From: thogek@seismo.gps.caltech.edu (Thomas Kiefer)
Subject: Re: Terminator
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 15:15:24 GMT

In article <1992Aug11.033945.13421@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz> craddock@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Craddock) writes:
>fwilliam@lab5.smcm.edu (Frank Williams) writes:
>One flaw that i can think off is the fact that Reese and the Arnie from the
>second movie can not have ever met in the future.  Remember from the
>terminator
>Reese had to wait for the terminator to attempt to kill sarah so that
>he could identify it.  Now if he had already seen the terminators twin then
>why would he have to wait.  To a certain extent this is a flaw in T2 as well.


In article <1992Aug12.141619.5022@crpmks.uucp> billb@crpmks.UUCP (Bill Bochnik (Info Systems)) writes:
>Why is this a FLAW in the second movie.  I don't understand the reasoning...


I don't see that it is, but I guess that depends on how you decide some of
the things that happened OFF camera (and thus are NOT KNOWN) happened...

What if the humans in the future busted into Skynet's time-travel labs or
whatever they were, realized that something had been sent back in time,
checked the records, and either

  (1) found that a Terminator had been sent back to kill Sarah Connor,
      quickly prepped and sent Kyle Reese back, THEN realized that two
      sendings had occurred, and found that they could reprogram a T-800
      (?) Terminator, and so sent back Arnie II to deal with the T2.
      This has a few inconsistencies, however, like that John Connor
      should have known about 2 separate Terminators before they got
      there (IF this was NOT their first time through this loop)...

  (2) found that two Terminators had been sent back, one the Arniemator
      and one the T2.  Connor and Co quickly realized that they could
      reprogram another Arniemator to go back, but (there can be!) only
      one, and were reluctant to send back more anyway for fear of making
      worse disruptions in history than they were trying to prevent.
      Realizing that Reese would have next-to-no chance against T2, they
      sent him to deal with Arniemator I WITHOUT telling him about T2 (why
      distract/worry him further?), and perhaps simplifying some explanation
      about the time-travel machinery (only living tissue!) as an easy way
      of explaning why he couldn't take "future-tech" weapons with him (he
      wasn't, after all, one of the "techs").  They also didn't tell him
      what the Arniemator might look like, as they could be wrong.

 (3+) I'm sure other possible explanations abound...


On a slightly different note: Another thing (I think) to keep in mind when
discussing T-T2 in/consistancies: Kyle Reese was a soldier, and very likely
only knew about his mission WHAT HE NEEDED TO KNOW.  He didn't need to know
how or by what rules the time travel machinery worked, and he didn't.  The
contradiction between his statement that only living tissue could pass and
the fact that T2 did pass could simply be due to the rules being more
complicated than that and the "techs" not wanting to waste a lot of time
explaning them to him.

If you assume that everyone in the movie has perfect understanding of
everything they say, you may find some unrealistic inconsistancies.  But
is your assumption realistic?  People -- even movie characters -- can be
wrong, you know!

- Thogek
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