Terminator 1984 paradox (1 Viewer)

Just rewatched it to get the bad taste of Genesis out of my mouth..


Great, classic movie..


But I still don't get the paradox of Reese going back in time to save his unborn son who would not have been even concieved... if he hadn't gone back in time in the first place!??


Has this been discussed in the commentaries or forums, is it a 'turn off your brain and enjoy' type of thing or is there some way to make sense of it?

There are two basic, competing theories to time travel - one theory says that you can't change the past, so if you were to go back in time and change something, you didn't actually change anything, but have always done those actions. Time is essentially a closed loop. The other theory of time travel is that you can make changes, and in doing so, you either change the timeline or create an alternate timeline, so that essentially there's both the original timeline that you came from, and the new one where you arrive.


The original "Terminator" doesn't exactly spell out which theory of time travel it subscribes to. So when you're watching the movie, you have no idea if this is the first time these events have happened, or if it's revision to the timeline. So we don't know if Kyle Reese has always been John Connor's father and always will be, or if John Connor was originally fathered by someone else, and Reese going back in time changes John's parentage.

Big fan of the series, but it doesn't pay to think too much about it... (having said that, please read the first comment for some thoughts on debunking the article.)


http://www.cracked.com/article_17390_5-reasons-terminator-franchise-makes-no-goddamn-sense.html


- Walter.

Cheers!


I also don't understand why Arnie's hairstyle changes half-way through..


I'm guessing it got singed along with his eyebrows after he runs through the car Reese explodes, and he would have looked too hideous if they went and made it too uneven.. LOL

They do bring the issue up briefly in the movie when Dr. Silberman basically asks the same question and Reese says he doesn't know tech stuff.

TravisR said:

They do bring the issue up briefly in the movie when Dr. Silberman basically asks the same question and Reese says he doesn't know tech stuff.

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Wasn't that to do with the reason nothing metal can go through? To which the writer (Cameron) has this great comeback chambered: "I didn't build the f'ing thing!"..


Fair enough!!


Will have to rewatch that scene..

doug zdanivsky said:

Wasn't that to do with the reason nothing metal can go through? Will have to rewatch that scene..

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It's been a couple years since I've seen The Terminator but I'm pretty sure you're right. I guess when Silberman says how Skynet killing the mother of its enemy ("a sort of retroactive abortion") is the closest they get to bringing up the idea of the paradox.

TravisR said:

It's been a couple years since I've seen The Terminator but I'm pretty sure you're right. I guess when Silberman says how Skynet killing the mother of its enemy ("a sort of retroactive abortion") is the closest they get to bringing up the idea of the paradox.

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Just rewatched it, couldn't find that "tech stuff" line in the interview and then it dawned on me that that particular line is uttered when Reese and Sarah are in the car park hotwiring another car..


"Are you saying it's from the future?"


"One possible future, from your point of view I don't know, I don't know tech stuff"..


Also love how Reese shuts Silverman down:


Then why am I talking to you??? Who is in authority here????!!!

Actually the more I think about it, the more I don't see a paradox because there's only a paradox if the Terminator succeeds. There's no timeline where Reese doesn't go back to 1984 to protect Sarah (he doesn't know that he's John's father). It's Terminator 2 is where they get into Back To The Future territory and try to alter the future which could theoretically erase John and create a paradox.

There's no timeline where Reese doesn't go back to 1984 to protect Sarah (he doesn't know that he's John's father)

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Isn't there? Why go back if there is no John to begin with, which there wouldn't be (no resistance, no nothing) if he didn't go back in the first place?


My head hurts..


Has anyone here reviewed the red box 2015 bluray, is it worth the upgrade?


(mine is 2013 bluray, no Cameron commentary??!)..

The red box Blu-ray from 2015 is the same remastered disc released in 2013, just in a different package.

So am I the only one who imagines that Kyle Reese wasn't always John Conner's father?

Josh Steinberg said:

The red box Blu-ray from 2015 is the same remastered disc released in 2013, just in a different package.

So am I the only one who imagines that Kyle Reese wasn't always John Conner's father?

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Honestly I'd never even considered it..


Sounds legit enough, though, as time-travel mind-benders go..


Then there's the other can of worms where there would be no Cyberdyne defence grid and thus no nuclear appocolypse if they didn't send a terminator back and the company gets a hold of the Terminator's microprocessor or CPU or whatever and reverse-engineers it..


It reminds me of that great line in Star Trek 4:


McCoy: You realize that by giving him the formula you're altering the future..


Scotty: How do you know he isn't the one who invented it?


McCoy: "......". "Yeah!"

As Josh said, the Terminator series seems to ascribe to the "fate" approach to time travel: what has been shall always be. Kyle Reese for all eternity has always been John Connor's father.

I take this in stride now. When I first saw it on VHS in junior high, it melted my brain.

The first use of a time travel device to send back a terminator to kill the mother of John Connor, Sarah, was a failure. The very first T-800 that went back arrived in the wrong year: 1912. Furthermore, it was not understood what would happen to exposed metal in the time displacement equipment's temporal field. An endoskeleton standing nearby was partially destroyed by the expanding time vortex, sending parts of itself into the late 1800's.


Determined to fulfill its programming anyway, the terminator researched the ancestors of Sarah and John Connor and discovered a maternal grandmother, Rose, living in England. Rose, however, was inaccessible, having set out on the R.M.S. Titanic for America.


The terminator bided its time, waiting for Rose. Titanic arrived safely and with much acclaim in New York, having made the voyage in record time—but Rose was already a corpse. Rose's immediate forebears, who had relocated overseas to England decades earlier, had become very wealthy in the late 1800's due to large windfalls made from the steel-making industry in Sheffield, Britain. Rose never knew why her family had grown so powerful in this rising manufacturing industry, only that she was very unhappy being a part of it. Part-way across the Atlantic, she threw herself overboard and drowned.


Titanic stopped briefly to recover her body, allowing a large iceberg to pass unnoticed in the night.


Mission accomplished, the terminator found a place to hide and shut down.


This lone terminator was followed by a human protector. His name was Jack. The experimental time displacement equipment sent him back a few years earlier than the terminator, giving Jack time to prepare. He eked out a meager living drawing and selling various nude sketches, just enough to get him to England. Having exhausted all funds, Jack nevertheless made a wager that got him a ticket aboard a famous cruise ship with Rose onboard.


Jack quickly located his target and saved Rose from committing suicide. The two fell in love. For the rest of the voyage, Jack protected her from harm until the very end. Even as the great ship struck an iceberg and sank, Jack sacrificed his life for hers and for the future. The survival of the Resistance was assured.


Meanwhile, in America, the terminator waited. With news of the Titanic's tragic sinking and great loss of life, it seemed very likely that the grandmother of John Connor had indeed perished. No survivor answering to Rose DeWitt Bukater was ever found.


Mission accomplished, the terminator found a place to hide and shut down.

I never viewed time travel in these movies as having a paradox, especially the original. I always thought that time flowed with a loop, time doesn't always run in a straight line. 1984 to Reese was his future and the past, then when he went back in time it was his present. I always liked the idea that he died before he was born. The war between man and machine, judgment day, Skynet sending back Terminators, Conner sending Reese and the protector Terminators always happened. Even when Sarah tried to prevent Skynet and judgment day from happening in T2, she couldn't, it was always meant to happen.

Jonathan, that was absolutey perfect

doug zdanivsky said:

But I still don't get the paradox of Reese going back in time to save his unborn son who would not have been even concieved... if he hadn't gone back in time in the first place!??

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The Doctor can explain better than I could:

'not available in your country'..