caffienekitty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
caffienekitty) wrote2008-01-25 02:28 pm
caffienekitty) wrote2008-01-25 02:28 pm
Entry tags:
And now for something completely random
Spoilers for the three Terminator movies, and that's about it.
A few random thoughts on the Sarah Connor Chronicles and the Terminator 'Verse that ambushed me in the middle of a day at work. I have no idea why, it's not like I watch the series or have time or anything. :-P
I tried watching Sarah Connor Chronicles once. Besides the "My Pet Terminator" feel, the concept didn't really appeal to me. I think it's because I'm one of those weird time travel mechanic dorks that liked the way the third movie ended, and thought it was a fitting end to the series.
See, because of the way they've handled time travel in the Terminator movies, as soon as the first Terminator came back, the future that created it was insured. Observer effect. Because the people in the past had observed the result of the future, there was no way that future could not come about.
Also, John Connor sent back the guy who would become his father to defend his mom, knowing (to my recollection) that he was orchestrating his own conception. His birth was what the Terminator had come back to prevent by killing John's mother. If John hadn't been born, the Terminator would not have come back, and if the Terminator had not come back, he would not have been born.
That whole 'There is no fate but what we make' stuff from T2, totally true. He made his own fate when he locked in the future in this little paradoxical dance of existence. There is also no way to prematurely kill John Connor. There is no way to prevent the rise of the machines.
I cheered when the third movie ended because they didn't back away from the inevitablity of that ending. I was so sure they were going to go through with a happy-dippy-save-the-world-yay hollywood ending, I was giving myself eyestrain rolling my eyes. But then the base was deserted, and as the characters realized what had happened at the last minute, I was beaming. It was awesome. Well, except for the cheeseball "Terminator-eye-goes-dark" thing at the very end. Yeesh.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't want to see humanity nuked to oblivion and the remnants subjugated under the iron feet of sentient robots, or anything. It's just the way the 'verse is set up. It's inevitable that any plan to stop the future from coming they try will ultimately fail, like the Grinch trying to stop Christmas. Which would make the killer robots the Whos down in Whoville... which... Heh. Eek. Sorry, side-tracked.
Anyways, any 'and they lived happily ever after and the robots didn't take over the world after all, the end' ending, to me, feels like a fake. The inevitable future will find another way to come into existence. Unless they figure out a way to undo the entire series? The possibility of a 'happy ending' (shy of, I suppose, 'we live in co-operative peace with our robot overlords' which is such a ponies-and-rainbows ending I would barf) isn't there.
If, and this is a huge 'if' they figured out some way to make it all work within the time travel mechanic they have set up... maybe. To my mind it would require a lot of very baroque and bizarre temporal hoop-jumping. Maybe they could find some way to prevent the first Terminator from coming back to the 80's, and John from sending back his own father, without involving the influence of anyone who has seen or is aware of it or the subsequent versions of it. Or they could find out how time travel was invented and set up some kind of hyper-luddite, uninformed, militant activist group to take it out without knowing anything about the future they would be preventing.
However, any of this would inevitably also result in John Connor never being born in the first place, and Sarah Connor living out her Terminator-free life as a ditzy, helpless, bar-hopping twinkie destined for a life of suburban bliss, no doubt. Which would be an entirely different kind of tragedy.
A few random thoughts on the Sarah Connor Chronicles and the Terminator 'Verse that ambushed me in the middle of a day at work. I have no idea why, it's not like I watch the series or have time or anything. :-P
I tried watching Sarah Connor Chronicles once. Besides the "My Pet Terminator" feel, the concept didn't really appeal to me. I think it's because I'm one of those weird time travel mechanic dorks that liked the way the third movie ended, and thought it was a fitting end to the series.
See, because of the way they've handled time travel in the Terminator movies, as soon as the first Terminator came back, the future that created it was insured. Observer effect. Because the people in the past had observed the result of the future, there was no way that future could not come about.
Also, John Connor sent back the guy who would become his father to defend his mom, knowing (to my recollection) that he was orchestrating his own conception. His birth was what the Terminator had come back to prevent by killing John's mother. If John hadn't been born, the Terminator would not have come back, and if the Terminator had not come back, he would not have been born.
That whole 'There is no fate but what we make' stuff from T2, totally true. He made his own fate when he locked in the future in this little paradoxical dance of existence. There is also no way to prematurely kill John Connor. There is no way to prevent the rise of the machines.
I cheered when the third movie ended because they didn't back away from the inevitablity of that ending. I was so sure they were going to go through with a happy-dippy-save-the-world-yay hollywood ending, I was giving myself eyestrain rolling my eyes. But then the base was deserted, and as the characters realized what had happened at the last minute, I was beaming. It was awesome. Well, except for the cheeseball "Terminator-eye-goes-dark" thing at the very end. Yeesh.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't want to see humanity nuked to oblivion and the remnants subjugated under the iron feet of sentient robots, or anything. It's just the way the 'verse is set up. It's inevitable that any plan to stop the future from coming they try will ultimately fail, like the Grinch trying to stop Christmas. Which would make the killer robots the Whos down in Whoville... which... Heh. Eek. Sorry, side-tracked.
Anyways, any 'and they lived happily ever after and the robots didn't take over the world after all, the end' ending, to me, feels like a fake. The inevitable future will find another way to come into existence. Unless they figure out a way to undo the entire series? The possibility of a 'happy ending' (shy of, I suppose, 'we live in co-operative peace with our robot overlords' which is such a ponies-and-rainbows ending I would barf) isn't there.
If, and this is a huge 'if' they figured out some way to make it all work within the time travel mechanic they have set up... maybe. To my mind it would require a lot of very baroque and bizarre temporal hoop-jumping. Maybe they could find some way to prevent the first Terminator from coming back to the 80's, and John from sending back his own father, without involving the influence of anyone who has seen or is aware of it or the subsequent versions of it. Or they could find out how time travel was invented and set up some kind of hyper-luddite, uninformed, militant activist group to take it out without knowing anything about the future they would be preventing.
However, any of this would inevitably also result in John Connor never being born in the first place, and Sarah Connor living out her Terminator-free life as a ditzy, helpless, bar-hopping twinkie destined for a life of suburban bliss, no doubt. Which would be an entirely different kind of tragedy.
no subject
BWAH! I love the way your mind works. HEE!!
As for the happy ending, I always thought it was already set up in the first movie... when Kyle says, "We'd won, their defense grid was smashed..." that was the happy ending, but there was going to bea whole lotta hell to go through (inevitable, as you say) first before they could get there, and that the happy ending couldn't happen without the hell.
I haven't watched any of this series yet though, I have it TiVo'd, but I've been a little preocupied with another series at the moment. AND a friend and I just watch Rome this past weekend and... whoa.
no subject
Hm... I'd forgotten about that bit. I think you're right. All they have to do is lose a large percentage of the global population, be patient, and eventually it'll all come out okay. Darn humans and their need for immediate gratification anyway. :-D
the happy ending couldn't happen without the hell
A very, very true statement, that. :-)
no subject
The point is, the films, whether as a 2 or a 3, made sense within their own world.
The series makes no sense whatsoever. I could maybe forgive it if I didn't hate Lena Heady so much I've never liked her as an actress.
And worse, it's boring, which in an action series is unforgiveable. I guess it'll soon be heading the way of Bionic Woman.
no subject