Terminator (franchise)/Fridge

Fridge Logic

• In T2, John has an in-universe moment where he runs though questions about how the T-1000 works ("why doesn't it...?"), more or less just to set out its limitations for the audience.
  • A fourty watt phased plasma rifle doesn't really sound all that powerfull. Ever tried to illuminate a room with a fourty watt bulp? The Uzi nine millimeter was the best choice after all.

Fridge Brilliance

• The original fridge brilliance occurs in the first Terminator film when Sarah, after being told that a killer robot is after her, protests, "Look, I'm not stupid! They can't build those kinds of machines yet!" With one word, James Cameron deftly shows Sarah's intelligence and adaptability, making her the kind of mother who could raise a future leader like John Connor.
  • In T2, a Terminator, a nearly unstoppable robot assassin, is able to abide by John's request not to kill anyone mainly BECAUSE he's a Terminator.
    • When the T-1000 gets one of its hooks blown off, you'd expect the bit left behind to become liquid, right? But current theory about Nanomachines is that they behave like e-ink; that is, they require power to shift and will simply lock into place if deprived of it. It changes back when T-1000 gets close, implying that he has a certain range of broadcast power.
    • Also, the scene with the liquid nitrogen truck provides a Call Back to the first film. In that one, the Terminator walks out of the heat; in this one, it walks out of the cold.
  • The first half hour of T4 made many think that the franchise had been Ruined FOREVER because it begins in 2018 with John Connor being just an officer in a Resistance, whose headquarters is a submarine. The war was apparently almost over because the Resistance had discovered a signal to shut down the machines. It looked as if Connor would never get to lead like he did in the futures shown in T1 - T3. Then we get to the endgame, where the signal turns out to a Xanatos Gambit by SkyNet, the submarine gets destroyed as a result of it and Connor becomes the new leader with all the others being dead.
  • Not even considering the diverging timelines in T3, T4 and the TV show and just going by any of the three timelines, the time travel stuff gets very confusing. When did Sarah Connor die? What is the date of Judgment Day? How old was John Connor at the time? It might look like the writers Just Didn't Care, but remember, John Connor has the resources and brains for Tricked-Out Time. In no continuity do we ever see a future John Connor at the point in the war when he controls terminators or time machines, and he's the only character who ever does (except for Skynet, and we don't see it at that stage of the war either). For all we know, by the time he first sent someone back in time he was playing Xanatos Speed Chess with himself.
  • At first it seems like just another reference when John uses "You Could Be Mine" to lure the motorbike, but think about it. Guns n Roses were the band he listened to at 10 years old, that's the kind of music that will stay with you forever at that age. During the war, he doubtless got no chance to listen to music for fear it would draw in the terminators. So when after years of war, he's on his own and has to play some music, he indulges himself by allowing himself to listen to his favorite band after all these years, even if it is just for a few minutes.
  • In T2, the T-800 won't let John go home. It seems like plot convenience, but the T-800 says that the T-1000 will be there, because the T-800 would go to his house if he had to kill John. Now, where did the original T-800 go to try and kill Sarah Connor? (Hint: it was her house.)
    • That's practically canon. "I would"
  • For a robot that gets compared to a Swiss Army Knife, the T-X wears just the right color. It is probably unintentional, though.
• During Reese's explanation of the Terminator's human appearance, he mentions that everything is grown human: skin, eyes, teeth, hair, everything. During the film's climax, the Terminator is a gleaming Chrome Champion, its apparent organic components burned away without even tarnish remaining... except the teeth, the remaining component that doesn't shine at all.
• In The Book Of The Movie, the Terminator grabbing the phone book and his assassination of the first Sarah Connor are both told from the perspective of minor characters, the man in the booth and the child playing in the yard, respectively. The man sees a dent in the phone book under the listings for the Sarahs Connor, and briefly considers calling each to warn them that some psycho is looking for them. He doesn't, and commits suicide shortly after hearing what happened. The child wanders into the dead Mrs. Connor's home, and realizes that she is like his toy truck the Terminator ran over: broken forever.
  • Additionally, in the same book, the Terminator cuts open the left thigh of each Sarah Connor, looking for a surgical pin found in her medical records. A remnant of this subplot remains in the movie, as shrapnel from the Terminator's body imbeds itself in her left thigh. The Fridge Horror comes in when realizing that if the Terminator had succeeded in killing Sarah, it wouldn't have realized it, as the pin wasn't there yet. It would have kept killing everyone named Sarah Connor.
• One of the opening shots of T2 is a huge field of human skulls, followed by one being smashed by a Terminator. The camera pans up to the top of that Terminator and of course what do we see? A skull, but now mechanical and highly advanced. It's a shot meant to portray that the machines are not just going to be our exterminators, they're going to be our replacements.
• There's a deleted scene in Terminator 2 where the T-800 tries to smile at John Connor, and fails badly. Why did it fail badly? Because the T-800 tried to copy the smile of some guy, but all he scanned was the guy's mouth. Had he scanned the guy's whole face, or at least his eyes, he probably could have done better.
• The director of Terminator Salvation actually did a pretty good job of how things would work in a Military Chain of Command after a nuclear war, some guy claiming to be the messiah and having the answers to all their problems wouldn't be taken very seriously but rather told to get in line. This aptly explains why John Conner had to start out as a grunt in the Human Resistance and earn his reputation as a worthy commander, things realistically wouldn't start out easy for John.
• The appearance of the T-RIP in Salvation fell into the Uncanny Valley. Well, thing is, it's a prototype and perhaps the full human appearance has still to be perfected.
  • This is confirmed by the very first movie. Kyle Reese mentions to Sarah that the original models had synthesized flesh and were very easy to spot.
• Why is the T-1000 Naked on Arrival when its clothes are part of its form? Because it couldn't mimic clothing until it touched someone who was dressed (it didn't acquire the cop's uniform until it killed the cop).
• When Sarah and Reese lay low in the hotel, he hands her a wad full of money (presumably stolen.) like it was nothing. Since he's from a future where there's barely any civilization save for machines and the Resistance, the Economy and Currency are probably non-existent. But John may have told him about how important money is in the past, so he would at least see it as an important commodity in his mission.
• Terminator Salvation - I just realized that the makers of the movie hid subtle foreshadowing in what we usually see as run-of-the-mill action movie tropes. Before the reveal, we see Marcus slam face-first into a giant flying robot with no ill effects, fall hundeds of feet, and at considerable speed, into water, and beat he hell out of a dozen men at once. Since we're used to seeing protagonists do that anyway in action movies, it's only later that you realize the real reason he's able to pull this stuff off is that he's a cyborg. - User:Mr Death

---

Back to Terminator (franchise)