Can you explain more about how you think T2 "breaks the time loop" established in the first movie?

by Anonymous 1 day ago

Not all the evidence of Terminators existing is destroyed. A huge portion of the T-800's arm is left in the steel plant. The T-1000 crushes the T-800's arm in a gear system and the T-800 pulls away and leaves its entire forearm behind.

by tom45 1 day ago

At no point is that arm a source for much technology.

by Anonymous 1 day ago

No, but it can point the research in the right direction. While all the hard data had been destroyed, there was an entire research facility full of people that understood the discovered technology. Work could absolutely have started back up again just with the knowledge they all had.

by tom45 1 day ago

Yeah that is true, I suppose they could have recovered stuff from that. I was mostly thinking about the processors. Like I said it's still a good movie, I just think the first one on its own was a complete story.

by Anonymous 1 day ago

They explain in T3 that the Judgement date from T1 was pushed back because of the events of T2

by CryptographerMost 1 day ago

That's a pretty reasonable way of looking at things. I do sort of like the original movie on its own, I think it was a complete story as it was. But yeah I could agree that the second doesn't ruin the story.

by Anonymous 1 day ago

Pretty sure terminator 3 makes it clear judgement day always was going to happen. They just pushed it back a decade as it took more time to develop the ai. Plus they had the t-800 arm if you really believe it was impossible for them to completely develop the ai from scratch

by cristkaitlyn 1 day ago

What makes you think the plots are similar ?

by Weak-Cup 1 day ago

The plots, in terms of their nuts and bolts, are similar but the themeing is completely different. Terminator is a love story centered around a sci fi slasher like plot, Terminator 2 is about family and the odd bonds we make that consist that (as well as the T-800'S own search for humanity) and is in the trapping of a more tradtional action movie. But nuance doesn't seem like to be OP's strong suit

by lonieleannon 1 day ago

Other than time-travelling terminators, there are no parallels between these two films.

by Weak-Cup 1 day ago

1) Depending on who you believe, Terminator 2, or at least a version of it, was James Cameron's original idea, but the tech wasn't there yet, so he came up with The Terminator. 2) Even if the timeloop is broken, it's clear that the terminator world doesn't run on "grandfather paradox" logic. 3) The first movie didn't wrap up anything. It had some nice closure for its own plot, which is very welcome indeed, but the ending clearly showed us that the journey was only just beginning for Sarah. It would have been a good self contained movie had no sequels been made, but there's clearly more left at the end of it.

by Anonymous 1 day ago

Nice try Skynet!

by rauaubrey 1 day ago

This just reads like you didn't understand the movie at all. T2 is the greatest film ever made, hands down, and nothing else is close.

by Candiceprosacco 1 day ago

Terminator 2: Judgment Day doesn't outright "break" the timeline of The Terminator (1984), but it does create a paradox and raise logical issues with cause-and-effect. Here's how it plays out: In The Terminator (1984) • Skynet sends the T-800 back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor. • Kyle Reese is sent back by John Connor (future Resistance leader). • Kyle fathers John Connor with Sarah. • Cyberdyne recovers pieces of the destroyed Terminator, which become the basis for Skynet's creation (bootstrap paradox: Skynet exists because Skynet sent itself into the past). So the timeline is a closed loop: John Connor only exists because Skynet tried to kill him before he was born. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) • Another Terminator (T-1000) is sent back to kill John as a boy. • The Resistance sends a reprogrammed T-800 to protect him. • Sarah, John, and the T-800 destroy Cyberdyne's research and Miles Dyson's work, seemingly preventing Skynet from ever being created. This introduces a contradiction: • If Skynet is prevented, then Judgment Day never happens. • If Judgment Day never happens, then the Terminators were never sent back. • If the Terminators were never sent back, Cyberdyne never had parts to study in the first place. This creates a "Grandfather Paradox" or a timeline branch — either time is rewritten (alternate timeline) or the loop can't truly be broken. Did it break continuity? • Strict loop theory (T1): Time is fixed. Skynet's creation is inevitable because the future causes the past. • T2 introduces mutable time: The future can be changed ("No fate but what we make"). So T2 didn't outright contradict T1, but it shifted the rules of how time works in the franchise: • T1 = deterministic loop. • T2 = branching / alterable timeline. That's why later films (T3, Salvation, Genisys, Dark Fate) wrestle with the fallout — some lean back into inevitability, others into multiverse/branching timelines.

by Anonymous 1 day ago