However, this rant isn't really about Die Hard or Jurassic Park, but Terminator. I have many friends who enjoy the Terminator movies, but they never fully understand the complexities of the film. They always have questions for me such as, "If Kyle Reese died, how would John be able to meet him in the future?" "I thought they fuckin' stopped Judgment Day! This shit sucks, they're just trying to make money!" And my favorite "How is it the T-1000 can survive practically anything with out really being damaged, but cannot survive hot metal?" (Yes that last one is an actually question!)
"There is no fate, but what we make of it."
First I'm going to tackle the first three questions and then throw in my two cents. Kyle Reese -- how will John be able to meet his father after he had die? It's really simple: Think about this, lets say Kyle was born in the year 2045 and he went back in time to 1984, killed the terminator and then died, time will continue from 1984 right back up to the year 2045 where Kyle was born because time was reset. Remember in order to wipe Kyle off the face of the Earth you need to kill his parents or his parents parents etc. However, that doesn't mean kill only one parent, you'll understand why later.
The second question is I thought they destroyed Skynet and that was the end of Judgment Day. Yes, it's true they did destroy Skynet, but remember the quote "There is no fate, but what we make of it?" That isn't entirely true, that's just as motto John told Kyle -- it's simply a belief. This is where everything gets a little complex because it deals with multiple timelines.
The first timeline had no interruptions (there was no going back into time to change the future, because on this timeline "time" was normal). Everything resumed normally. Judgment Day happened in 1997. The T-800 was Skynets most advanced robot and humans were winning the war against Skynet. Now, during this first timeline, Skynet decides to alter time or the future and sends a T-800 back in time to kill Sarah Connor, John's mother. The resistance discovered this news and sent back Kyle to protect Sarah.
Since the T-800 and Kyle went back in time, they caused a ripple or a "change" in history. Remember the quote above? You're going to see an example why that's not entirely true and it's simply wishful thinking. Since they went back in time, they created a second alternate timeline (which would be the first Terminator movie) or an alternate timeline. At the beginning of The Terminator Sarah was going on a date, but he blew her off. Remember? That man would have been John's father. But since Kyle and the T-800 went back in time -- where they weren't suppose to be -- the changed things. Instead of going out on a date, she ends up going to the movies and then is attacked by the T-800; moreover, then she ends up being with Kyle and he becomes John's father. So two things are important here: One, no matter what John Connor was going to be born no matter who his father was. Two, before Kyle and the T-800 went back in time, Kyle was not John Connors father, his father was someone else.
Think of it this way there's alternate timelines, every person that lives will live no matter what. Based on your actions, it changes your future. So in one timeline Kyle was John's father because she got with him. In another Kyle wasn't his father becuse Sarah got with the guy who blew her off. The paths timeline changes a bit, but the events and their "actions" are inevitable (I.e. No matter what John would lead the resistance. No matter what Kyle would go back in time. No matter what John would meet kate. Etc.). Unless, they are killed, then that changes everything. If Kyle was killed in the future, John would have to send someone else and he would most likely fail, because Kyle was the one who was suppose to go back in time.
Now lets finish up the second timeline: Kyle dies, Sarah kills the T-800, the government takes the chip and the arm and Sarah flees with John. During the second timeline, time continues "normally" and Judgment Day still happens in August 29th, 1997, Skynet is still losing the war, but Skynet is more advanced, so now they send back the T-1000 and the resistance sends back the T-800 to protect John as a child. With that being said, since two Terminator's went back in time, they reset time again and time resumed with a third alternate timeline in 1995.
Durring the third alternate timeline (Terminator 2), which is when Skynet is after John Connor when he's ten years old, we are introduced to the new terminator -- the T-1000 and advanced prototype. Now before the third timeline, or before two terminators went back in time, Cyberdine's Miles Dyson had advanced technology from the future. The technology is thirty-four years ahead of Miles, however, that advancement was studied by Dyson in the second timeline and the third timeline. In other words that's the reason why the T-1000 was more advanced -- technology (the first T-800) from thirty-four years into the future is left thirty-four years in the past + a brilliant mind studying this technology + time continuing up to when Skynet would send a terminator back into time to kill John = an advance prototype because the technology had time to evolve.
We're still working with the third timeline, which involves the second question -- if they stopped Judgment Day by destroying Cyberdine and Dyson (he's responsible for Judgment Day), then how did it happen?" It's simple. There's somethings a lot of people don't take into account. Because they destroyed Cyberdine and Dyson died, that doesn't mean Judgment Day was stopped. Why? Remember in Terminator 2 when we are first introduced to Miles Dyson, a guy sucking on a lollipop comes running in saying that "they" wanted to study it and he needed to check it out. In other words, yes Cyberdine was destroyed and Dyson, but they never actually killed all the people who studied the technology! There were other people familiar with the chip and the arm -- many people studied it and had their own data that they may have taken home (after all Miles Dyson took his work home).
Therefore, if other people had the knowledge and began to understand the technology from the future, it makes since that Judgment Day would still happen! However, there's a catch -- because they didn't have the original chip or arm from the first terminator to reverse engineer; and, Cyberdine along with the advance data was destroyed, and Miles Dyson the man responsible for Judgment Day being killed, they'd have to start from scratch all over again with the little bit of advance knowledge from the future they had, which means one thing: Judgment Day would be DELAYED! Now, in part two of this post we'll transition into the fourth timeline...
-- Connor Murphy
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