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Post by vicheron on Dec 2, 2008 21:54:14 GMT -5
John would obviously be suspicious and attribute it to Cameron's chip damage.
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Post by richardstevenhack on Dec 3, 2008 0:06:54 GMT -5
I still have to disagree that Cameron is in any way contemplating self-termination. That would be 1) an emotional response that she can' t have, and 2) not even close to being a rational response to any situation she's in except POSSIBLY the one in which she is so damaged and dysfunctional that she is a threat to John Connor and cannot possibly complete either her alleged "mission" of protecting him OR her hidden agenda. In which case, the best possible outcome might be considered self-termination or termination by John.
I think Cameron simply has an intellectual fascination with the effects of death on humans, because it directly relates to her own self-developed self-initiative to survive. She has in my view developed the quite rational decision to survive on her own - and clearly this is a very new concept for her, for which there is nothing in her Terminator programming to relate to. only humans have issues with life and death.
In fact, in episode one, even while glitched, in the chapel, she said, "It's life or death". While she might have merely been referring to her intent to terminate John, it might also have reflected the way the glitch affected her new programming to personally survive.
As for why Cameron took on this Terminator while being willing to ignore the others, I don't think that's quite accurate. Cameron thought little Marty Bedell wasn't important - not that the Terminator after the older Martin Bedell wasn't important. As for Terminator Carter, Cameron suggested that it was too much of a risk for John to enter the warehouse - not that stopping Carter was not important. She simply assessed the risk for John as too high. She didn't want to flee when she determined Cromartie came through in "Heavy Metal" - that was Sarah. Cameron simply noted to John that if Cromartie's appearance had changed, they wouldn't know what he looked like. She said nothing about fleeing.
Terminator Stark was clearly involved in some mission to pave the way for either Skynet to exist or for Skynet to take over. That was a plot her own personal agenda as well as her programmed mission required her to deal with.
What is interesting to me is this: did she dispose of Stark's body? And did she dispose of the CHIP? Did she tell the Connors about the incident?
She came back to the library after taking down Stark. Did she have time to find some thermite and dispose of the body? I think not. Did she do it later after leaving the library? We don't know.
But the main thing is: did she tell the Connors about the incident - and did she tell them what she did with the CHIP? And did she tell the TRUTH when she told them about it? We don't know.
Or was Stark one of those Terminators re-designed to have a self-destructing chip, like the female Terminator? We don't know.
Lots of unanswered questions about this espisode.
I did like her interaction with the library guy - and his acting was superb, as others have noted. She was as much into human simulation mode as possible in dealing with him - and only began slipping when she had to go into "Terminator mode" to deal with the mystery of Terminator Stark. At that point, it was clear that she would have a falling out with the guy since there's no way she can explain anything in detail to him - about the gun, the need to find out about Stark, how she could know certain things, how she had no feelings about his cancer.
It was interesting that she took the initiative to do a skin test on him - or a scan, if that's what she did (I don't know how you can identify a tumor in his bone via a skin test - but then did she lie to Sarah about doing CAT scans last season? Why? Or is this just another case where the audience is expected to not ask questions?) But it's clear to me that it wasn't because she "cared" for him as anything but a person who was useful to her. The way she instantly bribed the female staff member when it was clear Eric was gone made that clear. She wanted Eric to get medical help so he could survive and keep letting her in the library. That's it.
Would be interesting to see her interacting with the female staff member in subsequent episodes - but we probably won't see that since it's been done.
The one time I recall her engaging in human interaction with some indication of "interest" was with Jordan Cowan. Jordan was nobody to Cameron - just some teenager who was upset. But Cameron made the effort to offer her the makeup compact as a "tight present". I always wondered why she bothered when she was perfectly willing to let the girl commit suicide. She probably was merely practicing human interaction. But it was an unusual scene in relation to subsequent Cameron episodes - like letting Dmitri and his sister get murdered without a second thought.
Clearly these sorts of scenes present a dichotomy with regard to Cameron's human relations. But most of them are easily explained by examining what would be a Terminator's logical reaction to most of the situations. It's easy to find a "human" reason for Cameron's reactions - and that's what the writers want the audience to do, to empathize with the character. But at the same time, they also make sure to keep Cameron's behavior ambiguous and vacillating between completely unemotional and emotional because it's fairly clear that Cameron can not and does not have human emotions. Again, Josh has made it clear that he isn't interested in making Cameron "human" - he's interested in how Cameron interacts with and deals with humans from her own unique nature.
So for the majority of the audience, Cameron is made to SEEM "emotional' to make her more acceptable, while for the more discerning audience the exploration of her inhuman nature is made more compelling.
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Post by vicheron on Dec 3, 2008 0:16:17 GMT -5
Cameron doesn't concern herself with "side missions." She never wanted to confront Cromartie until it became necessary. She wasn't just concerned with John's safety when they saw Terminator Carter, she was going to leave with Sarah. She didn't want to save Derek at all. Derek was the one who saw the death of the first Martin Biddell in the newspaper even though we know that Cameron monitors the news.
The fact that Cameron went to eliminate Stark by herself suggests that either she's changed or that the person Stark is trying to assassinate will somehow affect John Connor in the future.
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Post by richardstevenhack on Dec 3, 2008 0:38:23 GMT -5
Sorry, Vicheron, but those are your interpretations.
Her alleged mission was to protect John, and that doesn't require dealing with Cromartie - merely evading him. She never went on a search for Cromartie because Cromartie's only mission was to terminate John Connor - not create Skynet.
She DID try to get rid of Cromartie in the school when she used Morris to fool Cromartie. When Cromartie left the school office, Cameron marched right after him, obviously intending to attack him at some point. But John's sudden presence interrupted her.
But most of the time merely evading Cromartie was sufficient to enable her to protect John.
With Carter, she wasn't going to leave with Sarah. First, Sarah intended to leave because of Cromartie. Cameron was fine with that because protecting John was her first objective. Second, Sarah wanted to back off from confronting Carter in the warehouse because the risk of other Terminators or human dupes was too great. Cameron acknowledged that risk, while John was willing to ignore it because "war is dangerous." Revisit that scene and you'll see Cameron said nothing about completely ignoring Carter or his mission there.
We don't know that Cameron saw the newspaper report about Martin Bedell at all, let alone ignored it. That's an assumption. Once revealed, she said nothing about ignoring the Terminator going after the Bedell's - she just stated that the kid was not important - which was true in her mind. Cameron is not there to protect everybody - just herself and John Connor. She probably wouldn't even bother protecting Sarah except to the degree that John would obviously be upset if she didn't. The only person she has any interest in is herself and John Connor - herself if you believe my theory about her motivations, and John in both that theory and the standard line that she was sent back to protect him.
Her mission is narrowly focused if you believe the standard line. The ONLY thing she has to do is protect John Connor - IF that's her only mission.
By my theory, that's insufficient. She has to protect John Connor AND deal with Skynet threats.
But she doesn't have to deal with EVERY Skynet operation if it involves people that are relevant only to the future resistance, like Bedell or this "General Perry" in the next episode. If her agenda is to survive, protect John Connor and stop Skynet from existing, then her mission priorities are quite narrowly focused.
And in fact those priorities are a lot more rational than the Connors and Derek running around protecting everybody in Skynet's side plots, rather than dealing with the main issue of stopping Skynet.
Obviously Stark's mission involved some aspect of either enabling Skynet to exist or smoothing Skynet's takeover or the Mayor being somebody important in the Resistance in the future. But we don't know what the implications of that plot was, and we don't know if Cameron knew what it was. All she knew was that it was a Skynet plot which was a threat. It could have been a threat to John or not. She didn't know. So she dealt with it.
Again, the real questions are about the aftermath: Did she tell the Connors? Will she followup on why the plot was important? And what she did do with the body and the chip? If we don't see followup on that in a subsequent episode, I'll be a bit disappointed.
Update: One place where she clearly didn't view a "mission priority" was finding Barbara Chamberlain's body. I would say there that she assumed Barbara was dead and therefore of little use. When it turned out that it wasn't Barbara that was dead, of course, that situation changed. We heard nothing about the "priority" after that.
Not that Cameron would ever have revealed Vic's chip to the Connors, so that whole episode wouldn't have occurred had not Derek found it. This suggests that Cameron's personal agenda involving that chip had priority over even stopping Skynet. But we still don't know what ARTIE actually was intended for by Skynet. And there's no evidence Cameron knew anything about Vic other than he was intended to deal with Derek and his group. So she would have no reason to even worry about what was on Vic's chip and how important it was. So it wasn't like she refused to deal with its importance.
There's absolutely zero evidence that Cameron has deviated here from her normal behavior.
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Post by theturk on Dec 3, 2008 0:51:31 GMT -5
Is Cameron strictly utilitarian and mission-oriented in her approach to humans, or does she actually "feel" attachment to certain people? Is she essentially static, or evolving in response to external stimuli? Does she simply mimic emotional responses, or is she simulating emotions enough times so that she's beginning to internalize them? These issues all fascinate us, and we're more interested in exploring them and asking questions that provoke thought and discussion than providing pat answers. And I think that makes Cameron more interesting and dynamic character than simply stating "she's an unfeeling machine" or "awwww, she wants to become more human."
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Post by vicheron on Dec 3, 2008 1:22:45 GMT -5
Sorry, Vicheron, but those are your interpretations. Her alleged mission was to protect John, and that doesn't require dealing with Cromartie - merely evading him. She never went on a search for Cromartie because Cromartie's only mission was to terminate John Connor - not create Skynet. Sure, Cameron said that in the pilot that if they traveled into the future then they could stay in one place and fight but when has she ever said that it was her mission to prevent the creation of Skynet? She suggested that they move to Canada after their house got robbed, that would pretty much ruin their chances of finding the Turk. That's your interpretation. Not dealing with Stark at all would also go towards that purpose. I never said that Cameron said that she was going to ignore Carter, only that she didn't display any initiative in dealing with Carter. Sarah wanted to move after they found out that Cromartie time traveled with them, Cameron did not object. Sarah wanted to leave after they found out that Carter wasn't Cromartie, Cameron did not object. When has Cameron ever brought up anything that didn't have to do with the safety of John Connor? When has Cameron ever displayed any initiative in dealing with these side issues? How is it obvious that Stark's mission involves enabling the creation of Skynet? Again, that's your interpretation. When has Cameron ever actively done something that doesn't involve protecting John Connor? Every significant thing Cameron has done without prompt, with the exception of behaviors resulting from the chip damage, involved protecting John Connor.
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Post by aceplace57 on Dec 3, 2008 1:53:44 GMT -5
When has Cameron ever actively done something that doesn't involve protecting John Connor? Every significant thing Cameron has done without prompt, with the exception of behaviors resulting from the chip damage, involved protecting John Connor. Sarah and John are actively following every possible lead to Skynet. That puts them in peril because key events are either carried out by Terminators or they involve people that are protected by Terminators. Cameron felt she needed to deal with the threat to the California governor before the Connors stumbled onto the plot and got themselves hurt or killed. It must be a burden protecting people that are not exactly stellar examples of crime fighting. Bless their heart the Connors mean well. But they couldn't organize a church social without spilling half the food on the floor. Their track record this season has been pretty appalling. I agree Cameron did not stop Stark out of any sense of heroism or public good. Cameron realizes evading a problem won't work because Sarah will follow any lead to Skynet.
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Post by richardstevenhack on Dec 3, 2008 2:24:27 GMT -5
TheTurk: Uh, yeah, that's what I said - you guys are making it an ambiguous issue to be explored. Unfortunately, if this were reality, it would be one or the other. I come down on she's not "internalizing" anything - unless you can explain HOW she "internalizes" emotions. Otherwise, what you're really saying is that the writers are being inconsistent. Which is not really a good idea, except to the degree I mentioned above - that for the general audience, it's acceptable, but for the more discerning audience, it's not. I happen to be in the more discerning audience group. And for that group, playing games and treading the old path of "robot wants to be human" is boring. Vicheron: I never said that Cameron ever said her mission was to stop Skynet. What I said was that it is my belief that whatever her hidden agenda is, it involves stopping Skynet as a corollary, not necessarily as a primary. And if her mission is merely to protect John Connor, well, that pretty much requires taking action against Skynet ever existing, right? If you stop Skynet, you stop Terminators coming back to kill John - which seems to me to be a pretty important strategic concept if you're a bodyguard. So either way, taking action against Skynet is important. However, taking action against EVERY one of Skynet's myriad plans to assist itself in the future fight against the Resistance is not necessarily a priority for Cameron. She'll go along when asked, but her "druthers" would be to concentrate on protecting John and stopping Skynet from ever existing. Because that's the most rational strategy to follow. Unfortunately for her, the Connors aren't terribly rational. As for the incident at school, what other interpretation of Cameron marching straight after Cromartie can you conceive of? It had all the earmarks of a Cameron attack - the music, the focused "Terminator look", etc. At worst, she intended to follow him, but more likely she intended to attack him - if not in the school, then somewhere else (most likely, since attacking him in the school would be too revealing and blow their cover - like in the elevator fight with the female Terminator.) Again, not dealing with Stark could have left John open to a threat. She didn't KNOW (as far as we know) what Stark's plan was until she found him in the building and realized the connection to the Mayor. And since that plot had nothing to do with John, her attack on Stark indicates that she will attack Terminators to screw up Skynet plans when she doesn't see any reason not to. Again, with regard to Carter, you suggested that Cameron was willing to ignore Carter's mission because she was willing to leave with Sarah from the warehouse. This simply doesn't follow. Sarah herself was not intending to ignore the mission. She just wanted to pull back because pursuing the mission in the absence of intelligence was too dangerous. Cameron agreed. Nothing more. It's hardly an argument for your contention that her behavior with regard to Stark is atypical. As for why Cameron has never brought up anything that didn't have to do with protecting John, the obvious reason is that she simply doesn't know what Skynet is doing until the behavior of the Connors or others reveals it to her. She didn't know the significance of Barbara Chamberlain at all until the chip was examined and the other woman's death was revealed. She didn't know about Carter at all - she thought his actions in diverting the coltan were done by Cromartie. She didn't know about Martin Bedell at all. One could conceivably ask why, if future John confides in her so much, and if she even knew about Kyle Reese being sent back in time to protect Sarah, and if future John has sent through the wounded fighter with all these facts about Skynet plots, then why didn't she know about all of them in advance? I can't explain that except to suggest that future John didn't know about these plots until after Cameron came through. Again, we don't even know how future John finds out about these plots. As I've indicated, it's unlikely to be through his memories of the past - otherwise all he'd have to do is send back a nice 32GB flash drive with John's every action for the next four years... She has never OBJECTED to dealing with Skynet plots directly. Compared to your contention that her behavior with Stark was atypical, it's clear that this fact has more weight. As to Stark's missions, I said that there were only 3 interpretations that are reasonable, based on what Skynet has tried to date - either insuring Skynet's creation (via Weaver and the like), assisting its takeover (the nuclear plant and Fischer), or affecting the future Resistance (the nuclear plant and the Bedell assassination plot). I didn't say any particular one was the intent of Stark's plot. I don't know the intent and neither does anyone else, including Cameron. My point was that Cameron didn't know - therefore whether her mission was merely to protect John or whether it was part of her agenda to stop Skynet, or both, she had to deal with whatever the plot was - because she didn't know what it was until she found Stark in the building and matched it to data in her memory. Again, we don't know what Cameron's agenda is. My theory is that it involves her survival. If that is the case, then by definition she has to stop Skynet, because Skynet will cause Judgment Day, and the Resistance, and the war, and at the end of the war either the humans will destroy her or Skynet will resume control of her. If she is truly an independent AI, neither of these outcomes is acceptable. Therefore she HAS to try to stop Skynet. And again, if her mission is merely to protect John Connor, then stopping Skynet from ever existing is THE best way of stopping Skynet from killing John Connor. If Terminator Stark can figure out how to survive for ninety years to complete his mission, I think Cameron can figure out that little bit of logic. That should be obvious. Bottom line: You contended that her behavior in this episode was atypical. I have demonstrated that it is not.
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Post by vicheron on Dec 3, 2008 2:40:25 GMT -5
You have demonstrated nothing because Cameron has never actually exhibited this behavior before. You have failed to answer my question, when has Cameron ever done something like this before without prompt? She may have had plans for Carter but she didn't go after him until she had to. She may have had plans to go after Cromartie too but she didn't until she had to. Maybe she was planning to destroy Vick too but she didn't until she had to. You're just speculating on what she might have done, while I'm focusing on what she actually did. The fact is that Cameron has never taken the initiative in these situations. Saying that Cameron had all these other plans and designs is like saying the Uncle Bob had always planned to destroy Cyberdyne and kill the T-1000 and it was just fortuitous that things played out the way they did so he didn't have to take the initiative in doing those things.
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Post by chrisimo on Dec 3, 2008 2:45:08 GMT -5
TheTurk: Uh, yeah, that's what I said - you guys are making it an ambiguous issue to be explored. Unfortunately, if this were reality, it would be one or the other. Well, it probably is one or the other. The series gives clues, but not definitive answers. That doesn't mean that there isn't a definitive answer. But maybe we will never get that clear answer. I come down on she's not "internalizing" anything - unless you can explain HOW she "internalizes" emotions. Why? No one explained how Skynet works. No one explained how it got self-aware. Otherwise, what you're really saying is that the writers are being inconsistent. Which is not really a good idea, except to the degree I mentioned above - that for the general audience, it's acceptable, but for the more discerning audience, it's not. I happen to be in the more discerning audience group. And for that group, playing games and treading the old path of "robot wants to be human" is boring. Well, as long as the series doesn't say that Cameron wants to be human, you must be happy. The fact that Cameron went to eliminate Stark by herself suggests that either she's changed or that the person Stark is trying to assassinate will somehow affect John Connor in the future. It is also possible that Cameron only fights these less important threats on her own. We haven't seen her on her own that much. Maybe she just doesn't want to take any risks when she is with the Connors. Another explanation might be that she got intrigued by this special case because she had to dig all those information up. She had to invest a lot of work to understand the Terminators goals and she wanted to finish that work.
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Post by nyccine on Dec 3, 2008 7:05:12 GMT -5
Is Cameron strictly utilitarian and mission-oriented in her approach to humans, or does she actually "feel" attachment to certain people? Is she essentially static, or evolving in response to external stimuli? Does she simply mimic emotional responses, or is she simulating emotions enough times so that she's beginning to internalize them? These issues all fascinate us, and we're more interested in exploring them and asking questions that provoke thought and discussion than providing pat answers. And I think that makes Cameron more interesting and dynamic character than simply stating "she's an unfeeling machine" or "awwww, she wants to become more human." See, I don't understand this. Not infrequently, the producers and writers have, in various interviews, argued that they would not show obvious emotional development because that's something that's "already been done", yet this exact arc is not simply something that's been done in other series, it's what James Cameron did in T2-explore if it is in fact possible for a Terminator's programming to eventually understand humanity, and what that would mean to it. If you didn't get that from the film (though it's hard to miss), Mr Cameron flat-out told us what his intent was; essentially, what you're doing is little more than rehashing what has already been done in the franchise. Even worse, you're putting the question back into play, which threatens to undermine not only the show itself, but the development we saw in T2. I don't understand why the writers seem to be so afraid of building on what James Cameron gave them, it's not like there is a lack of storytelling potential in taking that next step; quite the contrary, there's a wealth of possibilities, not just for Cameron, but everyone in the series.
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Post by vicheron on Dec 3, 2008 7:27:06 GMT -5
Because it's very egocentric to think that something that's so different from us will somehow want to become like us just by learning our values. Also, humans are not defined by a set of universal values, James Cameron did not have time in the movie to explore this, the show does.
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t101
Major
Posts: 716
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Post by t101 on Dec 3, 2008 9:51:09 GMT -5
So what's the deal with this pic? It looks like they've changed the episode quiet a bit.
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DEM
Refugee
I'm Kilroy.
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Post by DEM on Dec 3, 2008 10:32:42 GMT -5
"Standalone" isn't the issue. The issue for me is whether an episode -- any episode -- brings all narrative momentum to a complete and utter stop. Watching Self-Made Man I could actually hear the steel wheels grinding on the tracks and feel the heat of the sparks on the back of my hands as I clawed at my eyes. Furthermore, I'm getting the impression that the ep was meant to be standalone in the truest sense: Sarah will never know that Cameron leaves for hours at a time during the night; that she is, in effect, disregarding an important mission task. What does this say about Sarah Connor (remember her?) that all this time she's never once checked that Cameron is on watch? (Sidenote: At the rate people are successfully sneaking in and out at night, the Machines and the Resistance could send entire battalions and, as long as they were weawy weawy quiet, Sarah would never know it until she woke up with a gun to her head. : And, honestly, no... random Terminator-of-the-Week Pioneer stories don't interest me. At least this one didn't. To the extent that it worked, Allison from Palmdale did so because: a) Cameron's story wasn't completely and utterly cutoff from everything else, b) the rest of the cast didn't disappear into a black hole (even Ellison and Weaver made an appearance!), and c) there was movement in the overall story arc.
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Post by theturk on Dec 3, 2008 11:25:33 GMT -5
Is Cameron strictly utilitarian and mission-oriented in her approach to humans, or does she actually "feel" attachment to certain people? Is she essentially static, or evolving in response to external stimuli? Does she simply mimic emotional responses, or is she simulating emotions enough times so that she's beginning to internalize them? These issues all fascinate us, and we're more interested in exploring them and asking questions that provoke thought and discussion than providing pat answers. And I think that makes Cameron more interesting and dynamic character than simply stating "she's an unfeeling machine" or "awwww, she wants to become more human." See, I don't understand this. Not infrequently, the producers and writers have, in various interviews, argued that they would not show obvious emotional development because that's something that's "already been done", yet this exact arc is not simply something that's been done in other series, it's what James Cameron did in T2-explore if it is in fact possible for a Terminator's programming to eventually understand humanity, and what that would mean to it. If you didn't get that from the film (though it's hard to miss), Mr Cameron flat-out told us what his intent was; essentially, what you're doing is little more than rehashing what has already been done in the franchise. Even worse, you're putting the question back into play, which threatens to undermine not only the show itself, but the development we saw in T2. I don't understand why the writers seem to be so afraid of building on what James Cameron gave them, it's not like there is a lack of storytelling potential in taking that next step; quite the contrary, there's a wealth of possibilities, not just for Cameron, but everyone in the series. "I know now why you cry; but it is something I can never do." Whatever Cameron says about T2 (and frankly I don't really care-- we're dealing with the text itself, not the author's own interpretation of it), there's considerably more ambiguity in the portrayal of the "Uncle Bob" character than most people realize. And frankly, we're simply not interested in repeating the "robot becomes more human" journey. Cameron is on a journey, but fundamentally she's an alien life form, albeit one descended from an AI originally created by humans. And it's the journey of a sentient AI programmed to infiltrate humanity in order to destroy human targets and then imperfectly reprogrammed by John Connor to protect his younger self is what interests us.
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