I get that John had humanity (and sent the Terminator) so told the T not to kill people, but borrrrring for moviegoers?
And very wimpish and PC- it should have been allowed to do what it was built for.
From a storytelling perspective, you can't very well kill a bunch of innocent people and still be the "good guy."
shareYeah, the "no kill" rule was necessary to the story. Once the Terminator said it would obey John then the kid became responsible for its actions, and the audience would have blamed him for any subsequent murders. And John had to have some control over the Terminator to be an active participant in the story, and not just something the two Terminators were fighting over.
The "no kill" command was what made it possible for the T101 to be counted as part of Team Good Guys. Yes, it did cut down on the action a bit, but without that rule in place, John and Sarah would have spent most of the film trying to escape from the Terminator was that protecting them from the T1000, or plotting to kill it when the danger was over. (Which could have been a cool film in its own right, but "T2" came out so good I'm okay with the plot the way it is.)
It's not a copout, it's realistic. John and the Terminator are both "developing" entities. John is a kid. The terminator is a machine - he lacks real consciousness. Both John and the terminator lack real maturity.
This is why Sarah Connor is the narrator of the movie, she's the only authentic character. Her maturity is more evolved than their maturity. She's the only one in the film to express real pain and suffering. The terminator doesn't feel pain or suffering, John can't comprehend the end of the world, since he's just a kid.
Sarah Connor is psychologically devastated by the nuclear holocaust - so, she becomes a terminator of her own - in seeking out Miles Dyson to kill him. One death is better than millions of deaths, Sarah thinks. She does believe in killing, but when it's necessary. John doesn't at all believe in killing, he also never fires a gun in the film. Sarah is the "middle" between John and the Terminator, maybe.
It was unrealistic that the T800 didn’t kill anyone in the biker bar at the beginning. He was a hair’s breadth from killing the two jocks later on, they were saved only by John at the last minute from being terminated.
shareI did always think the part was funny after John pushes the gun away from the Terminator as he's about to blow the guy away at the liquor store and he yells, "Put the gun down now!" and the Terminator just squats down and places the gun very calmly on the ground lol
share