"Victor Velazquez" <k-canute@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:59-dnewoKtGU7TbanZ2dnUVZ_oytnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> jojo wrote:
>
>> Which means that we are speaking here about parallel universes,
>> meaning going to the past changes nothing to your world but creates a
>> new universe, meaning there is no interest in time travel, meaning all
>> the story has no purpose at all ! So Skynet sent a Terminator in the
>> past to kill John Connor, but who cares, it will just create a new
>> world where there is no John Connor, but do nothing in the universe
>> where Skynet lost the war. And if parallel universes exist, there is
>> an infinite number of them, so one more, one less, why the f... send
>> someone in the past to stop the Terminator ?
>
> There is a universe somewhere in which the Cubs have won every
> World Series so why does anyone care when they lose?
Philosophy, humor and other possible rationales for your comment
aside, it's worth pointing out that the comparison does get to the key
issue here and demonstrates its im****tance. The real world as
experienced by those in it is different than how SF storytelling of a
fictional universe like this is perceived. In the first case we're not
aware of alternate universes or the outcome of World Series in
alternate universes.
In the case of Terminator stories that the producers hypothetically
told us are all set in their own separate universes, so they asked us
to forget what happened in successive movies, or forget all movies
when asked to watch a TV series, it'd be much more problematic. If
it's Superman with different incarnations over 70 years, or a second
telling of Star Trek after 40 years, that approach is arguably very
good. If a movie was relatively mediocre in terms of critical or box
office reception (Highlander movies, a Buffy or Stargate movie),
then a rebooted TV series or franchise might also work well or very
well in those cases.
But a time travel story only a couple of decades old, where the first
TV series is asking you to ignore the iconic 1st and the massively
successful 2nd movie, not to mention the fourth movie in a couple
of years from now, would be asking to be rejected by its market in
multiple incarnations. It needs to preserve a coherent story, and
to its credit that's what the Sarah Connor Chronicles seems to be
doing. But if it ever abandons the fundamental constraints of T1,
T2, and its own internal time loop, it'll crumble. It can't fall into the
trap the original poster outlined either, where everything is pointless.
The future can be altered and Judgment Day can be averted and
the story has lots of scope, even while it lives within its key time
loop constraints.
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