Talk:Terminator (character concept)/Archive 1

T-850 portrayal
I'd like to clarify. While the one in the scene where the first hydrogen cell is removed is most probably a physical model, the one at the end, where the left half of the body is clearly showing its mechanical nature, is confirmed by the DVD Extras to be CGI. CABAL 08:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, Cabal, and thanks for participating with me on the new terminator article(s). This is one of the first articles I've created from scratch, and I'm thrilled by your involvement. I take it (from the fact that you've made very few changes) to mean that your approval of the article as a whole is pretty high. I hope I'm right. : )  I've been watching the movie & its extras since I wrote the article. As for the edit you're referring to, yes, you are correct that CGI is used -- I believe you're referring to the portion of DVD docu. where arnie is shown wearing green elements (ie., "wearing" greenscreen) so that when we see him at the end of the movie, when half of his face has the flesh burned away and we can see through his endo-skull to the background plate behind him. And I'm inclined to leave in the assertion that arnie's character was "portrayed by" CGI if you wish. Since you opened up discussion here (thank you by the way), I'll give you my criteria and rationale for why I absented "CGI" under the "portrayed by" column for arnie's character in T3: The key lies in the term "portrayed by". Clearly, in T2, the CGI artists "portrayed" the T-1000 in parts, and therefore *the CGI artists* deserve credit for "portraying" the T-1000. I viewed T3 with this criteria in mind. As in T2, the CGI artists' visual creations "portray" the T-X. *Some* CGI is used for *effects* on arnie, but as I see it, the CGI applied to arnie's character did not meet my criteria for "portrayal". In other words, the character was never animated, as far as i can tell -- only "touched up". Digital makeup effects, if you will.


 * That's my criteria. I may be obsessive in detail, but I don't want to engage in debate at all -- I'm just glad you participated. So I'm happy to leave this decision in your hands. I'm also happy to discuss my criteria, so, there, I did. : )


 * Again, thanks for participating. I saw the need for a general-terminator-concept page and created it, including a table (my first) with images and the whole lot. I welcome your participation, and also your opinions, so please, continue to contribute as much as you like, whether here in discussion or on the page itself. (Or both.)


 * Pleasure working with you! Nice to work with other Terminator fans as well.


 * Cheers -- ManfrenjenStJohn 01:12, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * In case anyone reading this cares, CABAL and I have checked the sources, and Arnie is in fact fully-CGI in several portions of Terminator 3. The director is the source; second track of DVD commentary on the Terminator 3 DVD. -- ManfrenjenStJohn 05:32, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

A cite for how the term "T-800" gained dominance in describing Arnie's character?
As I created this article, I couldn't for the life of me recall where the term "T-800" originated. So my assertion is that "many fans have come to a consensus to call the character a T-800", but I have no cite for that. I welcome any help.

So how did this come to be that we call him "T-800"? I think it was by deduction and not by canonical evidence. I'll have to watch T2 again, but I think we, the fans, took "800 series", and the (then) newly introduced T-1000 and deduced that arnie="T-800". If there's harder canonical evidence than that, whether it be from Cameron or arnie in a documentary (good), DVD menus (kinda good), or content from within the films (best), it would be nice to know -- for the purposes of this article, thoroughness, what have you.

Maybe it was originally stated in promotional materials -- good luck finding those now. : )

Also of note: "T-850" is never mentioned or seen in T3, yet we universally agree that whatever "800" meant in T2, "850" applies to the governator in T3. In the dialogue, arnie refers to himself as a T-101, and I know that threw us all for a loop. (The T3 DVD menus are of little help, but perhaps the best help we have. In the "terminator timeline", it refers to arnie inconsistently -- using practically ALL of the existing terms: T-800, T-850, T-101, and "series 800".)

Anyways, I'm glad I created this page and I think it's serving a necessary purpose. I think we all agree that there's inconsistency in the retro-naming of arnie's character.

So feel free to add any hard cites you may come across.

PS - I also co-wrote & organized The Terminator (character), which is linked in this article -- that's where I put all the evidence I could find. I am considering copying that section into this article instead of just linking it. Suggestions welcome.

Thanks!

--

ManfrenjenStJohn 01:29, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The Mother of All Cites: "T-800"

 * In case anyone cares, I believe I have tracked down the original use of "T-800". We'll all be happy to know that Mr. James Cameron himself referred to Arnie's character as a "T-800" in the DVD documentary on most home video and DVD versions of Terminator 2. You're welcome. : ) -- ManfrenjenStJohn 05:19, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Eh, which part in the commentary was this? I'd just like to confirm for myself. CABAL 07:57, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The Mother of All Cites Turns Out to be a Real Motherfucker
Well, I'm glad you asked me to check, because I'm going to have to change the assertion. Here's comes the suckage. I could blame the producers of the Terminator 2 "Ultimate Edition" DVD, but this is definitely an award winning example of "do it right? do it yourself".

I wrote the assertion based on the following, which is printed in the 30-page booklet AND in an interactive documentary on the T2 Ultimate Edition DVD called "Data Core" (in Chapter 9: "Casting").

Here's the excerpt from the 30-page booklet:

There's an almost identical passage in the "Data Core" interactive feature on the T2 "Ultimate Ed." DVD, printed in text (on screen). There, the Cameron quote is identical to the booklet.

Here's where things get shitty. I knew the above quote -- and it is very clearly a QUOTE attributed to Cameron -- was probably taken from an on-camera interview with Cameron in the main making of documentary. But we're about to take a big step back to nowhere. Here is what Cameron says on-camera at approx 17 and a half minutes into "The Making of Terminator 2: Judgment Day", which is the first of several documentaries on "Ultimate":

I scanned through the rest of this documentary (and very quickly through some of the others -- they're on different subjects for the most part). No help from anyone. The narrator consistently calls Arnold's character "The Terminator". Stan Winston discusses making the endoskeleton, but he never calls it anything other than "the endoskeleton".

So it looks like one of two things happened:
 * 1. An overzealous fan was the copywriter for the Ultimate Edition DVD misquoted Cameron, replacing "800 series" with "T-800", among other errors
 * 2. The quote is accurate but it's from another interview with Cameron, which I didn't find on the DVD.

I'm putting my money on #1. So we're kind of back to nowhere. But we have something, and that's more than nothing: Hope of the Future. This is a fan who's really done his homework. He pores over the script and the novelizations and determines that "T-800" was probably first used in the novelizations. Here's a bit of nothing important off of the top of my head: The novelizations (I think I owned the T2 one once, but it's long gone) were written by Randall Frakes. In my recent "research" I read or saw somewhere (at this point I have no idea from where, but I'm fairly sure it was one of the DVDs) that Randall Frakes is an old friend of Cameron's. I think I remember seeing reference to how they knew each other during or before Cameron's writing the script for T1. These aren't hard facts, but they lead to a gentler possibility: that "T-800" originated with material (Frakes) that, while not canon, is at least from someone within Cameron's inner circle, and not just your average fan, or a nameless ghost writer.

--

ManfrenjenStJohn 03:07, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Upper case for proper nouns, Lower case for common nouns (in the table)
I'm changing common nouns (ie. "practical effects", "other actors") to lower case. I think this is proper. -- ManfrenjenStJohn 03:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Sentience vs. "Sapience"
I've been using the term "sentience" to describe Skynet, the terminators, et al. gaining consciousness, self-awareness, or whatever you want to call it. Even within Wikipedia, these terms are all already fairly delineated, and even though there's still some cleanup to be done on those articles, it looks like I'm in good company -- though possibly erroneous -- in using "sentience". The following is from the article on sentience:

The issue of sentience also frequently arises in science fiction stories describing robots or computers with artificial intelligence. Intelligence and sentience are quite distinct, so the question arises as to whether computers with artificial intelligence will become sentient.

Some science fiction uses the term sentience to describe a species with human-like intelligence, but a more appropriate term for intelligent beings would be 'sapience'.

I'm not going to go back and change every mention of the term (this article, other terminator characters, skynet, etc.) However, the distinction is certainly worth considering -- even the wikipedia article on sentience predicted it. : )

--

ManfrenjenStJohn 05:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:T-70.gif
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BetacommandBot 23:37, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Terminator 3 Deleted Scene.jpg
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Fair use rationale for Image:Terminator 3 T-1.jpg
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Fair use rationale for Image:Terminator 3 T-1.jpg
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Fair use rationale for Image:Terminator 3 T-850 Damaged Disguise.jpg
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