Last Saturday, we discussed all the problems created by the fact that John Connor is attacked by Skynet before Kyle Reese is sent back in time. When Kyle reaches 1984, the problems continue. I’ll go slow because there are quite a few of them.

Back in 1984, Kyle sees a number of visions, one of which tells him that the Genisys operating system is actually Skynet and thus he can end the war before it begins. Then he lands in an alleyway where he encounters a derelict who asks him if he’s seen a bright light.

At that point, the writers should’ve kept the story going from Kyle’s perspective. Instead, the movie cuts to the thugs from the first film meeting the original Terminator, the T-800. The robot asks for their clothes, and they refuse. But before the T-800 can terminate any of them, an older version of the T-800 — who we later learn is called Pops — attacks the original Terminator.

Then a “mysterious” woman runs up a flight of stairs and shoots the T-800 before it can destroy the older-looking robot.

The writers don’t reveal that this woman is Sarah Connor yet. But honestly, anyone can figure that out after two seconds. In any event, the storyline would still suffer from the same issue: the audience now knows the timeline has changed and someone with a giant robot is dealing with Skynet’s plan. This revelation deflates any tension the audience might feel for Kyle’s safety because we will assume that this “mystery” figure is going to save Kyle and explain the situation.

Changing the timeline scrambles the story

But the problems run much deeper than deflated tension; they stem from an effort to explain not the plot of the movie itself but what’s going on behind the scenes. How did this dramatic showdown between Pops and the Terminator come about?

Let’s start with a simple problem. How did Sarah and Pops know where to find the Terminator? Even if the audience assumes that the two knew where the T-800 first appeared, they’d have no way of knowing where the robot went to find its badly needed garments unless Pops had complete knowledge of the timeline. I bring this up not just because it’s a plot hole but because it creates a question about how much information Pops really has.

And who sent Pops anyway? Pops would have to know about the original Terminator in order for Sarah to know about it. So either Skynet sent an earlier Terminator (and somebody rewired it) or someone else with outside knowledge sent Pops. In both scenarios, there is now a third party with a time machine. The writers later confirm that this is the case.

We also later learn that a T-1000 was sent to kill Sarah Connor, but that Pops saved her and explained the entire situation. So, whoever sent Pops knew about someone sending a T-1000 to attack Sarah. That in turn means this third party knows about the original 1984 timeline and about the new timeline.

One way to account for this might have been to introduce a fourth party and say that both the third and fourth parties exist outside of all timelines. Therefore, the war between humanity and Skynet is really a proxy war between these two parties. But if Skynet is the one sending these robots to various points in the timeline, this explanation doesn’t help.

If Skynet is the one sending the robots, perhaps there’s some sort of plot contrivance (a MacGuffin) that shows all possible timelines, to which both Skynet and this third party have access. This would explain how Skynet knew it should attack John. But if Skynet had such a MacGuffin and was thus informed them about John, then Skynet’s multiple assaults along the timeline are redundant. Any such third party would have to be using a MacGuffin as well because Pops knows where the T-800 and the T-1000 are located. But no matter how one tries to explain what’s going on, this plot is madness!

Back to Kyle…

Returning to Kyle in the alley for a moment, the situation doesn’t become clearer. He steals the derelict’s pants, then a cop chases after him. But it isn’t a cop. When Kyle steals his gun and asks him if he’s in the right place in time, the cop morphs into a T-1000! Now, how did the T-1000 know where Kyle was going to be? Did a fourth party send it, or did Skynet?

If the fourth party sent it, perhaps it learned about the third party sending Pops and decided to send another T-1000 to kill Kyle. But if that were the case, then Sarah and Pops wouldn’t know about the 1984 T-1000 and therefore wouldn’t have known enough to save Kyle, which they later do. If it was Skynet, the writers have broken the lore altogether. Here’s why.

The costs of breaking with the lore

In order to keep the story coherent, there must some reason why Skynet doesn’t send more Terminators back to 1984 after the events of the first movie, to make sure the job is done? In the second and third films, the reason can be easily guessed: Skynet has one or more limitations. These limitations are either of time or resources or both.

As I’ve said before, to make the first three films work, all the future events must take place within a short span of time. I think this was why Terminator Salvation got the issue of John Connor’s prophesied death out of the way early. They couldn’t give Kate Brewster enough time to replace John as the leader of the Resistance and still keep their planned trilogy coherent because Kate’s transition would’ve taken too long. So, they created a scenario where a T-800 might believe John was dead even though he wasn’t.

Why Skynet must have some limitations

Skynet has an army of T-800s, so why was only one sent to 1984 in the first place? Because Skynet was defeated. It only had enough time to send one T-800. This fact is stated in the first film. The audience can only assume that the events of the next two movies reflect this fact. But a writer could argue that a remnant of Skynet sent the T-1000 and the T-X. Perhaps, in this scenario, there were two remnants, each having access to a unique Terminator. But John and Kate, having access to the T-800s after defeating Skynet, reprogrammed two of them and sent them back to save a much younger John Connor. Then John or Kate or both deal with the remaining remnants. In this scenario, Skynet is limited in both its resources and time, and the writers need these limitations because they have to explain why Skynet isn’t overwhelming John with multiple Terminators at multiple points along the timeline.

But the writers of this movie have completely forgotten Skynet’s need for limitations and have instead sent Terminators up and down the timeline. The audience can only assume that the limits on time and resources are gone and now everything is on the table. This can only lead to chaos, which does not make for a good story.

The importance of stakes in the outcome

Some scheming studio might conclude that this kind of setup is great for a franchise, but once again I appeal to stakes. If a story looks like it could go on without end, nobody is going to be invested in it because nothing that happens within that story matters. Who cares if the writers have a Terminator showdown? Whenever the bad guys or good guys receive a negative outcome, they can just reset the timeline.

And this next detail destroys the entire movie if you are hoping for a coherent narrative: If Sarah Connor knows about the original Terminator, why does she still live in the same city? Skynet would have to know the name of the city she lived in so it could send the Terminator. But later in the film, the audience learns that Sarah Connor has no records of any sort. She has no license, no birth certificate, and more importantly, no address. So, how did Skynet know to send the original Terminator to Sarah’s city in 1984? Skynet used records that existed prior to the war; no records, no way to find Sarah. This one fact undermines the entire premise of Genisys as part of the Terminator franchise. The instructive chaos continues next Saturday.

Here’s what I have written so far on Terminator Genisys (2015):

Terminator Genisys Review, Part 1: What was the point? When filming a sequel, it’s important to draw on the previous story, to keep the viewer emotionally invested in the characters. Genisys completely ignores everything set up in Terminator Salvation and Terminator 3 and assassinates John’s character, reducing the emotional stakes.

Terminator Genisys Review Part 2: A colossal monster mash The writers wanted the recreated scenes to be fond “memory berries” for the audience but they ran into problems setting them up properly. Terminator Genisys is one of those movies where that create a growing sense of unease that viewers can’t quite put a finger on.

Terminator Genisys Review, Part 3: Genisys’ fatal flaw The film was seen in the industry as so bad that another sequel was proposed that effectively wiped its timeline from the canon. A critical plot decision — to give Skynet a key piece of information — makes Skynet’s Terminator strategy seem incoherent.

and

Terminator Genisys Review, Part 4: The fatal flaw, revisited. Genisys didn’t perform well but it makes a good illustration of the issues science fiction writers face. I don’t know if the inconsistencies were enough to convince the powers that be in Hollywood to try to follow up with an entirely different sequel but viewers tuned out.