MovieChat Forums > The Terminator (1984) Discussion > Thought experiment (what would it do..?)

Thought experiment (what would it do..?)

posted 2 years ago by avortac4 (3752)
5 replies | jump to latest

Movies are too often based on coincidences and plot contrivances, without with, the movie story just couldn't happen. So it is with this movie as well.

Let's imagine a slightly different set of circumstances. Let's say Sarah isn't in the city, but on holiday with her boyfriend, somewhere in Bahamas or Hawaii for two weeks or so.

The Terminator arrives at Sarah's apartment, but obviously can't find her, because she's not even in the whole city. What will it do? What are its options?

Does it do the nonsensical reckless plan of just somehow silently lockpicking two doors and throwing Matt around quite a lot, before killing him by the method of 'noisy property damage'*, and then proceed to search for female bipedal entities that are still around after all that noise? Not very 'infiltratory', not very intelligent, not very efficient, when you consider it'd be better to kill a secondary 'mob' silently, so you don't alarm your main targets.

The fact that the robot doesn't even figure out whether Ginger IS Sarah or not before proceeding to - SHOOT (why not throw HER around as well, why so inconsistent?! Why not shoot Matt as well? Think before you answer, because the explanation can't be 'because guns are noisy', considering how much noise the robot made anyway, throwing Matt through a friggin' WALL!) is just so stupid, but we'll put that aside.

OR.. does it try to just somehow implant itself in Sarah's apartment to wait for her return?

* (why would an infiltration unit that has intimate knowledge of the human body need to waste so much time and destroy so much, why would it create so much noise just to terminate someone, when we have been SHOWN him one-shotting and one-punching people dead before?

Furthermore, an efficient killing machine created by an A.I. intelligent enough to invent TIME TRAVEL would know about acupoints, chakras, oxygen for brains and all that. The Terminator could have so quickly choked Matt, pushed a couple of acupoints to kill him, in even less time it took to kill the punk rocker by punching his chest in and taking his heart out.. the Matt-fight makes no sense from almost any perspective you think about it, when you factor in all the 'musts', as in, this terminator robot MUST know fast and efficient ways of murdering human beings)

[–] blindfolded (1650) 2 years ago

What if Sarah is on vacation?

You honestly don't think that's something the Terminator couldn't find out? She's not there for years. She'll come back in a few days. He just sits in his hideout until she returns. Simple. How have you not though about that?

[–] avortac4 (3752) 2 years ago

There are problems, no matter how you look at it.

First, if it just goes and kills Matt and Ginger, it can't just stand in the apartment waiting for Sarah, because the cops will be there, and will find it. It can't keep killing cops and the whole neighbourhood and expect Sarah to just normally return to her home that's now a damn WARZONE.

A better option would be if it was more 'infiltratory' and actually rang the doorbell, saying he has a message for Sarah or something. BTW, why would it EVER use the 'austrian accent male voice', when other voices would be so much better for its purposes? If it can flawlessly mimic Sarah's mother with perfect intonations and everything, it could just use -any- damn voice at the door buzzer, or whatnot. We never did find out how it got through the front door of the building anyway.

This way, Sarah could return home only to find The Terminator sitting at the breakfast table, sipping tea with Ginger and Matt, and THEN it could kill her.

Any other option would be a problem; it can't just stand outside the apartment building, because it would look incredibly suspicious and weird, and draw so much attention, it'd ruin everything. It could wait in the garage somewhere in the shadows, but then it would have to periodically go check if Sarah has returned already, and it could actually have bad luck and JUST miss her, when she's going for some other trip, maybe just to live with her boyfriend for a month or something.

I mean.. I'd watch THAT movie..

In any case, if things hadn't been SO convenient for it, what would it have done? It only knew the city, but if Sarah doesn't spend much time in that city, what can it even do?

[–] blindfolded (1650) 2 years ago

🤦‍♂️ honest to God, I don't know why you make a lot of the weird assumptions and speculations about just standing there waiting around. That's just nonsense. You're creating weird situations which quite frankly make even less sense than what you're claiming doesn't make sense, and then taking those nonsensical situations and applying them the film. Your entire thing is an exercise in futility.

This is bad. And you should feel bad.

[–] millsey72 (10580) 2 years ago

I'm glad you didn't write the script to this movie

[–] Kj1oceanlust (1490) 2 years ago

Perhaps it would do what it did later on in the movie to find out she was at the hotel. The terminator would track down a close relative of Sarah Connor, like her mother, kill her and wait for Sarah to call her. Or perhaps her mother would likely have information as to where in the Bahama's she was at and phone Sarah Connor making up a story that her mother's in some extreme distress and needs her to return. No wait, the terminator would ask her mother where Sarah's at and upon finding out the Bahama's would just hop the next plane heading there, pack some guns aboard the flight, kill whom ever gets in it's way and force the pilots to fly to the Bahamas and proceed to terminate Sarah Connor.