Natemans said:
Oh yeah, the past thing with John Conner was the biggest plot hole for Genisys.
Seriously how does future John Conner still exist since Kyle Reese and Sarah Conner time traveled from 1984 to 2017 which is past the point she would be impregnated and gave birth to John? How does he still exist?
That's actually been a problem with the proposed time travel theory from moment one meaning they have been wrong uptil now when John says it doesn't matter. Think of it this way, going back all the way to T1. We know Reese did not go simultaneously back with the T1 Terminator. He was sent later, but that doesn't make sense with a single timeline theory for the exact same reasons you just said. The instant that T1 Terminator went back, John Conner should have ceased to exist, the war likely would have been lost, and Skynet would never even consider the need to send back a Terminator, although perhaps it could have programmed the original to report to it later to do so, but regardless, Reese should never have had the opportunity to go back. So, the only conclusion we can come to is that Reese's timeline remained intact despite the change giving him that opportunity which means multiple timelines are in effect, or there is some kind of temporal lagtime but we see no evidence of this. This of course creates its own problem though, if we trace all these time travel jumps back, one of them had to have Reese come back with no John, at least not the John that is Reese's son.
Now if I were to try and explain all this nonsense, I would use exactly that. At the very beginning the 'John' character was someone totally different. Skynet arose naturally with no need of future intervention and the battle occurred. Skynet sent a Terminator back in time creating a new terrible timeline we never see where humanity is wiped out. However from the original timeline its Reese is sent back, but only to stop the Terminator from killing the original 'John's mother, not to be John, because this John had another father. However, during this jump Reese ends up with Sarah and creates the first version of John Conner we are familiar with, inadvertently ensuring the original John never comes to be created, but fulfilling the same role effectively creating a 3rd timeline. Likewise, the destroyed Terminator also changes the way Skynet arises... almost like these two are parallels. Now the 3rd timeline moves forward to the point of the future where Skynet started this nonsense and the whole process repeats, but now with Reese sent back to be John's father and at earliest this is when T1 when take place on this first repeat loop. Regardless though, this creates timelines 4 and 5, similar to 2 and 3 but now based on the original change.
Now timeline 5 may have directly changed, or we may have looped countless timeless times with countless minor variation until we finally reach T2 and Skynet changes strategy one loop and sends two terminators back, and now two defenders are sent back, each creating their own timelines, a total of 4, 1 for each terminator going back, 1 for each defender going back. So that is minimum of timelines 6 (where first terminator only goes back), 7 (where both terminators go back), 8 (where Reese goes back) and 9 (where Reese and the good Terminator goes back), although timelines 7 and 8 may be reversed. T2 would be timeline 9. However, sadly, T2's ending just has us regress back to the original way Skynet arose. Not much point in counting timelines at this point, but you get the idea there are a lot of them.
So now we're onto T3. In timeline 9's future, Skynet sends back the latest terminator and the others too that creates yet more timelines, but again a defender is sent back for each creating yet more timelines (so now we're upto 6 more each loop). The events of T3 and salvation would take place in these loops.
Now eventually things get odd as one loop Skynet alters its 2nd attack, instead of sending the T-1000 further ahead, it sends it further back. This leads us into Genisys which has to be the first time this happened. Skynet altered strategy and sent back its two terminators but in the opposite order, T-1000 earlier in the timeline. John, still thinking they're in a single timeline, sends Reese back to his original intended destination which is Genisys takes place. Corrupted John will then later come back himself as he realizes the truth that the timelines are many.
Now there is a slight issue here in that the last defending Terminator has been sent back by a mysterious party, potentially not John. This actually makes sense with Genisys as in the future John was Corrupted just as Reese was sent back so he never had the opportunity. But then the question is who sent the defending terminator back? A mystery we'll probably never have revealed I suspect.
Funny enough, this could explain why we have so many different actors playing the parts as they aren't the same people genetically despite filling the same historical role... well save Sarah, but hey maybe there was even more attempts that went further back. We could even bring in the TV series in there somewhere as there is lots of potential timelines for it to spawn from.
