Terminator Genisys Trailer Analysis: What the Heck is Up with John Connor?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGSxss7gWak

The latest Terminator Genisys trailer just dropped… and what the hell did I just watch? Strap in, this is going to be a weird one.

So we already knew that Genisys would be tripping up the Terminator timeline in some seriously crazy ways. I don’t think any of us could have predicted just how far off the rails this series is going though. Let’s try to figure out what’s going on.

So we open with Judgement Day (the day Skynet became self aware and began its war on humanity), which was stopped in T2, and un-stopped in T3. This is already screwing with the established timeline, as Sarah Connor didn’t have a kid in the original timeline when Judgement Day occurred (Kyle Reese is the dad after all).

And obligatory post-Judgement Day shot.

Here’s Jason Clarke as John Connor, who’s about to get a pretty different role in the Terminator/Human war.

Right now though, we’re fairly in line with the previous timeline. John Connor is the leader of the Human resistance, and leads an attack on a Terminator installation that’s housing a time travel device.

Upon discovering that a Terminator had already been sent to kill his mother, Connor sends a soldier back in time to protect her (aka, the events of the first Terminator movie).

That soldier is Kyle Reese, played here by Jai Courtney.

As we noted last time, things are immediately out of whack upon his arrival, since a T-1000 is there to greet him almost a decade too early.

Also, Sarah Connor is totally prepared and badass, basically erasing the events of the first film entirely.

So what the heck is going on here? Well, here’s zombie Arnold to explain.

Basically, in this revised timeline, a T-800 (the Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminators) was sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor, not when she was a grown woman though, but when she was nine years old. This resulted in the deaths of her parents.

Yet another T-800 was programmed to protect her, and functioned as sort of a Terminator-dad while Sarah was growing up. Where these two T-800’s came from is a mystery.

Also this happens.

If you think all of that is weird, you aint seen nothing yet. Here’s where things get cr-cr-craaazy.

Check out these billboards, promoting something called “Genisys” and a countdown. You can see they’re plastered across the city.

And then John Connor inexplicably shows up (it looks like Sarah has been hospitalized). So are we to assume that, Sarah Connor was orphaned at nine, raised by a Terminator, had a kid with someone who isn’t Kyle Reese, but that kid still turned out to be John Connor, but Judgement Day happened, but it didn’t, and now the two are reunited?

Obviously that timeline does not work at all, so why does Sarah recognize her son here (who looks older than she is)?

Also, he still has his war scars…

Then Arnold puts a hole in him, and his blood is not exactly… human.

“Survival is what you taught me.”

So apparently, somehow John Connor has been turned into a human/Terminator hybrid, possibly by choice given that line.

My thinking is that this is what “Genisys” is. Instead of Skynet blowing everyone up on Judgement Day, now it’s trying to convert people into machine hybrids.

Also, this is a really silly movie.

All right seriously, what the hell is this.

“We’re not machine. We’re not man.”

Arnold and John Connor fight at… the time travel machine? How…?

I guess robo-John traveled back in time to build another time machine. But “why,” is the real question here.

Well I’m not sleeping tonight.

What the heck is on Arnold’s hand? And Daenerys, I mean Sarah’s, neck and chest? Has she already been partially converted?

Yeah that’s pretty freaky.

Kyle Reese says they need to reverse what they did to John. Look at that thing though, how exactly are you going to “reverse” that procedure? It looks like Reese is still in hospital garb, so this is probably long before he realizes just how far gone John is.