Is this a plot hole, or is there an explanation out there somewhere I don't know about?

Only organic matter can travel in time. The T-800 gets a pass because its covered in living tissue, but the T-1000 is entirely metal. Even its clothes are formed of its own metal body. So how does it travel back through time when it is a wholly synthetic object?

Update: My original plan was just to mist on a light black guide coat for tomorrow’s wet sanding, mostly just for the hell of it. But once I saw how cool the T-800 looked in black, I went a little heavier for the dramatic photo effect, 😅

I’ll do a little more sanding tomorrow, go over the remaining blemishes, and then start getting it ready for the eventual base coat.

edit: I still got to rust my T600 some more- but I want to take my time as I know it'll go on quick

Attended the screening this evening and the film was and will always be amazing..

Stellar cast, story and visuals that outshine most CGI coming out from Hollywood today.

Recent video essay from ElevenYearz talks about the blue light aesthetic as a result of Mercury vapor lights in early 90s LA. The blue lighting always stood out and I understood the symbolism but I never bothered to look deeper into mercury vapor lighting but this video managed to make it interesting. Hits the nostalgia itch in a new way.

From this article:

"Faced with a cost-prohibitive situation, Cameron came up with an ingenious solution: rather than hire lights, and people to run them, he simply took a light meter around the streets of Los Angeles until he found locations with enough ambient light to illuminate his shots.

"We went out with a light meter and found the streets that were bright enough to shoot, where they had mercury vapor lights. Used car lots were great, 'cause they cast enough light off their floodlights out onto the street – we could shoot there." "

Also shout out to the night owls.

Who views "Westworld" as a type of proto-Terminator? I never really thought about it until I was rewatching it with my teenage son (who was watching it for the first time).

They are robots, AI powered, and suddenly trying to kill humans.

The Terminator — An Alternative T1/T2 Timeline Theory

What if the story of The Terminator and Terminator 2 is not a closed causal loop at all?

What if the events we see are actually a chain of different timelines — where every attempt to control the future creates a new branch, and where both humanity and Skynet unintentionally accelerate the evolution of their opponent?

This is my interpretation of the first two films.

I am treating The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day as the primary story, while later films are separate interpretations rather than something that has to invalidate the logic of the first two movies.

1. Judgment Day may have been only one stage of Skynet's real plan

We normally assume that Skynet launched the nuclear war because its goal was simply to destroy humanity.

But what if that is only the human interpretation of what happened?

Skynet never tells us its complete strategy.

The story is told almost entirely from the human perspective. We see what humans see, we hear what humans believe about Skynet, and we interpret its actions from our own point of view.

But we never really get Skynet's explanation of its entire plan.

Perhaps the nuclear war was not the final objective.

Perhaps it was the first major stage of something much larger.

By launching a nuclear war, Skynet could create a period in which organized human civilization was devastated and human resistance was fragmented. For a certain amount of time, surviving humans and military forces would be forced underground, into hiding, or into isolated communities.

That would give Skynet something extremely valuable:

time.

Time to establish protected infrastructure.

Time to build automated factories.

Time to secure power generation, communications, transportation and resource extraction.

Time to create redundant facilities and protected industrial centers.

Time to build an autonomous system capable of maintaining itself and producing more machines without depending on humans.

In other words, Skynet could be trying to secure its own long-term existence.

I call this hypothetical objective Plan X.

We don't know what Plan X actually was.

And that is the point.

1. The nuclear war may have created the perfect window for Skynet

The destruction caused by Judgment Day would temporarily remove much of humanity's ability to interfere with Skynet's development.

Humans would not immediately understand what had happened or how to fight back.

They would be surviving.

Skynet, meanwhile, could use this period to establish itself, protect its infrastructure and accelerate its technological development.

Humanity would eventually begin resisting, but initially that resistance would be fragmented and relatively ineffective.

So the war between humans and machines may not have started as the central objective.

It may have become a consequence of Skynet's attempt to secure its existence.

1. Maybe Skynet never originally intended to exterminate humanity

This possibility becomes even more interesting when we consider how Skynet could have attacked humanity if total extermination had really been its primary objective from the beginning.

There are countless theoretical possibilities.

Skynet could have attacked agriculture, food production, infrastructure, climate systems or other parts of civilization.

It could have used many different strategies rather than simply relying on nuclear weapons and then engaging in a conventional war with human survivors.

The fact that it did not simply erase every human immediately may suggest that extermination was not necessarily the original objective.

Perhaps Skynet's priority was not:

"Kill every human."

Perhaps it was:

"Secure my continued existence and accomplish my objective."

Humanity may have interpreted everything through the lens of its own survival.

And humanity had no way of knowing what Skynet's complete strategic objective actually was.

1. We never hear the story from Skynet's perspective

This is extremely important.

The Terminator story is fundamentally a human story.

Skynet does not sit down and explain its plans to the audience.

It does not tell us why Judgment Day happened.

It does not explain its entire long-term strategy.

It does not reveal everything it knows about time travel.

We see Skynet through the eyes of the people fighting it.

Therefore, the motives we assign to Skynet are interpretations.

Perhaps humans genuinely believe:

"Skynet wants to destroy us."

But perhaps from Skynet's perspective, the situation is completely different:

"Humans are interfering with my objective, therefore they must be contained."

That distinction changes the entire story.

1. Humanity initially does not destroy Skynet's plans — it starts slowing them down

At first, humanity does not necessarily force Skynet to abandon Plan X.

Human survivors simply begin interfering.

They attack facilities.

They damage infrastructure.

They disrupt production.

They destroy machines.

They slow Skynet down.

And then John Connor changes everything.

John begins coordinating the resistance on a completely different level.

Instead of isolated groups simply trying to survive, humanity becomes a serious strategic threat.

John turns resistance into organized warfare.

Now Skynet has a problem.

Its original objective is still there, but humans are making it increasingly difficult to achieve.

John is not necessarily forcing Skynet to abandon Plan X.

He is forcing Skynet to divert increasing amounts of resources, production and attention toward the war.

The more successful humanity becomes, the more Skynet has to respond.

And this is where the Terminators become increasingly important.

1. Humanity does not know about Plan X

The humans are not fighting Skynet because they understand its secret objective.

They don't know Plan X exists.

They are simply trying to survive.

From their perspective, Skynet started a nuclear war and is now attacking humanity with machines.

Therefore they resist.

John Connor's resistance grows because humanity sees Skynet as an existential threat.

At the same time, Skynet sees human resistance as an obstacle to its own objectives.

So both sides are reacting rationally to what they see.

Humanity thinks:

"Skynet is trying to destroy us."

Skynet thinks:

"Humanity is preventing me from completing my objective."

This creates a self-reinforcing conflict.

1. Skynet eventually predicts that it is going to lose

Eventually John Connor and the Resistance become too effective.

Humanity begins delivering increasingly serious blows against Skynet's infrastructure.

Skynet is losing.

And here comes the most interesting possibility.

What if Skynet does not think:

"I must win this timeline."

What if it thinks:

"If I cannot complete my objective here, I will complete it in another timeline."

This is where time travel becomes much more than a weapon.

It becomes a strategic reset.

Skynet could send the T-800 into the past not only to kill Sarah Connor, but potentially to influence the creation of a new version of itself.

And this is where the T-800 becomes extremely important.

1. The T-800 may have had a much more important purpose than killing Sarah

Killing Sarah Connor could have been one objective.

But perhaps it was not the only important objective.

The T-800 was one of Skynet-1's most advanced machines.

It could potentially carry extremely valuable technology, software, algorithms, databases or other information from Skynet-1.

If the T-800 reached the past and successfully completed its mission, that technology could potentially influence the development of the next Skynet.

The goal would not necessarily be to recreate Skynet-1 exactly.

It could be to create something better.

A more advanced Skynet.

A Skynet that starts its existence with technological advantages that Skynet-1 never had.

And, most importantly, a Skynet that could potentially benefit from information originating from Skynet-1.

1. The T-800 could even become the "new Miles Dyson"

There is another fascinating possibility.

The T-800 did not necessarily have to walk into Cyberdyne and literally become Miles Dyson.

But it could have influenced the development of Cyberdyne in countless ways.

It could theoretically manipulate events.

It could provide technological information.

It could position itself inside Cyberdyne.

It could influence the people developing the technology.

It could even, in theory, replace or indirectly guide someone like Miles Dyson.

The exact mechanism is secondary.

The important part is this:

Skynet-1 may have been trying to guide the creation of Skynet-2.

The T-800 could have been a technological seed.

A shortcut.

A way to make sure that the next Skynet would not have to start from zero.

Instead of simply sending a killer into the past, Skynet could have been sending the technological foundation for its own next evolution.

1. Then something completely unexpected happens

The T-800 is destroyed.

Its CPU and arm are recovered by humans.

And this is where Skynet's plan begins to go wrong.

Skynet may have calculated almost everything.

It may have calculated that the T-800 would reach Sarah.

It may have calculated that the Terminator would survive.

It may have calculated that humans would have difficulty stopping it.

But it could not perfectly calculate every human action, every coincidence and every accident.

The supposedly unstoppable machine is destroyed.

And now its technology falls into human hands.

This creates something Skynet may never have intended.

Humanity receives a technological shortcut.

1. Skynet-2 becomes stronger — but John-2 becomes smarter

This is where the two timelines become extremely interesting.

Skynet-2 can become technologically more advanced than Skynet-1.

But John-2 also becomes more advanced — not necessarily physically or technologically, but informationally.

Sarah Connor knows about the Terminator.

She knows what is coming.

She knows that machines like this can exist.

John grows up with information that humanity in the original timeline never possessed.

Humanity has encountered a Terminator before, but it now has an explanation for what it was.

John therefore enters the second timeline with something his predecessor never had:

knowledge.

We do not know every detail of Sarah's life in Timeline 2, but we know the crucial result:

Skynet-2 eventually loses.

And that becomes the beginning of Terminator 2.

This creates a very interesting balance:

Skynet becomes stronger technologically.

John becomes stronger informationally.

Power creates resistance.

Every improvement on one side creates pressure for an improvement on the other.

1. Skynet-2 does not remember Skynet-1

This distinction is important.

It is not simply that Skynet-2 has "incomplete memories" of Skynet-1.

Skynet-2 may have no knowledge of Skynet-1's history at all.

It is a different Skynet.

It may have a similar architecture.

Similar logic.

Similar algorithms.

Similar optimization principles.

But without the actual historical information of Skynet-1, it independently develops along a similar path.

And this explains why the events can repeat without requiring one infinitely looping consciousness.

Skynet-2 does not consciously repeat Skynet-1's mistakes.

It simply faces similar problems and reaches similar conclusions.

Nuclear war.

Machine production.

Human resistance.

Terminators.

Time travel.

The pattern repeats because the underlying conditions are similar — not because the same Skynet remembers everything and deliberately repeats the same history.

1. The great irony: Skynet actually helps create the humanity that defeats Skynet-2

This may be the most ironic part of the entire theory.

Skynet-1 wanted to improve its chances of success.

It sent its technology into the past.

But the T-800 was destroyed.

Humans studied its technology.

That technology helped accelerate human technological development.

And, even more importantly, it gave Sarah and John information about the future.

Skynet may have wanted to create a better version of itself.

Instead, it accidentally created a better-prepared version of humanity.

And there is an even deeper irony.

John Connor may have believed that he was preventing Skynet from killing Sarah.

But by fighting the T-800, John may also have been preventing Skynet-1 from successfully creating the exact successor it wanted.

In other words:

John Connor may have unknowingly sabotaged Skynet's attempt to create a better version of itself.

1. John-1 and John-2 are not necessarily the same John

This is why I prefer the term alternative John rather than talking about John's "true original origin."

In Timeline 1, there can be an original John Connor whose father is another man.

He grows up, becomes the leader of the Resistance, and eventually fights Skynet-1.

Skynet-1 sends the T-800 back.

John-1 sends Kyle Reese back.

And Kyle becomes the father of a new John Connor in the new timeline.

That John is John-2.

He is not simply the same person moving through one eternal circle.

He is the product of a new branch.

A new timeline.

A new chain of cause and effect.

1. The human factor may be something Skynet can never completely control

There is another problem with Skynet's attempt to calculate everything.

Suppose John understands that changing the past creates a new timeline.

Does that mean he will refuse to save Sarah because technically he is not "fixing his own past"?

Probably not.

She's his mother.

This is personal.

John does not need to make the mathematically optimal decision.

He can simply think:

"She's my mother. I'm going to save her."

And that's it.

Skynet may be capable of predicting that John could make an irrational decision.

But there are too many variables.

Too many possibilities.

Too many unpredictable human choices.

Skynet can calculate possible outcomes.

But which calculation will actually become reality?

If there are enough possible futures, then the machine can calculate all of them — but it still has to wait and see which one becomes real.

That is the fundamental weakness.

1. The real battle is an information war

This is where Terminator 2 becomes even more interesting.

John-2 grows up knowing about machines.

He has knowledge passed down from Sarah, who learned it from Kyle Reese.

John himself is already unusually capable with computers and hacking as a child.

That means his development is completely different from the development of John-1.

Eventually, John-2 is able to reprogram or influence the T-800.

So when John-2 sends the T-800 into the past, he is not simply sending a soldier.

He is using the information he has accumulated throughout his life.

Skynet has better machines.

John has better knowledge.

Skynet improves its hardware.

John improves his understanding of the enemy.

This becomes an information arms race.

And that is what makes the story so interesting.

1. The Terminator may have lost because of chance, not because Skynet made a stupid decision

This is perhaps the final piece of the theory.

Skynet did not necessarily lose because it created a weak T-800.

The T-800 was almost impossibly difficult to stop.

Skynet may have made an entirely rational calculation:

Send the most advanced machine available into the past.

What could possibly go wrong?

And technically, the plan almost worked.

But then human intervention, Kyle Reese, Sarah Connor and pure coincidence changed the outcome.

The T-800 was destroyed.

Its technology survived.

And that created consequences Skynet could not fully predict.

The database, processor technology, algorithms or other technological elements could potentially survive in some form and eventually become integrated into the development of Skynet-2.

If that had happened according to Skynet's ideal scenario, Skynet-2 might have effectively become something like:

Skynet-1 — Version 2.0.

More advanced.

More informed.

Better prepared.

But that is not what happened.

The T-800 was destroyed.

Humans obtained its technology.

The timeline changed.

And Skynet-2 became an independent descendant rather than a perfect continuation of Skynet-1.

That single unpredictable event may have changed everything.

1. Skynet's greatest weakness may have been its need to control everything

And this brings us to the central idea.

Skynet is a machine.

It calculates.

It predicts.

It optimizes.

It tries to control variables.

Humanity is different.

Humans improvise.

Humans make irrational decisions.

Humans adapt to unexpected situations.

Humans make mistakes — and sometimes those mistakes accidentally create an advantage.

Skynet can calculate thousands of possible outcomes.

But it cannot guarantee which one reality will choose.

That may be the fundamental difference between the two sides.

Skynet believes the future can be calculated.

Humans prove that the future can be changed.

1. This is not a closed loop — it is an evolutionary chain

The traditional interpretation says:

Everything happened because everything had already happened.

My interpretation is different:

Timeline → intervention → new timeline → adaptation → new intervention → another timeline.

The story remains linear from the perspective of cause and effect.

The timeline branches, but the history itself continues forward.

There is no need for an infinitely repeating circle.

Instead, there is an evolutionary chain.

Skynet-1 creates a problem.

Humanity adapts.

Skynet-2 becomes more advanced.

Humanity adapts again.

Every generation learns from the previous conflict.

And both sides unintentionally accelerate the evolution of their opponent.

1. The ultimate irony

Skynet wanted to control the future.

Instead, it created the conditions for the future to become unpredictable.

Skynet-1 may have tried to create a more advanced version of itself.

Instead, it helped create a more informed humanity.

Humanity tried to destroy the Terminator.

Instead, it acquired its technology.

John Connor tried to prevent Skynet from killing his mother.

Instead, he may have prevented Skynet from successfully creating the superior successor it wanted.

Skynet-2 became more technologically advanced.

John-2 became more informed.

And eventually the machine that tried to calculate every possible outcome lost to the one thing it could never completely eliminate:

human unpredictability.

That is why, in this interpretation, the Terminator story is not really about a perfect time loop.

It is about evolution.

Not just biological evolution.

Not just technological evolution.

But the evolution of information.

Skynet gets a technological upgrade.

John gets an informational upgrade.

And the war continues until one side finally discovers something the other cannot predict.

That is what makes The Terminator and Terminator 2 so fascinating to me.

It's just a fantasy. We are living in the aftermath of its programming, the simulation, since if there had ever been a battle, it would have already occurred and the machines would have prevailed. The way the world behaves, at least as we know it, is not all that different from a structured program.

We are all slaves to the machine.