I love time travel stories, even though they generally drive me nuts. The first Terminator movie made fictional sense: something bad came out of the future and this future could not be avoided because - in a sense - it had already happened.
When they apparently DID avoid this future at the end of the second movie, the logical thing to happen would have been a total reboot — Sarah back at the diner as a waitress. No Terminators, no son, no nothing. Because those events in the two movies ultimately wouldn't have happened and had been undone, you see? Back to the Future showed this effect at work, Michael J. Fox slowly fading out (though you'd think it would be more like an instant *plop*) when he messed with his past/his parents' future. But that trilogy threatens to make me go off on a long ramble about the butterfly effect, so let's get back to the Terminator saga.
By the third movie, the human/machine war starts — and it seems to be at the forefront of an upcoming new movie trilogy of the franchise. But now we also have the television series, which must be an alternate reality, as Sarah Connor sidesteps her death - as mentioned in the movies - by a jump from our recent past into present day. She is helped by a reprogrammed Terminator, who looks like a sweet girl.
This machine is driven by curiosity and cold reasoning, fascinated by human behaviour while letting nothing keep her from her goal of protecting John Connor, the future leader of the rebellion. The fembot is played very well by Summer Glau, who previously showed off her kookiness in Firefly and in this role gets to kick quite a bit of ass. John and Sarah Connor unfortunately aren't all that interesting so far. Sarah is strong and stoic, but lacks charm, while John seems more a surly teen than a potential leader. Their main goal in the series is still to avoid the war which already became a reality in the movies.
There is a fair amount of reinterpretation of Terminator lore here: where it once seemed there were only two models of Terminators - both made in large quantities - there are now a lot of them with different faces. On top of that, I think the first movie stated that only one man and one machine could be sent back in time. The second movie already messed with that statement and this series throws it completely out of the window — multiple machines and multiple humans travel back in time to suit the plot.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
Even the first movie didn't avoid paradox -- future John Connor sent back his friend to protect Sarah Connor, said friend then impregnating Sarah Connor with... John Connor!
In any case, yeah, time travel always causes problems, but I think they're actually trying to deal with some of them. The inevitability of Skynet is developing as a theme, not a plot hole.
All in all, not too bad so far. I'll give it a bit more time.
2 - Josh Lasser
Congratulations! This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States.
3 - Ty
"The fembot is played very well by Summer Glau, who previously showed off her kookiness in Firefly and in this role gets to kick quite a bit of ass."
Most recently, Summer Glau showed off her kookiness in The 4400, playing "Tess," a lady given mind control powers by people from the future to save the future. Sounds very Terminator-esque, huh?
4 - Steven van L.
Yes Phillip but the first movie had a cause and effect loop, not an outright contradiction, I think.
Ty, Summer Glau seems to be kooky in pretty much all her roles so far, but she was less with the ass-kicking in 4400. She reminds me of Christina Ricci a little. In any case, I'm a fan!
John great to hear about Advance.net! I'll go check them out.