book–it wouldn’t help him find out which one is his Sarah Connor.
This makes no sense at all. How would this be faster than him just using a phone book to get addresses for all Sarah Connors in Los Angeles? Nothing you’ve said would actually enable the T-800 to know which Sarah Connor was the target, and all would actually require more effort than what The Terminator just did.
Lol what? Why would you assume Sara Connor would ever even see the ad let alone respond to it.
Explain, since Terminator has no DNA of John Connor, no idea how old Sarah would have been, no idea her middle name even or the color of her hair, what chemical tests he could have done.
I’ve noticed you’ve gone around a few threads lately pointing out what you consider to be “plot holes” in movies and see you have a link to a movie plot hole website in your profile. I get the impression you think you’re being clever, but to be honest just like with the Breaking Bad thread your list of “problems” with the plot are all actually dumb and all of your “more sensible” things the T-800 could have done actually seems dumber to me than the writing of a sci-fi movie from the 80s starring Arnold. Original T-800 1, you 0 on this. I think in the race to feel clever about yourself and point out plot holes you’ve gone down the rabbit hole and pointed out a bunch of stuff that aren’t actually plot holes and refuted them in ways that are nonsensical. There are real plot holes in The Terminator but none of them are what you just said.
Yeah, but watching Linda Hamilton swat insectiod drones with a fly-swatter does not an interesting movie make. 
there are no plot holes in time travel movies with multiple “concurrent” timelines - somewhere among the infinite universes, a bored Ms Headey is sitting in an outhouse in the middle of a desert in Mexico, armed with a fly-swatter cursing, “On the Game of Thrones, you win or you die.”
What’s “dumb” is the fact that you think that your opinion has any more “value” than that. If you disagree then simply saying instead of posting the fact that your own limited intelligence is able to be amused by standard Hollywood fare.
I was going to respond your individual comments, but I’ll simply let their idiocy speak for themselves,
Changed my mind.
**You are aware that genealogy did occur prior to Ancestry.com,right? Are you aware of what genealogy is or from where the web site got their documents? I’ll put this slowly, as you don’t seem to be to bright: To ensure that SkyNet had the CORRECT Sarah Connor (a metro area would have at least 100-300 women with the exact or similar names) it would need a method to cull that number down to an acceptable level.
In the film, the Terminator kills a woman who is clearly in her mid-40s and couldn’t have been John Connor’s mother as she would have been too old. SkyNet would have an idea of how old John Connor was or it would not as it sent an android back to …wait for it…terminate him. A genealogy search using available records could have easily determined that the Sarah Connor it was seeking was indeed the one it needed to kill.
I’ll let someone else explain how reading (the basis of genealogy) is performed, as the process seems to be slightly out of your grasp.**
**Sigh…
I would tell you that human fluid carry traces which could be used to identify people. But since reading is tough for you, basic criminology is clearly out of your depth. Suffice it to say, that for SkyNet to know that there even WAS a “John Connor” it probably need proof that he existed. After all, why waste time building a time machine during a war that it was losing to kill someone who may not even exist?
Or did that escape you as well?
**
You must be younger than 25. That because anyone older would that driving records have been computerized since the late 1960s. How do you think ( a process which may not be inclusive of your mental processes) the police got information when they “ran” people’s licenses back then? Somebody went to a drawer,opened it and took out an index card? Or they had it written down on a sheet?
**They used computers.
They also used INTRA-nets which wouldn’t be accessible from external computers. The Internet (which seems to be the only computer network with which you are familiar) didn’t exist in a usable form for most people at that time but that hardly prevented the authorities ( the source of much of the information about society) from accessing data. It’s a shame that I have to explain something as simple as this; but I work with people who buy pull tabs hoping to strike it rich, so your ignorance isn’t that surprising
**
**Sigh…again.
People routinely used initials (especially women) in the phone book when they were common. People also had unlisted phone numbers. If Sarah Connor had either of those (wait for it) the film’s over. If she didn’t have a phone in her name (she was shown having a roommate) movie’s over. If her MIDDLE NAME WAS SARAH, movies’ over.
I guess, again, that didn’t occur to you.
**
Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe someone who knew her would and that would lead to her. Apparently you unaware of how classified ads work. I’d explain that, but again, you’d probably still not "get it."
**The reason DNA isn’t mentioned in the first Terminator is that using it for ID’ing people wasn’t common in the 1980s. It was difficult, rudimentary and expensive. That means that writers of that era would have either not known about or the assumption would have been that audiences wouldn’t have. That’s why the 3rd film in the series specifically has the T-X test blood samples to determine (wait for it again) the DNA OF THE PERSON SHE/IT was seeking.
You did watch that film, didn’t you
I’m sorry, since we only have equally valid opinions here not subject to review or questioning I guess there’s no reason to address your claims, good day sir.
nevadaexile, you’re not allowed to insult other posters in this forum. This is an official warning: don’t do this again.
I believe that I was called “dumb” by the poster.
Will he also get a warning?
No. He said some of your criticisms were dumb; you insulted him personally several times with comments about his intelligence and reading ability.
Really? One to three hundred women named Sarah Connor in LA? That seems high to me. Anyway, the movie shows us how many Sarah Connors are in LA in the movie’s universe, and it appears to be about five or so.
I think the years and years of increasingly successful guerrilla war against its army of killbots would be sufficient proof that John Connor existed. I’m not really seeing a situation where SkyNet would be able to get a blood sample out of John, without just taking the opportunity to kill him outright.
So the Terminator would have to break into a DMV, or maybe a police station, to access those records. Certainly, that’s to beyond a terminators abilities, but the pone book seems much easier, and roughly as accurate.
Yeah… Or the terminator just uses some other method of finding his target if the phone book doesn’t work out for it. It’s not like it can only ever pick one strategy to find her.
That could possibly work, but it seems much more scattershot than the phone book.
These do seem like really weak complaints about the movie.