MovieChat Forums > The Terminator (1984) Discussion > Did the robot have a 'cutoff point'?

Did the robot have a 'cutoff point'?


I mean, there were only three Sarah Connors, so the robot 'decided' it's going to kill them all, systematically (for some reason).

It did not try to find out, which one is the actual one it was sent to terminate, but instead, just terminates all the extra ones as well - even though it's SUPPOSED to be an infiltration unit, but whatever..

However, what if there were more Sarah Connors? The robot was very lucky there were only three, but what if there were like 80?

Would it still do it 'systematically', because surely even a primitive AI like 6502 CPU-based one would know its difficulty increases with every kill, because basically the GTA stars will keep increasing until just by the sheer attention from authorities, it would not be able to keep going after it has killed N number of Sarah Connors.

So what is the 'cutoff point', after which it would select an alternate strategy, as in becoming a 'detector' instead of 'terminator', and finding clues, interviewing people and so on, until it can find out the EXACT Sarah Connor?

Not only would it be impossible to kill all 80 even for a sophisticated robot due to what I just mentioned, but the chances that at least some of the Sarah's are not in some easy-to-find, predictable place increase with each one, not to mention how much TIME would be wasted and so on. Everything taken into consideration, 80 Sarahs would be an impossibility.

So if there is a 'cutoff point', what is it? Is it pre-programmed in, or can it just 'realize' it's not gonna work after a certain number, and what would that number be, and how would the robot select that exact number and why?

Sometimes I think about details like this and it makes the movies look like they don't make much sense - I am sure the writers never put this much thought into their movie..

In any case, what if there were 200 Sarah Connors, what would this machine do then? I am just curious to know how it would change tactics, what it would do instead and so on - I'd watch THAT movie..

Furthermore, I don't think its selected tactic is very good or effective, because surely it must know the last Sarah would be harder to kill due to these incidents being reported on the news and thus Sarah KNOWING there is someone out to kill her, and thus trying to escape or at least prepare in some way.

(Saraha didn't really need Kyle to know she's being hunted, from the robot's point of view, so it's a bit silly and stupid tactic to use to simply bruteforce every Sarah dead)

Not that this movie makes any more sense than most movies anyway, but I just had to wonder if it has some kind of cutoff point, after which it would stop using this stupid, dumb, idiotic tactic and start using something more stealthy, more 'blendy-in' (inblendy?), more 'infiltratory' instead of just Ramboing every club that might have a Sarah in it, like some muscle-bound idiot instead of a sophisticated infiltration unit (I never get over the fact that Skynet would make such huge bodybuilder-lookalikes as its infiltration units and not see anythign wrong with that).

Also, talking about infiltration.. wouldn't a robot manufactured in the future, designed to 'fool future people' and infiltrate those 'human nests' be VERY different type compared to an effective infiltration unit designed to function in the year 1984?

This 'infiltration unit' stuff just doesn't add up AT ALL.. I wish I could've seen the original movie where, I think, Lance Henriksen would have inconspicuously infiltrated all kinds of situations and places. But because Cameron was impressed with how robotic Arnie is, he wanted him to be the robot instead.

Sadly, this decision meant that the 'infiltration idea' makes no longer any sense, so he effectively threw away the whole original movie idea deep into the Abyss of his trashcan. Sigh.

Another victory for the 'dumb muscular guy' in the eighties, another loss for a 'possibly intelligent movie' - same thing happened with The Matrix, where the idiotic 'battery' idea was brought to replace the original 'machines need human dreams' idea or whatever it was.. I just wish we could go back and watch the ORIGINAL idea instead of the dumbed-down version.

Dumbing down seems to be a necessity in USA, it seems.. 'stereogram' is not good enough, it has to be called 'magic eye picture' for people to know what you are talking about. Logical metric system is not good enough, you have to use a convoluted imperial system that makes no sense and IS based on the metric system anyway..

OK, that's enough off-topic ranting, but dang this planet makes me crazy with all the things that make no sense.

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BTW - YES, it (NOT 'HIM') _IS_ a dang ROBOT, not a cyborg, Kyle Reese doesn't know what he's talking about!

Where did he learn to read, by the way? Do they have schools in that crappy future, even though there's no TV or food or basically any necessities (although the dogs still look very well fed for some reason..)?

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I think the machine would have just kept on running its mission directive and keep finding and killing any Sarah Connors it could locate using the resources of the time, for as long as it can before being stopped. Reese said as much - something like it doesn't stop, being relentless.

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The one in that last movie stopped at some point and opened a little shop

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Good point. I wonder how it knew it had got the one exact John Connor it needed to kill.

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BEWARE! Avortac4 is a troll trying to waste everyone's time with such idiotic comments. Look at his posts. He doesn't think anything in any film makes sense. His post may seem like it makes sense in the first sentence or two. But he always quickly wanders off into a completely idiotic idea, and then writes a wall of text that makes no sense. And his sole purpose is to waste your time, thinking he's cute for doing so. Don't feed the troll. If you write a comment, you're giving this troll EXACTLY what he wants. Don't comment after my comment.

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This post makes no sense. The T-800 didn't have points. Most of the components were smooth machine finished parts.

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