Question: The ending of this film seems rather vague on the actual outcome of destroying Skynet's HQ. Does that mean the humans have won the war or is Skynet still a threat? The ending of Terminator 3 would suggest the latter since there it was confirmed that Skynet is capable of moving from transferring itself from one installation to another when needed, yet here everyone seems to believe they accomplished a significant victory. So which is it?
Question: What causes the explosion near the start which causes John Connor's helicopter to crash? I may be missing something, but they never seem to address it.
Chosen answer: It was a strike by Skynet on the attacked facility to try and deny the resistance information and anything useful.
Question: Why was John Connor jumping of the chopper into the sea, while he knew the commander of the submarine refuses to meet him? Isn't it a suicide?
Answer: Perhaps, but once the submarine captain learns that John Connor has just jumped off the helicopter, what is he supposed to do? Let John drown? John must have known the Captain would have little choice but to pick John up.
Question: Why doesn't Skynet kill Kyle Reese when he is their capture if it can recognize him as Kyle Reese?
Chosen answer: We are never given any direct indication that they know Reese's importance. They don't appear to know that Reese is Connor's father. They are merely using him as bait for Connor. They must know that John is interested in someone named Kyle Reese and figure that news of his capture would bring them the man they really want.
Question: When Dr. Kogan is meeting with Marcus, she gets Marcus to sign over his body for research following his death. Later in the film, Marcus discovers that he's been turned into a cyborg. Why did she do this to him and what did she hope to accomplish from it?
Answer: Marcus was a prototype. It was to be the first to actually retain your human self within a machine, in other words your soul.
Answer: She worked for Cyberdyne. She did it for whatever reason Cyberdyne wanted her to. They made Cyborgs.
Question: How is Kyle Reese younger than John Connor in this movie? I thought Reese was Connor's father.
Chosen answer: It's explained in the original "The Terminator" - Kyle Reese volunteers to be sent back to the 80s to protect John's mother Sarah, before John is born. They get romantically involved and he fathers John in that time period.
Question: Was Bryce Dallas Howard actually pregnant when this film was made, or was she just wearing some kind of a cushion under her shirt? Just asking cause no one in the film seems to mention it.
Chosen answer: She wasn't pregnant, no. Her pregnancy, while unremarked upon in this film, will presumably assume greater significance in subsequent films.
Question: Why would Skynet want to kill Kyle Reese? If he doesn't go back, he won't destroy the first Terminator, and that arm will not end up becoming Miles Dyson's inspiration for creating Skynet (as stated in T2), and if Skynet isn't created at that point, they will never exist in the future. Surely the machines would work this out, and make sure the loop is completed (i.e, not killing Kyle so Connor can send him back?
Answer: No because the timestream clearly has some flex in it for changes, but Judgment Day is inevitable. The arm and chip were destroyed, yet Skynet was still built in T3. In all the timelines, Skynet is built and John Connor beats it. So killing Kyle or John is Skynet's only real option.
Question: Why did the T800 near the end destroy the 600 that was experimenting on Reese? It just seemed to be a bit out of "character" for the Terminator to unnecessarily kill one of its own kind.
Answer: Because the T-600's targeting system was damaged by Kyle shoving that steel rebar into its neck, and the T-600 was out of control just shooting anywhere and everywhere, presenting a danger to the T-800.
But this version of T-800 was shown to be extremely powerful. When John started shooting at it, it didn't even budge. I am sure that T-600's gunfire wouldn't damage T-800 at all.
Not to mention that T-800 in this movie was able to withstand the extreme heat of molten steel.
Question: When Marcus goes to Skynet he is "analyzed" by the large machine, that recognizes him as being a machine as well, and then he is granted access. So why did the Terminator not recognize him as being a machine and try to shoot him earlier in the movie when he first reaches the city?
Answer: Couple of possibilities. The older model Terminator may simply not have had the sensors necessary to determine that Wright is a machine. Or, as the unwitting Wright is actually an infiltration unit, designed to work his way into the resistance, it may well be that the Terminator does recognise him as one of them, but has been programmed to attack anyway - after all, if he's not attacked by Skynet forces, despite standing in full view, it would look extremely suspicious and compromise his mission.
Question: How come we meet Kyle Reese? Isn't this the timeline of John Connor in which Reese dies, John is born and survives the judgment day?
Answer: Even though this timeline is diverging from the original one, Kyle Reese is still in John Connor's future whatever the timeline, and presumably if any sequels are to be made, Kyle Reese will then be sent back in time to save Sarah Connor.
Question: Why did Nick Stahl and Claire Danes refuse to reprise their roles from Terminator 3?
Answer: They didn't refuse to return. According to Stahl, the studio simply told them they wouldn't be returning. They wanted to recast the roles with actors who could look a little older and more battle-hardened, since the film takes place about 15 years after "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." So they went with Christian Bale and Bryce Dallas Howard instead of Stahl and Danes.
Question: One burning question: Why do the machines need to capture the humans? What do they need them for? Surely a neurotoxin introduced to the atmosphere or water table would eradicate all non-mechanical life?
Answer: The new T-800 model that Skynet's working on is the first to use real human tissue. The humans are being captured for use in experiments related to that. It is also stated in T1 that some humans were kept to work in the camps.
Question: At the beginning, what was in Connor's mind when he chased after a state-of-the-art HK with a 50-year old chopper?! What was he trying achieve?
Chosen answer: It is shown that the exposed engines of the Hunter Killers can be easily disabled by gun fire or by dropping something in it. Maybe he thought he could keep it occupied in an air fight while more help got there.
Question: John Connor knows about the future because of the experience he had with the Terminators sent to kill him and the tapes his mother left him. But what about Skynet? How does Skynet know who Kyle Reese and John Connor are and their importance on the future? How does Skynet knows that Kyle Reese will, or has, become John Connor's father? Because that isn't happening in the future, but in the past where Skynet didn't even exist.
Answer: Sarah Connor told her story to lots of people, the guerilla fighters and mercenaries she trained with, the psychiatric hospital she was locked up in, etc. Many of these could have left records (the hospital is even shown to have videotaped several of her sessions in T2). In addition, John himself could have told the entire story to resistance fighters, who were later captured and forced to reveal everything they knew.
Question: Why would the Skynet base where Connor obtains intelligence in the beginning have human friendly computers - i.e., computers with keyboards? Skynet does not need to type and look at a monitor, but can just communicate computer to computer.
Answer: It cannot be ruled out that there might be a human element to Skynet. This is hinted towards the end of the movie where Kyle notices human like figures in a window overlooking the collection of captives at the Skynet camp. We may learn more in the following Terminator movies (if they are made).
Question: The commanders said that the destruction of Skynet in LA would end the war but when John blew it up, he said the war is not over. Did the commanders mess up on that statement or what?
Answer: The same commanders also thought that they had the radio frequency that would disable all the Terminators. So when John said the war was not over, he was considering that A) they don't have the super weapon they thought they'd have, and B) a fair amount of the commanders were killed.
Answer: It's suggested that they've succeeding in destroying a major node in the Skynet network, possibly the key node in that region of North America, but, no, Skynet is still a functioning entity.
Tailkinker ★