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Post by theturk on Dec 20, 2008 19:04:43 GMT -5
I don't think the California Drones are a failed marketing campaign by Fox. Rather, the writers capitalized on a real-life unexplained UFO phenomena, and weaved it seamlessly into the mystery behind the 3 dots. Correct. As fun as it is to imagine we were that clever with viral marketing, the truth is that Josh and Natalie have long been fascinated with the California Drones and worked the mythology into the episode.
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Post by Black Canary on Dec 20, 2008 22:20:54 GMT -5
I think Jesse is exactly what she claims to be and was described as - a "rogue" Resistance member who wants to change the way Connor operates - or possibly even remove Connor as leader of the Resistance. Since she's from Australia, and not directly under Connor's command, she and presumably her fellow members of her faction have less awe of him than those around him. In a way, this is similar to the Hitler assassination plot in the new Tom Cruise movie, "Valkyrie". At some point, soldiers start questioning their leaders when the war goes badly. Then they start assassinating their leaders. In Vietnam, I knew of cases where officers and NCOs were "fragged" by their own troops who didn't respect them. I think Jesse is somewhat like that. She claims to be trying to "save" John from Cameron - but she might have said that just to enlist Derek's support in getting rid of Cameron, John's primary protector (besides Sarah). Her real intentions might be to remove John Connor as the leader of the Resistance entirely. But to do that she has to get rid of Cameron, Derek and Sarah. But as I indicated elsewhere, I suspect that Jesse intends something more than merely inserting Riley into John's life. That won't be enough to get rid of Cameron. Cameron must be physically destroyed. The only way to get John to do that is to frame Cameron for doing something really bad - like killing Riley, Derek or even Sarah. Kill Sarah, frame Cameron, John destroys Cameron - that leaves John under the influence of Derek, a Terminator hater - and Jesse, who has Derek under her thumb. Then she can convince Derek that maybe HE ought to be the leader of the Resistance. If he doesn't buy it, well, she can kill him, too. Now as others have said, the problem with this theory is that Jesse could have killed John before this. OTOH, Cameron has usually been around - even when John was running away from her and ended up at the Santa Monica pier. Of course, there was the "lover's lane" opportunity. So maybe Jesse doesn't actually want to kill John. That WOULD be risky if he really is the myth everybody claims he is. So I think she just wants to CONTROL him. Which mean Sarah AND Cameron have to go. I like your theory here. Although I think if anyone is likely to be killed off, it's probably going to be Riley rather than Sarah. No one had a problem when John was just raised by his mom (especially since she dies anyways), but now that Cameron's involved people clearly aren't happy. The "purists" of the resistance who don't like the machines working with them probably want to reinforce John's hatred of machines. And since Jesse clearly holds no real affection for Riley, it wouldn't be out of character for her to simply kill her off so she could blame it on Cameron and permanently sway John's opinion on Terminators. As for Derek... I think he's just being used by Jesse, like everyone else here. Which is why I hope Jesse finally runs into Sarah and gets a patented Sarah Connor Smackdown. Because she seriously has it coming!
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Post by richardstevenhack on Dec 20, 2008 22:39:57 GMT -5
Oooh, that would be fun! A full-scale, woman-on-woman Celebrity Death Match smackdown between Sarah and Jesse! That would be better than just watching Cameron snapping Jesse's neck, fun though that would be. Even better would be to have the smackdown until both women are exhausted, THEN have Cameron or Derek just shoot her just before she can shoot Sarah. Can I write a script or can't I? ;D ;D
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alexina
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Post by alexina on Dec 21, 2008 22:29:02 GMT -5
My-oh-my it's been a while since I've been around these parts! Well anyway, I'm just going to do a quick post here and say Awesome! (The capital 'A' is important!) I have been thoroughly entertained thus far, and really just can't wait for more! I think I'm going to have read some of these posts first before I start going off on any theories, but loving the symbolism in this ep. a lot. And poor Sarah again. Damn, this girl just can't catch a break. Makes me wonder if she sleeps with one eye open.
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Post by richardstevenhack on Dec 21, 2008 23:06:16 GMT -5
She needs to sleep with both eyes open - with somebody - to get some relaxation and some calm before she goes terminally nuts. They should either hook her up with Kyle again or bring Charley back.
Besides, we need some sex in this show besides John and Riley making out and Derek shacking up with an ebil ebil bitch who's just playing him.
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Post by allergygal on Dec 23, 2008 19:38:23 GMT -5
She needs to sleep with both eyes open - with somebody - to get some relaxation and some calm before she goes terminally nuts. They should either hook her up with Kyle again or bring Charley back. Besides, we need some sex in this show besides John and Riley making out and Derek shacking up with an ebil ebil bitch who's just playing him. Agreed. Although I'm not sure even a romp with Kyle or Charley could help Sarah right now. She's probably just going to be a basket case until she gets to the bottom of this 3-dots/alien craft thing. I vote more sex anyway. ;D
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Post by littleb on Dec 24, 2008 23:32:27 GMT -5
... Besides, we need some sex in this show besides John and Riley making out and Derek shacking up with an ebil ebil bitch who's just playing him. Maybe we should start some sort of campaign. Poor girl barely ever smiles... but then no one she shacks up with seems to have an overly long life expectancy so you can understand her reticence. Not sure about Kyle though, she's got enough crazy going on already, that'd mess with her head and then some!
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Post by richardstevenhack on Dec 25, 2008 17:07:19 GMT -5
Yeah. I'd be inclined to leave out Kyle as well for that reason - along with the fact that once again there's far too much future control of the past. Much as everybody likes Kyle, I'd like to see him stay in the future. Give him a bigger role - but keep him in the future - or for that matter, in the T-1 past.
They could do flashbacks with Sarah and Kyle in the T-1 days, stuff that might have occurred during their run from the original Terminator. There's not much room since they were only together for two days, but there might be room for a couple scenes. It took a while to make those pipe bombs in the hotel room in between screwing sessions! ;D
Charley would be perfect - except that he'd need to grow some to be able to handle a toughie like Sarah. But since he's pissed that Michelle died, that would be the right character growth to give him. I do hope he comes back and hooks up with Sarah. He would be just the guy to provide some decent father figure for John (better than Derek), keep Sarah from going nuts, provide a foil for Cameron, and bounce off Derek - while making sure they stay medically patched up. He doesn't have to turn into a tough guy or a Resistance fighter himself - just grow enough to deal with the Connors circumstances.
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Post by Derek Reese on Dec 25, 2008 17:09:43 GMT -5
Yeah. I'd be inclined to leave out Kyle as well for that reason - along with the fact that once again there's far too much future control of the past. Much as everybody likes Kyle, I'd like to see him stay in the future. Give him a bigger role - but keep him in the future - or for that matter, in the T-1 past. They could do flashbacks with Sarah and Kyle in the T-1 days, stuff that might have occurred during their run from the original Terminator. There's not much room since they were only together for two days, but there might be room for a couple scenes. It took a while to make those pipe bombs in the hotel room in between screwing sessions! ;D That would be a great excuse to see the deleted scene from T1 play out with Sarah/Kyle. This one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYfvWCKAc7E
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Post by richardstevenhack on Dec 25, 2008 18:23:24 GMT -5
Having never seen the deleted scenes, I just spent some time watching 7 outtakes from the T-1 movie and the Cameron T-2 deleted scenes explanations.
What fascinated me from the T-1 outtakes was that just like in T-2 and in the series, it is SARAH who initiates the goal of tracking down and preventing Skynet from existing. Kyle just wanted to finish his mission of protecting her. He even sounded like Uncle Bob in T-2 by saying it would be "tactically dangerous" to attempt to destroy Cyberdyne and that it would be better to lie low.
It is SARAH who explicitly says that the future can be changed and should be changed. And in the deleted alternate ending of T-2, it is clear that Cameron initially wanted to show that the future could be changed explicitly by following Sarah's goal. Cameron only changed it because he said it would be better not to tie up the story like a bow, and allow for the continuous necessity of having a good vs evil fight.
The other fascinating bit was the chip removal and replacement scene in T-2 wherein Furlong as John, just like the current John, is the one who makes the strategic decision to reimplant the chip, EXACTLY like John does with Cameron in episode one of this season, overriding Sarah's desire to destroy the chip because she doesn't trust Uncle Bob, just as Sarah today doesn't trust Cameron.
And that whole scene was explicitly in the first cut of T-2 because Cameron wanted to show that Uncle Bob had the potential of learning to be independent of Skynet - which is why Skynet put the chip into read-only mode for Terminators sent out alone, and why Sarah says, "Skynet doesn't want you thinking too much." This is EXACTLY the situation I envisage with Cameron in the current series. It wasn't so much that Uncle Bob could "learn to be human" but that he could learn to be INDEPENDENT of Skynet.
Viewing these deleted scenes has shown me that much of what I thought about the series via-v-a-vis the movies is indeed correct, contrary to the interpretations of others.
The idea that the T-2 deleted dream scene with Kyle would fit better in the current series is a good one. It would indeed - and having seen the deleted scene, I suspect more now that it is exactly what Josh will be going for, using Kyle to snap Sarah out of her insanity and put her back on track - preferably back on track to hunting down Skynet which, as I see from the T-1 deleted scene, was precisely her primary interest even way back in T-1, let alone T-2.
So I'm hoping that the entire Season 2 track will go into reverse in the back nine - dump all the stand alones, the Terminators of the week, the Cameron glitch, the Sarah insanity, Riley, the Blood Wall, all that - and get back to Job One - stopping Skynet from ever existing.
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Post by allergygal on Jan 6, 2009 14:16:43 GMT -5
Brought over from The Season 2 Spoilers Thread (not a spoiler and I want to reply): ...where he talks to his pastor (and can I just say how awesome that scene was? For it was. Awesome - a pastoral relationship not about beating the audience over the head with a moral but actually illuminating and showcasing character. So awesome. Wait, you liked that scene? After Earthlings aired I specifically mentioned that as being the one scene I would have cut from the episode. It was boring and only served to make what I think was a pretty thin connection between Ellison having missed out on the chance to be a father several years ago and wanting to teach John Henry some morals. Yeah, see I don't have any kids of my own since my wife aborted our child, so I'm thinking about raising this artificial brain hooked to a cyborg as my own.Although, if he'd actually said that, it would have at least been a funny scene.
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cyadon
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Post by cyadon on Jan 6, 2009 14:29:43 GMT -5
Brought over from The Season 2 Spoilers Thread (not a spoiler and I want to reply): ...where he talks to his pastor (and can I just say how awesome that scene was? For it was. Awesome - a pastoral relationship not about beating the audience over the head with a moral but actually illuminating and showcasing character. So awesome. Wait, you liked that scene? After Earthlings aired I specifically mentioned that as being the one scene I would have cut from the episode. It was boring and only served to make what I think was a pretty thin connection between Ellison having missed out on the chance to be a father several years ago and wanting to teach John Henry some morals. Yeah, see I don't have any kids of my own since my wife aborted our child, so I'm thinking about raising this artificial brain hooked to a cyborg as my own.Although, if he'd actually said that, it would have at least been a funny scene. That was also a scene I'm not fond of. The backstory between him and Lila, I like. I think it explains a lot and is a good setup. The way the used the preacher so that James could dump a ton of exposition was just not well done, and was just this wall of information that took a bit to process. Realistically speaking, the preacher should already know it -- I found myself pondering why the preacher had to be told now, years later. And, of course, that pulls you out of the scene and makes it less likely for you (the audience) to connect with what's going on. I think it would have been better to incorporate some of that information from the preacher scene into earlier episodes, specifically the two with Lila. Or have Lila appear again in this episode -- seeing as how I thought the actress they chose for her was absolutely fantastic -- and maybe have to have her and Ellison deal with post divorce paperwork. They could have discussed this lost child concept then and left him angry and willing to raise John Henry as his own at that point.
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Post by allergygal on Jan 6, 2009 14:46:47 GMT -5
That was also a scene I'm not fond of. The backstory between him and Lila, I like. I think it explains a lot and is a good setup. The way the used the preacher so that James could dump a ton of exposition was just not well done, and was just this wall of information that took a bit to process. Realistically speaking, the preacher should already know it -- I found myself pondering why the preacher had to be told now, years later. And, of course, that pulls you out of the scene and makes it less likely for you (the audience) to connect with what's going on. I think it would have been better to incorporate some of that information from the preacher scene into earlier episodes, specifically the two with Lila. Or have Lila appear again in this episode -- seeing as how I thought the actress they chose for her was absolutely fantastic -- and maybe have to have her and Ellison deal with post divorce paperwork. They could have discussed this lost child concept then and left him angry and willing to raise John Henry as his own at that point. Exactly. It was a clunky scene and what it gave us could have been given much better in one of the earlier scenes with Lila. Even so, I find the whole Ellison wishing-he-was-a-dad-thing a bit forced. When Catherine later mentioned his paternal instincts as one of the reasons why he'd be good for John Henry, I was trying to figure out where she was drawing that conclusion from. It feels like a tacked-on character arc.
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DEM
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Post by DEM on Jan 6, 2009 17:05:45 GMT -5
Man, I get sleepy just reading about that scene! ;D
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k8ie
Corporal
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Post by k8ie on Jan 6, 2009 18:30:59 GMT -5
That was also a scene I'm not fond of. The backstory between him and Lila, I like. I think it explains a lot and is a good setup. The way the used the preacher so that James could dump a ton of exposition was just not well done, and was just this wall of information that took a bit to process. Realistically speaking, the preacher should already know it... I disagree. It was a scene I really like for a number of reasons, some textual, some not. I thought it was a really good characterization of a pastoral relationship, which are not that common on TV unless someone needs a moral to be delivered, and it was nice to see a mentoring scene between two adult character of colour, which are even less common on TV (the only other example of a show where characters of colour routinely turn to each other for moral guidance that I can think of is Little Mosque on the Prairie). Like a lot of SCC character beats, I also thought it played backwards and forwards along the charater arc, adding depth to Ellison's previous encounters with his wife while calling shennanigans on his attempt to guilt Sarah Connor into recruiting him for Robot!War. But, to me the scene wasn't about Ellison's frustrated paternal desires but about establishing his moral and religious bona fides, reminding the audience that Ellison is not a just a spiritual man but a religious man. Whereas Sarah Connor answers to her conscience, Ellison answers to God - a God of hard and fast rules about good and evil. The story about the abortion couldn't have come out in a scene with the ex because then the issue of the story is the fact of the abortion, whereas in the emphasis in the scene with the minister is that the abortion was the reason Ellison ended his marriage to a woman he still loves, the implications of which pay off in the scene with John Henry: Playing off the scene with the minister, we know that, however intellectually unsatisfying an answer "because we're God's children" may be to the question "why does human life matter", it is an answer that Ellison believes absolutely. And it raises the possibility that Ellison will make a leap that Sarah Connor never will to accept not only the fact of John Henry's existence but to find in that existence the essential quality that give value to existence: And were Ellison to conclude that John Henry is life, his beliefs would demand that he protect that life from those who would try to take it.... And that's why I like that scene. (Transcript courtesy of AG)
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