But again, at this point in the timeline, John Connor is nobody. He's not leading the resistance, or even in the upper levels of leadership. He's some guy with a radio. So "you will do what none of us have been able to....kill John Connor!" makes zero sense. Marcus is the first one to even try.

When Marcus gets to Skynet, HBC tells him that his programming was to bring Kyle Reese there as a lure for John Connor. (Which is why when John unlocks the jail cells, Kyle's is the only one that stays locked.) But Skynet shouldn't have known who Kyle was. Arguably, Skynet should never have found out who Kyle was, or they would have sent a Terminator back in time to prevent his birth and not had to bother with John or Sarah at all.

Jessica,

but see: I can buy Skynet giving him these orders because John Connor shouted the name of his father at Marcus. That was transmitted to Skynet - we saw that.

I don't understand why Kyle's name was on the kill list and why the sub tank leadership didn't wonder about this also.

here's an article that makes me want to smack Christian Bale, and then kiss him (if he's not lying): [link]

I really really wish that this had been a movie about Marcus and Kyle, and Marcus v Skynet at the end. Take John Connor out of this movie and you've actually got a shot at an interesting story.

Jessica, so much world of wrod. And according to that article I linked, was the original intention. How cool would it have been if John Connor had just been this voice on the radio, some mysterious man giving hope and unifying people, but always in the background while the A plot with Marcus went about it's business? And then, maybe at the end, we'd finally get to meet JC.

I don't think that Skynet should be all taunty like a James Bond villain. It's undignified.

That rather bothered me. It was too "muahaha" mustache-twirling.

From other articles I've read, my major problem with the movie is Bale's meddling. I'd be fascinated to see what the story would have been if Connor's role had been small as originally intended, and Marcus the definitive main character.

I didn't realize until after that Kyle was played by the guy who is the new Chekov!

Terminator:

Is it true that an original ending of the film was for John Connor to become a machine?

How was that supposed to work?

I've seen all but four on that Esquire list. It's kind of an interesting mix of gold and crap.

Boy, I'm not doing well with that list--I've only seen 33 of them. Of course, there's a lot of classics I've never seen, and that list is a guy list so there's no musicals, which is my favorite genre.

From what I read a while back, the original ending (or one of the previous endings) was that Connor dies at the end, and Marcus basically puts on his skin. I kind of admire how insane that is, but: nuts. And then apparently there was also something where Marcus-as-Connor then kills everyone -- I guess to cover the replacement? Or just to be a dick, I don't know.

I can fanwank putting Reese on the hitlist since there would be records that he protected Sarah in the past. I'm okay with Skynet knowing "apparently in the future I'll want to do this, and it's safe to assume there's a good reason." But I'm not looking for a lot of sense in Terminator movies. So many of their problems could be avoided if someone just said "Have you ever considered changing your damn name?"

I've seen all but four on that Esquire list. It's kind of an interesting mix of gold and crap.

Yes, but you do admit that some of your crap is other peoples' gold, right?

ETA (lovingly): Fucking hipster!

Fan trailer for a movie that will never be.