For the most part, the many plot holes and inconsistencies of the franchise can be traced back to the core concept of time travel, particularly as it pertains to the ability to retroactively erase someone from existence by killing them or their parents in the past. Further complicating matters are the myriad of different Terminator movie timelines, creating a confusing web of canon that starts and stops with each new movie. If it isn't time travel making wreaking havoc on the story, it's that the actions of a supposedly hyper-intelligent A.I. that frequently fail.

10 T-1000 & T-X Travel Through Time When They're Not Made Of Flesh

Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3

One of the most iconic conceits of the Terminator franchise's version of time travel is the fact that nothing inorganic can seemingly occupy the time stream. This is part of the reason the default model of Terminator exists as an endoskeleton draped in living human tissue, allowing it to withstand the seemingly destructive flow of time. As a result, the Terminators (and humans) who travel back in time appear in blazing balls of plasma completely naked, forcing them to use whatever clothes and equipment they can find on their own.

But by the second movie, this rule has already been broken. Both the T-1000 of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and the T-X of Terminator 3 are coated in shapeshifting liquid metal rather than flesh, giving them no bio-organic components. Yet they are able to through the stream of time completely fine, though they still appear naked for some reason. It's quite hilarious to see the amount of headache this rule caused the series just because James Cameron wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger to appear naked in the first film.

9 The T-800 In Terminator Salvation Is Impervious To Molten Steel

Terminator Salvation

After Terminator 2: Judgment Day, directorial and screenwriting duties for the franchise largely fell out of James Cameron's hands, and more than suffered for it. Every subsequent writer that approaches the series seems to operate with an increasing disdain for the original established story, frequently forgetting or straight-up ignoring the themes and plot put forward in the original duology. Enter Terminator Salvation, the franchise's fourth film with one of its worst plot holes yet.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day ends with the friendly T-800, known affectionately by fans as "Uncle Bob", being tearfully lowered into a bucket of molten steel to prevent humanity from ever rediscovering the technology of Skynet, giving John Connor a famous thumbs-up. Yet by Terminator Salvation, this method of destruction has apparently been completely lost on the screenwriters, who posit that a T-800 can survive molten steel being poured over its endoskeleton. Consistency is clearly not the T-800's strong suit.

8 The T-1000's Finger Wag

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The most compelling thing about Robert Patrick's villain in Terminator 2: Judgment Day is just how especially cold and calculating he is. While Arnie's villain isn't above taking the time to wisecrack in the original film, the T-1000 is almost all brutal Skynet efficiency, never gloating or giving up an advantage when even a speck of possibility for failure exists. At least, that's how the film presents him at first, though he exhibits some superfluous behavior later on.

At one point, just before Sarah Connor is able to blast him backwards into a vat of molten steel, he cooly reconfigures his body, and takes the time to taunt Sarah by wagging his finger. The film does tease the idea that machines can gain some amount of personality, but for the ruthlessly efficient T-1000 to do so seems like a fair stretch. All the worse that this beat gives the T-800 enough time to show up and finish him for good, with human satisfaction and sadism costing the advanced Terminator model dearly.

7 John Connor Suddenly Changes The Rules Of Time Travel

Terminator Genysis

Despite rebooting the series from the very beginning, ignoring the canon of all previous Terminator movies but the first, Terminator Genysis becomes confusing quite quickly due to its particular take on the franchise's time travel. Here, John Connor is revealed to have become an advanced form of Terminator himself, effectively defecting to Skynet due to a sort of technological parasite converting him into a cyborg with nanobots on a molecular level. Then, John is sent back in time...to kill his own parents.

Kyle and Sarah retort to their cyberized son that killing them will also make him cease to exist. According to the rules of all other Terminator films, and even Terminator Genysis itself, they'd be right, as Skynet is still sending in the T-1000 to kill Sarah Connor at the beginning of the film. Yet somehow, being infected with nanobots fractures the timeline in a new way, meaning that this rule essentially applies at random, as the screenwriters see fit.

6 Skynet Still Tries To Kill Sarah Connor Despite Having Control Of John

Terminator Genysis

The particular madness of a now-Terminator John Connor trying to kill his own mother breaks logic in an astounding number of ways. Even ignoring the fact that killing her would create a temporal paradox that undoes John's existence by all other s, John being under Skynet's control begs the question as to why Skynet would still want to kill Sarah Connor at all. After all, she has now given birth to its most valuable asset, so killing Sarah serves no purpose other than to waste time mucking around in the past.

At this point, Skynet wants to murder Sarah with her own son for no reason other than to prove and point, and because trying to kill Sarah is simply what happens in the Terminator movies. It's hard to overstate just how confusing of a mess Terminator Genysis is. There's a good reason its usually considered to be among the worst Terminator movies, which is truly saying something.

5 Why The T-1000 Doesn't Mimic Sarah Connor's Voice

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Taking the time to cheekily wag his finger at Sarah is the only major blunder the T-1000 makes in the thrilling action finale of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. At one point in the steel mill, the T-1000 manages to pin Sarah down as John attempts to escape. Using a long, stabby pointer figure, the T-1000 tortures Sarah, impaling her shoulder to the wall and trying to force her to call to her son to bring him back around.

The biggest problem with this plan is the fact that the T-1000 shouldn't be reliant on Sarah herself to do this, being more than capable of unerringly mimicking any voice he hears. In just a few moments later, he even completely shapeshifts into Sarah himself, proving that he never needed to torture her at all. There's no reason the T-1000 doesn't simply end Sarah Connor then and there, with the only flimsy excuse for the discrepancy being that his more delicate enhancements that allow him to copy voices were still reconfiguring at that moment.

4 Marcus' Control Chip Is Way Too Easy To Notice And Remove

Terminator Salvation

Terminator Salvation sees Skynet use one of the trickiest ideas its ever thought of: A Terminator that doesn't know it's a terminator. Sam Worthington's Marcus Wright is a death row inmate who agrees to be experimented on by Cyberdyne systems in lieu of his sentence, only to become an unwitting puppet of Skynet later on. He's revealed to have cybernetic components grafted to his internal organs, including his brain.

However, upon realizing this and wanting to reject his fate as a machine's pawn, Marcus simply tears out some key computational components hidden in his skin. For the source of Skynet's control to be so easily found and removed feels like yet another blunder that makes the supposedly terrifying sentient A.I. feel especially incompetent. Why Skynet wouldn't try harder to keep Marcus' cyberized status a secret from him is a total misstep on the Skynet's part.

3 Skynet's Treatment Of Kyle Reese Makes No Sense

Terminator Salvation

Just like the cyclical nature of the series' time travel, it's hard not to keep coming back to Terminator Salvation when it comes to the worst plot holes of the series. Once again, Skynet proves its inconsistency as an inhumanly smart sentient machine capable of taking over the planet. A big crux of the movie is Skynet's leaked list of top human leaders to kill, ranking Kyle Reese as number one.

Kyle being higher up on Skynet's threat assessment compared to John makes no sense, as the series emphasizes time and time again that John is the only great leader with a genuine shot at taking Skynet down. Meanwhile, Kyle's biggest claim to fame is...conceived John with Sarah in the past. Even more stupefying is the fact that Skynet captures Kyle and keeps him alive to use as bait, once again failing in the same way the T-1000 did in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

2 The T-800 Being Skynet's Last Hail Mary Seems Blatantly Untrue

The Terminator

Obviously, James Cameron made a movie based on a fever dream that eventually became The Terminator, he could have never predicted that the film would grow into a massive franchise matched by few science fiction movies. Thus, rules that would later become headaches for future films, such as the time stream organic material idea, were included without a second thought. By far the most restrictive of these throw-away lines that ended up becoming massive problems is Kyle's statement that the T-800 is Skynet's last hope.

In The Terminator, Kyle Reese states that sending back the T-800 to kill Sarah Connor as a child is Skynet's last Hail Mary attempt at stopping the war with humanity before it starts, eliminating John Connor. However, in the very next film, Skynet is already second a second assassin to finish the job, totally nullifying whatever limited chance at time travel Kyle describes. Granted, it can be argued that Skynet sends the T-1000 before the T-800, but subsequent films ensure that the A.I. has plenty of gas left in the tank of its time machine.

1 How Carl Could Ever As A Human For So Long

Terminator: Dark Fate

Terminator: Dark Fate features one of the most hilarious suppositions that a Terminator could live in deep cover for so long ever. The film features Arnold Schwarzenegger yet again as "Carl", a T-800 that seemingly gained sentience, choosing to live life as a normal human. He even gets married and ends up running a successful business, Carl's Drapes.

Though Carl eventually reveals his origins to his spouse, the fact that he could get far enough for a human to fall in love with him and accept such a Earth-shaking revelation is next to impossible to believe. For years, Carl somehow avoided questions as to why he never needs to eat or produce any kind of human excretions, not to mention his supernatural strength. Though it's a fun concept, the fact that a T-800 marrie someone and hides their origins from them for years is one of the Terminator franchise's biggest plot holes.