The Terminator Files Forum

I like the show it was better then i was thinking, but one thing that piss me off was that the bad terminator's endoskeleton (The one that gets skin grown for it) looks bigger and more bulky then it did when it had human skin on it.

If you look at the endoskeleton in "The Terminator" it looked like it was the right size because it looked more like a walking human size skeleton, like if it was based on arnolds real skeletal mass. But the one in SCC look more bigger then the actor who plays the main bad terminator.

By the way this is just a nitpick that stood out for me and i hope we get better CGI on the endo's in season 2.

The endo-skeleton may...in fact must have a way to downsize it's shape to fit into it's undercover form so to speak.

I mean...They look like they have human muscles when skinned...I've figured out a way to explain that...can you?

It's all about how you look at things...that makes what can and cannot be done possible or impossible.

Ummm I doubt Skynet would take the time to realistically build muscle sets that would work in consort with their hydraulics. Aside from requiring alot of human help...not to mention biologic reconstruction of muscles that would actually work- making a outer skin covering is much easier in comparison. Believe me I've had this conversation with someone in the know and he agreed with me. But he did not tell me how they had gone about faking the musculature- and since it's not really seen it's not a really huge deal.

He told me to come up with a way right then as we were talking and I instantly said "Muscle sacks". These muscle sacks using an interweaving of Metal and fibrous technology- something Skynet could easily create- these smart cables that when electrically charged...ie all the time when skinned would inflate into a "Muscular shape" which would be as accurate as possible to the position of the human body or limb at that time. Programming like that would take Skynet mere seconds...to put in place on the CPU. Once the skin is burned off these Muscles Sacks become inert- since their subturfuge is not needed anymore. The simply look like metal connecting rods or lines....which the Terminator has in droves.

He was pretty happy with my explanation- I guess us writers like to challange each other to the edge of sanity.

I have been writing for 20 years.

I have been writing screenplays for the last 10 or so of those. I have a selection that I've registered with the Library of Congress and the WGA. As usual the reality is it's much easier to have a real job and write on the side than the other way around.

in 1994 I graduated from the acting classes at Beverly Hills Studios. At that time I also made connections at ILM- they found out I was working on a T3 script and got it into Camerons hands. I then met with him and have since maintained contact throughout the years. He has confided in me many many thoughs on the Terminator Universe. I have been writing in that universe now for 15 years. Through James i have also met and talked with Arnold.

My Terminator work is done out of great respect for James Cameron since he showed me such respect in the past. It is only done to provide an outlet for my joy of bringing the series to life in ways that Cameron had planned.

Later this year I'm hoping to get a sale on one of my screenplays.
And have another made into a Professional Independent Film if all goes well.

I also write Poetry for special occasions, stage plays, music lyrics and other odds and ends.

I have just about signed a deal on my first manuscript.

Oh and Ironically enough a drawing like the Crysis armor was what my friend my "storyboard artist" came up with and that's over 10 years ago now. Though without all that detail. that said I chose my design simply because in the one trailer of the factory it just shows them Skinning an endo...and as far as I know there were no muscles involved. Simplicity...or the nearest thing to it helps in designs sometimes.

There is evidence from the first draft of the T1 script and from events in T1 and T2 to suggest that Skynet took something of a minimalist approach when fleshing the Terminators. Here's an excerpt from the original draft of T1:



Based on the description of the internal organs, they wouldn't be nearly adequate to sustain a significant percentage of human musculature. According to information I researched for another thread, a sleeping human weighing 150 pounds still burns over 1400 calories over a 24 hour period. To keep a Terminator from needing to eat three square meals a day and to allow for the use of such small organs, Skynet would need to take some significant shortcuts. This is where the scenes from the movies come in. In T1, when the Terminator is working on its arm, we have a rather clear view of the underlying machine, with comparatively little blood visible. Certainly it is a gory scene, but blood is not gushing everywhere. Then, in T2 when the Terminator removes flesh from its arm to convince Miles Dyson of the future, the flesh comes off much like a glove, without significant blood flow from what is now essentially a severed arm. This suggests that Skynet took steps to prevent more tissue from being generated than necessary. Had the Terminator been totally encased in tissue to the point of having a large quantity of functioning muscle, there would have been much greater blood flow. It is very probable that Skynet would have used some sort of filler.

Something that just occurred to me is that a Terminator does not have to be warm-blooded in the strictest sense. While a Terminator may still require a food source to keep the tissue alive, it does not need the food as a fuel source to produce heat. A Terminator could very well have a heater element that heats the blood circulating through the tissue. That way the tissue ends up at the right temperature without requiring a lot of food to produce that heat energy. Slight calibration errors or delay in adjustment might even account for the sweaty effect discussed in another thread.

Where I disagree with RossBondReturns is in how the musculature would be simulated, as well as the feasibility of creating muscle relative to skin tissue. Muscle tissue is very homogenous, which makes it much easier to recreate than skin, which comes in varying thicknesses and texture, along with layers of different composition, including the dermis and epidermis. If Skynet can accurately recreate the externally visible parts of the human body, the internal parts are no more complicated. That being said, I believe that Skynet would have grown muscle for some purposes. Terminators could change facial expression (no, really!) which would include various eyebrow and lip movements. Musculature would be ideal for that absent any evidence of a mechanical method of doing so exterior to the skull. The Terminator also mentions being able to register impacts and injury. While it might just be measuring involuntary movement caused by physical impact, a tissue exterior with working nervous system would allow for much more precise sensory data. It would allow the Terminator to detect the same type of stimulus a real human could, and then react in a manner that mimicks the likely reaction of an actual human. If the electronic/biological interface occurs at a centralized location, such as in a protected organ compartment, the nervous system contained in the tissue could be used to relay sensory data rather than through some electronic interface embedded in the tissue. This argument goes well beyond muscle, but it is intended to illustrate that Skynet would have use for functional living tissue beyond cosmetic reasons.

By removing the need for the living tissue to generate its own heat, a Terminator can limit its food consumption to that necessary to supply nutrients to the living tissue and possibly enough energy for part-time operation of any musculature grown on the machine. I had considered artificial means of simulating musculature, including an idea where muscles were just inert, elastic objects molded in the shape of a contracted muscle and attached so that when the 'muscle' is stretched, it appears to be a relaxed muscle, and when allowed to contract, it relaxes into an apparently tensed position. However, the tissue generation machine shown in the teaser trailer showed a cavity contoured to that of a human, with no obvious provisions to insert additional objects beyond the Terminator itself. Since the Terminator was placed into the machine without any exterior attachments, it seems more likely that Skynet would rely on living tissue to simulate muscles rather than rely on a mechanical solution. Were it not for the depiction of the machine I would have been more open to the idea of artificial means of simulating human anatomy. Also, had there been an artificial means for controlling musculature, it seems to me that it would have been more likely to be visible in some form when the Terminator removes its arm covering in T2.

By the way, simple biological/electronic interfaces are already possible today. Here's a web-version of an article I read in a newspaper several years ago about a Remote-controlled roach

I didn't find it necessary to open a new topic so I decided to post my question in this one.

Why did Cameron have red eyes in the final episode of season 2? She is suppose to have blue ones. Is this a mistake? Have they ignored the fact that she had blue eyes? Or is there some explanation? Is she able to change her eye color or something? I'm disappointed. The blue eyes were something that made her different than the average T-888. It does however fits with the promo material where her endoskeleton skull appeared to have red eyes too.

I never considered Cameron to be anything more than T-888, so, doesn't really bother me. But it is odd they changed the coloring. Maybe it changed back when she was "reset"?

Where in the show did they ever show her with blue eyes? Aside from the shots from her POV where things have a blue tint, I don't think they ever have, at least not within the show itself.

We didn't see her cybernetic blue eyes, but they did glow blue through her human eyes.

Look here. They glow when she throws the flare in.

It could simply be a case if different colored LED's

Blue for calm.

Red for angry.

So to speak.

Pilot: Eyes flash blue to show Tarissa Dyson she is a machine.
Dungeons & Dragons: Flash blue when the scanner passed over them. Again with Charlie.

Really? That's what you want to go with?

thats a great scene

So it should have had blue eyes in this episode as well.
Can someone change it? Make the eye blue instead of red?

In the Season 2 finale we see Cameron has red eyes instead of blue.