Thinking through the time-travel issues makes my brain fuzzy. This is what I have so far:
At the beginning of the film, when the Resistance is making the final attack on Skynet, time travel hadn't been used yet. Skynet sent a single T-800 back, to kill all the Sarah Connors who could be John's mother. Though I'd think that the timeline should have instantly changed, John had time to set up the machine again and send Kyle Reese.
As Kyle is going through the process, John is attacked by Matt Smith's character and infected. All the other Resistance members present look to have been killed.
At this point, it would seem to me that Skynet has won in the future - they literally own the leader of the humans, who would the most dangerous mole in the Resistance. It wouldn't be hard to utterly defeat the humans at this point.
Back in 2017, Skynet survives being blown to hell by the good guys, as seen in the mid-credits scene. So it knows that while John is presumably dead, Sarah Connor is still alive. And probably knows that she has a T-800, upgraded to a T-1000, as a bodyguard. It files that away for (literally) future use.
At this point I have two possibilities:
1: Future Skynet decides to kill young Sarah Connor, similar to its original plan. Either the remains of the Resistance sends back Pops to save her (continuing the pretty endless cycle) or John, though part of Skynet, isn't completely convinced he'll survive his mother's early death, and sends Pops back himself.
2. John is still human enough to realize what he's become, hates that he's being used to lead humanity to its doom, and sends the T-1000 back to kill his own mother, feeling that though the Resistance won't have him around, someone might rise up to take his place. At which point Skynet itself sends Pops back, since the events of "Terminator Genisys" does conclude with Skynet still around, which could be seen by Skynet as an acceptable victory. It also explains why Pops doesn't know who reprogrammed him.
I just saw the movie and came to a similar conclusion, only a little different. As Pops mentioned, it took a bit for the cellular cybernetic infection to completely replace all of Johns cells. Now because T2 is canon in this series, John already knows that he will also be sending back a reprogrammed T-800 to 1994 (Uncle Bob).
1995 wouldn't make sense because "Uncle Bob" tells Sarah that in 3 years Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computers which would mean 1998 -but Judgement Day occurs in 1997. I assumed T2 was around 93 or 94.
Actually thinking more about it; John was concieved in May '84 so he wouldn't be 10 years old until at least Jan/Feb 1995.
Skynet is scary enough to cause a nuclear apocalypse & destroy humanity barely 20-30 years after that.
Actually thinking more about it; John was concieved in May '84 so he wouldn't be 10 years old until at least Jan/Feb 1995.
1995
Off topic: how is your Terminator fanfilm coming along?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXJiSZhA5cg
Alright! Red Letter Media stepped up to explain the timelines!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXJiSZhA5cg
Alright! Red Letter Media stepped up to explain the timelines!!!
I'd love to work out a theory that Sarah and Reese fall in love, but have a girl rather than a boy.
If the first 3 movies constitute one storyline, either the Resistance and Skynet repeatedly regain control over the time travel chamber from the other (T-800, Kyle Reese, T-1000. good T-800, Terminatrix, good T-800) - or Skynet has multiple chambers, and John keeps capturing them and sending back someone to prevent whatever Skynet planned to do in the past.
If my theory is correct, Skynet/evil John sent Pops back to protect Sarah. If so, Pops would probably have directives not to even consider letting himself be terminated, in case Skynet needed a last ditch means to survive.
I'd love to work out a theory that Sarah and Reese fall in love, but have a girl rather than a boy. Somehow Skynet manages to kill Sarah and Pops, and Kyle takes the girl, named Sarah, back in time. Kyle is killed by a T-1000 when little Sarah is 9 years old, and she's saved by the arrival of a T-800. That however, would lead to a very creepy Oedipus-like ending...:sick