The Terminator Files Forum

Well the blue was to denote a "female" Terminator. As the T-X had such colors to her eyes and around her Endoskeleton. However, I would think Skynet wouldn't care what color eyes it's sex bots were, so long as it cost Skynet nothing more in materials to make them.

If looking like Summer Glau wasn't enough to establish a Terminator as being "female", I don't think blue eyes are going to help, and the problem is that the eyes went from blue to red, so does that count as a sex change?

Because they never established that the eyes were any color other than blue, and once they introduced red eyes at the end they made no effort to show that they could still change color. It came off seeming like an inconsistency, rather than an ability of the character. Not only that, but many fans of the show liked the blue eyes enough that they felt like they were cheated by having them switched out for red.

It's like changing Cameron's HUD from what it was to red.
It makes no sense. It's eye color was blue, so it should have remained that way.

I don't see what the big deal is with the eye color. I understand the inconsistency arguments can be supported, I just don't agree. When technology is advanced to a level of repeatable, successful time travel, the purposeful changing of eye color should be fairly easy. As to the why of color changing, it could have been related to behavioral modeling. Perhaps skynet believed the blue cast offered greater probability of successful infiltration. Humans have long had sayings related to eyes: "look me in the eye" "the eyes are the windows to the soul" "turn around bright eyes" "had the most amazing eyes" "there was no emotion in his eyes" etc. Perhaps Skynet found the blue light at the right low intensity offered subtle cues the human subconscious was more apt to accept as human emotional emphasis. So the later models default to this blue light instead of the red. The default combat mode would be red, which is left over from day one.

---JET_Fusion

See I always thought the blue eyes was to denote a reprogrammed Terminator as well, but then Arnold's eyes, both times, weren't blue, but then again, he was the first in T2. Perhaps Cameron's reprogramming required additional tweaking, and the blue eyes were simply a byproduct, not really a benefit. This is too funny that we're discussing this. Whenever I see the hud for the Sarah Connor Chronicle Terminators, I roll my eyes because Skyynet has no need to put so much "crap," much less animated GUIs, for to block it's weapons' viewsight. Think of how much money the TV Show could have saved by having numbers and a red tint instead of hiring someone to make a 3d Model and photshop this and photoshop that.

That's true, but nobody was complaining that color changing is difficult. The real problem is that it's unexplained. If they provided any sort of reason for the change, this argument wouldn't be happening. The change was random, and random events tend to be unwelcome in fiction, since people usually want events to happen for a reason. It doesn't help that the color change served no purpose whatsoever.


I don't see that explanation working. Visibly glowing blue pupils are going to be just as noticeable and unnatural as visibly glowing red eyes. For infiltration, the best answer is to conceal the glow. The fact that the audience could see the glow at all means it was way too bright.

It seems that in certain conditions, a terminator's eye-light can be seen. Just note Franco Columbu in the first fillm, and the original script for the Pescadero escape scene in T2.

It's hard to argue that the shot should be taken literally.

Is it a dream? Is it real? And if it is real, one could argue that one of Kyle's shots hit home and ruined the facial tissue.

I agree, no explanation for the change in eye color, nor does it serve a purpose. Trying to defend the change by saying that blue eyes are somehow better suited for infiltrating than red eyes makes no sense at all. And I don't see any reason why Cameron should have red eyes, instead of blue, when it's behavior is changed in to combat mode.



I do support improving the HUD's like they did through T1, T2 and T3. But I agree that the HUD's from the SCC are way to extensive. Especially the whole frame thing around it. It doesn't even look like it shows useful information.

Yeah, I hated the HUDs in SCC. The HUD in T2 was the best in my opnion.