If the first Terminator had killed Sarah Conner, what would it have done afterward? We know from T2 that the T100 cannot “self terminate” so presumably he could not just shut himself down.
I think this landed in the wrong forum. Although it’s a fascinating question it’s not really much of a Great Debate…
I would imagine the first Terminator had secondary objectives that he would have set out to accomplish if he had actually succeeded. For example, killing other humans who were important in the future war. This was shown in T3 with the female Terminator on a mission to kill John Connor’s lieutenants. The Terminator may have also somehow worked to advance Cyberdyne’s research without giving up body parts. He could for example hack into Myles Dyson’s computer and correct any mistakes Dyson might have made in his math. In any case, I’m sure he would have found a way to keep busy.
should I have posted somewhere else?
Yes, Cafe Society is where movies, games and books are discussed. I imagine a mod will be along to move the thread soon enough though. Welcome to the boards!
Moderator’s Note: Yes, threads about movies (also books, TV shows, plays, songs, etc.) go in Cafe Society. So off we go.
One thing I always wondered about the Terminator movies: why didn’t the Machines just sent T2 and T3 back to get Sarah Connor again, rather than going after John and later after his lieutenants? Is there some sort of temporal law that forbids them from going to the same time twice?
Well, they had one chance, so they sent three Terminators back to three different times instead of three Terminators to one time.
Now, why they would send two outdated Terminators instead of three T-X’s… No clue. I wish they had never made the second movie.
Yeah, there’s kind of what I call a “Hollywood Sequel Shimmy” to the second and third movies (in other words, they wanted to make money on the sequels but couldn’t quite make the logic work 100%, so there’s a “shimmy” to it that you have to swallow with a grain of salt).
In other words, BULLSHIT! 
It’s most jarring between the first movie (which was outstanding) and the second movie. Those two cannot exist within the same universe.
Exactly! But I still loved T2 for the special effects (they were groundbreaking at the time).
They don’t; each time someone/thing is sent back, the past changes and therefore the future changes. Alternate history/past/future/universe stories are great for waving away inconsistancies.
You wish they never made #2? 
That was the best one IMO. Of course it would not have been possible without the first, but having Arnold come back as a good guy and already knowing what a badass he was from the first movie really set it up.
It would presumably have turned itself over to Cyberdyne systems - Skynet was based on research carried out on it.
Doesn’t work. The plot of the first movie hinges on the fact that the timeline is unchangeable, while the plot of the second movie clearly shows that the timeline can be changed. John was born because the Terminator was sent back so that Kyle Reese was sent back so that he impregnated Sarah Connor.
Now, you can fanwank this away (I once had a guy tell me that Kyle wasn’t John’s father; Sarah had a miscarriage and had John by someone else; she just believes at the end of the first movie that the child she’s carrying is the rebel leader of the future. Anything you say, dude) in one of several different ways (the second T-800 is lying, originally John’s father was someone else and so forth) but I’m not buying it.
Let’s not even get into the third movie, where they have some kind of wishy-washy halfway deal going, where you can change the future somewhat but some events are inevitable and can only be delayed.
The first movie was a good, consistent, interesting movie. The second one was… well, an actionfest with state-of-the-art special effects for its time. But that’s it.
Auto-shutdown, most likely, which is different from self-termination; that is, its mission was completed, so it would have had nothing to do, unless it was also programmed to make sure that Skynet came into being by making sure its human creators were not prevented from creating it. That said, I think it was logically impossible for the first Terminator to kill Sarah Connor, though it did not know that. Terminator is a closed-loop time travel story; watching all three movies, it’s clear that both the Connors’ efforts to prevent the rise of Skynet and the Terminators’ efforts to kill the Connors’ prematurely were doomed to failure. No new reality was created; the causal loop is just weird.
I never finished the 3rd movie, how’d it end? Use spoiler boxes if you think it matters.
It would have gone to Disney World to celebrate.
Take that! Universal Studios, Orlando!
I just love the image of Arnold in Garghoyles shades and a Mickey Mouse hat,. Or maybe a Goofy hat a la Genie.
John Connor and his future wife stand looking at the machines taking over, the Terminator having saved them from dying. They have just made contact with other cells of humans, and John has unofficially taken charge. An ending that screams “sequel”, not to mention shits on the great backstory told by Kyle Reese.
[spoiler]I don’t know how far you made it, but John and Claire Danes make it out to the military bunker in the desert to find her father. No dice, the TX comes and kills everybody, pretty much. They are told by the good terminator that if they can go to this other bunker, they can stop the missiles from there. They go there and find out that it is old and outdated. The terminator tricked them into going there because it’s the only way they could survive the war. The end shows the missiles launching and earth getting the holy hell blown out of it.
That’s the gyst, I haven’t seen it in about two years so if someone else has a better summary, please add it.[/spoiler]