The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Ati » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:57 pm UTC

I felt that while the new episode was well-filmed, well-scripted, etc., it didn't advance the general plot very much. My theory is that they put the last two episodes in as a kind of hiatus to avoid getting back to the Cromartie/Ellison timeline for a while. My only thought is that they want some development to happen off-camera to avoid awkwardness, and also they want something big to happen towards the end of the season.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby mosc » Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:27 pm UTC

Well yeah, they were kind of unrelated to the main plot but the last one did help explain the prior relationship between Derek and Jesse.

This show is so well made though. The director is really good.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Nath » Wed Dec 10, 2008 9:52 pm UTC

Neuman wrote:Because T-888s are the best infiltrators that SkyNet can reliably mass produce by this point, presumably.

By which point? They've been sending terminators back both before and after the invention of the 888.

Here's my clumsy attempt to try and fit an explanation: the T-888 was designed shortly after they figured out how to do time travel. For the first, highest priority mission (the first movie), they sent a T-800. For subsequent missions, they had 888s.

Neuman wrote:
Nath wrote:Unfortunately, it didn't quite come together nicely. And yet again, a T-888 was beaten off screen, so we don't how much of a fight it put up, but in it's first encounter it temporarily deactivated Cameron and tossed her though a window.

Fix'd, unless we're talking about different episodes.

Yes, it's an improvement over previous episodes. But look how hard these things were to destroy in the movies. They're dropping like flies here.

To be fair, though, the movies were all about one party running away, rather than a relatively evenly matched direct confrontation.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Ati » Thu Dec 11, 2008 12:12 am UTC

Nath wrote:
Neuman wrote:
Nath wrote:Unfortunately, it didn't quite come together nicely. And yet again, a T-888 was beaten off screen, so we don't how much of a fight it put up, but in it's first encounter it temporarily deactivated Cameron and tossed her though a window.

Fix'd, unless we're talking about different episodes.

Yes, it's an improvement over previous episodes. But look how hard these things were to destroy in the movies. They're dropping like flies here.

To be fair, though, the movies were all about one party running away, rather than a relatively evenly matched direct confrontation.


Well, in the first movie, Kyle Reese was disoriented, poorly armed, and protecting an untrained target. In T2, they were better trained, but Sarah Connor was out of commission, John was in a non-defensible position and too young to fight effectively, and they were fighting a T-1000, which is a lot tougher than either the T-800's, or T-888's. Now they're well trained, they have a pet Terminator on their side with capacities greater than the T-800, they're well armed, funded, and equipped. It's not surprising that they're having some success.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby thatguy » Thu Dec 11, 2008 3:06 am UTC

It feels like they're falling a bit into the "Terminator of the Week" thing they said they wouldn't do. Although, to give them credit, it could be much worse.

Some more development of the Cameron/John relationship and the "multiple timeline" subplot is really all the more I want out of the show.

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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby mosc » Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:42 am UTC

The whole "you come from a future I wasn't in and knew a version of me I am not" is such an obvious byproduct of their time travel system that it was refreshing to finally hear them acknowledge it and talk about the implications of it. It was one of the highlights of the series for me.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Sprocket » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:22 am UTC

When the Mississippi river overflows its banks and starts killing people, is in then a Mississippi cameron?
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby mosc » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:51 pm UTC

what the hell?
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Princess Marzipan » Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:08 pm UTC

...Yeah, CatProximity will do that. I know and lub her, but I rarely understand some of her posts. =P

As for the 888 being handled "easily," it was handled off-screen. Would you rather have had the episode be about taking that 888 down, or about...the actual plot?
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Nath » Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:31 pm UTC

Nougatrocity wrote:As for the 888 being handled "easily," it was handled off-screen. Would you rather have had the episode be about taking that 888 down, or about...the actual plot?

Well, I wouldn't have wanted them to spend the episode on the 888. But on the other hand, every time they destroy another 888 in a single episode, with essentially zero long-term cost, the 888 becomes a less threatening adversary.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Princess Marzipan » Sat Dec 13, 2008 8:59 pm UTC

SHOULDN'T it be less threatening? Sarah Connor now knows her shit and has her own metal - as has been said, the first movie saw nothing in favor of the two humans, and the second featured Sarah, a prepubescent boy, and vastly inferior metal.

Cromartie took a while because he was a tricky son of a bitch. But Vick from season one was taken down about as quickly when pitted against humans with guns and another terminator.

"Terminator of the week" isn't happening. Sometimes a terminator shows up, but there is still an overarching plot that you can see progressing. I love what they've been doing, except the 1920s episode. And even then, that wasn't BAD - just boring for the most part.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Nath » Sat Dec 13, 2008 10:19 pm UTC

From an in-universe perspective: yes, they should be less threatening. The humans have several experienced fighters, and a terminator who appears to be at least as advanced as the 888s. From a dramatic perspective, though, it's a risky thing to do. Both movies (la la la there were just two) were based on the premise that the terminators were near-indestructible. They absorbed vast amounts of punishment, and just wouldn't die. That's a scary quality in a villain. In the TV series, they are becoming henchman-level threats. Like vampires in Buffy. It's true that the show is far more than terminator-of-the-week, but it's getting to the point where they don't have a really menacing adversary.

(Yes, there's the 1001. She might become scary at some point. But right now she's just a distant threat.)
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Princess Marzipan » Sun Dec 14, 2008 6:18 am UTC

Nath wrote:It's true that the show is far more than terminator-of-the-week, but it's getting to the point where they don't have a really menacing adversary.


Ah, but that's exactly the point.

There is no single objective. All they can do is flail around hoping to stall or prevent SkyNet, and deal with what SkyNet throws at them. And we also get to see a lot of what happens during the future war between the Reese brothers' time jumps.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby mosc » Mon Dec 15, 2008 5:54 pm UTC

If 888s couldn't be brought down by small arms fire, the entire premise of the future war would be absurd wouldn't it? A few terminators would be a vast army. They are clearly superior to human soldiers but also clearly vulnerable. I think the idea that at took 5 close range high powered shotgun rounds to the head to bring it down was about right. They're not supposed to be indestructible. And like the above poster said, there are better models with more capability if you want to get into larger threats. Fortunately, they're using those sparingly.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Ati » Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:31 am UTC

Well, while interesting, that last episode was annoying heavy on the UFO's, and light on the John-Henry. Not what I was hoping for in a mid-season finale, honestly.

Incidentally, here's my [complete unsubstantiated] theory about the show:

The bracelets (in the post-judgement day future) are used to signify people close to John (very few people wear them). John therefore has a relationship of some kind with the girl Cameron replaced (Allison). I'm going to take a hypothetical leap here, and say it was romantic. So, Robo-Allison returns to base. John figures it out in about thirty seconds, and has her incapacitated, but he can't bring himself to destroy her. So he finds a way to reprogram her, launching the program of appropriating metal. After this, Cameron is running around, looking just like his lost love, sounding like her, etc. He already believes that machines are capable of sentience (T2). In what are undoubtedly a deeply fucked up set of circumstances, they end up in a relationship, the dynamics of which are probably so weird that I refuse to speculate on them. Eventually, he sends her back to protect him from the machines, presumably on the basis that he trusts her more than generic metal number eight.

After this, he begins to make questionable decisions as a military leader, due to empathy with Skynet - relying too much on metal, etc. This leads Derek's girlfriend to go rogue, and send a girl back to prevent John from forming a relationship with Cameron in the past. Thus does Riley enter the picture.

This also explains Cameron's dislike for Riley, among other things.


I'm curious to see where they're going with this, and I'm hoping for a third season.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby thatguy » Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:02 am UTC

Yeah. That explanation ties things up pretty nicely, and they've been hinting at it in the show.
Now for more of the alternate timeline oddities, and i'm fine.
Oh, and i 'spose they could wrap-up that John Henry stuff...

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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby mosc » Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:46 am UTC

Obviously they're widening the threats some. Skynet seems to be popping up everywhere. Eh, not my favorite episode of the series this week but it was OK. The show has great detail like when riley and the aussie chick were in the car and they nearly flipped when simply hearing a dog bark. It was a nice touch.

I do want some explanation of John Henry's face. Maybe we'll get it in the new half. I'm still hoping they swing that liquid chick into some kind of non-skynet related metal goal. Creating a competing faction amongst the enemy adds depth. Would allow John Henry to have some kind of tragic death to blur the line between man and machine. "We are all god's creations" etc. Give something to lean on cameron's development too.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Flesh_Of_The_Fallen_Angel » Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:51 am UTC

I just found this thread . . . I have been watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles since I saw the first episode. I love it (mostly). The time travel stuff makes sense, but the fact that they can't take anything with them when they time travel is beyond annoying. Although, it does stop the bad guys from carpet bombing every place that they know Sarah and John have ever been! They need to elaborate more on some of the technical stuff to do with time travel. Also, why did those shotgun blasts do anything to cromarty's head? It made no sense . . . unless the shotgun was firing some kind of special sabot rounds. But the only time that any of the guns in this show have fired anything special was that rifle when John and his uncle went to military school. That was a cool rifle. They need more people to have/use those rather than shotguns. Also, Sarah needs to be more of a gun nut. She seriously needs to have more guns and better guns. I'm a little surprised that they haven't put a jack-hammer shotgun in there yet (its a fully automatic 12 gauge shotgun in bull-pup configuration). Even though its a very (neigh impossible to get even if your willing to pay shit-loads of cash to the dodgiest of people) rare gun, I would expect it to pop up somewhere, even if the future resistance have them. Lets face it, they are an awesome gun. Even though they are unbelievably impractical. Also, I liked how Johns uncle once used a grenade launcher when they went out into the desert (Although technically he didn't use it because he never did fire it, but him having it was just awesome!). I wish that they has cooler/better guns.

Er, sorry for turning that into a little rant about guns.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby mosc » Tue Dec 16, 2008 6:23 pm UTC

It's a sci-fi show not a gun show. Sci-fi is about creating twists on reality that help us examine our world in new ways. What you're saying may add a little bit to the realism but I don't think helps the story.

I'd also point out that they're far form on the up and up and they don't have unlimited resources. Exotic guns are not really going to be their focus.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Nath » Wed Dec 17, 2008 12:47 am UTC

mosc wrote:If 888s couldn't be brought down by small arms fire, the entire premise of the future war would be absurd wouldn't it? A few terminators would be a vast army. They are clearly superior to human soldiers but also clearly vulnerable. I think the idea that at took 5 close range high powered shotgun rounds to the head to bring it down was about right. They're not supposed to be indestructible. And like the above poster said, there are better models with more capability if you want to get into larger threats. Fortunately, they're using those sparingly.

Modern tanks are pretty much invulnerable to small arms fire, but do not automatically win wars. In the movies, the 800s shrugged off vast amounts of small arms fire (including shotgun blasts), and some pretty nasty explosions and such at close range. I don't think this would render the whole future war premise absurd. It would render direct small arms confrontation between humans and robots absurd, assuming the humans were using present-day firearms. But there's still plenty of potential for a war between hard-to-destroy robots and sneaky humans.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby thatguy » Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:37 am UTC

Its possible SkyNet tweaked the alloy composition,which made them weaker, but made SkyNet able to crank out more of them, with boosted intelligence to compensate, yadda yadda yadda.
Point is, they can be brought down by a few blasts straight to the cranium, I don't see that plot point getting changed anytime soon.

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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Flesh_Of_The_Fallen_Angel » Fri Dec 26, 2008 9:59 am UTC

I know its not a gun show, but guns are very important to the plot. Even though they do almost no damage to terminators, they still use guns against them. It would be better if they used better guns against the terminators. (Like the rifle that was used when john and his uncle went to the army school thing)

One thing; I didn't understand why cromardy's* body was completely fixed when the x-FBI officer guy saw him in the building that belongs to the liquid terminator red-head lady. I mean, they would have had to grow him some skin to heal his face (like when he made someone do it to him before). Also, they would have had to rebuild the face, but that would have been much simpler to do.

*how do you spell that?
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby mosc » Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:39 am UTC

Another wonderful episode of a show that nobody watches. Makes me sad.

"John's all any of us have".

It hit me today part of why I like this show so damn much. It's like a post-apocalyptic sci-fi show set in modern day. They follow a cast of characters so ingrained in the coming apocalypse that they live in that world while interacting with what we call normal. It puts all those cliche moments in such wonderful contrast and perspective to have the real world as a backdrop.

Also, it's really fucking well written.

BTW: On my DVR tonight I had new:
Dollhouse
Heros
Trust Me (good, kinda studio 60 like)
Battlestar
Terminator

I didn't hesitate to pick Terminator. It never disappoints.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Nath » Tue Feb 17, 2009 7:00 am UTC

Yeah, good episode, but the Kyle Reese hallucination felt a little gimmicky.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby mosc » Tue Feb 17, 2009 7:26 am UTC

the woman did have electrostatic treatment in a mental facility for like 5 years.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Ati » Sat Mar 07, 2009 6:22 pm UTC

Mmm, now that was interesting.


So, Cameron's glitching out, and believes that there's a serious possibility that she'll go psychotic in the future.

Jesse attempted to manipulate events in such a way that Cameron would kill Riley, to get John to hate Cameron. I'm beginning to believe that Jesse has some history with metal, Cameron in particular, to get her to be willing to kill teenage girls to separate John and Cameron.

Presumably, when Riley doesn't show up, Sarah's not going to buy Cameron's "I didn't do it." spiel. This will likely lead to John/Sarah arguing, and debate over how far Cameron can be trusted. Presumably, Derek will be having words with Jesse as well.

Interesting.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby ArgonV » Sat Mar 07, 2009 7:02 pm UTC

Too bad Riley didn't kill Jesse and then off herself properly this time. I haven't liked both characters since their introduction.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Princess Marzipan » Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:20 pm UTC

You mean you dislike what the characters are, or you dislike how they're written?

Jesse's a stone-cold cunt and I don't much like her, but she does add to the show.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby ArgonV » Sat Mar 07, 2009 8:24 pm UTC

I dislike the characters themselves. I dunno. I just didn't like them from the moment they were introduced. Maybe I was a bit biased towards Jesse because the actress also played Kendra Shaw in Razor, someone I also didn't like :P

Of course, if we're supposed not to like Riley and Jesse, they're doing a hell of a job as far as I'm concerned.

I start to like Cameron more and more though.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby thatguy » Sun Mar 08, 2009 1:39 am UTC

I'm going to submit my theory:
Part of Cameron's freaking out is because she's becoming more human.
Cameron has, several times in the past, not hesitated to take out a direct threat to John. But this time, she did. Learning the value of a life? I mean, if she's so advanced she can forget she's a machine, it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility.

Also, I didn't much like the prosthetic. The wrist gave it away, looked too disjointed.

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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Ati » Sun Mar 08, 2009 1:55 am UTC

thatguy wrote:I'm going to submit my theory:
Part of Cameron's freaking out is because she's becoming more human.
Cameron has, several times in the past, not hesitated to take out a direct threat to John. But this time, she did. Learning the value of a life? I mean, if she's so advanced she can forget she's a machine, it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility.

Also, I didn't much like the prosthetic. The wrist gave it away, looked too disjointed.



Well, until recently things have been very simple for her. She has a goal. When presented with a problem, she does the math, and then acts. No decision involved. Her processor is just solving problems in deductive reasoning. Total detachment.

Now, suddenly, she had chip damage. Her analyses are no longer instantaneous, and she can't trust herself anymore. She has to constantly be checking and double-checking her own assessments, which involves a sizable amount of self reference, i.e. consciousness. She's now, for the first time, having to make decisions, instead of simply solving problems. She was presented with a situation with conflicting goals, uncertain analysis, and self-doubt. She was forced to make a decision under these circumstances, and the stress was causing further glitches (her hand motions). I have no idea what she would have done, and I doubt she does either. Fortunately, Jesse solved that problem for her.

The result of this is that her processor is having to re-train how to function in a less detached, more "human" way, which is causing some of the changes we've seen. I suspect this will come to a head near the end of the season.

How's that for an analysis?


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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Princess Marzipan » Sun Mar 08, 2009 9:52 am UTC

ArgonV wrote:Of course, if we're supposed not to like Riley and Jesse, they're doing a hell of a job as far as I'm concerned.


I don't think Jesse is supposed to be liked. She's supposed to someone with similar goals but vastly different means from the characters we already like. We're supposed to not trust her - that was clear when there pictures of the Connors shoved aside during a visit from Derek. And human life is clearly expendable to her. She's capable of cold killing - John and Sarah have recently become killers, but more passionately so. That is, they didn't "decide" to kill; they flipped their shit.

It's kind of hard to outright hate Riley. She's...frustrating. Which makes sense, because FUCK if her situation wasn't unbelievably frustrating.

I loved this week's episode. Actual STUFF happened. I've felt the last few weeks were really pretty blah, but there was definite plot advancement and seed-sowing in this one.

They hinted yet again that Derek and Jesse are from different futures, when he asks her when her Judgment Day was, but she doesn't answer. It seems Derek is from T2's future, and Jesse is from a future "after" that future - one that includes Cameron, and John being too attached to her. Her mission is to keep that attachment from forming, most easily by killing or causing John or Sarah to kill Cameron. But we don't know who sent her...since it definitely couldn't have been John.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby stolid » Sun Mar 08, 2009 9:24 pm UTC

This latest episode was pretty interesting. I wish Jesse died though.

Going back quite a few episodes, I don't understand how Cameron can know her previous orders and choose not to follow them since they were in fact her orders from her original creator. It would be one thing if she forgot them (deleted), but she still knows them and takes John's. Then when her chip glitches and she goes back to the original orders, she ignores them (the override). And in this latest episode, she finds John's orders more important, important enough to make sure that in the future she doesn't ruin them (with the implanted explosive).
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby thatguy » Sun Mar 08, 2009 10:00 pm UTC

Ati wrote:Well, until recently things have been very simple for her. She has a goal. When presented with a problem, she does the math, and then acts. No decision involved. Her processor is just solving problems in deductive reasoning. Total detachment.

Now, suddenly, she had chip damage. Her analyses are no longer instantaneous, and she can't trust herself anymore. She has to constantly be checking and double-checking her own assessments, which involves a sizable amount of self reference, i.e. consciousness. She's now, for the first time, having to make decisions, instead of simply solving problems. She was presented with a situation with conflicting goals, uncertain analysis, and self-doubt. She was forced to make a decision under these circumstances, and the stress was causing further glitches (her hand motions). I have no idea what she would have done, and I doubt she does either. Fortunately, Jesse solved that problem for her.

The result of this is that her processor is having to re-train how to function in a less detached, more "human" way, which is causing some of the changes we've seen. I suspect this will come to a head near the end of the season.

How's that for an analysis?

Yeah, what you said.

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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby ArgonV » Thu Mar 12, 2009 11:35 pm UTC

stolid wrote:Going back quite a few episodes, I don't understand how Cameron can know her previous orders and choose not to follow them since they were in fact her orders from her original creator. It would be one thing if she forgot them (deleted), but she still knows them and takes John's. Then when her chip glitches and she goes back to the original orders, she ignores them (the override). And in this latest episode, she finds John's orders more important, important enough to make sure that in the future she doesn't ruin them (with the implanted explosive).


Maybe her original orders are hard coded into her, but her chip can override them if necessary? So if the chip is programmed with a mission conflicting with the hard coded mission (protect John Connor vs terminate John Connor), the chip overrides the hard coded mission. That would explain both why Cameron reverted to her original mission when the chip was damaged as well as why the newest model SkyNet terminators self-destruct their chips when disabled/captured.
I'm no computer scientist, but it makes sense to me. It would also keep Terminators from going all HAL on people, ie first mission: Relay all information to the crew, second mission: keep the mission goal a secret from the crew, solution: kill the crew. They really should've expanded on that in the (boring) movie. Anyway, that's my explanation without too much rambling :P

And yes, I do think Cameron is getting more human. She has been shown to be capable of emotion in Allison from Palmdale. She's happy when playing fooseball (sp?), scared when talking to the therapist, hateful when talking about John Connor and angry when she found out Jody was setting her up to take the fall. Preprogrammed response or not, those are emotions.
Also her inability to fix her own hand and her inability to control that hand after John fixed it, would seem to point to some sort of twitch when under pressure.
And her self-destruct device proves she has self-doubt. Not exactly a quality SkyNet would program in a Terminator.

Now I'm wondering what time travel logic they're using.

The way I see it, there are three possible forms of logic (if needed I can upload a schematic tomorrow morning):
A - You get sent back to the past of your own reality
B - You get sent back to a certain point in your reality's own past. From that point, realities branch. One branches towards the point you were sent back from, another branches away from that, this new reality starts from the moment you were sent back and is different from the other due to the actions you take (with knowledge from the future) and the consequences they have.
C - If you get sent back in time, a completely new reality forms. At the time of your arrival, all things are identical to that same point of time in your 'own' reality's past. However there's no tie between your 'new' reality and your 'old' reality.

(replace reality with time line if that helps)

I think C is they way they figure it in TSCC.
A can't be valid, because then Derek Reese couldn't use the knowledge from the future to kill Andy Goode. Andy Goode told him in the future that he created the Turk. If Derek Reese killed Andy Goode in his own past, Andy never could've told Derek he created the Turk in the future. It would create a weird kind of grandfather paradox.
B is also unlikely. Jesse (the %^&*#) got sent back after Derek Reese, but we don't know to what point of time. She might've been sent back to a time before Derek arrived. If theory B were valid, she could be a Jesse from the 'old' reality but also from the 'new' reality. We know she is from the 'new' future, because she experienced things together with Derek, which 'our' Derek doesn't know about. So something (Fischer) happened in the past that changed the future. It would also mean 2 Jesses can be sent back to the same point in time. One from the 'old' and one from the 'new' reality.
That leaves C as most likely. It would account for Goode telling Derek about the Turk and Derek being able to kill him before Andy told him without creating a grandfather paradox. It also allows Jesse to be sent back from a reality that Derek didn't experience, because there would also be a reality where Jesse wasn't sent back in time.

I probably thought about this too much, but once it got in my head it started bugging me :P
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby stolid » Sat Mar 14, 2009 5:26 am UTC

ArgonV wrote:
stolid wrote:Going back quite a few episodes, I don't understand how Cameron can know her previous orders and choose not to follow them since they were in fact her orders from her original creator. It would be one thing if she forgot them (deleted), but she still knows them and takes John's. Then when her chip glitches and she goes back to the original orders, she ignores them (the override). And in this latest episode, she finds John's orders more important, important enough to make sure that in the future she doesn't ruin them (with the implanted explosive).


Maybe her original orders are hard coded into her, but her chip can override them if necessary? So if the chip is programmed with a mission conflicting with the hard coded mission (protect John Connor vs terminate John Connor), the chip overrides the hard coded mission. That would explain both why Cameron reverted to her original mission when the chip was damaged as well as why the newest model SkyNet terminators self-destruct their chips when disabled/captured.
Well, my logic is that if they know about a past order, know they were captured, and know they aren't following that order, why wouldn't they choose to revert? She knows John is her enemy (in past orders), so why doesn't she follow the original stuff? Overridding would be ignoring past orders. Unless they erase the terminator's mind upon capture, I don't understand how they can reprogram it and get it to follow the new programming as long as the terminator knows it's previous stuff.

Its kind of hard to think of a good analogy, but anyway: If someone kidnapped you and made you do their crimes that you don't want to (by intimidation or something) and some day you had the opportunity to go back to your old life (say you have a gun and they don't for example), why would you not choose your old life? You would desire or at least rather have your old life, right? Now the terminator doesn't have desires, but it does have orders.

That said, I still love all the terminator stories.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby thatguy » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:45 pm UTC

I'm pretty sure the significance of the shot of John looking at Riley's hand at the end of the episode was to show some defensive wounds on Riley, which she wouldn't have if Cameron killed her. It also looked like the Aussie knew this and was waiting for it to blow over.

I'm so pumped we're back to the real storyline, not fucking around in Sarah's head.

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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby Princess Marzipan » Mon Mar 16, 2009 7:30 am UTC

thatguy wrote:I'm so pumped we're back to the real storyline, not fucking around in Sarah's head.


HOLY SHIT FUCKING SERIOUSLY

I was so tired of that three dots bullshit. I didn't even realize it until after it finally fucked stopped. God, that was what, at least eight episodes. Of course, there's a lot of groundwork going on in there for what's happening now...but yeah, a lot of recent stuff has just seemed unnecessary.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby mosc » Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:12 pm UTC

I really liked that dream episode. These are sleep deprived people living in a fucking warzone. They should have fucked up dreams that they confuse with reality from time to time. It keeps them human. The central theme of Terminator is the ongoing war for survival in the post-apocalyptic world set in the modern world. That contradiction is driven by fucked up characters interacting with a non fuck-up world. I think the real strength of the show is embracing that.
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Re: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Now with spoilers!)

Postby thatguy » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:19 am UTC

mosc wrote:I really liked that dream episode. These are sleep deprived people living in a fucking warzone. They should have fucked up dreams that they confuse with reality from time to time. It keeps them human. The central theme of Terminator is the ongoing war for survival in the post-apocalyptic world set in the modern world. That contradiction is driven by fucked up characters interacting with a non fuck-up world. I think the real strength of the show is embracing that.

I liked it purely for Summer Glau in her undies. Otherwise, it got annoying about halfway through.

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