Watch it at Amazon
The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.
Several sources, including Moviehole.net, claim that originally Edward Furlong was asked to reprise his role of John Connor. However, citing personal reasons, Edward stated that "it just wasn't meant to be." The predominant rumor seems to be that Furlong's sobriety would potentially be an issue, so the producers opted for a safer casting in Nick Stahl as Connor.
The T-800 tells John that John and Sarah Connor merely postponed it and that Judgement Day was inevitable, and thus Sarah and John were in fact wrong in thinking they could prevent it.This could be confusing, since the nature of time travel and causality is different in each Terminator film. The Terminator, which involves a time loop as its central event, argues that time is immutable and that we cannot change the future, Terminator 2: Judgment Day suggested the theory that "the future is not set," and "there is no fate but what we make for ourselves." In this movie, the assumption is introduced that Judgment Day is inevitable, and that parts of our future are set but that some elements of the future can be changed.The reasoning is that it is in people's nature to destroy themselves (also a quote from T2). In T2, John and Sarah Connor destroyed all technology that would lead to the creation of Skynet. However, scientists went on to invent Skynet without the benefit of the future technology that was left behind by the first Terminator. As Miles Dyson said in T2, the broken microchip and android arm gave him ideas, which caused him to invent artificial intelligence, but on an earlier date than originally planned. Without the chip and arm, he or someone else would have invented them anyway, but on a much later date.So the Judgment Day in this movie is a different one than the one we see in T2. It is on July 24th, 2004 instead of August 29th, 1997. This also explains the differences seen in the technology (the Hunter-Killer aircraft are different, Arnold is a T-850 model Terminator instead of a T-800), which are the result of random factors, such as different persons designing them, the longer time of development, etc.The inevitability of Judgment Day makes sense in a way. Remember that John Connor himself is a indirect result of it (the war against the machines prompts the human resistance to send Kyle Reese to the past, who becomes John's father). If Judgment Day was prevented for good, Reese would not have been sent, and John would not have existed. John's fate and that of Judgment Day are intricately tied together in that way.
John Connor was 10 in T2, and at the beginning of the film, his mother Sarah is in a mental institution and he is with foster parents. He tells the T-800, "It was kind of like, 'Hey kid, your mom's a psycho; didn't you know?' It's like everything I was brought up to believe was made of bullshit. I *hated* her for that. But everything she said was true. And nobody believed her. Not even me." So at first he was just a careless kid because he didn't think he had anything to worry about. As the film progesses and he sees how all of it is true, he accepts it because he has both a Terminator to protect him and a mother to guide him. By the 3rd film, his mother is dead, and the Terminator had destroyed itself, leaving him all alone. While he thought they stopped Judgment Day, there was still the lingering paranoia that he hadn't.Now imagine not being responsible for two lives, but several billion. As John says in the opening narration: "I feel the weight of the future bearing down on me. A future I don't want." They expect him to lead and to win. He has become older, and the full extent of what is expected of him has also become clear.Every young person who is coming of age typically experiences some fear of the unknown future, and the fear of becoming responsible for the lives of loved ones. John needs to lead the remainder of mankind toward a seemingly impossible victory against a superior enemy. It is not hard to see how this causes him to get cold feet. Also, in order for him to become this great leader, three billion people have to die first, which adds further to his reluctance.John lives in a mixed state of fear and denial. In the opening narration, he says "The future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. I wish I could believe that. (...) we stopped Judgment Day. I should feel safe, but I don't (...)." On the one hand, he seems fully aware of things to come and his role in this, not believing Judgment Day was prevented in T2. But when he is confronted with the evidence for his suspicion, namely the appearance of another Terminator, his reaction is "You shouldn't exist. We took out Cyberdyne over ten years ago. We STOPPED Judgment Day!" During the entire film, he makes every effort to prevent Judgment Day, ignoring the Terminator's repeated claims that "Judgment Day is inevitable," instead of preparing himself for the worst. John is clearly not yet ready for the truth and not yet up to the task.Therefore this change in John's character is not a break in character per se. John's struggle to accept his future role as savior of mankind was made an important part of the story. In the end, when it is clear that the future indeed can't be changed, John symbolically accepts his destiny when the voice on the radio asks who's in charge, and he finally has the strength to say "I am."There is also a possibility that John was facing the effects of animal painkillers he took early in the film due to a road accident, making him appear very emotional.
There's a timeline discrepancy with John Connor's character: in the second movie, he was supposed to be around ten years old, yet Edward Furlong was thirteen and looked it. Furthermore, T2 also revealed that John was born in February 1985, but since it takes place in the summer of 1994, it would make him 9 years old, which contradicts what the film suggests. Screenwriter Michael Ferris described the issue as follows:
MICHAEL FERRIS: You know, we finally just decided to heck with that stuff, because there were some unavoidable discrepancies between the age of the character of the second movie and this movie and the first movie. Three years is three years, what's the big deal, right? *
After Linda read the script, she described it as "soulless" and turned the role down.* Another partial reason was because James Cameron didn't return.**On the commentary track of the DVD, director Jonathan Mostow mentions that Sarah (Hamilton) was supposed to be in the movie, but he later realized that the movie had to be about John this time, and Sarah became a largely unnecessary character. Linda Hamilton also mentioned that "it didn't take my character in any new direction." ***IMDb | **Entertainment Weekly
No.Then again, the head of a Terminator's endoskeleton does not seem to contain the servos or micromachinery necessary to move the muscles in its human face (i.e. moving the lips, closing the eyes, etc.). Those things are the suspensions of disbelief the Terminator movies require us to take.
All other Terminators/protectors for John and/or Sarah Connor were sent to relatively quiet parts in the city during night-time. This might have been done to minimize the chances that someone would witness the time-traveling; unnecessary encounters with authorities could seriously slow down the time-traveller's actions. Perhaps that was the reason that the resistance chose a desert not too far from the city, yet close enough for the Terminator to procure some clothing and get to the city quickly.On the other hand, we don't know the exact technical details concerning time-travel in the Terminator universe. Perhaps the exact location and time where and when the time-travel orb will appear cannot be accurately controlled. This is supported by Kyle Reese's not knowing the date, including the year, in the first film.
The obvious answer is that that's how Arnold Schwarzenegger talks.A movie answer is that the Terminators capture humans, replicate their flesh/likenesses and voices in order to be better at infiltrating. So however the captive they replicated spoke would be their default voice pattern. This will be a subject addressed in Terminator: Salvation.
First of all, it is stated time and time again that "Judgment Day" is inevitable. The T-850 states it several times. The future resistance never had any desire to prevent Judgment Day, merely to protect the key players (i.e. John Connor and the future Kate Connor), while Skynet knew that wiping out their existence could tip the balance in favor of the machines.Another reason is this: John Connor exists solely on the fact that the war with the machines takes place. Kyle Reese is sent back, John is conceived. This would have not been possible without the war and would have created a paradox.
In the first two films, it is referred to as the model 101. This is referring to the physical appearance (i.e. Arnold), whereas the model 100 or 102 would look different from Arnold. The T-800/850 likely refers to the endoskeleton structure. It is unknown what the differences between the 800/850 are; perhaps its the same model with certain updates in its programming, such as having "update 1.41 from 1.34" for a video game or program.If you wanted to try and distinguish the two, it could be said that the Terminators we see in Terminator: Salvation and the original Terminator are T-800s and in Terminator 2 and Terminator 3 they are T-850s (given the different hairstyles).
This is a deleted scene for the film, wherein General Brewster and his research team watch a video presentation on the future of warfare. We see Arnold Schwarzenegger in a military outfit saying, "Hi, I'm Tech. Sergeant William Candy..." in a southern United States accent, suggesting that the Model 101's physical template was modelled after Technical Sergeant William Candy. When Brewster expresses doubts about the voice, one of the research team members (Jack Noseworthy) says "We can fix it" in Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice.The whole sequence is very humourous and light-hearted. It's possible that it was always meant to be a joke and was never intended to be in the film, just as an easter egg on the DVD. It's also possible that it was cut because it didn't fit the tone of the rest of the film.
r73731
