I’ll go first. Mine is that I can’t stand the Deadpool movies. They are self aware and self referential to an obnoxious degree. It’s like being continually reminded that I am in a movie. I swear the success of that movie has directly lead to every blockbuster having to have a joke every 30 seconds
i’m like way, way late on this, but i just stumbled on this thread and have to say your analysis is well thought out and you explained time travel narrative structures very succinctly.
but your analysis completely falls apart because, and i’m not sure how, but you missed the entire fucking point of Terminator 1. In the extended edition of T2 there’s a scene in the first 15 minutes where Kyle explains it again for those in the back.
added in T2,
That’s what Kyle comes back to explain to Sarah. Until she understands that message and acts on it, Kyle is acting in a “ST” structure. Once the terminator is destroyed by Sarah, the MT is opened up. We can speculate that Kyle was supposed to kill the terminator with his last pipe bomb, but really any moment could have caused that schism. What’s important is that Sarah is now self-reliant in terms of killing machines. Fate is what Sarah was fighting, almost a meta-antagonist. That is her struggle through the entire Terminator franchise.
Terminator 1 is a time travel story that starts as a ST narrative, and by Sarah’s actions in the final act, becomes a MT narrative. T2 just further explores the opened-up MT narrative. There’s no inconsistency between the final moment of T1 and the opening of T2. Your gripe seems to be entirely with the first movie based on a limited understanding of the larger themes and philosophies explored in the narrative.
Terminator 2 is a damn fine sequel and a hell of a film on its own merit.