Franchise canon, typically a fairly straightforward thing but the modern era of films has made them increasingly complicated through storyline contortionism, semi-reboots and audiences showing they'll follow stories across a multitude of films.
Here's an occasional run of threads where we can discuss, tear apart, clarify or get lost in the sheer mess of a franchises canon. We start with one of the most broken and messy canon's around:
The Terminator
Beyond a certain point the film makers started planning trilogies that never happened and saw their film as a fresh restart of the franchise. Yet, the films themselves never directly stated their connectivity or opposite to the audience meaning casual viewers would take them as canonically linked. Let's see what that creates:
(Assuming Fate is not fixed as the films have long since moved to)
Timeline A
Sarah Connor gets pregnant and gives birth to a son she calls John. Judgment Day occurs and John leads mankind to victory against Skynet. As a last ditch effort it sends a T-800 back in time to kill Sarah and prevent John's birth. John sends Kyle Reese to protect her and this creates...
Timeline B
The T-800 arrives in the past and kills Sarah Connor.
Timeline C - The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Sent shortly after the T-800 from Timeline A, Reese now is the one who impregnates Sarah creating John-B. Events unfold as per the film and the T-800 is stopped. The events of this timeline feed into T2 as Skynet knows the T-800 fails, therefore sending the T-1000 back in time.
Timeline D
The same as Timeline C but John is killed by the T-1000 at the Mall
Timeline E - The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
The same as Timeline C but factoring in shortly after the T-1000 is sent back when the T-800 is also sent back by the Rebels. The T-1000 is defeated and years pass in present day. Skynet in this timeline would know the second attempt failed and sends back the T-X with a different plan to kill John's generals.
Timeline F - The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation
The same as Timeline E but the generals are almost all killed except for Katherine who sends back another T-800 to protect them. The events of T3 unfold and Judgment Day occurs. Due to some unavoidable General deaths some elements of this timeline deviate from what Sarah originally told John as T-800 creation is accelerated etc. Sometime after Salvation, Skynet sends a T-800 back to kill Sarah as a child
Timeline G - The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation, Terminator: Genisys
Presumably the T-800 fails either way to kill Sarah for some reason but the changes in the timeline for her still lead to a loop resulting in a T-800 being sent back to the same point to protect her and restore the previous timeline.
Timeline H - The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation, Terminator: Genisys
Arriving back but failing to stop her parents being killed this creates another Timeline in which the T-800 protects and trains Sarah as she grows up, giving her advanced knowledge until she syncs up with Kyle Reese. Armed with so much advanced knowledge they concoct a plan to travel forward in time to change events creating...
Timeline I - The Terminator, Terminator: Genisys
The characters go to stop Skynet having completely disrupted events by jumping beyond the birth of John. In this timeline though, with events postponed, Skynet sends itself back to capture John at the time machine.
Timeline J - The Terminator, Terminator: Genisys
Skynet captures John and converts him to part Terminator. It then sends him and itself back to present day to meet up with the also travelled T-800, Sarah and Kyle
Timeline K - The Terminator, Terminator: Genisys
All meet and face off as per the events of the film. At the end Skynet's alternate timeline version is stopped and Judgement Day is further delayed with Sarah and Kyle thinking it has been averted mistakingly.
This isn't even complete, relies on timelines working in parallel to each other and doesn't even factor in the upcoming trilogy which aims to sever three of the films. It also discounts the series and no doubt contains many faults. Is it right or wrong though? And how so?
Here's an occasional run of threads where we can discuss, tear apart, clarify or get lost in the sheer mess of a franchises canon. We start with one of the most broken and messy canon's around:
The Terminator
Beyond a certain point the film makers started planning trilogies that never happened and saw their film as a fresh restart of the franchise. Yet, the films themselves never directly stated their connectivity or opposite to the audience meaning casual viewers would take them as canonically linked. Let's see what that creates:
(Assuming Fate is not fixed as the films have long since moved to)
Timeline A
Sarah Connor gets pregnant and gives birth to a son she calls John. Judgment Day occurs and John leads mankind to victory against Skynet. As a last ditch effort it sends a T-800 back in time to kill Sarah and prevent John's birth. John sends Kyle Reese to protect her and this creates...
Timeline B
The T-800 arrives in the past and kills Sarah Connor.
Timeline C - The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Sent shortly after the T-800 from Timeline A, Reese now is the one who impregnates Sarah creating John-B. Events unfold as per the film and the T-800 is stopped. The events of this timeline feed into T2 as Skynet knows the T-800 fails, therefore sending the T-1000 back in time.
Timeline D
The same as Timeline C but John is killed by the T-1000 at the Mall
Timeline E - The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
The same as Timeline C but factoring in shortly after the T-1000 is sent back when the T-800 is also sent back by the Rebels. The T-1000 is defeated and years pass in present day. Skynet in this timeline would know the second attempt failed and sends back the T-X with a different plan to kill John's generals.
Timeline F - The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation
The same as Timeline E but the generals are almost all killed except for Katherine who sends back another T-800 to protect them. The events of T3 unfold and Judgment Day occurs. Due to some unavoidable General deaths some elements of this timeline deviate from what Sarah originally told John as T-800 creation is accelerated etc. Sometime after Salvation, Skynet sends a T-800 back to kill Sarah as a child
Timeline G - The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation, Terminator: Genisys
Presumably the T-800 fails either way to kill Sarah for some reason but the changes in the timeline for her still lead to a loop resulting in a T-800 being sent back to the same point to protect her and restore the previous timeline.
Timeline H - The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation, Terminator: Genisys
Arriving back but failing to stop her parents being killed this creates another Timeline in which the T-800 protects and trains Sarah as she grows up, giving her advanced knowledge until she syncs up with Kyle Reese. Armed with so much advanced knowledge they concoct a plan to travel forward in time to change events creating...
Timeline I - The Terminator, Terminator: Genisys
The characters go to stop Skynet having completely disrupted events by jumping beyond the birth of John. In this timeline though, with events postponed, Skynet sends itself back to capture John at the time machine.
Timeline J - The Terminator, Terminator: Genisys
Skynet captures John and converts him to part Terminator. It then sends him and itself back to present day to meet up with the also travelled T-800, Sarah and Kyle
Timeline K - The Terminator, Terminator: Genisys
All meet and face off as per the events of the film. At the end Skynet's alternate timeline version is stopped and Judgement Day is further delayed with Sarah and Kyle thinking it has been averted mistakingly.
This isn't even complete, relies on timelines working in parallel to each other and doesn't even factor in the upcoming trilogy which aims to sever three of the films. It also discounts the series and no doubt contains many faults. Is it right or wrong though? And how so?
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