My wife and I went to see Genisys this weekend. It was a solid action movie, and better than the last two movies. It was not as good as the original two, but comparably much, much better than other recent entries.
The Terminator timeline is a mess though. It's got to be alternate reality time travel because otherwise Skynet would have won the moment it sent a Terminator back in time, there wouldn't have been a chance for Kyle Reese to go through. Terminator's version of time travel only works if they're travelling to an alternate timeline, not earlier in the same one (which means that every time they time travel, the future they leave still exists, they just no longer exist in it). Here is my attempt to make sense of it:
Timeline A -> Skynet sends a T-800 back in time to kill Sarah Connor. John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to stop it. Timeline B -> Kyle fathers John and dies defeating the Terminator [The Terminator]. Judgement Day is not averted because CyberDyne has the leftover Terminator parts. Sarah is sent to an asylum and John is passed around. Judgment Day happens in 1997, and Skynet sends a T-1000 back in time to kill Sarah and John. Future John sends back a T-800 (Model 101) to protect himself. Timeline C -> The T-1000 and T-800 are destroyed, along with Cyberdyne's research, delaying Judgement Day [T2 Judgement Day]. Sarah raises John until she dies. Judgement Day happens in 2004. Terminator Salvation could take place here. Skynet kills John and sends back the T-X to disrupt John's plan by killing as many of his core officers as possible. Kate, his wife, reprograms the T-800 that killed John and sends him back to protect herself and John in the past. Timeline D -> The T-X fails, but so do John and Kate in preventing the 2004 Judgment Day [Rise of the Machines]. Presumably, the events of Terminator Salvation could happen again. All it requires is the 2004 Judgement Day. Timeline E -> This actually represents a number of timelines that happen. Skynet sends various terminators back in time to various parts of history and creates multiple timelines. The show Sarah Connor Chronicles takes place in the last of these timelines. Judgment Day is delayed again and Skynet sends a T-888 back to kill John Connor in 1999, and John sends back the 'Cameron' terminator to protect himself (multiple other Terminators have been sent back, and there have presumably been other conflicts, which I assume is what changes Judgment Day). John, Sarah and Cameron travel forward in time to 2007 to help prevent the revised Judgment Day. Timeline F -> Spoilers for Genisys from here on out. This is another placed holder timeline for things that happen. Eventually, there is a Timeline in which Skynet creates the T-5000 body for itself, sends itself back in time but events otherwise mimic what happened in Timeline A. Timeline G -> Events occur much like in Timeline A or B, except at the moment Kyle Reese is sent back, the T-5000 Skynet strikes and turns John Connor into a T-3000 Terminator. The T-3000 version of John Connor is sent back in time to the 2000s, while presumably armed with more knowledge of Sarah Connor after infecting John, Skynet sends a T-1000 back in time to kill Sarah as a child. An unknown agent sends back a T-800 to protect Sarah Connor. Timeline H -> The T-1000 fails to kill Sarah Connor due to the T-800's interference (nicknamed 'Pops'). Being unable to locate them, it tries to kill Kyle Reese when he arrives. The original T-800 sent back by Skynet is destroyed, as is the T-1000. Thanks to Kyle's flashes of new timeline memories, they travel forward in time to 2017 to stop Judgment Day. There, they encounter the T-3000 version of John Connor, who has been working with Cyberdyne to develop a time machine and build Skynet, called 'Genisys' in this timeline. Unlike many other timelines, CyberDyne did not have the remnants of Terminator technology due to the events of the original terminator not happening anymore, thus delaying that tech development until John Connor arrived. 'Pops' destroys John Connor by using the magnetic field of the not-quite-functional CyberDyne time machine to rip him apart, and receives an upgrade in the form of T-1000 like properties from Cyberdyne's experiments with the liquid metal technology. Kyle, Sarah and 'Pops' destroy CyberDyne, but Genisys' core survives the blast in a deep bunker (they destroyed the servers).
First, 'Skynet' is not the same entity in every timeline. In some, it's the result of the same Skynet project but developed at different times. In others, it's an AI developed differently. In most, I believe, the later 'Judgment Day' is due to Skynet attempting to iterate itself with more advanced technology. Regardless of its origin, it's called 'Skynet' because that's what the most common version of it is called, and timelines where it isn't Skynet, it adopts the name due to time travel shenanigans influencing it (namely, people or tech that use the name).
I imagine there was a 'Timeline 0' where no time travel impacted the events of things. In that timeline, Skynet awoke but was defeated without any future knowledge on John Connor's party because it simply wasn't advanced enough to fight back effectively. Using time travel, I imagine Skynet attempted to iterate itself with each subsequent timeline, until eventually it was able to create a T-5000 body for itself. It kept getting defeated because the sequence of events gave Connor more knowledge of the future in order to fight back. So it changed tactics and allowed things to progress to the point where John Connor's future knowledge was useless, and struck to make many changes at once, sending the T-3000 John back in time.
Actually, there's one other interpretation of what could be the case with why sending the T-800 back in the original Terminator movie didn't instantly change the future.
Due to the nature of distorting space-time, we can assume that when you bend or break laws of physics (i.e. through time travel) that the universe has some sort of equivalent reaction to it. This could mean that the universe, detecting the anomaly of the T-800 having been sent back in time (and also meshing with my interpretation of the way time is experienced in our universe), does not instantly resolve the events that occur, but rather, that they are all occurring simultaneously. Presuming that timelines are not linear (and we can see where the timeline diverges quite frequently in the Terminator franchise), it can then be reasoned that sending something back in time would not instantly result in the intended outcome in the time the time traveling was based out of.
If that wasn't clear at all, let me know and I can try to explain a bit better. I'm a little distracted at the moment.
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Well, I should note that in Genisys, they were pretty clear that new timelines were being created. Maybe it doesn't have an immediate effect on the future, but I've never particularly liked that time travel theory.
The first movie was intended to be a closed loops, but later movies (specifically T3 and everything after) have made that not really possible anymore.
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Ah, okay. If Word of God says it, then I retract my point.
It's neater that way, anyway. It means time travel works more like the book Timeline, which is a version of time travel I always loved (you're not really travelling back in time, you're travelling laterally to an alternate universe that started later than yours).
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Haha, I guess so, except DBZ's time travel was fairly inconsistent. Didn't trunk change the future, then go back to his own time? I don't remember how the cell stuff worked.
No, what happened was Trunks went back to the past after Gohan died in his timeline in an attempt to prevent Goku from dying and the Androids from annihilating the population. Cell also went back to the same timeline somehow, long before Trunks did, so that he could hibernate and wait for the Androids to be created. The timeline Cell came from, Cell killed Trunks after Trunks had destroyed the Androids in that timeline and was going back to tell everyone he had succeeded. But because that Cell came back, the Trunks that was a part of the timeline that the main cast knew about became aware of Cell's existence and killed Cell in his own timeline after taking out the Androids.
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The Terminator timeline is a mess though. It's got to be alternate reality time travel because otherwise Skynet would have won the moment it sent a Terminator back in time, there wouldn't have been a chance for Kyle Reese to go through. Terminator's version of time travel only works if they're travelling to an alternate timeline, not earlier in the same one (which means that every time they time travel, the future they leave still exists, they just no longer exist in it). Here is my attempt to make sense of it:
Timeline A -> Skynet sends a T-800 back in time to kill Sarah Connor. John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to stop it.
Timeline B -> Kyle fathers John and dies defeating the Terminator [The Terminator]. Judgement Day is not averted because CyberDyne has the leftover Terminator parts. Sarah is sent to an asylum and John is passed around. Judgment Day happens in 1997, and Skynet sends a T-1000 back in time to kill Sarah and John. Future John sends back a T-800 (Model 101) to protect himself.
Timeline C -> The T-1000 and T-800 are destroyed, along with Cyberdyne's research, delaying Judgement Day [T2 Judgement Day]. Sarah raises John until she dies. Judgement Day happens in 2004. Terminator Salvation could take place here. Skynet kills John and sends back the T-X to disrupt John's plan by killing as many of his core officers as possible. Kate, his wife, reprograms the T-800 that killed John and sends him back to protect herself and John in the past.
Timeline D -> The T-X fails, but so do John and Kate in preventing the 2004 Judgment Day [Rise of the Machines]. Presumably, the events of Terminator Salvation could happen again. All it requires is the 2004 Judgement Day.
Timeline E -> This actually represents a number of timelines that happen. Skynet sends various terminators back in time to various parts of history and creates multiple timelines. The show Sarah Connor Chronicles takes place in the last of these timelines. Judgment Day is delayed again and Skynet sends a T-888 back to kill John Connor in 1999, and John sends back the 'Cameron' terminator to protect himself (multiple other Terminators have been sent back, and there have presumably been other conflicts, which I assume is what changes Judgment Day). John, Sarah and Cameron travel forward in time to 2007 to help prevent the revised Judgment Day.
Timeline F -> Spoilers for Genisys from here on out. This is another placed holder timeline for things that happen. Eventually, there is a Timeline in which Skynet creates the T-5000 body for itself, sends itself back in time but events otherwise mimic what happened in Timeline A.
Timeline G -> Events occur much like in Timeline A or B, except at the moment Kyle Reese is sent back, the T-5000 Skynet strikes and turns John Connor into a T-3000 Terminator. The T-3000 version of John Connor is sent back in time to the 2000s, while presumably armed with more knowledge of Sarah Connor after infecting John, Skynet sends a T-1000 back in time to kill Sarah as a child. An unknown agent sends back a T-800 to protect Sarah Connor.
Timeline H -> The T-1000 fails to kill Sarah Connor due to the T-800's interference (nicknamed 'Pops'). Being unable to locate them, it tries to kill Kyle Reese when he arrives. The original T-800 sent back by Skynet is destroyed, as is the T-1000. Thanks to Kyle's flashes of new timeline memories, they travel forward in time to 2017 to stop Judgment Day. There, they encounter the T-3000 version of John Connor, who has been working with Cyberdyne to develop a time machine and build Skynet, called 'Genisys' in this timeline. Unlike many other timelines, CyberDyne did not have the remnants of Terminator technology due to the events of the original terminator not happening anymore, thus delaying that tech development until John Connor arrived. 'Pops' destroys John Connor by using the magnetic field of the not-quite-functional CyberDyne time machine to rip him apart, and receives an upgrade in the form of T-1000 like properties from Cyberdyne's experiments with the liquid metal technology. Kyle, Sarah and 'Pops' destroy CyberDyne, but Genisys' core survives the blast in a deep bunker (they destroyed the servers).
I imagine there was a 'Timeline 0' where no time travel impacted the events of things. In that timeline, Skynet awoke but was defeated without any future knowledge on John Connor's party because it simply wasn't advanced enough to fight back effectively. Using time travel, I imagine Skynet attempted to iterate itself with each subsequent timeline, until eventually it was able to create a T-5000 body for itself. It kept getting defeated because the sequence of events gave Connor more knowledge of the future in order to fight back. So it changed tactics and allowed things to progress to the point where John Connor's future knowledge was useless, and struck to make many changes at once, sending the T-3000 John back in time.
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Due to the nature of distorting space-time, we can assume that when you bend or break laws of physics (i.e. through time travel) that the universe has some sort of equivalent reaction to it. This could mean that the universe, detecting the anomaly of the T-800 having been sent back in time (and also meshing with my interpretation of the way time is experienced in our universe), does not instantly resolve the events that occur, but rather, that they are all occurring simultaneously. Presuming that timelines are not linear (and we can see where the timeline diverges quite frequently in the Terminator franchise), it can then be reasoned that sending something back in time would not instantly result in the intended outcome in the time the time traveling was based out of.
If that wasn't clear at all, let me know and I can try to explain a bit better. I'm a little distracted at the moment.
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2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
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The first movie was intended to be a closed loops, but later movies (specifically T3 and everything after) have made that not really possible anymore.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player