Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation discussion refugee camp

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Kharn_The_Betrayer: Nov 15, 2013; Fun Shoe

The 3rd movie kind of retains some of the fears of technology but only in how it relates to warfare. At the time the war on terror was in full swing and the use of drones and robots in combat roles was new nascent thing. The fear of this new way of fighting may have been present enough to include scenes where the foundations of sky-net are redeveloped by the US's military industrial complex.

I think the movie is trying to talk about these things but its done in a kind of half-hearted way. Since the reason for those machines going apeshit was in no part due to human error or even ingenuity, the T-X having reprogrammed them, it kills that potential dialogue before it has time to ingrain itself in the audience.

You are right in saying that perhaps that the degree at witch we incorporate technology in our daily lives makes the 1st and 2nd movies dated. I dont agree with you that we should bury the terminator franchise and just leave it as a curiosity of the past. Future directors might use it to talk about issues that perhaps aren't as unrelated as one might think.

Take for example: Some aspects of the cold war still remain in the world, including nuclear armaments that remain in aging silos, terrorist and criminal groups that sprung from CIA funded programs and social norms from a time of competing super-powers. We live in a world where the shadow of the cold war still remains. These themes could be used to tie-in with the original movies to make something new. That isn't to say that The sci-fi franchise of terminator movies is essential to talking about these issues but nothing says those movies can't either. We just haven't had enough competence from the producers and directors to give us something good since t2.

# ? Feb 9, 2015 05:51

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# ? May 29, 2024 05:26

Police Automaton: Mar 17, 2009; "You are standing in a thread. Someone has made an insightful post."
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But was the average not-middle-eastern-dwelling joe really afraid of being blasted by a drone or other computer-driven machinerey sometime in the last 15 years? I personally do not think so. Getting nuked on the other hand was a very common and relateable fear you'd find in all levels of society, which would sort of flow and ebb with what the news were reporting (nothing like checking the internet and watching some firsthand-youtube videos of events either, the official version or nothing) same thing with the computers really. First of all people had a very hard time estimating what a computer can and cannot do and that these things kept evolving and multiplying their efficiency quite noticeably in cycles spanning months (not years) didn't exactly help with that bad understanding either. Peoples lives were actually impacted by having their work taken away by machines. It sounds kinda silly nowadays, but this is what was happening, and also already happened the decade before. It was not only computers themselves, many branches of industry were affected or started being affected by the widespread usage of this technology and doing things computer-aided, and also by what quick advancements computer aided design, research and engineering brought to even unrelated industries. People who couldn't adapt to that (and there were quite a few) would find themselves to be outsiders more and more. A movie where this was taken to the logical conclusion of those fears where the technology sort of developed out of human control and started an active genocide with (amongst other things) nuclear weapons just played right into that. Then there was that machine, relentlessly hunting down people with no emotion. Is the C64 in that room of my friend perhaps an early ancestor of that machine? That was scary stuff to think about and did not seem technologically as improbable as it seems now. (Fun fact: Arnies HUD in The Terminator has a scene where you can clearly read 6502 assembler code, that was "a relative" of the CPU used in the C64)

The whole T-X reprogramming thing was kinda lame, really. Her making that sexually pleasured face at every reprogramming was a bit weird. I guess it did play with the concept that pretty much everything is computerized nowadays, but I don't think this fact shocked or even bothered many people in 2003. I think 2000ish was the time where some of the "hardliners" I know who didn't like computers through their 90s started dropping their last fears and prejudices and started using them themselves privately because it just was so practical to do so and everyone else did.

I'm not saying you couldn't make an interesting terminator film anymore, I just think nobody in Hollywood is going to pull that one off in the foreseeable future.

EDIT: Corrected the 6502 thing, mixed up my MOS Chips!

Police Automaton fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Feb 9, 2015

# ? Feb 9, 2015 06:35

Kharn_The_Betrayer: Nov 15, 2013; Fun Shoe

I guess your right.

Actually speaking of machines taking jobs away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

Kharn_The_Betrayer fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Feb 9, 2015

# ? Feb 9, 2015 06:51

JediTalentAgent: Jun 5, 2005; Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

I still think a full reboot of the Terminator franchise to be more about the post-9/11 era could be way to revisit the idea but have a whole new outlook on things.

I'll throw this out there as a thought: Skynet trying a different strategy to take over the world before resorting to something like J-Day. You can play on the concept that Skynet isn't now a product of the big nuclear war thoughts of the 80s and 90s, but of the terrorist and electronic warfare of the new millennium.

I know some of this is referenced a bit in T3 and TSCC, though. I think a lot of that could play into more modern concerns about how a very few individuals can effect a major social upheaval and disasters with just the way everything is so connected electronically these days. People are possibly less scared of a major war between nations than a (supposedly) unaffiliated group of hackers causing a power plant to overload or the like.

# ? Feb 9, 2015 08:00

Assepoester: Jul 18, 2004; Can't post for 10 years!; Melman v2

Police Automaton posted:

But was the average not-middle-eastern-dwelling joe really afraid of being blasted by a drone or other computer-driven machinerey sometime in the last 15 years? I personally do not think so. Getting nuked on the other hand was a very common and relateable fear you'd find in all levels of society, which would sort of flow and ebb with what the news were reporting (nothing like checking the internet and watching some firsthand-youtube videos of events either, the official version or nothing) same thing with the computers really. First of all people had a very hard time estimating what a computer can and cannot do and that these things kept evolving and multiplying their efficiency quite noticeably in cycles spanning months (not years) didn't exactly help with that bad understanding either. Peoples lives were actually impacted by having their work taken away by machines. It sounds kinda silly nowadays, but this is what was happening, and also already happened the decade before. It was not only computers themselves, many branches of industry were affected or started being affected by the widespread usage of this technology and doing things computer-aided, and also by what quick advancements computer aided design, research and engineering brought to even unrelated industries. People who couldn't adapt to that (and there were quite a few) would find themselves to be outsiders more and more. A movie where this was taken to the logical conclusion of those fears where the technology sort of developed out of human control and started an active genocide with (amongst other things) nuclear weapons just played right into that. Then there was that machine, relentlessly hunting down people with no emotion. Is the C64 in that room of my friend perhaps an early ancestor of that machine? That was scary stuff to think about and did not seem technologically as improbable as it seems now. (Fun fact: Arnies HUD in The Terminator has a scene where you can clearly read 6502 assembler code, that was "a relative" of the CPU used in the C64)

The whole T-X reprogramming thing was kinda lame, really. Her making that sexually pleasured face at every reprogramming was a bit weird. I guess it did play with the concept that pretty much everything is computerized nowadays, but I don't think this fact shocked or even bothered many people in 2003. I think 2000ish was the time where some of the "hardliners" I know who didn't like computers through their 90s started dropping their last fears and prejudices and started using them themselves privately because it just was so practical to do so and everyone else did.

I'm not saying you couldn't make an interesting terminator film anymore, I just think nobody in Hollywood is going to pull that one off in the foreseeable future.

JediTalentAgent posted:

I still think a full reboot of the Terminator franchise to be more about the post-9/11 era could be way to revisit the idea but have a whole new outlook on things.

I'll throw this out there as a thought: Skynet trying a different strategy to take over the world before resorting to something like J-Day. You can play on the concept that Skynet isn't now a product of the big nuclear war thoughts of the 80s and 90s, but of the terrorist and electronic warfare of the new millennium.

I know some of this is referenced a bit in T3 and TSCC, though. I think a lot of that could play into more modern concerns about how a very few individuals can effect a major social upheaval and disasters with just the way everything is so connected electronically these days. People are possibly less scared of a major war between nations than a (supposedly) unaffiliated group of hackers causing a power plant to overload or the like.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3373573&userid=0&perpage=20&pagenumber=417#post405670931

quote:

I've seen how the world ends. It starts like this, with men in air conditioned bunkers somewhere beneath the desert. Ageless scorpions, free from morality by virtue of their animal instinct, chase after prey over their heads. Deep in their subterranean abode these pale-faced men stare with open, watery eyes at screen after screen of green-tinted death, their fellow humans rendered down by distance and time into flailing white shapes, no different from amoebas on a petri dish.

It's still murder, though, and they know what they're doing. They crawl out of their armored killing room every day when their shift ends and they get into their nine year old hatchback that's all they can afford on a serviceman's salary with two kids and a baby on the way. They make sure they use their turn signals on their way home. They walk in the house and kiss their pregnant wives and touch their baby bumps and eat a disgusting gray shape that's supposed to be green casserole, but they don't complain because they love her and she tries, and it's hard seeing those hollow eyes staring back when she says "Honey, I love you".

The toll grows to be too much. This was supposed to save us money and lives. There's men in suits with manufactured hair on television, reading cards about "American lives and treasure" and "foreign interests" while they smile fake shark smiles and fantasies about the hairless twinks they're going to suck off later. There's ten million Mister and Miss American Pies sitting there at home watching Hyperfox CNNSBC, their eyes glazing over as the prettiest journalists they can find tell them it's okay, everything's gonna be all right while some intern down in the basement is seeing what kind of unintelligible bullshit he can work into the crawl at the bottom of the screen, for shits and giggles. So Mister and Miss American Pie are sitting there listening to how it's good that we have drones and it's good for America, and they're out there killing brown people who want to take away our manufacturing jobs just like they should, and Mister and Miss American Pie are happy and they're going to go out and vote Dempublocrat, and it'll be alright.

So that night the serviceman with the glass eyes very calmly gets up and goes upstairs, and when no one is watching he pulls out his service pistol that he can clean upside down and blindfolded but will never have to use, and he cleans it with his eyes shut until it's polished to a high mirror shine, and he puts sixteen American made aluminum cased full metal jacket nine millimeter bullets in it, and gently caress it who cares if a kraut came up with and it's metric, this is America's loving caliber right here. And he goes downstairs and before the wife can say anything he plugs his son and daughter right in the face and she starts crying and ask why, why, why are you doing this and he puts a bullet in her belly first just to be sure, and he tries to tell her that he has to do this because one day when there's no browns left, the machines will come for them too. He stares down at his bleeding mound of a dead pregnant wife and he puts that gun under his chin and his cock is hard like a hellfire missile when he pulls the trigger, but he's crying.

They can't have that, you know?

So somewhere in a room that has no windows because the people who live in it hate the sun, men in green and gray and blue with rainbows on their chests sit around deciding what to do, and they decide the machines have a great track record so far, so they start a pilot program, they call it, an intervention, a study, a fact finding loving mission. They put computers on controlling the drones. Now the men who kill by proxy kill by proxy by proxy and it's just work, they go into a big room and put fancy looking computer bits into a great big gray box.

It works wonders.

Of course they can't control it. So that's how the end starts. See, to the machines, those white pixellated amoebas down there are all the same, and they're very efficient, very efficient at what they do, until one day the last man buts a bullet through the last woman's head because he knows, he knows, because he works at the factory where people build murder machines designed by murder machines designed by murder machines, and he knows that a long time ago, the murder machines decided missiles and bombs and bullets were inefficient and they went over to hooks and blades instead, because no one is watching and machines don't give a gently caress about the Bill of Rights or the Geneva Conventions or the United Nations Treaty on the Rights of the Child or basic human decency or anything but killing those white pixellated amoebas.

So that last man is sitting there in a ruined, busted out bathroom with his best girl on his lap and her brains on his chest and the wall and his chin, and he's weeping the bitterest tears a man can weep, the ones no one will ever see. And the last machine comes into that room and it's nothing but a big red eye and hooks and blades, because it only needs to see and kill and everything else would be inefficient. He doesn't beg for mercy or quarter because he knows there's nothing behind that eye that sees him as an objective.

But the machines, see, the machines, they learned. They learned from their makers the way we learned from Yahweh El-Shaddai the Lord of Battles and the last machine speaks to the last of its gods as it shreds the life from his throat and it says the last words a man's ever gonna hear, drowned out by his own blood.

"Sorry bro, I really need the completionist achievement."

# ? Feb 9, 2015 09:50

pop fly to McGillicutty: Feb 2, 2004; A peckish little mouse!

Lolwut m8

# ? Feb 9, 2015 16:34

Sasquatch!: Nov 18, 2000

Police Automaton posted:

(Fun fact: Arnies HUD in The Terminator has a scene where you can clearly read 6502 assembler code, that was "a relative" of the CPU used in the C64)

The T-850 in Terminator 3 apparently runs Mac OS X since you can see it initializing QuickTime Player and Keychain when it reboots.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/9040462@N05/3047174781/

# ? Feb 9, 2015 20:33

ephori: Sep 1, 2006; Dinosaur Gum

It's a shame the Internet freaked out about the initial Terminator Salvation script, because moving the subtext of the machines from nuclear paranoia and technology-run-rampant to class conflict was updating it to be relevant to our time in the way that everybody seems to be looking for in this thread.

# ? Feb 11, 2015 03:53

bronin: Oct 15, 2009; use it or throw it away

ephori posted:

It's a shame the Internet freaked out about the initial Terminator Salvation script, because moving the subtext of the machines from nuclear paranoia and technology-run-rampant to class conflict was updating it to be relevant to our time in the way that everybody seems to be looking for in this thread.

Wait what? Tell me more about this alternate script! Sounds interesting

# ? Feb 14, 2015 13:31

Lurdiak: Feb 26, 2006; I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.

bronin posted:

Wait what? Tell me more about this alternate script! Sounds interesting

Skynet had some upper class humans living in its stupid cyberloft.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 16:06

McSpanky: Jan 16, 2005

ephori posted:

It's a shame the Internet freaked out about the initial Terminator Salvation script, because moving the subtext of the machines from nuclear paranoia and technology-run-rampant to class conflict was updating it to be relevant to our time in the way that everybody seems to be looking for in this thread.

Just because it did a thing doesn't mean it did it well.

# ? Feb 14, 2015 23:26

Police Automaton: Mar 17, 2009; "You are standing in a thread. Someone has made an insightful post."
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quote:

In the early script drafts, John was a secondary character. Producer James Middleton explained "Ben-Hur was influenced by Jesus Christ, but it was his story. Much in that way, this [new main] character will be influenced by John Connor."[55] The original ending was to have John killed, and his image kept alive by the resistance by grafting his skin onto Marcus' cybernetic body.

This is all I could find on Wikipedia. I can't get over how stupid and boring salvation was and I don't think this would have saved it. Also Connor/Bale never seemed to be the main character of the film to begin with, but that probably has to do with Christian Bales one-dimensional acting more than with anything else.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 00:29

Lurdiak: Feb 26, 2006; I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.

No, like I said, it's not the face transplant thing, although that was indeed in earlier drafts. In addition to suddenly being a boring version of Shodan, Skynet initially had upper class humans that lived with it as like traitors to humanity and Skynet thought humanity was worth keeping alive if it could control it or... something. It was very stupid and very Land of the Dead.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 00:45

Neo Rasa: Mar 8, 2007; Everyone should play DUKE games.

Someone posted a screen capture earlier in the thread, but due to the stupidity of the movie, there's actually a shot that has the silhouettes of the rich collaborates looking at the T-800s herding people around from an upper level office.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 01:46

SuperMechagodzilla: Jun 9, 2007; NEWT REBORN

The change is actually for the better anyways, because it underlines that the problem is not rich people, but the system of capitalism itself.

From the perspective of someone in the cage, the rich may as well not even exist - but they are still obviously 'there'. The pristine labs you see are like unoccupied mansions.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 02:03

Hockles: Dec 25, 2007; Resident of ~~Camp Blood~~
Crystal Lake

Neo Rasa posted:

Someone posted a screen capture earlier in the thread, but due to the stupidity of the movie, there's actually a shot that has the silhouettes of the rich collaborates looking at the T-800s herding people around from an upper level office.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Terminator Salvation is definitely the best Terminator movie.

Rewatching it thanks to this thread, and who are these guys in the window?

Yep, the rich traitors who conspired with Skynet are still in the film.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 02:21

JediTalentAgent: Jun 5, 2005; Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

McSpanky posted:

Just because it did a thing doesn't mean it did it well.

I'm going to liken some of this to an episode of Chopped. You can have people given some great 'ingredients' that on its own should lend themselves to allow a filmmaker to create a a great and incredible film. However, if they don't present or prepare it the right way it's not going to be a pleasant experience for every audience or the intended audience.

(The explosions were baked to perfection, though...)

# ? Feb 15, 2015 02:52

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

Lurdiak posted:

No, like I said, it's not the face transplant thing, although that was indeed in earlier drafts. In addition to suddenly being a boring version of Shodan, Skynet initially had upper class humans that lived with it as like traitors to humanity and Skynet thought humanity was worth keeping alive if it could control it or... something. It was very stupid and very Land of the Dead.

William Gibson last week or so mentioned that if he was writing a Terminator reboot, that he'd have Skynet pull off Judgement Day to save the planet anthropogenic destruction and humanity from extinction by wiping out most of humanity and keeping a small group of survivors isolated to save them.

I told him on twitter that Salvation, both the alternate scripts and the finished product, already hinted at that.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 07:00

JediTalentAgent: Jun 5, 2005; Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

I know this is going into fanfic territory, but is there room to imagine the Resistance as 'bad guys' of T1? Are Reese and even the T2 T-800 reliable narrators? God, I'm trying to explain this without a "No, really, the Nazis were the good guys!" tone...

There's been a nuclear war, survivors aren't handling the situation very well emotionally or physically, and there's a bit of a fog of war going on where no one really knows what's going on. John Connor has grown up with the 'truth' of what happened, builds a cult of survivors behind him in a camp with an anti-machine philosophy and crafts an entire mythology that becomes programmed into soldiers like Reese and the T-800 as the real history.

Skynet isn't fighting a war with 'humanity', it's fighting a war with the 'Resistance'.

The time travel element of the franchise isn't solely about the birth and creation of both Skynet and John, it's also about Future John planting the seeds of his own self-manufactured anti-machine conspiracy theories that fuel the growth of the Resistance.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 12:55

Hbomberguy: Jul 4, 2009; [culla=big red]TufFEE did nO THINg WÌ¡RAÌ¸NG[/read]

Kharn_The_Betrayer posted:

I guess your right.

Actually speaking of machines taking jobs away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

This video is encouraging as long as you consider dismantling capitalism to be a viable move. Barely anyone will have to work unless they want to, and people can explore new possibilities with all this free time from not working in transportation all day to make ends meet! Hurrah!

Otherwise I hope you know a nice bridge to live under.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 14:33

Caros: May 14, 2008

JediTalentAgent posted:

I know this is going into fanfic territory, but is there room to imagine the Resistance as 'bad guys' of T1? Are Reese and even the T2 T-800 reliable narrators? God, I'm trying to explain this without a "No, really, the Nazis were the good guys!" tone...

There's been a nuclear war, survivors aren't handling the situation very well emotionally or physically, and there's a bit of a fog of war going on where no one really knows what's going on. John Connor has grown up with the 'truth' of what happened, builds a cult of survivors behind him in a camp with an anti-machine philosophy and crafts an entire mythology that becomes programmed into soldiers like Reese and the T-800 as the real history.

Skynet isn't fighting a war with 'humanity', it's fighting a war with the 'Resistance'.

The time travel element of the franchise isn't solely about the birth and creation of both Skynet and John, it's also about Future John planting the seeds of his own self-manufactured anti-machine conspiracy theories that fuel the growth of the Resistance.

The only way that really works is if the nuclear war started some other way, which directly contradicts shown events in Terminator 3.

I mean it is possible Reese is lying completely and he is a member of some Luddite group from a Utopian future where the machines have been nothing but kind and benevolent, but the existence of the Terminator and his own dreams regarding them make that really hard to believe.

# ? Feb 15, 2015 22:38

PriorMarcus: Oct 17, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT BEING ALLERGIC TO POSITIVITY

It was cooler when the nuclear war started because Skynet did nothing wrong but learn, was afraid of being shut down and defended itself. Then the Resistance sprung up and Skynet built some Terminators.

PriorMarcus fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Feb 16, 2015

# ? Feb 16, 2015 02:28

Lurdiak: Feb 26, 2006; I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.

PriorMarcus posted:

It was cooler when the nuclear war started because Skynet didn't nothing wrong but learn, was afraid of being shut down and defended itself. Then the Resistance sprung up and Skynet built some Terminators.

That's not cooler, that's lame. It's better that it's just a soulless abomination that decides it doesn't like humanity and therefore they must be wiped out.

# ? Feb 16, 2015 02:41

Sasquatch!: Nov 18, 2000

Lurdiak posted:

That's not cooler, that's lame. It's better that it's just a soulless abomination that decides it doesn't like humanity and therefore they must be wiped out.

It IS a "soulless abomination", but it sees humanity as a threat and wipes us out. It has nothing to do with liking or not liking. This (the original explanation) makes much more sense if viewed from the perspective of a sentient machine.

# ? Feb 16, 2015 03:17

SuperMechagodzilla: Jun 9, 2007; NEWT REBORN

JediTalentAgent posted:

I know this is going into fanfic territory, but is there room to imagine the Resistance as 'bad guys' of T1? Are Reese and even the T2 T-800 reliable narrators? God, I'm trying to explain this without a "No, really, the Nazis were the good guys!" tone...

There's been a nuclear war, survivors aren't handling the situation very well emotionally or physically, and there's a bit of a fog of war going on where no one really knows what's going on. John Connor has grown up with the 'truth' of what happened, builds a cult of survivors behind him in a camp with an anti-machine philosophy and crafts an entire mythology that becomes programmed into soldiers like Reese and the T-800 as the real history.

As with many of these neat ideas, this is a major plot point in Terminator Salvation. Most of the characters - including Skynet itself - are operating on third- or fourth-hand information that was sent back with Kyle Reese, then passed on to Sarah Connor (who then passed it on to the authorities). So it turns out that, though Skynet is bad, the machines are not inherently so. Also the resistance kinda sucks, and the real hero was actually Marcus.

# ? Feb 16, 2015 04:49

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

JediTalentAgent posted:

I know this is going into fanfic territory, but is there room to imagine the Resistance as 'bad guys' of T1? Are Reese and even the T2 T-800 reliable narrators? God, I'm trying to explain this without a "No, really, the Nazis were the good guys!" tone...

I've actually want to write a short rip-off/homage film to the Terminator, with the title "Time Stalker", where the Reese and Sarah characters defeat the Terminator, only to have Future Sarah appear and tell Sarah that there's no nuclear war, Reese is just a creepy stalker and humanoid robots are commonplace in the future.

# ? Feb 16, 2015 05:35

JediTalentAgent: Jun 5, 2005; Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

Caros posted:

The only way that really works is if the nuclear war started some other way, which directly contradicts shown events in Terminator 3.

I mean it is possible Reese is lying completely and he is a member of some Luddite group from a Utopian future where the machines have been nothing but kind and benevolent, but the existence of the Terminator and his own dreams regarding them make that really hard to believe.

That's sort of one reason I'm focusing more on the Cameron-era films instead of the post-T2 projects.

I'm not even saying Skynet as wholly benevolent entity, but it may be acting with a method and ideology that post-J-Day that still comes off as ominous and sinister in its own ways.

Let's say Skynet did cause J-Day out of a primitive sense of self-preservation. Could Skynet have matured enough as an AI to feel 'guilt' over the near extinction of its creators afterwards? Maybe has no further hostile intentions for humanity as a whole, it just expects everyone to do what it says as sort of a dictator through might makes right, winning hearts and minds, shock and awe, etc. Think of sort of alone the lines of maybe something like Colossus: The Forbin Project.

However, it can't really fight the human Resistance without further alienating all the human survivors. Major Skynet strikes against Resistance? It falls into the Resistance's favor of being able to use any overt act of Skynet action against humans to attract moderate pro-Skynet humans to join their cause.

Skynet can't openly fight against Resistance without losing human support? Create some infiltration units like the T-800s to do surgical strikes and eliminate the threats more discreetly. That too could fall into the Resistance plans of showcasing how evil Skynet truly is and turning more humans against the machines and into the ranks of the Resistance.

By the end of the day, Skynet is no longer fighting a fringe group but almost all of humanity. Without Connor as the revolutionary leader behind the Resistance, there is no Resistance, there is no eventual anti-Skynet movement. Killing John in the past is what it sees as It's one shot at both humanity and itself surviving.

Admittedly, as fanfic as hell, though.

# ? Feb 16, 2015 06:09

Party Boat: Nov 1, 2007; where did that other dog come from

who is he

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

As with many of these neat ideas, this is a major plot point in Terminator Salvation. Most of the characters - including Skynet itself - are operating on third- or fourth-hand information that was sent back with Kyle Reese, then passed on to Sarah Connor (who then passed it on to the authorities). So it turns out that, though Skynet is bad, the machines are not inherently so. Also the resistance kinda sucks, and the real hero was actually Marcus.

I like the idea that as revisions of the timeline stack up, the original catalyst for war becomes increasingly vague and is eventually forgotten entirely. The humans and Skynet are at war because they've always been at war.

# ? Feb 16, 2015 09:01

Police Automaton: Mar 17, 2009; "You are standing in a thread. Someone has made an insightful post."
LOOK AT insightful post
"It's a pretty good post."
HATE post
"I don't understand"
SHIT ON post
"You shit on the post. Why."

I would not be worried by people losing menial jobs to machines mid-term or even long term. The technology just is too expensive and it's much easier (and also less risky and expensive) to just put a college kid there. The world would have to change a ton for such technologies to become cheap, viable and widespread enough to actually replace humans in low-level work. It's just not worth it. There's also always the psychological factor. Even in higher paid jobs where the technology would be an easier fit and it would actually be worth it to replace the humans it does not happen because of lots of red tape and also people not willing to have the humans replaced. Many people would not want to sit in an Airbus that has no Windows where the Cockpit would be and no (human) Pilots, even though a Computer does most of the flying nowadays.

I think the thought process of Skynet would be so alien to something a human mind is developed like that things like guilt, remorse or even hate would be completely strange to it. A lot of what defines what we are is our biological makeup and the kind of upbringing and impressions we have in our early years. I mean, look at the world and how it is. There are so many humans living on it with so many different perspectives sometimes completely alien to each other that in the most extreme cases they don't even see the other humans as "real people like them" and can genuinely not understand their motives. And that's only humans. Interesting about Skynet is that it absolutely lacks that phase of upbringing in which we humans are classically imprinted with things like a moral code and told what is appropriate behavior or not. Skynet, after the movies definition would pretty much be mostly comparable to a feral child that basically just reacts on an instinctive level as it never had that phase or something like parental figures.

I honestly also think what Skynet is was never put much of a thought into by Cameron.

# ? Feb 16, 2015 09:10

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

That guilt theory of yours is interesting. In the Terminator Vault, Cameron said that's basically why everything happens how it happens. Skynet defends itself when people try to turn it off, then wants to ensure that it is never created as a consequence of feeling guilt.

# ? Feb 16, 2015 09:52

Caros: May 14, 2008

JediTalentAgent posted:

That's sort of one reason I'm focusing more on the Cameron-era films instead of the post-T2 projects.

I'm not even saying Skynet as wholly benevolent entity, but it may be acting with a method and ideology that post-J-Day that still comes off as ominous and sinister in its own ways.

Let's say Skynet did cause J-Day out of a primitive sense of self-preservation. Could Skynet have matured enough as an AI to feel 'guilt' over the near extinction of its creators afterwards? Maybe has no further hostile intentions for humanity as a whole, it just expects everyone to do what it says as sort of a dictator through might makes right, winning hearts and minds, shock and awe, etc. Think of sort of alone the lines of maybe something like Colossus: The Forbin Project.

However, it can't really fight the human Resistance without further alienating all the human survivors. Major Skynet strikes against Resistance? It falls into the Resistance's favor of being able to use any overt act of Skynet action against humans to attract moderate pro-Skynet humans to join their cause.

Skynet can't openly fight against Resistance without losing human support? Create some infiltration units like the T-800s to do surgical strikes and eliminate the threats more discreetly. That too could fall into the Resistance plans of showcasing how evil Skynet truly is and turning more humans against the machines and into the ranks of the Resistance.

By the end of the day, Skynet is no longer fighting a fringe group but almost all of humanity. Without Connor as the revolutionary leader behind the Resistance, there is no Resistance, there is no eventual anti-Skynet movement. Killing John in the past is what it sees as It's one shot at both humanity and itself surviving.

Admittedly, as fanfic as hell, though.

I have to say, a skynet that doesn't feel malice but still wants to rule over humanity as a dictator is still... not really coming off as anything but a bad guy.

I mean you can make the argument that skynet isn't ever really malicious if you go by the first two films. Its an alien intelligence, one that knows why you cry even if it is an emotion it can never feel. It wipes out humanity because that is the only logical endpoint to keeping itself alive, and in your example it goes on killing them because the humans keep coming after it. It is an interesting take on predestination I suppose, we fight because we fight because we fight, but it is hard to view skynet as anything but a morally bankrupt monster from the human perspective.

There has been a lot of talk about the idea of skynet being almost justified, acting in self defense when the humans try to pull the plug... but if we are being totally honest, humans were pretty much right to try, their only problem is not being quick enough. Skynet clearly has no problem obliterating humanity in a heartbeat to keep itself functioning, and left to its own devices it would have continued to learn at a geometric rate. How long before it decides that humans are too dangerous and a pre-emptive strike is necessary? Or that human ecological damage puts it at risk, or any number of other things that could cause it to go off the deep end?

In neither of the cameron movies do we see any suggestion that Skynet will accept any less than extinction for humans. I mean yes it is possible that Kyle is a liar, but here is what he says in T1 on the issue:

quote:

Kyle Reese: No. I grew up after. In the ruins... starving... hiding from H-K's.
Sarah Connor: H-K's?
Kyle Reese: Hunter-Killers: patrol machines built in automated factories. Most of us were rounded up, put in camps for orderly disposal. (pulls up his right sleeve, exposing a barcode) This is burned in by laser scan. Some of us were kept alive... to work... loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us back from the brink. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah, your unborn son.

As far as I can tell even after the nukes fly, skynet more or less starts the future war by rounding up people in concentration camps to make sure it gets them all. Benevolent it is not.

Deit: I think the big problem with the idea of Reese as an unreliable narrator is that apart from him and T-2 Arnie we have no glimpse into the future in the original films. For all we know skynet isn't even a thing and the terminators are sent back in time by a futuristic resistance group to try and stop John Connor from becoming Super-Hitler or something.

Caros fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Feb 16, 2015

# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:01

Whoolighams: Jul 24, 2007; Thanks Dom Monaghan

This discussion reminds me of why the Animatrix kind of ruined the Matrix movies for me: in one segment it shows the leadup to the man/machine war and if I recall correctly humans flip out and nuke the isolated, non-threatening robot civilization as well as ruin the skies etc., making it harder to sympathize with humanity. I enjoy Terminator more with the simplicity of "ooga booga evil machines" but I do like the discussion of Skyney developing guilt and so on.

# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:20

WarLocke: Jun 6, 2004; You are being watched.

Caros posted:

I have to say, a skynet that doesn't feel malice but still wants to rule over humanity as a dictator is still... not really coming off as anything but a bad guy.

Well the Machine in Person of Interest is basically a benevolent Skynet. When you're that intelligent and hyperconnected, you don't have to want to rule, it just kind of happens.

# ? Feb 16, 2015 23:23

Esroc: May 31, 2010; Goku would be ashamed of you.

Maybe Skynet thought it was helping. It looked at human history, saw that apparently our chief reason for existing is annihilating each other, and decided to lend a hand.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 06:53

Young Freud: Nov 26, 2006

WarLocke posted:

Well the Machine in Person of Interest is basically a benevolent Skynet. When you're that intelligent and hyperconnected, you don't have to want to rule, it just kind of happens.

As is the Central Core in Elysium. It just needs some help to see ALL people to be helped by its benevolence, not just the Elysians.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 14:32

JediTalentAgent: Jun 5, 2005; Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

An idea that Skynet didn't start out as a monster, but just really reactionary and ignorant of things as it tried to have a take-charge relationship with humanity might be the basis of a "50 Shades of Gunmetal Grey" fanfic to the Terminator's Twilight.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 22:12

PriorMarcus: Oct 17, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT BEING ALLERGIC TO POSITIVITY

Isn't it the actual backstory given in the first two films that Skynet was acting in self defense?

# ? Feb 18, 2015 00:09

Lurdiak: Feb 26, 2006; I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.

The only line we're given is that Skynet "Saw humanity as a threat." once it became self-aware.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 00:45

Timby: Dec 23, 2006; Your mother!

Lurdiak posted:

The only line we're given is that Skynet "Saw humanity as a threat." once it became self-aware.

Nope. In T2 the Terminator says that in a panic they tried to pull the plug on Skynet, then Skynet launched nukes at Russia knowing the Russian counterattack would wipe out the US ability to respond.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 01:13

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# ? May 29, 2024 05:26

Caros: May 14, 2008

PriorMarcus posted:

Isn't it the actual backstory given in the first two films that Skynet was acting in self defense?

As I mentioned above, genocide as a matter of self defence is sort of difficult to reconcile, and when you couple that with skynet's later actions of rounding up humans for extermination after the nuclear war it is difficult to say with any certainty that Skynet wouldn't have enventually decided to kill all humans on its own impetus. This is particularly true consider that the T3 Skynet launches the attack more or less unprovoked.

Skynet is never meant to seem sympathetic in the films. At best it is an alien intellegence that jumps straight to 'kill all humans' in its attempts to stay alive, at worst it suspects humans will eventually try to kill it and decides to throw the first punch. Skynet as a victim is an interesting reading, but not really one supported by the films themselves.

# ? Feb 18, 2015 01:43

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation discussion refugee camp

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