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Post by aceplace57 on May 11, 2009 1:15:52 GMT -5
The comments about John's time trip are fascinating. It certainly wasn't one of his stellar moments.
Lets not forget Catherine Weaver. Its true she had a plan. She came back to 2008, took over Zeira Corp, and created John Henry. However, I'm not convinced that she fully considered the ramifications of returning to an altered future.
The Skynet that exists in this new time line could be very different then the one Weaver knew. Its technology and development are dependent on the resistance. Skynet has to counter whatever the resistance does.
Weaver may not find any of her old allies to help her. Resources that she needs may not be there. Weaver took a big gamble. Was bringing John Connor to the future a huge mistake? Has Weaver made a fatal error in judgment?
For that matter, has Josh Friedman made a big mistake? The finale was brilliantly written to create fan excitement and a desire for a third season. But, it also has made a huge mess of the central Terminator story. Getting this train back on the track isn't going to be easy.
I hope the show doesn't end permanently with all these unresolved issues.
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Post by allergygal on May 12, 2009 15:08:51 GMT -5
There's a good few steps missing. I can't imagine Sarah thinking any unknown - potentially apocalyptic - future is safer for John, and certainly not with an unknown terminator. I don't care whether Weaver just saved their lives and talked a good talk or not. All she knows at that point is that her very distracted son is heading off to the Gods only know where to chase Cameron's chip. There was a distinct lack of urgency in Sarah as John was standing there with Weaver about to head off to an unknown future in a few seconds. So she'd concluded that 1) it was his safest option or 2) she'd accepted his love for Cameron and wanted him to go be happy with her or 3) she'd just plain given up on trying to convince him that people are what matter. The first option is the only one that would've been in character, but it felt like the third one to me. I'm not sure it's respect for John's feelings that stop her shooting Cam though. She knows the feelings are there, but she knows that ending Cameron would effectively end her own relationship with John. I reckon if there was any way for her to get shut of Cameron and still have her son stick around, Cam would be thermited in a heartbeat. Yeah, I didn't see that as Sarah respecting John's feelings about a robot either. I think it was about not wanting to lose her son. Sarah was caught between a rock and hard place. Cameron had been pulling John away from her, but if she destroyed Cameron, it would potentially devastate him and drive him away. So Sarah opted to not destroy Cameron and to continue to try to convince John that people are what matter. Future!John has Cameron though, he has her and he has her in isolation, sealing himself off from humanity and losing their trust. I know Jesse's methods were questionable, but her message seemed to be sound - putting John with Cameron from age 16 is not a good thing for the future. In the end, Evil Jesse was the only sensible one! Too bad her master plan was to mess with John's love life. Introducing herself to Sarah and explaining the situation probably would've worked better. I guess he doesn't need her enough to stick around just in case she is sick. John does have important stuff to do, he has a world to save and yes, having a sick mother would be a potential distraction/danger. That's all well and good and I think Sarah would go for that. But at the end of this one, all I got was the mother remembering they actually had a mission and John buggering off to find his girlfriend. I can't see it as being anything deeper than that - it didn't seem to be intended as anything deeper than that which, for this show, was immensely disappointing. Word. Except I don't really think John intended to ditch his mom. I mean he did ditch her, but I think the shock that she'd opted out was consuming his thoughts more than the fact that he was leaving her at that moment. He was going to go no matter what, though, so not thinking it through isn't a justification, just an explanation. I like where you're going, but I'm not fully on-board. I wish they'd had more time/inclination to write it better. It just didn't gel at all for me. They ran the scenes so quickly - Sarah's sick > I love you > Cam's gone > I love Cam (more?)> John's gone > I love you too. There was so much missing in there. I think they settled on a cool ending and sacrificed their characterisation to get to it. I think the confusion comes in with the whole thing about what's truly important. Sarah said people are what matter and John seemed to say the same thing when he talked to Jesse. It's not just that human life is valuable, it's that human life is valuable because humans die. So when he lost Charley and lost Derek and maybe was thinking he could lose his mom, that should lead to a stronger sense of "people matter", not a time jump to chase after a replaceable machine. But I think it goes back to what K8tie said... John's dilemna, that Sarah recognizes, is that he considers Cameron "people" (he considered Uncle Bob "people" as well): though he's quite aware that Cameron is a machine, it doesn't change the tangle of emotions he has towards her that incorporate friend/sibling/confidant/protector/teacher/lover (leaving aside the text's strong implication that Cameron is, in many ways, a surrogate for Sarah in John's mind). I agree. The only way John leaving makes any sense is that he thinks of Cameron's programming — her chip — as being as unique and valuable as any single human life. In other words, he doesn't see her as a replaceable machine, but as a life. I think he's quite wrong in that and it's the lesson he's going to learn in the future.
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t101
Major
Posts: 716
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Post by t101 on May 12, 2009 15:43:30 GMT -5
There was a distinct lack of urgency in Sarah as John was standing there with Weaver about to head off to an unknown future in a few seconds. So she'd concluded that 1) it was his safest option or 2) she'd accepted his love for Cameron and wanted him to go be happy with her or 3) she'd just plain given up on trying to convince him that people are what matter. The first option is the only one that would've been in character, but it felt like the third one to me. 4) She lets him find his own path....? Honestly I think the train where John becomes another Sarah or Derek is gone.
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Post by littleb on May 13, 2009 4:05:15 GMT -5
There's a good few steps missing. There was a distinct lack of urgency in Sarah as John was standing there with Weaver about to head off to an unknown future in a few seconds. So she'd concluded that 1) it was his safest option Naw. I don't buy that one at all. Unrealistic as she may be, I think Sarah would consider herself a better protector than Weaver. I can't see her jumping from "Terminator Bitch" to "Protector of My Son" in twenty seconds. <LOL> The phrase "over my dead body" just leapt into my head for some reason... If I absolutely had to pick one, it might be option 1. But none of them feel right. The only option that feels right is Friedman ran out of time and wanted to make his leap. Nothing keeping the characters in character would work fast enough but he went ahead and did it anyway. Of course that ends up feeling totally wrong and leaves us with his mess to try and sort out, but it's the only option that makes any sense. It gave Sarah a story to continue - Find Danny Dyson, stop Kaliba, continue the mission, find John. It gave John a story to continue - Find Cameron's chip, get his head around his new family, get back (?) to the mission. In terms of Season 3 it was an excellent way to proceed, in terms of characterisation, it was crap. I can't see her giving up on that concept, even if she ever does come around to accepting an allegiance with Zeira. If even the "good" terminators are programmed deep inside to murder her son, she's never going to stop mistrusting them, because there's always that chance of reversion. I think someone needs to keep their perspective regarding that, because John's certainly lost his. One of the daftest things he did in the episode was just shrug off the fact that "deep down" Cameron still wants to kill him. I mean, I'm all for living on the edge, but he's too important a figure to be taking stupid risks. Okay when he's a screwed up just 16 year old with blood on his hands, not so okay when he's supposedly matured into the future leader of mankind. Her reasoning was sound, methodology not so much! I think between the three adults - Sarah, Jesse, Derek, they might have had a chance. John's dilemna, that Sarah recognizes, is that he considers Cameron "people" (he considered Uncle Bob "people" as well): though he's quite aware that Cameron is a machine, it doesn't change the tangle of emotions he has towards her that incorporate friend/sibling/confidant/protector/teacher/lover (leaving aside the text's strong implication that Cameron is, in many ways, a surrogate for Sarah in John's mind). I agree. The only way John leaving makes any sense is that he thinks of Cameron's programming — her chip — as being as unique and valuable as any single human life. In other words, he doesn't see her as a replaceable machine, but as a life. I think he's quite wrong in that and it's the lesson he's going to learn in the future. It's probably another thing that we've had to work too hard to glean from the subtext, but I think you're on the right lines. The show has certainly been playing in that area with John Henry - the entity - who is not just a machine but a configuration of wires and hardware and software that exists in just that form and alters if anything is changed in any way. Course, that entity is now Cameron which muddies the issue a lot... Maybe John will learn his lesson at the school of hard knocks. He's now got Allison as a comparison to Cameron. An instant reminder that the machine once had humanity and disposed of it like garbage to suit its own ends. Flick a switch and Cameron can revert to the machine that snapped alt.Allison's neck like a dry twig. But Cameron is now in John Henry and she jumped forward to a future where John Connor doesn't exist (or if he does, he doesn't lead anything). So... did she mean for John to follow (and her apology implies, she didn't) and if not, why did she specifically choose to jump there? The other lesson John might be learning is that Cameron is running her own show in the future...
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k8ie
Corporal
Posts: 1,482
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Post by k8ie on May 20, 2009 12:47:47 GMT -5
Oh, God.
I'm so stupid.
So. Stupid.
[Oh, shut it, Cy - you know what I mean]
Of course Sarah lets John go/sends John into the future: it's the one chance she has left to save him from Skynet, Judgement Day, The Resistance - this terrible fate that she's hung over his head since the day he was old enough to understand it.
Sarah promises John that she'll stop Judgement Day, repeating what she said in the Pilot: "I'll stop it."
You have to believe that those aren't empty words to Sarah Connor. They go directly to the heart of the character and the core of the series. From the Pilot:
John: Why is this happening again?
Sarah: I don't know.
John: You stopped it.
Sarah: I guess I didn't.
John: Well, you can. You changed the future. You just didn't change it enough. So you can do it again.
Sarah: I don't know, John.
John: I can't keep running. I can't. I'm not who they think I am. Some messiah.
Sarah: You don't know that.
John: I know. I can't lead an army. Maybe that's you, but it'll never be me. So you've gotta stop it. Please. Mom.
Sarah: All right.
John: All right what?
Sarah: I'll stop it. I'll stop it...
Sarah changed the future once before. She knows it's possible. For John, she'll change it again. She has to believe she can change John's future - as John stands in the time bubble, it's all Sarah has left.
If Sarah Connor stops Judgement Day, then John Connor materializes not in the middle of Future!War but in the middle of Los Angeles 2027 where he's not hunted, where no one will connect a 17-year-old boy with a 40-year-old fugitive, where Judgement Day never happens and John Connor can go on to have the "normal life" that Sarah believes she has always denied him.
Sending the Terminator into the past to assassinate Sarah Connor was Skynet's Hail Mary pass.
Sending John into the future is Sarah's.
Only the pass is incomplete: John materializes in the middle of Post-Armageddon LA.
The question isn't "why did Sarah let John go into the future without her".
The question is "with John's life at stake, why couldn't Sarah stop Judgement Day?"
And that means only one thing: "Who killed Sarah Connor?"
[Apart from Kevin Reilly, I mean.]
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Post by allergygal on May 20, 2009 13:02:35 GMT -5
I know I already told you you're my hero for this, but I'm saying it here so everyone else will know too. And also... *big fraking karma* That OMG-SO-SIMPLE bit of reasoning doesn't fix everything about that time jump (*cough* John wtf?! *cough*), but it fixes the biggest thing, which is why the hell Sarah would let John jump ahead. Whether she could change his mind or stop him is irrelevant; she didn't even try. It was so un-Sarah. SO un-Sarah. I had no doubt that season 3 would make it make sense, but my fear had been that if BTR was the series finale, I would be devastated and find no closure with it. You fixed that, girlie. You fraking fixed it for me. The time jump scene was still a little to rushed to get the that Sarah was thinking anything through, but that's a minor detail. Believing she would change the future — change John's fate by stopping judgement day, falls right in line with everything Sarah's been about in this series. She wanted him to have a normal life and if he jumped ahead while she stayed behind to to stop Skynet, he would. We know she didn't end up stopping judgement day in this timeline, but she will. Because she's Sarah freaking Connor. So now all I have left to be disappointed about is that Sarah's stuck with that idiot Ellison while all the cool people are in the future. But hey, I can fix that myself. No problemo... Kyle, this is called a time machine. And it's set for 2009
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Post by allergygal on Jun 21, 2009 17:14:26 GMT -5
Brought over from the Sarah character thread: Not sure where the show was heading with Savannah really. If Weaver was the main target then they could just have back-grounded Savannah and then forgotten all about her. Weaver didn't seem to think her very important in terms of the future (her emphasis was always on John Henry) so I guess in her particular future, Savannah isn't vital (?) I don't think Weaver was the target, I think Savannah was. Well, Weaver was also a target, but Savannah seemed to be the priority. One of the Kaliba goons had her picture on his phone and pretty water cooler terminator went looking for her before he went after Catherine. When he lost Savannah's trail, he then diverted to Catherine as his secondary objective. And his interest in Sarah makes me think she would've been target #3. Savannah wouldn't have been important in the future Weaver came from because that would've been a future without John Henry (and whatever it is that Savannah one day does, I feel like it's got to be connected to John Henry). Also, in the future Weaver came from, John was Skynet's biggest problem. Now that there's a new future where John is unknown, different people obviously play important roles and I think Savannah is one of them.
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Post by vicheron on Jun 21, 2009 19:07:21 GMT -5
Did Sarah even know that they were jumping into the future? Considering the circumstances, it would have made more sense to assume that they would jump into the past where Skynet has yet to be built, not to the future where Skynet controls everything.
Also, even if Sarah manages to stop Skynet, the seeds of its creation will be saved. John Henry and Catherine Weaver will be in the future where their technology could still be used to create a new Skynet.
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Post by allergygal on Jun 21, 2009 23:09:42 GMT -5
Did Sarah even know that they were jumping into the future? Considering the circumstances, it would have made more sense to assume that they would jump into the past where Skynet has yet to be built, not to the future where Skynet controls everything. You know, I never even considered that John Henry could've jumped to the past. Interesting. I'll have to think on that one. But Sarah saying "I'll stop it" implies to me that she knew Catherine and John were jumping to the future and also that Weaver thought (knew?) JH had jumped to the future. Since John arrived in a post-apocalyptic future, we know she didn't stop Skynet. So if she does manage to stop it, that would cause a a different future — one in which Weaver and John Henry (and John) didn't just jump into.
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Post by littleb on Jun 22, 2009 7:00:00 GMT -5
I don't think Weaver was the target, I think Savannah was. Well, Weaver was also a target, but Savannah seemed to be the priority. One of the Kaliba goons had her picture on his phone and pretty water cooler terminator went looking for her before he went after Catherine. When he lost Savannah's trail, he then diverted to Catherine as his secondary objective. Savannah could just have been the more vulnerable (and therefore easier) of the two to pick off. Whatever information he had was duff though cos he wasn't aware of what Weaver was. I remember asking whether he was actually going after the original (human) Weaver but I can't remember what your answer was! Well, Kaliba were certainly interested in her. She'd supposedly blown up the warehouse, she'd definitely blown up Winston so I'm guessing she'd still be on their hit list (or take and interrogate list at the very least). Makes sense that everyone playing for Team Kaliba has the ability to identify any other potential targets that they may encounter on their travels. Y'never know, she could have been the future leader of humanity! Sarah's got a free spot in her mentoring schedule...
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Post by vicheron on Jun 23, 2009 6:26:09 GMT -5
Did Sarah even know that they were jumping into the future? Considering the circumstances, it would have made more sense to assume that they would jump into the past where Skynet has yet to be built, not to the future where Skynet controls everything. You know, I never even considered that John Henry could've jumped to the past. Interesting. I'll have to think on that one. But Sarah saying "I'll stop it" implies to me that she knew Catherine and John were jumping to the future and also that Weaver thought (knew?) JH had jumped to the future. It would have made more sense for them to think that John Henry jumped into the past. If Sarah had thought that John Henry was meant to become Skynet then it would make sense for Sarah to think that he went into the past where he could safely develop into Skynet in secret. If Sarah thought that John Henry was created to stop Skynet then it would also make sense for her to think that he went into the past since he'll be able to use his knowledge of the past to find and kill Skynet in its infancy. In fact, going into the future puts John Henry at a huge disadvantage, unless his goal is to gather information on future tech so that he can go back into time and use that information against Skynet and create self aware machines without fighting the humans. If it has been Sarah's plan to stop Skynet so that John would arrive in a non-apocalyptic future, John Henry and Catherine Weaver would still arrive with him, which means that Skynet can still be made and John would have to stop it all by himself in a brand new future where he has nothing.
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Post by allergygal on Jun 23, 2009 15:52:39 GMT -5
It would have made more sense for them to think that John Henry jumped into the past. If Sarah had thought that John Henry was meant to become Skynet then it would make sense for Sarah to think that he went into the past where he could safely develop into Skynet in secret. If Sarah thought that John Henry was created to stop Skynet then it would also make sense for her to think that he went into the past since he'll be able to use his knowledge of the past to find and kill Skynet in its infancy. In fact, going into the future puts John Henry at a huge disadvantage, unless his goal is to gather information on future tech so that he can go back into time and use that information against Skynet and create self aware machines without fighting the humans. Hmm. Good point, but since I don't think Sarah thought he was going to the past, I guess I'll assume she saw a date on the screen when Catherine programmed it in. Since John arrived in a post-apocalyptic future, we know she didn't stop Skynet. So if she does manage to stop it, that would cause a a different future — one in which Weaver and John Henry (and John) didn't just jump into. If it has been Sarah's plan to stop Skynet so that John would arrive in a non-apocalyptic future, John Henry and Catherine Weaver would still arrive with him, which means that Skynet can still be made and John would have to stop it all by himself in a brand new future where he has nothing. I don't think that was her plan nor do I think Sarah sent John away so he'd be safer. But given the circumstances (that he was jumping ahead), the only thing Sarah could do was vow to stop Skynet, knowing that if she succeeded John wouldn't land in future war. True, though, that if Weaver and John Henry actually wanted to create Skynet, they could do it in the future and Sarah wouldn't be able to stop them. I don't think that's Weaver's or JH's intention, but I suspect whatever they're planning to do to stop Skynet is going to backfire somehow.
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gulde
Refugee
We are the resistance
Posts: 84
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Post by gulde on Jul 18, 2009 18:57:11 GMT -5
Just watched this episode for first time, thus watched entire TSCC...OH MY GOD! That was the most awesome episode of any serial I've ever seen! I've watched it with opened mouth for almost whole time, I can't believe it! S*it, I need to calm down...I wouldn't fall asleep from this!...uh...
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Post by allergygal on Jul 19, 2009 2:13:18 GMT -5
Hee. It's an awesome show, isnt' it?
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gulde
Refugee
We are the resistance
Posts: 84
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Post by gulde on Jul 19, 2009 3:35:48 GMT -5
Hee. It's an awesome show, isnt' it? Thats for sure, definetly my most favourite tv show of all time...but I hate that this episode is so sad for Cameron .
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