Cameron eating food

[goober]

Can someone try to explain how Cameron can eat food? Like where does it go, is there an internal food processor and if so where does the waste go?

it might sound odd but i dont recall seeing a cyborg ever get shot in the stomach and then have internals spill out.

[Big Brother]

There are two main theories for this...

1.) There's some sort of small pouch attached to the tube leading down from the mouth, enabling small amounts of food to be eaten and later regurgitated. This can be useful for an infiltrator, if eating or drinking is needed to continue to masquerade as a human.

2.) Terminators are, after all, LIVING tissue over a metal endoskeleton. Living tissue is alive, and thus needs food and water. So Terminators in general probably have some sort of rudimentary digestive, respiratory, and excretory system to supply their living tissue with sustenance and oxygen, and to remove metabolic wastes. They probably don't have full lungs, but rather some sort of pump mechanism. That "synthetic blood" lacking red blood cells actually makes sense, as red blood cells are made in bone marrow, which metal endoskeletons notably lack. So something like the "oxygen-carrying spear" mentioned in "The Turk" does duty in place of red blood cells, oxygenated in some sort of biomechanical device and pumped to the tissue sheath by mechanical means (which may even do so in spurts to simulate a pulse). They probably have some sort of abbreviated digestive system, such as a small stomach and short intestine, crammed into available spaces in the abdomen, and excreting as usual (genetalia and related orifices exist, or Vick wouldn't have been able to keep up the pretense for very long while married). Kidneys are also likely replaced by equivalent biomechanical filter systems.

Either way, the fact that Terminators can eat one corn chip or a single bite of pancakes (all we've seen her eat so far) is hardly surprising.

[rossbondreturns]

In fact in the Treatment for The Terminator james Cameron has Terminator eat a Milky Way Candy Bar wrapper and all to try and stop the deteriation of his skins failure. One must assume that Infiltrators on long term missions must eat to keep their skin alive.

[Derek Reese]

Both Big Brother and Ross seem to note similar yet different facts, that work exceptionally well towards the mythos at hand.

[vicheron]

bigbrother said:

Either way, the fact that Terminators can eat one corn chip or a single bite of pancakes (all we've seen her eat so far) is hardly surprising.

I don't know, that's still three times as much food as the average supermodel eats every day.

[Derek Reese]

True, but we don't know the amount of food, that they require to keep the skin intact. Suppose it could very little from what we've seen since it's modified human flesh.

[goober]

twilightpro101 said:

True, but we don't know the amount of food, that they require to keep the skin intact. Suppose it could very little from what we've seen since it's modified human flesh.

obviously not using "dove" products then

[Derek Reese]

lol Good one. Karma for that.

[Lady S]

When I saw it, I figured that they're trying to show how human she is to leave it open so that down the line they could play with a relationship bewteen her and John...if they wanted.

[t101]

More interesting is why she ate the pancake. It's like she wanted to challenge Derek. Obviously there there is something going on in that chip of hers, a mindless machine should not care.

[rossbondreturns]

Who's to say she's mindless...I am positing that in my script the T-X has a limited Self Learning A.I. CPU.

Could be that Cameron is developing feelings...

[k8ie]

Could be that Cameron is developing feelings...

From a purely structuralist point of view, I think it's too early in TSCC for Cameron to be developing feelings. What caught me is the mirror between the scene with Derek and the scene with John - there's an implicit challenge to Cameron's nature in both scenes that she responds to by eating.

[t101]

rossbondreturns said:

Who's to say she's mindless....

Not me. Like I said those little things are proof that she isn't.

From a purely structuralist point of view, I think it's too early in TSCC for Cameron to be developing feelings.

I think it's a matter of pacing. Her challenging Derek like that could be seen as an emotional response of sorts.

[cyadon]

For eating purposes, there was a scene as far back as the original T1 (and again in T3, which isn't canon, but...) where Ah-nuld sucks down a candy bar in one bite. That hit the cutting room floor, but it was meant to show (according to Jim Cameron) that the machine had to nourish its biological covering somehow.

In T3 they were going to have Arnie selecting his favorite Austrian wafers off the shelf (for himself) of the quickie-mart where he stocks up on food for Kate and John and that hit the cutting room floor, too.

In the novelization and according to Jim Cameron there's a small storage section build into the endoskeleton for a small heart, lungs, and other things. The organs were about the same size as a chicken's from what I remember.

[soph]

well she's supposed to be advanced-maybe the food is kinda like extra biofuel for energy??