More things in Terminator Salvation that made no sense. *SPOILERS*

The future scenes in The Terminator were all shot at night. In the film Kyle Reese explains to Sarah about the future when they are resting somewhere that's made of concrete (under a bridge?) after having escaped from the police station.
Kyle says "You stay down by day, only go out at night. The HKs still have infra-red though so you've got to be careful."
I'm not sure how long nuclear winter would last, and I know these films weren't exactly aiming for scientific accuracy but I think it is unlikely a planet would still shrouded in nuclear winter after 30 years - assuming Judgement Day occured in 1997 - at least a planet with any kind of humn life left alive. Bacteria would be doing well to survive after something chucked that much crap into the sky.
So I think it was night in 1 & 2 because of tactics. Then again, if the enemy have nightvision and you don't, wouldn't the day be a level playing field?
1 and 2 are classic sci-fi. 3 is Alien Resurrection. 4 is..would comparing it to Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull be going to far?

also, youre right spoony, it was very anticlimatic of McG's script of the terminators capturing reese but not killing him. i thought terminators prime targets were humans, especially if they are escaping from prison or resisting arrest

hmmm, i wonder what james cameron thinks about both rise of the machines and $alvation

Sure one of the neculear powercells in the terminators must have blown up while a terminator was being crushed and made a nuclear explosion on atleast one other occassion!

Nuclear explosions create EMP's which destroy electonics (and stop even cars from working) so i don't know how their helicopter is still flys.

I don't know John Conner is taken down my the nuke at the beginning when he's in the helicopter but this would make sense however in the skynet explosion they continue flying barley not even a mile away from the blast not even taking into account EMPs.

lol well about the arnold terminator being so unstoppable...

i do believe because the arnold = T-800 while the others were T-600s (as said by kyle reese ... [mmm yum reese] =] )
i just dont understand if skynet could make the t-800 why don't they do it so much earlier.. it sounds like the AI had to learn more calculations -.-" shouldn't it have all the calculations if it was a machine and it was self aware?

I liked Salvation, it wasn't as bad as 3 and if you paid attention it actually does make perfect sense, in fact I think i have a rebuttal for every comment listed here. If I am missing anything or even if you disagree with me, feel free to make corrections.

1. Skynet is guarded by exactly one terminator without a gun.

A. I assume you are referring to the Arnold terminator in skynet HQ. Skynet had a defense grid, but marcus shut it down when he entered the building.

2. Despite the fact that it is demonstrated that terminators can be created to exactly replicate the appearance and voice of people they’ve captured to infiltrate or lure the Resistance into traps, Skynet chooses to keep Kyle Reese alive to lure John Connor into a trap.

A. Skynet did not know that Reese was Connor's father. They only knew that the resistance was looking for him therefore making the plot to use him as a hostage reasonably intelligent. Only the T-1000 and T-X can replicate appearances and they weren't invented yet.

3. Seriously, what possible reason could Skynet have for keeping Reese alive? Killing him ensures that John is never conceived. Even if you’re willing to argue the grandfather paradox here, you have to admit, it couldn’t fucking hurt.

A. Who says they weren't planning to kill him after they wasted John Connor?

4. Apparently, you can jump into the ocean from a helicopter and just swim down and enter a nuclear submarine without any kind of diving gear.

4. I got nothing for this one I agree it was pretty stupid

5. The resistance has the talent and technology to perform a heart transplant.

A. It could happen, they have doctors and not a whole lot of technology is really needed for a heart transplant, just surgical tools and expertise.

6. The enormous ten-story tall Harvester robots are capable of astounding feats of ambush. They’re big, but they can walk on tippy-toes.

They also moo.

A. The terminator in terminator 1 had overly exaggerated mechanical noises too because it makes it less human and therefore scarier. Also you mentioned in the video that the harvesters and human camps are nazi references which they are not. Watch Terminator 1 again, Kyle Reese specifically states that the terminators rounded up the humans "into camps for orderly disposal".

7. Blair is willing to betray her entire race and everyone who was willing to fight and die with her for a robot she’s known for less than two days and is unquestionably some kind of trap created by Skynet.

Women are nuts man, nuff said!

8. Terminators have highly-unstable nuclear power cells which would be much more effective as weapons against the Resistance than robots with guns.

A. Says terminator 3, but seriously, that movie was dog shit. This one is more in tune with the original Cameron films and ignores T3 and so do I.

9. These power cells apparently weren’t in the terminators destroyed in the first two movies.

A. Right, and the technology of the terminators is coherent with the Cameron films.

10. John Connor is immune to radiation, because he’s usually within a few hundred yards of these nuclear explosions when they occur.

A. I honestly don't remember him being near any nuclear explosions but then, I only saw the movie once.

11. Skynet has no idea where the Resistance is, even though there’s a lake full of amphibious snake terminators in the lake two hundred yards outside their main base. Nor do these aquatic robots aid Skynet in any way to find the nuclear submarine serving as the Resistance HQ. In the ocean. The watery place you’d want your swimming robots to be.

Actually, Skynet did know where the base was, it destroyed the submarine near the end.

12. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to simply stuff Marcus full of explosives and program him to explode when he encounters John?

A. I guess, but you could make that same argument about ANY movie in history.

13. John is a war hero among the Resistance for teaching them how to fight the machines and exposing all of their weaknesses like, uh, shooting them a lot and running away.

A. This movie wasn't about John Connor, it was about Marcus who was a much more interesting character. It really doesn't say much about John becoming the resistance leader or anything either.

This movie was definitely a fan service, but as a huge fan of the franchise I have to give kudos when a new director makes a solid entry to the series. This movie wasn't great but it was satisfactory. I think it actually played it safe a little too much but at least it was willing to move forward and not give us the same plot over again. If there ever is another Terminator by this director, I will be first in line to see it because I think the next one will be amazing.

Oh, and I believe in the 3rd movie they alluded to the power cells. Arnold's skeleton was powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, not a nuclear one. And if it became damaged it was unstable, which caused a hydrogen bomb like explosion.

I don't know where they got the nuclear thing from...but maybe it's just future continuity.

Despite me liking the movie (7.5/10), I do agree with what you're saying, Spoony. I know there are flaws, and many of those flaws stem from McG and the production companies.

Apparently after James Cameron left as producer of these flicks Mario Kassar figured he could take a huge dump on the entire franchise...hiring people like Mostow and McG to direct these movies that are pretty good, but in no way as good as the first two. And the WRITING TEAM!! Fuck...what kind of hack writers did they get on this? I heard that they one of the Nolan brothers to work on the script to beef it up...but he didn't beef it up at all!! It seemed like they had a good idea but figured it was a safer bet to not take any chances.

I don't think John Conner was ever the hero in any of the movies. The story was always central to him, but he was never the one saving people, he was the scrappy guy who was constantly being hauled out of the fire by serious badasses.

That said, John always seems to come out on top while still maintaining his morals.

"John is a war hero among the resistance" yet was it just me or did it seem like he was just some asshole running around doing
whatever he wanted to do... while the guys in the sub were the real deal? I can't remember if you mentioned this spoony but I know
when watching this piece of shit I was questioning John Conners place in the resistance...

also, isn't it funny that in a world where every major city and military defense post has been nuked to shit by skynet during judgement day...
it's sunny out? I mean unless the future war flashbacks from T1 & 2 were intentionally always shot at night and meant to be at night, i
would assume that any sun light would have been blotted out.... people are eating vegetables?? and aparently consumer electronics
are still being created in bulk b/c it looked like all of the computers the resistance had were brand spanking new.

Terminator is not going so well at the box office. It's a bad sign when a kids movie is making more money than a Terminator movie (Night at the Museum 2).

Oh yeh, i heard something similiar like that in T2.
But still, you think there would be a Resistance in Europe aswell, we humans are a race of survivors.
Would Skynet have troops there and thus engage the European Resistance, if there is any?
i'm not that well known in the Terminator expanded universe, so i dont know much about any source material from Europe if it appeared.

As for fucking up the franchise and the charectures....yes i have to agree with you on that one. The only known franchise i know that isn't screwed up recnetly is the new Star Trek movie since it's a alternative timeline.

(to Gorvar )

If I remember correctly, the original terminator made it something like Skynet actually nuked the Russians, the Russians then Nuked all the NATO members, and thats how the world is a massive living hell.

They also portrayed Connor to be an amazing commander, like Robert E. Lee who everyone respects and liked, even his enemies. Thats why im so suprised at how this movie can apperently fuck something as easy as that up (as it sounds like they did big time) *sigh* hopefully I will be able to see it by the end of next week, I need to see how much they are destroying this series

Everything after Terminator 2 didn't make much sense.

The concept that the future is not set is completely broken once you accept that Kyle Reese is Connor's father. This pretty much guarantees that the timeline has to follow a set predestined path. It's a non-linear path, but there's only one path for it to follow that creates some kind of stable time loop. By going back in time in the original Terminator movie, those events actually lead to the creation of both John Connor and Skynet. After that, it's guaranteed that judgment day has to happen, because at some point in the future Reese has to go back in time and create John Connor so he can later blow up Cyberdyne and send Reese back in time. Because John Connor can't even exist without Reese. And if you can accept some form of time travel, that vaguely makes some sense. It's got some weird non-linear progression of events, but the actual series of events is stable in that context if destroying Cyberdyne was just something that always happened and didn't do anything to stop or even slow Judgment day. T2 was nice in that it left that open and unresolved. You never really knew if they changed the future or not.

In Terminator 3, they totally fucked with that, and made it such that the future could be changed, because judgment day got pushed back. Which means that the John Connor, son of Kyle Reese, is a completely different John Connor than the original one Reese was sent back to protect. And that just makes no sense.

Ok, I recently watched the first three terminator movies, I have not yet seen this newest one. But one thing strikes me about the third movie that, judging from Spoony's comments, this one suffers from as well and that is the "motive" of Skynet. The sequence of events is made quite clear in the first two movies:

1) Skynet is created
2) Skynet is put in exclusive control of everything that can result is mass casualties.
3) Skynet becomes self-aware.
4) The creators of skynet realize how dumb they were in step two and try to kill it.
5) Skynet, not wanting to be deactivated, responds by killing the human race to protect itself.

In other words, if it were not for people trying to kill it, Skynet wouldn't have, at least at that point, waged war. However, by the time they get to T3, we have a Skynet that is already self aware before it is given ultimate control of every weapon available, and appears to be raising hell so that people will give it what it wants so it can then start killing people. Do I really need to explain why the idea of a self-aware computer being inherently evil and hell bent on destruction is just plain idiotic? Who programmed the A.I., Dr. Wiley from Mega Man? It had an evil mater plan right from the beginning? Yes, I know, it's all just entertainment and the terminator series is just riddled with story problems, but must good entertainment always get this watered down at some point?

Biggest terminator question still is "how the hell t1000 was able to time travel? Remember, only living mater."

Question: You think the European, Asian, African Resistance forces would follow a yank who keeps bitching and moaning?
i'm just saying, a lot of people in Europe would have a hard time following somebody half the globe away giving useless tips on the radio like 'shoot them a lot and run.'

@Gamble Yes, that would of been cool...and might of been what the originaly ending was, I know it had something to do with Connor dying. Either way that would of been fucking awesome.

Did anyone else want to see a scene where one of the soldiers chewed Connor out for releasing the female pilot?

Soldier: With all due respect, 'sir,' she cost us two good men and a helicoptor while betraying us all for a damned machine. I don't want her at my back, and I guarantee she'll get a bullet in hers. Keep her close if you must, but keep her away from me.

If John or Kyle get killed, then Kyle won't go back, and skynet will never be, since the chip and arm from the first Terminator are what made them work on Skynet in the first place

Man, I might even hurt myself thinking about this

Also, John was the one who broke them out of the camps and got them organized and taught them to fight, but, still, it's a stretch considering that T3 shows him in the fallout shelter, but hey, he is important

It's crazy

Though, I was entertained by T4, I'll say that

You know what would have being cool? To have the original ending where Marcus kills John Connor and since Skynet gives it his face, Skynet sends the disguised Marcus inside the rebel bases to digg out any remaining humans. But in the way there, or once there, Marcus gets hit or damaged in some way, which screws up Skynets control and his memory. Then, everybody else fills him on the details, believing human and that he has amnesia. This way, Marcus ends up believing he is actually John Connor. Marcus, now believing he is John, fights next to the resistance and since he has the robotic body, he is superior in combat and able to excel and eventually become the leader of the resistance.

I saw a few questions on here talking about what if Connor didnt do anything at all in reality. (That maybe Reese gave John more credit or that John was only the leader by luck and not skill)

In the start of Terminator 3 (if I remember correctly) there is a scene that shows John Connor (an old one too) with a torn up American Flag behind him and the resistance cheering around him with the narrator commenting that John had led them to victory, that they won the war. So John did contribute major gains in the future war.

Which after seeing that scene makes me wonder why John was such an idiotic whinny baby in the 3rd movie. (Its like, how did whines a lot Anakin Skywalker becomes kills the men under his command for apologizing Darth Vadar)

@ Salsa

I didn't SUPPOSE the terminators in the future are weaker than those in the past. You misread what i typed. I'm saying from a purely story-based perspective there's no way the writers could make the terminators in the future as efficiently lethal as the ones sent into the past. There's no way humans would have been able to survive long enough if their adversaries were that efficient at killing, even WITH someone who had knowledge of the future (you see how much that helped Connor in T2 and T3 take down 1 terminator... IT DIDN'T). Who knows, though, the terminators before the T800 might just not be as durable or strong as the ones sent back into the past. Look at the Arnold Schwarzinager (SP?) bot at the end. It endured a fuckload more than the generic T700/600's or whatever shown earlier in the film. But i don't know, that's just a guess.

And yes, i'm assuming that the T3 did inform Skynet of John Connor's threat, but you're just assuming that such an act DIDN'T occur as well. At least i'm trying to fill in a temporal gap of time between two on-screen events and not just throwing my hands up into the air and claiming "zOMG PLOTHOLE!".

We need new material. No more old franchise.

Maybe I dont know much about how radios and radio signals work, but how in the hell do radio signals still broadcast music when all of humanity had the crap bombed out of it? I really hate that they put the fuel cells in this movie too. I think its implied (and theorized about on the terminator wiki) that the arnold terminator in T3 was a T-850 instead of a T-800, and for some reason the T-850 was built with a nuclear power source thing. But of course this movie messes that up by making it so all T-800s have it apparently.

SpitefulCrow: The area they blew up a car to attract the HK was a piece of land that was heavily patrolled (as it was in traffic zones for skynet). They say that in the movie. The human base is far down where skynet doesn't much venture.

90% Of the complaints people have against this movie have answers that were said in the movie, and manage to make sense. I'm beggining to think no one paid attention (though maybe that could be a fault of the movie.. I dunno, I did fine)

There was some dumb things, most of which I attribute to them changing the ending. Had they not, movie would have been flawless.

Oh, and it managed to make the convulted time travel plotline actually make sense (indirectly, if you consider it for a while), which is a miracle.

Anyway, I don't get why people are complaining about the things in this movie, yet no one cared about the billions, BILLIONS of MASSIVE plot holes in Star Trek, yet everyone says that movie was well done.

Well done my ass, that movie was done terribly, in every conceivable way.

People are just stupid now I guess and are entertained by shit. I'm not calling Terminator 4 brilliance here (maybe if it went with the original ending), but it wasn't full of plot holes as people seem to think.

TL:DR; T4's plotholes are mostly user error, Star Trek was terrible, RIP the days of Babylon 5

John blows up something to attract a HK so they can test out the signal they got. Other humans also hide from the machines so they don't get spotted (the underground resistance base, for one). So WHY, when chasing Marcus, does the Resistance go ahead and firebomb and entire stretch of forest and wage a war against one fleeing unarmed robot? Wouldn't that just attract more machines to their base? Wouldn't they want to kill him in a more subtle fashion so as not to risk HK's seeing (whatever) the heat signatures and gunfire and explosions and swooping in to bomb the shit out of the place?

It's not so much that the resistance can do a heart transplant that bothers me. Sure, maybe supplies are scarce, but hey, maybe they do have the required equipment. I'll grant them that. What I want to know is, how do you perform open-heart surgery in the middle of the friggin' desert!?! I mean, they don't even have a closed off tent! It's open air! What if a light breeze passes through and blows sand in Connor's chest cavity? Ugh.....

I was watching this movie an hour ago but i fell asleep. >.> that hasnt happend since i was a little kid

After seeing this movie, I kinda of have to agree with Spoony that T3 made more sense than Salvation. After Skynet explained it's evil plan to Marcus, why didn't Skynet just immediatly activate Marcus's chip and take control of him instead of letting him peel the skin off the back of his head and removing the chip? If the machines are that stupid, it makes me wonder how they put up such a fight for the resistance. The Terminators fall for the simplest traps and they walk so slow. I can't believe that you can have them stand in place and then just drop a ton of metal on top of them. Also, apparently clothslines appear effective. Are the machines using Microsoft? Why are they that stupid? Also, why don't any of the Terminators run and give chase. Some of them do, while others just walk after you. Also, apparently some will go down in a few hits while others like the Arnold Terminator can take a ton of damage. What really struck me as weird is when the Terminator has to scan for a vulnerability while fighting Marcus? Shouldn't it have knowledge programmed into it by Skynet about Marcus's vulnerabilities? Also, when the Terminator punches Marcus in the heart and is apparently terminated, how can Marcus by suddenly be brought back to life by shocking him if he has internal damage? In fact, how can Marcus's heart be used as a transplant for Connor if it got damaged? The movie didn't make sense at all.