Well, since it seems rather timely, what with the cancellation of SCC and the release of TS, I recently got the Terminator movies on DVD for the first time and I wanted to share my thoughts on the whole timeline situation. If you've pondered this for years, you probably won't read anything new here. I'm just posting this for anyone interested and/or bored. What I did was sit down and watch each film and any available deleted scenes, taking notes as I did so. Here are the notes. My conclusions follow. I plan to make additional notes for the first season of SCC when I get it (the BD's still in the mail). I will not be making notes on the second season or on TS until their respective BD releases.
The Terminator (1984)
-The prologue takes place in 2029.
-The war has been raging since AT LEAST 2009 ("decades", according to the onscreen text).
-The text says the final battle will take place in "our" present (1984 at the time of release).
-The above is confirmed when the T-800 arrives in 1984 at 1:52 AM (no date given).
-The cop says it's Thursday, May 12th. This is impossible. May 12th, 1984 was a Saturday. I'm going to trust the onscreen text and assume he misspoke the weekday.
-Kyle says the T-800 series won't be made for "about 40 years", which gives us 2024. However, he also says they're "new" in 2029. I'll assume he rounded down.
-Kyle says the T-800 is from "one possible future", implying that the future is changeable. He also says he is not familiar with "tech stuff".
-Nuclear war will break out "a few years from now" ("now" being 1984). No specific year is given.
-Skynet, trusted to run the nation's defense, achieved a higher form of intelligence and saw all humans as a threat, prompting it to launch its missiles.
-Kyle says he was born after the nuclear war.
-John Connor did not come to prominence until Kyle was an adult and humanity was on the brink of extinction.
-Kyle says he fought in the 132nd from 2021 to 2027, then did something under John Connor for two more years (the dialogue is unintelligable).
-The machines sent the T-800 back because they had effectively lost the war. They believe that killing Sarah will change the future.
-The time displacement equipment was captured in 2029, when Kyle was sent to intercept the T-800. It was then destroyed.
-Only living organisms may go through time. The T-800 got through because it was wrapped in an organic skin.
-Skynet knew Sarah's name and her city of residence. All other records were lost.
-After the police massacre, we switch over to the next day, May 13th, 1984. The scene after the T-800's death takes place the morning of May 14th.
-Kyle is John's father. John could not have been born if he had not sent him into the past. This points toward a stable time loop.
-Likewise, if Kyle hadn't met Sarah, she wouldn't have been in the position to have the picture taken so he would know what she looked like.
-However, Sarah says in her tape that if John doesn't send Kyle back, he would never be born, as if John could potentially make that decision and end up erasing himself.
-The epilogue takes place on November 10th, 1984. If John follows a normal gestation of 38 weeks, he will be born on February 3rd, 1985.
-A deleted scene in which Sarah suggests to Kyle that they attack Cyberdyne and prevent the war seems to indicate that changing the future is possible.
-On the other hand, another deleted scene shows Cyberdyne discovering the chip of the T-800 and sending it to R&D, suggesting it will lead to the creation of Skynet.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
-I'm using the Extended Special Edition.
-Once again, the prologue takes place in 2029.
-Sarah's voiceover informs us that Judgment Day takes place on August 29th, 1997. Where she got that date from is unknown, and the movie obviously takes place before this.
-We learn now that two Terminators were sent back to kill John, possibly simultaneously and before the time machine is captured by the humans.
-However, Sarah says a protector was sent back "as before", implying that this happened later than the previous attempt, not at the same time.
-Since T1's time machine was destroyed, this would require a second time machine to exist, which, while not impossible, is not explicitly stated.
-No apparent year retcons yet, as T1's events are still said to be in 1984.
-Well, I guessed wrong. John was born on February 28th, 1985. He is 10 in this film, meaning it is now sometime between February 28th, 1995 and February 27th, 1996.
-Sarah is 29 years old, putting her birth in either 1966 or 1967.
-Sarah was arrested for trying to destroy Cyberdyne, again, as if she thought the future was changeable.
-Sarah has apparently been in the maximum security wing for at least six months, meaning she was transferred in sometime between August 1994 and August 1995.
-Okay, plot hole time. The T-800 time traveled in his organic skin, but what's the T-1000's excuse? The time machine's rules are supposed to be the same (nakedness, etc.).
-The T-800 was sent back from 35 years in the future. In other words, either 2030 or 2031.
-Alright, major problem. The T-800 says Cyberdyne will still be selling military computers in 3 years. John's age and the date of Judgment Day don't allow for this.
-Since this is a spoken line, and John's age was just on a computer prop, I will give this more credence and say the film takes place in 1994.
-This means Sarah was born in 1965, the T-800 was sent from 2029, and Sarah was put in the maximum security wing between mid-1993 and mid-1994.
-John says he'll meet Kyle when he's 45. This would be 2030, which is clearly wrong. He says "I think", so we can call it an error (he'll be more like 36).
-Another inconsistency (perhaps not a plot hole): The "no fate" phrase was first said by Sarah. It was not part of Kyle's message from John.
-Okay, the entire second half of this movie is predicated on the fact that the future can be changed, so I won't record every last instant.
-The ending of the ESE shows that the future has been definitely changed. It shows a peaceful 2027 with no war. This is completely ignored by the following films.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
-Wow. Less than 3 minutes in and we already have a continuity error/retcon. John says he was 13 during the events of T2.
-This means either the events of T2 have been moved to 1997, mere months before the averted Judgment Day, or the events of T1 have been moved back to 1980.
-Either way, and despite ignoring the alternate ending of T2, the original Judgment Day was averted and the future was changed.
-So, Skynet is now being BUILT by the military, as opposed to being built by Cyberdyne and SOLD to the military.
-Well, we kind of have a date for this film. As the T-850 is adjusting its internal clock, it stops on July 24th, 2004. It starts on October 28th, 2033.
-Apparently the events of T2 happened when John was in 8th Grade. Most 8th Graders are either 13 or 14, so this fits with John's statement above.
-Once again, we have the plot hole of how the T-X was able to time travel without an organic covering. Perhaps the liquid metal can imitate an organic field?
-Again, the machines believe the future can be changed, because they feel eliminating John's lieutenants will aid them in the war.
-Well, it seems T2 is in the same place. It is referred to as "over 10 years" ago. This, coupled with the date of 2004 above, yields its original year of 1994.
-Therefore, T1 has been pushed back to 1980, assuming the dates from T1 (May 12th, November 10th, etc.) are still true. Might I add how unnecessary that is?
-Judgment Day is apparently inevitable, but they fail to mention why. Going from the rest of the movie, it seems the lack of time is the culprit.
-John says the T-850 shouldn't exist, as though changing the past would erase the future that one came back from. There's all kinds of issues with that theory, but okay.
-Again, John says it's been 10 years since T2. Just making sure we're all caught up.
-Another needless retcon: Sarah Connor is now born in 1959 instead of 1965. I suppose this is to keep her from being jailbait in T1.
-Her death year is 1997, which is consistent with her surviving for three years before dying after the original Judgment Day, assuming she was diagnosed right after T2.
-Umm... I thought all records of Sarah Connor were destroyed? How did the T-850 know where that weapons stockpile was and what happened to her remains?
-John says that if T2 hadn't happened, he would have ended up with Kate at around that time and would have met her father. Impact on timeline: zero, it looks like.
-John was killed by the T-850 on July 4th, 2032. This confirms that more than one time machine must exist, as the T-850 must be sent back afterward.
-Wait a second. Kyle said killing John in 2029 wouldn't help the machines since they had already lost. Why send the T-850 to kill him in 2032, then?
-Again, John insists that when Judgment Day is prevented, the T-850 will just vanish into thin air. That can't work, you idiot!
-Instead of Skynet attacking in self-defense as per T2, it now seems to attack of its own volition. Okay, whatever floats your boat.
-In fact, the end of the film establishes that Skynet has no plug to pull.
-The deleted scene shows that the military obtained the "patents" for Terminator technology (and thus, the neural processor) from Cyberdyne.
-Of course, this doesn't make sense. How did Cyberdyne get the patents if all of the future technology (and their research from it) was destroyed?
-The only way to solve this is if we assume that somebody, somewhere kept a backup of what Cyberdyne had come up with so far. This is not explicitly stated, though.
Well, the main question upon which the entire timeline hinges is whether time loops or branches. I'm going to straddle the fence and say that it does both. What determines how time acts, you ask? I would posit that the type of machine you use makes that determination. The first film shows what is clearly a stable loop. John sends Kyle back in time, Kyle fathers John, John sends Kyle back in time, etc. Also, Skynet sends a T-800 back in time, the T-800's remains are used to build Skynet, Skynet sends a T-800 back in time, etc. Quite frankly, time travel like this is absolutely useless from a strategic standpoint. And yet, the machines keep trying it, when every impulse in their logic processors would tell them that it's a waste of resources. Why? Well, Kyle says the time displacement equipment he used was destroyed immediately after he left, right? T2's opening voiceover implies that the T-1000 was not sent back at the same time as the first T-800. In order for that to hold, there must be a second time machine. Again, if the machines were to go to the trouble of building a second one when the first one was quite obviously a failure, then this second one would have to be radically different in the way it works. I posit that this second machine had new "loop-breaking" technology that allowed the time traveling session to create a parallel (branching) universe at the point of the traveler's arrival instead of simply enacting something that already happened (or will happen, depending on your perspective).
Thus, Judgment Day is able to be postponed 7 years and the John of T3 will have to do without three of his lieutenants in the ensuing war. I hate to assume that the time machines have different properties without any indications from the movies themselves, but in my eyes, this is the simplest solution (Occam's Razor, and all that). We know for a fact that there's more than one machine, and we know for a fact that two entirely different kinds of time travel are used. I made a leap and connected the two. As for the moving of T1 from 1984 to 1980 and Sarah's birth from 1965 to 1959, I think those are honest-to-God retcons unrelated to any time-traveling shenanigans. My final timeline(s) is thus:
T1 or "Loop" Timeline
1959: Sarah Connor is born
1980: Main events and epilogue of T1 occur [May 12th-May 14th and November 10th]
1981: John Connor is born [February 28th]
1994: John Connor meets future wife Kate Brewster and her father. They will later marry.
1997: Judgment Day occurs [August 29th]
2021: Kyle Reese joins the 132nd under Perry
2027: Kyle Reese leaves the 132nd and fights directly under John Connor
2029: Future war sequences of T1 and T2. The defeated machines send a T-800 to 1980 with their first time machine; Kyle Reese follows, and the first machine is destroyed. Later that year, the machines send a T-1000 to 1994 in their new time machine; a reprogrammed T-800 follows.
T2 or "First Branch" Timeline
1959: Sarah Connor is born
1980: Main events and epilogue of T1 occur [May 12th-May 14th and November 10th]
1981: John Connor is born [February 28th]
1994: Main events of T2 occur. Sarah Connor diagnosed with leukemia.
1997: Judgment Day does not occur. Sarah Connor dies.
2004: John Connor meets up with Kate Brewster. Skynet is given complete military control. Judgment Day occurs. John Connor's future lieutenants survive. [July 24th]
2032: A victorious John Connor is murdered by a T-850. [July 4th]
2033: The machine remnants send a T-X back to 2004 to kill John and his lieutenants. Kate Brewster, who married John sometime during the war, sends a reprogrammed T-850 back to protect John and herself. [October 28th]
T3 or "Second Branch" Timeline
1959: Sarah Connor is born
1980: Main events and epilogue of T1 occur [May 12th-May 14th and November 10th]
1981: John Connor is born [February 28th]
1994: Main events of T2 occur. Sarah Connor diagnosed with leukemia.
1997: Judgment Day does not occur. Sarah Connor dies.
2004: Main events of T3 occur. [July 24th]
I haven't seen TS, so I don't know if it continues from T3 or not. Anyway, that's what I've got so far. Comments/corrections/jokes are welcome.
