MovieChat Forums > Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008) Discussion > Anyone kinda glad it didn't continue??

Anyone kinda glad it didn't continue??

posted 8 years ago by buffy1234515
24 replies | jump to latest

I love this show even though it has it's many problems (mainly the middle-part of season 2 with the crap three-dot-symbol search leading to Roswell/X-Files type episodes and Sarah Sleepwalking)

But those final 6 episodes are exceptional TV

the finale ended with a few cliffhangers (Weaver's true intentions? Cam giving John Henry her chip and JH travels to the future for unknown reasons)

but i thought it was a perfect end to the series despite a few lingering questions

Judgement Day is inevitable IMHO

As is Sarah succumbing to cancer

So what better way to end the story with John in the future, hinting that the 'Present' John Connor we have followed for 2 seasons will be the leader of the resistance and become famous (as Derek predicts)

It's possible he befriends Allison, Derek and Kyle and thus sets in motion what we see in T1, T2 and TSCC (I don't count the terrible sequels)

Ellison's story wasn't that great so knowing his fate isn't important

John Henry and Weaver's purpose/arc is the only thing that is left open and i can live with that

Anyone agree that it was a great end to the series and continuing the series following that ending would have made the show more convoluted?

[–] JoeyBagOfDonuts 8 years ago

I would have liked to see it continue. John became a true paradox when he went into the future. It was also sad when he realized that he was a complete stranger to everyone he thought he knew.

Now why Sarah chose not to go forward with him, that I didn't understand. Maybe she knew that she'd have a role on GOT and she couldn't risk losing it by travelling into the future?

[–] buffy1234515 8 years ago

I honestly think Sarah believes her fate is inevitable (like i said in my OP) so she didn't wanna travel to the future with John just so he could lose her later on

[–] JoeyBagOfDonuts 8 years ago

That's possible - but I don't know if she really would have had time to consider that possibility. Ah well, the future is not set....

Brains are good, especially when sauteed with caramelized onions.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] 8 years ago

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[–] vocklabruck 8 years ago

I will say just one thing: if Judgement Day is inevitable then why to bother with all "the future is not set" BS that we see from the get go in T1, and especially in T2? In fact, why would even the superintelligent Skynet try to fry John Connor in the first place and over and over every 10 years if it knows that machines will inevitably lose? The whole premise in the entire franchise is thrown through the window if you think about it, and that is why I cringed when in T3 the terminator said Judgement Day is inevitable, because it contradicts itself. The whole point in time travel movies is indeed that you can change the future, otherwise it is totally pointless.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

The movies established different things. Nothing contradicts itself; they're just different approaches, and at the end of the day, everything contradicted T1.

T1: The future is set. Skynet loses in the future. Time machine is used once, then destroyed.

T2: The future is not set. You can change the future by changing the past.

T3 / TSCC: Certain developments, like Judgment Day, are inevitable. TSCC is it a bit more polished at making this point by making the analogy to the atomic bomb that was being developed simultaneously and independently. by different parties.

TSCC: The future is not set, but Skynet/John Connor are not interested in just preventing a certain future. They are waging a war across not space, but time: establishing sleeper agents, setting up supplies, and creating alliances. This expands on the concept used for the primary plot points of T3.

The whole point in time travel movies is indeed that you can change the future, otherwise it is totally pointless.

Nope. The whole point of T1 and a few other movies (12 Monkeys comes to mind) is that you can't.

[–] [deleted] 3 years ago

"T1: The future is set. Skynet loses in the future. Time machine is used once, then destroyed."

We-e-e-e-ll... not necessarily. The only thing that suggests that future events after the movie will repeat again is the photo that Sarah has... the one taken by the Mexican boy who gives it to her.

It could be that the future is changed incrementally through each loop. The new future LOOKS identical, but there might be small changes, maybe at the atomic level only. It repeats again and again though, hundreds, thousands, millions of times. Each time it repeats it changes ever so slightly. Finally after a billion loops it looks nothing like the original loop.

I'm not saying that's what happening. Cameron was clearly going for a Twilight Zone sort of ending where we all go "Whoa! That photo means that everything is doomed to repeat."

But the script doesn't preclude the other possibility either. The events in T2 might take place after tens of billions of iterations of the events in T1.

In T2, Furlong was supposed to be 10. The movie takes places only seven years after T1 though. So maybe the discrepancy arises from the cascading minor changes after a billion time loops? (Okay, I'm not too serious with this suggestion, but, again, there's no specific or direct evidence to the contrary.)

Just sayin'.

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

Dammit lol
Yes. You are technically correct. The story doesn't preclude that possibility, despite Cameron's inferred intentionality. So technically not a contradiction per se, but a new perspective on the matter.

But I presume the post I responded to, and people who speak similarly about T1 are not thinking about it to the degree that you are lol. I've come to realize that a lot of people can't seem to comprehend stable time loops. I've tried explaining to some, but even with a film example, it just doesn't click for some.

Fair enough I guess. Cause I myself can't visualize an interpretation of T1 where Kyle Reece isn't ALWAYS John Connor's father as some have argued.

[–] ccapehart-61333 8 years ago

I would have watched this show if they didn't substitute the main characters with bad no name actors I mean come on i find it hard to believe Linda Hamilton to big of an a list celeb to be in a miniseries

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] FFNogoodnik (778) 3 years ago

well when TTSCC was made in 2008, Linda was 52 years old. It would not have been believable for her to be playing Sarah in that series.

[–] MaximRecoil (4836) 5 years ago

I wish the series would have continued, but not from the final episode of season 2. The future war setting sucks, plus, the Cameron character was the best thing about that show. I'm not even remotely interested in the human character that shares her likeness. Her quirks as a terminator is what made her so entertaining, and Glau did an excellent job portraying her.

The direction they went with the season 2 finale was stupid, as it fundamentally changed the show. If you want to do that, make a spinoff series with a different title, don't make a completely different show and pretend it's the same one.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Indeed.

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

Uh...season 2 finale was the SERIES finale. The show was over. The Sarah Connor Chronicles were over.

They didn't make a different show afterwards. They didn't pretend anything.

[–] MaximRecoil (4836) 3 years ago

Uh...season 2 finale was the SERIES finale. The show was over. The Sarah Connor Chronicles were over.

They didn't make a different show afterwards. They didn't pretend anything.

Thank you, Captain Obvious, and how's the weather tonight, way out there in deep, deep left field?

Also, I suggest you enroll in a remedial reading class because your non sequitur reply indicates you have a serious reading deficiency.

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

Should bud. Keep criticizing things that don't exist.

The direction they went with the season 2 finale was stupid, as it fundamentally changed the show. If you want to do that, make a spinoff series with a different title, don't make a completely different show and pretend it's the same one.

^ Literally nonsense.

But sure, criticize my reading ability lmao

[–] MaximRecoil (4836) 3 years ago

"Should bud. Keep criticizing things that don't exist."

The direction (that they went with the season 2 finale) does exist, Special Ed, and yes, it can be criticized, obviously. They didn't go very far in that direction because the show got cancelled.

"^ Literally nonsense."

To someone with such an unfortunate reading deficiency, most everything they read seems like "nonsense". In reality, it is written in standard English and makes perfect sense.

"But sure, criticize my reading ability lmao"

Comical Irony Alert

[–] whitelighter (29) 3 years ago

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[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

I think the implication was obvious: she failed.

I thought it was a fitting ending to the series because the sarah connor chronicles is effectively over, with how they shifted the perspective over to John being in the future.

[–] whitelighter (29) 3 years ago

Sorry, somehow I accidentally deleted my previous post. But yeah, I see now that everything Sarah could have done between the present and future had already been done when John arrived in the future. I guess I was going by the notion established in T2 that the future can be altered and a new timeline created, but I guess that would only work in a time-loop. Simply travelling TO the future, the concept of multiple timelines is lost.

But I still don't like this as the end of the series. What I like about T1, T2 and most of TSCC is that it could conceivably be happening here & now, not off in a hypothetical future.

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

Yeah, I pretty much just assume that John's appearance in the future, contains all of the events of the series, plus everything Sarah did after telling him "I'll stop it". I could be alone on this, but the way I sorta viewed TSCC is that there isn't multiple existing timelines. It's just a single timeline that's continuously changed (which paradoxically somehow functions as John Connor plays his chess game through space and time. Because if John Connor couldn't actually affect his own timeline, why would he do it?)

I don't think T2 really thought it through to that degree (I think it breaks the timeloop idea that T1 establsihed), but yeah, the way I've always interpreted TSCC (from the time machine parts in the vault, to the coltan stashes, etc.), was that there isn't multiple timelines. Anytime someone gets sent to the past, the entire timeline is altered.

I can see why the ending bothered you then. You didn't like a narrative of the terminator franchise that didn't end in the real world present haha. For me, I thought it was cool, cause, it's a game changer.

What would happen if a trained John Connor simply warped to the future. This John Connor hasn't been FULLY trained. He's not fully experienced. How could he create an army, as a child. Did Future John Connor anticipate this? Definitely not; he sent Cameron with the anticipation that 'John Connor' would be more inclined to work with the machines (perhaps in preparation of allying with the rebel machine faction). But did he really expect the seduction to work so well that he would chase a machine in the future?

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago