Terminator (franchise): Difference between revisions

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[[File:the-terminator_b_53.jpg|frame|He needs your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle.]]

 

 

'''''The Terminator''''' is an [[Implacable Man|implacable killer]] with a [[Science Fiction|Sci-Fi]] [[Justified Trope|justification]] and an oft-imitated part of the pop-cultural pantheon. [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] portrayed the titular cyborg for three (and [[Fake Shemp|a half]]) films, and his performance in the first film shot him into superstardom. Writer/director [[James Cameron]] was inspired to create the film after a dream he had when sick with a fever which involved a mechanical skeleton [[Out of the Inferno|emerging from a wall of fire]] and chasing after him. Cameron, recalling how terrified he was, ended up crafting the story of ''The Terminator'' based around that one moment. Along the way, Cameron unintentionally (or so he says) plagiarized [[Harlan Ellison]]'s ''[[The Outer Limits]]'' story "Soldier" (but not, as commonly believed, "Demon with a Glass Hand" -- [[wikipedia:Demon with a glass hand|source]]) for the plot; Ellison later found out and managed to get a cash settlement and an official acknowledgment in the credits. Ellison later said the trouble could have been avoided if Cameron had come to him first and offered a screen credit in the movie (which he would have offered for free).

** ''Terminator Salvation'': This film takes place during the war with the machines and shares no ties to ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]''; its references to both ''Terminator 2'' and ''3'' are rather vague, with the first ''Terminator'' being more important to the movie's themes than the other two. Instead of repeating the story of someone going back in time, ''Salvation'' is primarily a [[Genre Shift|sci-fi war movie]]. John Connor is a respected officer within the human resistance, but he is not the leader, as several high-ranking officers question his claims of being [[The Chosen One]] by [[Time Travel]]. Connor sets out to end the war as quickly as possible (and locate a young Kyle Reese), but his quest reveals an awful truth: the [[Stable Time Loop]] is beginning to break apart. SkyNet's forces are showing sophistication and progress far ahead of schedule, and there are numerous other changes Connor never accounted for, all of which throw humanity's inevitable victory into question. One major anomaly is the appearance of Marcus Wright, a criminal who reportedly died before the war began, but turned up on his own in the present; Wright's role in the movie is practically an ''inverse'' of the series' central time-travel mechanic: instead of someone being sent from the future to the past, Wright comes from the past directly into the future.

* ''Terminator: [[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'': This television series' story follows the first two films, but [[Alternate Universe|overrides the canon third]] by having John and Sarah time-skip seven years. It follows the adventures of Sarah Connor, John Connor, a re-programmed Terminator named Cameron, John's uncle Derek, and various other continuing characters.

 

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* [[Eye Scream]]: The T-800's "[[Self-Stitching|self-repair]]" scene, where he fixes one of his eyes by mucking around in it with a pen knife. That whole scene was pretty gross.

* [[Fan Service]]: [[Averted Trope]]; Sarah and Kyle have probably the most plot-critical sex scene of all time.

* [[Final Girl]]: Sarah Connor, clearly.

* [[Finger-Twitching Revival]]: Reese shoots the Terminator several times with a sawed-off shotgun when it tries to move in on Sarah in Tech Noir. Shortly after it hits the floor, its fingers twitch, offering the audience their first clue that the big scary guy isn't human.

** Schwarzenegger served in the Austrian Army (he actually went AWOL at one point to win his first bodybuilding competition), so he already had knowledge of firearms.

** Also seen when cars are hot-wired.

* [[Stable Time Loop]]: The events of the first movie set up a simple, self-contained time loop with Sarah and Kyle. Compared to [[Kudzu Plot|the rest of the series as a whole]], it's very straightforward, as evidenced by {{spoiler|the photograph of Sarah Connor which Sarah gives to John to give to Kyle to describe to Sarah}}.

* [[A Storm Is Coming]]: In the final moments of the film, while Sarah is waiting at a gas station, a Mexican child takes her photo (the same one that Kyle later sees {{spoiler|and falls in love with her from}}). Right after, the child mentions the incoming storm [[Bilingual Bonus|in Spanish]], which the gas station attendant translates to Sarah as a storm is coming; the pregnant Sarah replies "I know."

* [[Asshole Victim]]: The asylum attendant who licks Sarah's face while she's helpless and John's foster parents, Todd and Janelle.

* [[Badass and Child Duo]]: Terminator and John.

* [[Berserk Button]]: Silberman presses it hard when he refuses to transfer her to the minimum security wing so that John could visit her. She made a point that he promised her, if she shown improvement within 6 months she would get the transfer. Even going as far as denouncing her previously passionate view on the future and the Terminators as insane psychobabble. Silberman however is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know that Sarah may be lying to gain trust and says flat out to her face that she's gonna stay in maximum for another 6 months. She even begs to at least make a phone call to him, which he denies her. She then proceeds to try to strangle him with his own tie, prompting the guards to restrain and Thorazine her. Since the camera kept rolling during their sezsion, it was implied that [[Jerkass|Silberman]] [[Manipulative Bastard|deliberately made her snap]].

* [[Big No]]: Sarah almost makes it out of the asylum, but she sees the T-800 walking out of an elevator. After saying "no" in a low tone of disbelief, it turns into this out of sheer terror.

* [[Final First Hug]]: John Connor and the T-800's heartbreaking farewell.

* [[Finger Wag]]: The T-1000 issues one to Sarah at the climax.

* [[Foot Focus]] / [[Feet First Introduction]]

* [[Free Wheel]]: After the truck gets shot.

** Where exactly would you EXPECT him to reappear in the film? Do you think John would take some time off from being chased by a murderous shape shifting Terminator to give his friend a call? It isn't like he ever went back to his house. I think he had a little more important things to do.

** Deleted scenes show Miles Dyson had a daughter. Which makes her absence in the scene where Sarah tries to kill Miles a bit odd, since all the shooting would have certainly awakened her.

* [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl]]: Averted mostly. T-800 ''does'' attack the female guard, but she simply gets pushed down, as opposed to the male orderlies, who get tossed into/through windows and concrete walls.

** She's also wearing one arm in a sling, so he may not have been reacting so much to her femaleness than to the fact that she was already injured. Not that he seems overly concerned with injuring people the rest of the time.

* [[Temporal Paradox]]: It's just about possible to buy that SkyNet had time to send back two Terminators before it was destroyed, but the narrative makes it clear that it was aware they'd failed when it sent back the third. Never mind that it's now a ''totally different SkyNet'' doing all this since the first was never built.

* [[The Worf Effect]]: The badassery of the T-X is largely established by scenes where she wails on the T-850 and scenes where the T-850 complains she's better than him.

 

== ''Terminator Salvation'' ==

* [[Viral Marketing]]

** ''Welcome to [http://www.skynetresearch.com/ SkyNet Research]...''

* [[The Worf Effect]]: It seems like the Terminators (T-600 models) themselves seen in this film are subject to this: while they are certainly extremely deadly, they seem to tale far less punishment then the original film version did, which was stabbed, shot by heavy gunfire and blown up without any real damage except to it's cover, at least until they put a bomb literally in between it's joints to blow it in half. {{spoiler|Then the ORIGINAL T-800 model shows up, and it takes a tremendous amount of damage before dying, shrugging multiple grenade launcher blasts to the body without even slowing down, tossing around Marcus with very little effort, getting molten lead dumped on him (which KILLED the T-1000) and then getting frozen in it, and it STILL doesn't die before seriously wounding John Connor.}}

* [[Xanatos Gambit]]: {{spoiler|1=SkyNet's plan in ''T4'' to destroy the Resistance by giving it a false shutdown signal for its machines.}} The preferable goal is for the group to use the information but if they don't their situation will get worse.

** "I'll be back." (And he usually returns driving a vehicle into a building.)

** "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves."

* [[Backstory]]

* [[Badass]]: Any of the terminators, but particularly the T-101. Reese was the first human badass and Sarah Connor [[Took a Level in Badass]].

** Michael Biehn as Reese might count.

* [[Laser Guided Tykebomb]]: John Connor

* [[The Load]]: Both Sarah and John Connor assume this role in the first and second movies respectively, the former initially being a relatively airheaded fast food waitress and the latter being a delinquent kid. Of course they both [[Took a Level in Badass]] in time for their next film appearances, mostly because of [[War Is Hell|what they went through]].

* [[Lowered Monster Difficulty]]: The first terminator and T-X are damaged until they become only endoskeletons, and after that even lose their legs.

** Amazingly enough, '''ten''' of the ''fifteen'' minutes that the T-1000 transformed onscreen were '''also''' his amazingly-articulate puppets rather than lazy CGI.

** As noted below, at the time, CGI was the novel ''expensive'' option, saved to be used with the T-1000's morphing effects.

* [[Stat-O-Vision]]: Standard for terminator [[Robo Cam|Robo Cams]].

* [[Sunglasses at Night]]: This time, it has no justification apart from [[Rule of Cool]] and [[Mythology Gag]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Danny Peary Cult Movies List]]

[[Category:Films of the 1980s]]

[[Category:Films of the 1990s]]

[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]

[[Category:Hugo Award]]

[[Category:Terminator]]