The Connor Wars Writer’s Room 10 – The Video Blog…Ta Da!
Jul 26th, 2009 | By CJ | Category: TTSCCSometimes I like to change things up a bit. So let me apologize before hand for inflicting this on you, but I wanted to play with my camera thingy. It’s just over 50 minutes, so pace yourselves.
I hoped that filled in some blanks. When/if I do another one, I’ll try making it a bit shorter. Sorry about that. When I start talking about writing…well, people who know me know better than to get me started talking about writing.
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[I've had to redact text to try to help those who don't want to be spoiled. If you don't mind being spoiled, just select the contents of this comment to see the full text. - CJ]
[I feel like I'm a government censor. Not sure how I feel about that. - CJ]
I’m a bit disapointed, because there will be no more time travel. I always liked the implications and paradoxes of time travel. but there is another reason why I’m a disapointed: john won’t go back
to stop JD. I hoped that the connors would stop JD, that was the whole point of the show!
what I wanted to see in season 3 (before I discovered your fanfic) was,
john finding cameron’s chip, and at the end of the season going back in time (because the war cant be won and/or john realising that he cant skip JD, he must be there from the start),
so that in season 4 john and sarah (and cameron, and maybe weaver) would stop JD (using what john learned in the future about skynet and its creation).
for a while it seemed like thats what you are writing, but then you said no more time travel…
dont get me wrong CJ, I love your fanfic, its just that I wanted them to stop JD.
That element of the story isn’t completely closed. Remember…I said that I could change my mind. If I decide to go that way, there are more than enough story possibilities to allow it–I just thought of a great big whopping one this week, in fact, that would be interesting to pursue and wouldn’t be difficult to integrate into the current structure for the season.
That said, the point of the heroes in this quest is to stop Skynet. There are many options as to how that might be accomplished, the two most obvious: 1) Stop JD from happening in the first place; 2) Defeat Skynet after JD occurs. T1, T3, and T4 opted for (2). T2 opted for (1). TSCC has gone a little bit both ways.
The question becomes one of how much, or whether, the future can be changed. For example: T2 ended with the idea that it could, while T3 had the proposition that there was some immutable inevitability.
I can’t help but hearken back to Wargames when Joshua said, “Strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?” John is apparently very good at the lessons to be learned from chess.
sorry about the spoilers.
what you said about unclosed story possibilities,
it just goes to show you how brilliant the finale was, that the story could have developed in many ways.
about stoping skynet (no spoilers here), what I wanted to see in the movies is how john defeats skynet in the future, and in the series I wanted to see john and sarah Stoping JD from happening.
about changing the future, even in T1 kyle said to sarah that the futrue is not set.
I know that T1 was a closed loop but james cameron said (after T2) that the future can be changed.
cameron even shot an alternate ending for T2 in which JD was stopped. since the series erased T3’s timeline I thought that the show would continue the way cameron intended,
and the connors would stop JD from happening.
I’ve had to redact pieces of stuff I’ve commented on in the past, so at least there’s a mechanism in place that isn’t difficult to implement. No worries.
The possibilities are indeed numerous. While, as I mentioned, I’m currently aiming just for the season finale, I will admit that I do think about how I might tie everything up afterwards–I don’t want to screw up a good possibility unnecessarily. Do characters walk into the sunset, or does the sun set on our characters? Maybe there are dinosaurs. (No…no dinos. [probably]
)
I periodically re-evaluate the story based on what was actually scripted versus what I was expecting to script. It does evolve. I put in certain details in an early episode that raises a lot of possibilities for future episodes…possibilities I didn’t see before. Other times, a storyline just doesn’t “click” like I thought it would and it gets supplanted by something else. (I try not to drop a storyline without explanation…that’s just confusing.) So…even though I have a road map to a destination, that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to make a detour to see the world’s largest ball of twine. (I mean, who doesn’t want to see the world’s largest ball of twine?)
Office comps rarely have speakers attached, and my home one is currently disassembled, so I’m kind of late on commenting this.
Guess you have to censor this out too.
No more time travel means Kyle is not going back in time, doesn’t meet Sarah and John doesn’t get born?
Still he exists in this particular time line because he chronoportated here. BUT this particular John do have a father who’s name is Kyle Reese and who was sent to the past to protect Sarah Connor. That’s quite paradoxy.
I mean, doesn’t John needs to do things that he learns he does in the future? At least those that ensure his own existence? I know about all that parallel univerce stuff, but since John birth is dependent on time travel guess he could never find himself in a world without time travel at all?
The important thing to remember is that this is John’s (and to an extent, Sarah’s) story. Though events surrounding them might seem convoluted, sometimes mythic, at times, the fact is that from their perspective there isn’t any discontinuity.
So, John can evade the future with TDE invented, but JD is totally inevitable no matter what he would do? That’s very pessimistic
As I said, I could always choose to go the other way. There are always loopholes. But think of the peace you could have if you didn’t have to spend your life looking over your shoulder, so to speak.
In this case the Battle goes just straight – it’s all or nothing for both sides – loosing is incorrectable and winning is permanent.
May be thats for good and definitely more human-like.