My websites were always targeted primarily for the hardcore fans who almost know it all. The purpose of my sites was too shine light on some very obscure interviews and facts that aren't accessible in well known books or extras that are still available for purchase. However, times change, and new generations and fans come along - and I realized that a lot of my audience consist of fans who aren't diehards who know every book and interview by memory for decades (like all the fans at the Terminator Files Forum years ago), or just never went outside the films. So this is the first part of a different type of FAQ section, for those less initiated in Cameronverse.
Novelizations used to be for fans who wanted that extra insight into the story, unburdened by the limited running time of a movie and it's pacing - they dwelled on character's thoughts and explained things that couldn't be visually or weren't absolutely necessary or crucial to explain in the film, and so they're often almost like the Bible of the film, along the script. Let me underline that none of the answers are my own opinions, they are an intent of the filmmakers and official sources will be quoted when necessary. And have in mind, this entire site is just about Cameronverse only.
Let's continue with "Did John Originally Had a Different Father?"
The answer is no, and I'll elaborate on that and quote James Cameron when needed. So no, John never had a different father than Kyle Reese, and even if for a second we pretend that he did, John Connor would never be anything other than an ordinary kid who would die in Judgment Day along his mother. The thing with John is that its not even Reese thats crucial but the information from the future and knowledge of war which is everything that creates the John Connor person
Let's start with the second part of that statement, which is easier. Why was John Connor such an exceptional leader and so successful against Skynet? Because he had information from the future and trained for the showdown with Skynet since birth. That is why John Connor was THE John Connor - he knew what will happen, he knew the history, he knew Terminators weaknesses, he knew everything about Skynet, he knew that the war will be won for sure, which added to his determination, and he trained like no other since birth. At the age of 10 he was already fluent in multiple languages, knew everything about weapons, ammo, knew how to fix engines, hack computer systems, pilot a helicopter - and that's at the age of 10! And all this because his mother took him to mercenaries and met specialists in every field so they can train John since he can talk, because she knew what's coming and knew that he has to be best of the best and highly trained to meet the standards of the world's leader. He and his mother also survived only because she ran south to avoid the nuclear armageddon and to hide John. Just that fact alone, that the knowledge of the war, knowledge of Skynet's history, its machines and weaknesses and limitation, created the idea of John Connor. If Reese would never go back in time, John Connor, even if born, would be an ordinary kid as he would never train since birth in every possible field. Not to mention, he wouldn't have Reese's genes. More on it later, with Cameron's elaboration.
Now lets take care of the whole "Who was first, chicken or egg" argument.
The plot twist of The Terminator is that the events are in a circle with no beginning - Reese and the events of the film created John, and just as well the Terminator and the events of the film created Skynet and the war. At the time, it was simply a mind blowing plot twist for the film. What the movie used is called 'Closed Casual Loop' which has no beginning. Below, James Cameron's quote from Starburst Magazine #159, November 1991 cofirming it’s indeed a Closed Casual Loop
Below, definitions and graphs of the Causal Closed Loop
It isn't the invention of the plot or the movie, Casual Loop, also called Temporal Paradox has been a science/philosophical theory first explained scientifically with a diagram by Magorah Maruyama in 1963. Roots of it, such as time travel paradoxes and the grandfather paradox, date back to 1930's and even the 19th century. Here is a bit of info on the Casual Loop Temporal Paradox
Closed Casual Loop is also called the Bootstrap Theory
It’s interesting to note that the term Bootstrap Theory was first coined and popularized in Robert Heinlein book from 1941. What’s interestinng about it is that James Cameron was an avid reader of Heinlen, so perhaps this is where he first got to read about and got interested in Casual Loop/Bootstrap Theory
Interestingly, the website that the above passage is from, astronomytrek.com, cites the first Terminator movie as an example in its article about the Bootstrap theory
Below, excerpt from Randall Frakes' Terminator novelization:
But today, people try to think it through and some cannot grasp how come there was no beginning to that chain of events. There's no way it could be, as evidenced just for the argument mentioned above by itself, but there's more. So if you have a hard time accepting the fact that there was never beginning, don't worry, because if you're trying to think about it, you have a hard time accepting it for one simple reason - human mind is incapable of grasping the idea of no beginning and infinity. This is how we are
from scienceexplorer.com and more
So when Sarah says "A person can go crazy thinking about this", she meant it. And by all means the intent of the film and Cameron is that it is a mind bending scifi plot twist, and its a circular loop with no beginning (although, one that could and was broken in T2, but that is for another article), and the main character, Sarah, makes it clear when she says that if John doesn’t “send Kyle he can never be”
Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist, author and science consultant on films summed it up as bluntly as possible on vice.com:
As for what Sarah's life would be if Reese never came back, According to Cameron, Sarah actually sees a vision of what she would be if the future would not visited her in her nuclear nightmare. She would eventually marry some truck driver and have a kid at a much older age ( her son in the vision is one year old and it's 1997), and would remain a waitress in the same place for the rest of her life.
James Cameron: "The thinking is, she sees the innocent version of herself, a life that got interrupted. If her life hadn't been interrupted she would have married a truck driver and have children" (T2 Audio Commentary)
Sarah in 1997 if she would never met Reese:
The description in the script
That description itself, found also in the novelization, says it all - without the knowledge of the future Sarah would have never trained, never go into hiding, and have a kid nearly decade later
Oh and as a side note, for those who think Stan Morsky who called Sarah to call off her date was her boyfriend, guess again. All the script version and novelization says he was just a rich guy who stopped by the restaurant this one time when Sarah was working and instinctively asked her for her number and a date. Once the time actually came, he blew her off because he found something better.
Skynet, likewise, had only existed because of the events of the film and would never exist any other way. Skynet only exists because the Terminator and its technology was crushed at Cyberdyne (This is actually the factory at the end of the first film, revealed to be Cyberdyne in a deleted scene), which was a small factory by then. Cyberdyne recovered and stole the microchip and arm before police could retrieve them (source: Randall Frakes’ novelization for both movies) therefore developing Skynet based on Terminators chip over a decade later. Its made clear by novelization and the science consultant on T2, as well as the story itself, that without the chip, described in both novelizations as unlike any technology known to men and like from an alien planet, as Dyson said himself, they would never made the technological advances. So without the events of the film, the remnants of the Terminator and its chip would never end up at Cyberdyne, and Cyberdyne would never become a hige company and develop Skynet. Skynet, just like John, sent his own father to be conceived. Here below, scientist Larry Yaeger who was a science consultant on the film, confirms the bootstrapping loop application to the birth of Skynet as well on T2 Ultimate DVD extras
The idea of the loop was originally hammered even further in earlier scripts - Terminator was gruesomly skinning thighs of his victims to positively ID his target. Real Sarah had an injury on her thigh bone - eventually revealed at the end of the film to be caused by shrapnel from the blown up Terminator at the factory
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