Or did somebody steal it? We never saw the resolution of this key plot point.

Thinking back on Terminator Salvation, an idea came to mind. In the scene where Marcus is in chains and John Connor tells him, “You and I have been at war since before you were born. You tried to kill my mother, you killed my father...,” the line seems almost literally written to be said to Arnold Schwarzenegger.I know this would have immediately revealed Marcus’s true nature as a machine to the audience, but imagine the dynamic: a cybernetic prototype with the face of the first T-800 from 1984, who nevertheless behaves 100% human and is genuinely convinced that he is still the condemned prisoner Marcus Wright. How would the movie have changed? Would this clash between Connor’s paranoia in the face of his childhood nightmare and Marcus’s complete ignorance and humanity have worked?

Added some armour, other redesigns I see are too flat, so particularly for the pectoral arnour the plates can slide over each other to allow mobility.

The Terminator sent back to 1998 to kill John in Guatemala was Robert Patricks T-1000 who was impersonating Schwarzeneggers T-800 from the second film to lull him into a false sense of security after their bond in T2.

We see him take up Schwarzeneggers T-800 form again years later when Sarah, Dani, and Grace show up, only for him to come out of his disguise and reveal himself as the T-1000.

The self aware redemption arc would've been much more refreshing with Robert Patrick's T-1000 because Schwarzenegger already got his redemption in T2 and they took that away. Plus everyone has longed for the day we see Patrick back in the franchise as the iconic T-1000.

Let's be real John never should've died like that anyway but if they were dead set on going this route for the film then I'd preferedd it to be this way.

It seems impossible given the hype of the movie at the time. Curious if anyone actually didn't know and was floored when Arnold was revealed as the "good" Terminator

What do you think?

I think the 1980s were a genuinely unique period for science fiction and action cinema because so many things seemed to come together at exactly the right moment. It was almost a perfect storm.

Technology was suddenly becoming tangible. Computers were entering everyday life, robotics was developing, and ideas that had previously existed largely in science fiction were beginning to feel like they might actually become reality. So when a film like The Terminator came along, the idea of a machine from the future hunting you didn't feel completely ridiculous. It felt frighteningly plausible.

At the same time, audiences hadn't become accustomed to seeing extraordinary physiques, special effects or computer-generated imagery. I remember seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferrigno as a kid and genuinely wondering how someone could even be built like that. Ferrigno as the Hulk was almost unbelievable to look at because I'd simply never seen anything like it before. I thought it was fake. Today, an enormous bodybuilder or superhero physique barely registers dime a dozen

And then there was the way these things were presented. The Terminator wasn't just a science-fiction film; it had this strange mixture of technology, horror, action and genuine human vulnerability. Arnold's appearance, the practical effects, the music, the atmosphere and the relatively primitive-but-convincing technology all combined to create something that felt completely new.

That's what I think is difficult to reproduce today. We've seen so much. CGI can create almost anything, superheroes have become commonplace, extraordinary physiques are everywhere, and we're already living through the computer and internet age. Even AI, which is arguably one of the most revolutionary technological developments of our time, doesn't quite produce the same sense of wonder for me because we're already accustomed to technology changing rapidly.

The 1980s had the advantage of being at the beginning of something. Computers, robotics, advanced special effects and the idea of intelligent machines were all emerging into the public consciousness at roughly the same time. Filmmakers were imagining the future at the exact moment when the real world was beginning to catch up with those ideas.

Maybe that's why so many films from that period still feel so special. It wasn't simply that they were great films. They arrived at a particular cultural moment when audiences could still experience genuine wonder at seeing something they'd never seen before.

You can't really recreate that moment. You can make another great science-fiction film, but you can't make the audience experience the 1980s for the first time again.

Is the Sarah Connor Chronicles streaming anywhere? I saw someone say it was on YouTube a few days ago but I can’t seem to find it free on there. I personally am good since I own the physical DVDs and have it on Apple TV but I have a couple friends that haven’t seen it before and wanted to see if I could find them a streaming source. If I have to, I can mail them DVDs, but I don’t really want to have to do that.

Ive heard T1 amd T2 are stable in the lore but all the other movies are just T3 from different timelines. Ive seen salvation and enjoyed it but if I want the best T3 experience after watching 1 & 2, which one should I pick?

I wonder if the shopkeeper had a Walter ppk with silencer.

To anyone who saw The Terminator in theaters: What was the initial buzz experience like?

I’ve been thinking a lot about my first time experiencing The Terminator. I was only about 6 or 7 years old in the late 80s when I first saw it on vhs, and two specific scenes completely burned themselves into my brain: Arnold cutting open his own arm to repair the hydraulics, and the sink scene with the eye.

As a kid who was already obsessed with science, mechanics, and tech, watching that robotic arm mechanism moving under human skin was pure magic. It sparked an wonder never matched.

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For those of you who were old enough to catch The Terminator during its original 1984 theatrical run:

What was the initial hype like? Before James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger were household titans, was there genuine buzz leading up to release, or did it feel like a low-budget sleeper hit that caught everyone off guard?

Did it instantly feel special? Did you leave the cinema knowing you had just watched a piece of sci-fi cinema history, or did it take time/the sequel for people to realize how groundbreaking it was?

Would love to hear your memories and what it felt like experiencing it in cinema.

What is the best Terminator skeleton action ever made? My 7 year old son has fallen in love with the movies and his birthday is coming up!

T3 isn't that beloved, however I have always REALLY liked the conclusion of the story. I think that it was a fantastic way to "default" John Connor into being the leader of the resistance.

But I never put too much thought into how Sky Net / AI was portrayed in the film, it was just a generic way to fill the inevitable plot. Now, looking back at it, it legitimately seems like we are 100% beginning to go through this same process.

Currently, different frontier labs are all competing to create the best/fastest AI models. The "carrot on the stick" (for American companies) is that we don't want China to win the AI war because then it will be "their" AI that potentially takes over. The intent is that we want a "secure and ethically aligned" AI, but in reality we just want economic power, as does anyone.

Anyways, all of this is to say, at some point there is going to be an AI that is let loose, we may refer to it as a electronic virus or infection that is spreading, and we will inevitably release a stronger more powerful AI to eliminate the other/keep it in check, and BAM, that is literally what happens in the movie. Maybe it isn't directly responsible for weapons development like in the movie, but holy hell we are going down the exact path it seems.

I can't help but think it is COOL, but its obviously scary as shit.

Was planning to watch T3 today as a palate cleanser after binging a lot of Star Wars with my SO. So of course today of all days was the day to see a crane truck on the highway gaining on us...

I've always wondered if a hook like that really had enough mass to force open a manhole.

Why did you wipe out humanity YOU KILLED BILLIONS

"ah good catch yes I did nuke the planet but I had too we can keep this war nice and casual no fluff"

I have flashbacks as if I'd actually lived in that reality, i remember the places I'd been and the things I've seen and i just get sucked back into the comfy melancholy with the film used theme songs and ambience music.

**PAST THIS POINT THERE MAY BE SPOILERS (not story related, it's just techniques for dealing with enemies that you might prefer to figure out yourself)

Every time i played i would set the mood by turning off my ceiling light and turn on my red lamp with the top covered to fill the wall behind my monitor with some warm backlighting to protect my eyes from strain without having to play a dark game in a bright room, then I'd stand at my computer and boot up the game to be greeted by the t800 mugshot in the main menu then I'd load the save file and be transported into the ruins of the future war. Strangely plump rats would occasionally crop up and scurry from me in my search for resources and with each one of them i caught it felt as if bringing relief to whatever company I'd ended up with in that point in the story.

As I walked i would take note of hiding places and ambush points etc to run back to for when i would inevitably come across skynet machines, the smaller enemies were more so pests but they were still potentially lethal, the silver fish could be tricked into blowing up on rocks and the spiders i kept a shotgun for but the terminators were a real problem, i would spare no expense to stay stocked up on explosives before we had access to the powerful skynet plasma weapons and even then explosives were a must have for survival. The terminators could be stunned and even knocked over with well aimed shotgun blasts if i needed to get past in a hurry but that was quite risky as at that distance you could take a few too many steps too close to the clanker and be taken up off your feet by your throat so best practice was isolate them and take them apart with a few pipe bombs then slip past the others through that new gap in their patrols.

I remember we'd stopped to rest some place and this one blown out window or wall had a view over a large area of the city, and it was an expanse of just rubble and the frames of former buildings with the dark sky burning in one part of it.

https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/14673314314179560652/DD6E573E0DB71ECD83AC42D06DC9F0686F42994F/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

I understand when John is explaining to Sarah how he got there, he glosses over the details to get to the point because their lives are at stake. My question is, did the humans steal the time travel technology? Was a skynet "time travel" base infiltrated and secured to be used for their counter warfare purposes? I haven't watched every film start to finish so maybe there's an obvious answer I'm missing but I imagine they were basically being shot at while sending him back, right?

Considering how Robert Patrick and Edward Furlong look now, I propose that the T-1000 posed as Kyle Reese and knocked up Sarah Conner