The original Terminator film establishes certain rules for time travel, but the sheer ability of the T-1000 to do so in Terminator 2 violates them. Time travel stories are famously hard to get right. A lot of that is due to the fact that traveling through time isn’t actually a thing people can do, unless of course a time machine is being hidden by the government in Area 51 next to “them aliens.” Thus, writers kind of have to just make an educated guess on how time travel would actually work, explaining why there’s so many methods of doing so found throughout cinema history.
When it comes to time travel stories on film, few are more famous than those told by the Terminator movies, simultaneously one of the most treasured and one of the most ridiculed franchises of all time. Just about everyone loves the first two Terminator films, but after that fan reactions lean way more negative than they do positive. That’s likely a big reason the box office for 2019’s critically praised Terminator: Dark Fate was so bad. If someone disliked Terminators 3, 4, and 5, why bother to go see part 6?
That said, even the first two Terminators are far from air tight when it comes to their storytelling. They’re still certainly terrific films, full of great action and well-drawn characters, but logically consistent they sometimes aren’t. For example, we present the following plot hole.
Terminator 2 Plot Hole: The T-1000 Shouldn’t Be Able to Time Travel
Update: A reader brought some recent scientific research (via Nebraska Today) to our attention that uses lasers to allow metal to mimic the structure and properties of shark skin, an organic material. It’s a cool development, but since this science didn’t exist until 2018, and Terminator 2 was written in 1990, the plot hole still remains.
In The Terminator, we learn from Kyle Reese himself that time travel is only possible for living organisms, or in the case of the T-800, a machine surrounded by living tissue. This is why both Kyle and the T-800 are shown arriving in 1984 naked, because things like clothing can’t make the trip. Yet, if that’s the case, how can the T-1000, which is entirely liquid metal, manage to travel through time in Terminator 2? It has no actual flesh of any kind, and simply takes the form of a person when trying to lure in targets or move through areas without attracting attention. Quite simply, the T-1000 being able to time travel makes absolutely no sense.
Adding to the nonsense factor is that the T-1000 still time travels naked, which shouldn’t matter, since none of it is organic. Dramatically, this is done to make first time viewers unsure who the good guy is, but that obviously stopped fooling anyone once Terminator 2 became a box office smash. Interestingly, writer/director James Cameron and co-writer William Wisher were fully aware of the plot hole, and planned to fill it by revealing that the T-1000 travels through time encased in a covering of flesh, which it would then slice its way out of upon arrival. However, this was deemed potentially confusing, and never made it past the script stage. As it stands, the only way of explaining things is by charitably assuming that the T-1000’s ability to mimic people extends to duping time machines.
