Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
1 plot hole - chronological order
Directed by: Jonathan Mostow
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Claire Danes, Nick Stahl, Kristanna Loken, Earl Boen
Character mistake: In the opening narration, John Connor says that he was attacked by the T-1000 when he was 13 years old. This is wrong. In Terminator 2, we see that John Connor is only 10 years old, as shown on the police computer when the T-1000 accesses it. (00:02:20)
Terminator: I'm back.
Trivia: In the movie, Kate's fiance Scott is referred to as "Scott Mason", but in the credits, he is listed as "Scott Petersen", they changed the dialogue of his name in light of Scott Peterson, the man accused of killing his wife and unborn son in California. The name Scott Petersen also appears on the list of inmates in Demolition Man. (00:48:00)
Question: In the second Terminator movie, the Terminator says that he can't self-terminate. When the Terminator is trying to defeat T-X, he manages to destroy himself and her in the process. If the Terminator couldn't self-terminate in the second movie, how come the new one could?
Answer: The difference there would be suicide vs sacrifice. In T2, basically what he meant is he could not commit suicide as it was against his programming. They had beat the T-1000 and had won, but it was too dangerous for Terminator to stick around and knew he had to be destroyed. But he could not purposely do it to himself as it was an act of suicide. However in T3, it was a sacrificial move. The goal of his actions was not to destroy himself, it was to take out the TX and prevent her from reaching John. He had to do this by any means necessary and made a sacrifice play by shoving his core into her mouth and blowing them both up. It wasn't suicide this way, it wasn't self termination. He was taking her out but caused himself to be collateral damage.
Also, after watching that scene again, I'm adding this little tidbit. The Terminator didn't actually die from the thing he did to the TX in that move. If you notice towards the end after the nuclear bombs go off, the fall out ash is falling down around its head and its eyes are still on, slowly fading away. It was badly damaged by its move, but the bombs in the end finished him off.
Answer: For me, T2 was a lot about machines being able to learn so in T3 when he managed to shut himself down it was because he had learned compassion and not to be just a machine following orders as well as understanding how vital it was that John survived.
Answer: If you listen in the second film, I don't remember if it was cut out of the theatrical film and put back in the extended version or not, John and Terminator are in the desert looking at the guns Terminator says "I have to stay functional until the missions is complete." Once the T1000 is dead Terminator had no other reason to function and thus sacrificed himself. In this film he knows the fuel cell would destroy the TX once that happened his mission was completed and no longer had any real reason to function anyone.
That can't be the case, because by the end of T2 his mission was complete, and he still couldn't self terminate.
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Suggested correction: This isn't a plot hole. It's just your unfounded assumption. There's no evidence to support the supposition that the T-X has such audio detection capability.
Even if she could detect it, how could she discriminate between the sound of Catherine breathing and that of the dozens of caged animals in the room? That's stretching even fictional technology a little far.