Terminator (franchise): Difference between revisions

** Also {{spoiler|Reese. His fate is sealed the minute he and Sarah make love.}}

* [[Determinator]]: Both Kyle Reese and, of course, [[Incredibly Lame Pun|De Terminator]].

* [[Drives Like Crazy]]: Kyle Reese, justified in that he learnt to drive [[After the End]].

** He also instinctively drives cars at night ''without'' the headlights on, as doing so in the future would draw Aerial Hunter-Killers.

** Also played straight, though, in the form of male [[Fan Service]]. Watch the opening scenes of that movie (both Kyle and the T-800 are naked, courtesy of their time transport. They are both very, very well-built, and Kyle particularly stays at the least shirtless for a good long while) and tell me that wasn't intended as fanservice, on some level.

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

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

* [[Foreshadowing]]: Unavoidable. It's a time-travel movie.

* [[Gaias Lament]]: A deleted scene would have had Kyle [[Manly Tears|sobbing]] when he saw how beautiful the world used to be.

* [[Guilt Free Extermination War]]: The robots versus the humans. Nobody expects one side to surrender.

* [[Hand Wave]]: "That's tech stuff."

* [[Headphones Equal Isolation]]: Sarah's roommate Ginger is so busy rocking out on her headphones that she doesn't hear her lover being beaten to death by the Terminator in the next room.

* [[Rescue Introduction]]: Kyle introduce himself to Sarah by extricating her from Tech Noir just as the T-800 closes in for the kill.

* [[Ripped From the Phone Book]]: The Terminator doesn't just rip out the page, he begins to kill everybody on it.

* [[Run or Die]]: Definitely how the T-800 is treated -- attempting to take it in a straight-up fight is suicide.

* [[Sawed Off Shotgun]]: Reese makes one from a pump-action shotgun he steals out of a police car.

** Also seen when cars are hot-wired.

* [[Serial Killer]]: The film starts as a variation of this genre of film.

** Not forgetting a certain Kyle Reese, are we?

*** ''[[Crapsack World|Everyone]]'' in Kyle's flashback has varying degrees of Shell-Shockedness.

* [[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."

* [[Sunglasses At Night]]: [[Justified Trope]], because the Terminator uses them to hide his robot eye.

* [[Time Travel Romance]]: One where the romance has a good deal of plot significance.

* [[Time Travel Tense Trouble]]: Sarah has a problem with Reese telling her of all the things she hasn't done yet. [[Foreshadowing|It can make a person go crazy.]]

* [[Unintentional Period Piece]]: The entire sequence at Tech Noir, a nightclub that could not be more '80s if it tried.

* [[Unwitting Pawn]]: It's strongly implied that {{spoiler|John Connor deliberately manipulated Reese into falling in love with his mother by giving him her picture. And then he had to send his own father back in time to certain doom, just to make shure he would exist to save the world. Reese never knew his true role in the bigger picture, never realizing he was fighting for his own son. Must have been heart breaking for John.}} [[Shoot the Dog|Pretty heavy...]]

* [[Zipping Up the Bodybag]]: {{spoiler|Kyle Reese.}}

 

** [[James Cameron]] has mentioned getting mail after the film's release from nuclear physicists who commended him on [[Shown Their Work|the most realistic depiction]] of a close-up nuclear detonation put on film thus far.

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

** He visibly pauses to let the police officers flee when using the grenade launcher. The minigun does not cause a SINGLE POLICE CAR to actually explode; that's right, he NEVER HIT THE FUEL TANK with a damn MINIGUN. He even chases some police officers off by firing near their feet. But then, being a highly advanced robot, this might be the one time that it's justified. He was deliberately crippling their vehicles to prevent them from giving chase.

*** Actually, in real life, fuel tanks WON'T explode when you shoot them. Not even with a tracer round. So this is an example of a movie refreshingly choosing reality over explosions.

* [[He Who Fights Monsters]]: Sarah stops attacking Miles Dyson when she realizes, from the horrified reactions of his wife and son, that she's acting like the merciless Terminators she hates so much.

* [[Heroic BSOD]]: Sarah loses it when she sees the T-800, which looks ''exactly'' like the machine that chased her for days and killed her lover in the first film, and has probably haunted her nightmares ever since. Until this point, she believes she's in a [[Stable Time Loop]] in which no new players would arrive from the future, since that's what Reese told her. After this point, she knows things have been changed and she can keep changing them.

* [[Heroic RROD]]: The T-800 gets skewered through his main power supply by the T-1000 in the climactic fight. He has a backup battery though.

* [[Heroic Suicide]]: T-800

{{quote| "He'll live."}}

** Later, while attempting to flee the Cyberdyne building, the T-800 walks through a hail of SWAT gunfire and methodically kneecaps the lot of 'em.

** Also, the therapist who exploits Sarah so he can get on TV and be in medical journals is eventually left the only member of the hospital staff alive who knows exactly what's going on -- after years of telling Sarah she's insane for having a similar experience, who's going to believe him?

** Shown by the third movie, he never told anyone what he saw and convinced himself it didn't really happen.

* [[Master of Unlocking]]: John has a laptop with a code-cracking program he apparently uses to brute-force PIN numbers on stolen credit cards. {{spoiler|1=Later, he uses the same program to crack door codes at Cyberdyne; in one of the comics, he was shown using the same program again to ''destroy SkyNet'', with the final prompt being "Easy money."}}

** Also it is said that Linda Hamilton, who took role preparation VERY seriously (just look at her), in fact picked both the harness lock and the door lock with pieces of a paper clip on-camera. She explicitly refused to imitate it, because she was given lockpicking training prior to shooting.

* [[Muggle Foster Parents]]: John's foster parents in the second movie fall under this. Their relationship with John is strained but they seem to avert the [[Abusive Parents]] trope. They're just frustrated by John's lack of respect for them more than anything else.

* [[Murder By Cremation]]: More of an "assisted suicide" than murder, but still...

** It also averts [[Bloodier and Gorier]].

* [[Shape Shifter Swan Song]]: The T-1000 changes forms rapidly when it finally melts. That doesn't save it.

* [[Shout Out]]: At one point, our heroes pull into a gas station. The pumps have "Benthic Petroleum" logos on them -- the company that owned the undersea oil rig in ''[[The Abyss]]'', also written and directed by [[James Cameron]]. The Terminator carrying a shotgun in a box full of roses might also be a reference to [[Guns N' Roses (Music)|Guns N' Roses]], who are in the soundtrack.

** Seemed more likely to be a shout-out to ''[[The Godfather (Film)|The Godfather]]''.

* [[Unorthodox Reload]]: The T-800 cocks a lever-action shotgun by flipping it over his fingers while using the other hand to handle a motorcycle (only possible because his fingers aren't human). Also, Sarah using her SWAT-issue shotgun on the T-1000.

** Schwarzenegger commented during an interview that doing this nearly broke his hand when he accidentally flip-cocked the ''real'' gun instead of the prop gun specially modified to be flip-cocked in that 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.

* [[Broken Aesop]]: "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves"... {{spoiler|except for the robot apocalypse. That'll happen no matter what.}}

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: {{spoiler|"When ruptured, the fuel cells become unstable." Guess how T-X is finished off?}}

* {{spoiler|[[Downer Ending]]: After spending the whole film trying to avert [[The End of the World As We Know It]], the heroes fail at the end. Of course, T-850 knew it would happen all along.}}

** {{spoiler|Possibly more of a [[Bittersweet Ending]]; John and Kate have failed to stop Judgement day, and the machines nearly wipe out all life on earth, but John finally accepts his destiny as leader of the resistance, and will one day lead humanity to victory over the machines}}.

* [[Genre Savvy]]: When Doctor Silberman sees Arnie's T-850 in the cemetery, the third time he's seen the guy (from his perspective, not knowing they were three different Terminators), he doesn't ask questions he doesn't hesitate: he runs like hell.

* [[Foreshadowing]]: Before his/its true nature is revealed, the T-1000 shoots a brief puzzled glance at a silvery mannequin in the mall shop.

** Kind of subverted. "I know you're in there" fails, because, as the Terminator points out, desires have no bearing on it's programming. The Logic Bomb does work, however.

* [[Impaled With Extreme Prejudice]]: A cop gets the T-X's arm through him - while she's in the back seat!

* [[The Kindnapper]]: The T-850 kidnaps Kate Brewster to save her from the T-X.

* [[Mythology Gag]]: The whole sequence reintroducing the T-850.

** "She'll be back." (and later, "I'm back")

* [[Plot Hole]]: Numerous.

* [[Fake Shemp]]: Through the magic of CGI combined with a mold from [[The Eighties]], {{spoiler|Arnold appears in ''Salvation'', and he hasn't aged a day in 25 years}}.

* [[Handwraps of Awesome]]: Marcus wears them.

* [[Leaning On the Fourth Wall]]: All the talk about salvation and second chances in ''Salvation'' after some very famous [[Fanon Discontinuity]] in ''Terminator 3''? Totally about the series itself.

* [[Literal Change of Heart]]: A heroic version. {{spoiler|John Conner gets mortally wounded and Marcus makes a Heroic Sacrifice giving him his own heart}}.

* [[Rapunzel Hair]]: For some reason, the female fighters in ''T4'' all have long wild hair, despite its impracticality. If they can't have a crew-cut for [[Fan Service]] reasons, would a [[Tomb Raider|Lara Croft-style ponytail]] be all that terrible?

* [[Samus Is a Girl]]: The pilot "Williams" turns out to be a woman.

** [[Playing With a Trope|Sheep in wolf's clothing in sheep's clothing]], even!

* [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]]: Originally, ''Terminator Salvation'' would have ended with {{spoiler|Captain John Connor's death from his stab wound through the chest, with Kate creating the legendary figure of "General John Connor" that we all know by grafting Connor's skin to Marcus Wright's endoskeleton and having him act as a [[Replacement Goldfish]]}}. Fortunately, a leak of the early script resulted in massive fan outcry, and the ending was changed to the [[Sarcasm Mode|immensely plausible alternative]]: {{spoiler|a heart from a bizarre half-human cyborg with no apparent check for compatibility in the middle of a desert}}.

* [[Do Androids Dream]]: It's implied that when freed from [[Robots Enslaving Robots|Skynet's control]], even Terminators are capable of learning to understand humanity.

{{quote| '''Sarah Connor''': If a machine -- a Terminator -- can learn to understand the value of human life, maybe we can too.}}

** Oddly enough, the art book indicates that the inspiration were literal cattle cars. The quote from production designer Martin Laing in the book: "There's nothing sadder than seeing a cattle car go by with all these sad eyes of the cattle staring back at you. So it was on a drive down the freeway of Albuquerque that I came up with the idea that people in the future are being used and abused like cattle, so let's use the same device."

** It also looks a hell of a lot like a similar scene in the 2005 remake of ''[[War of the Worlds]]''.

* [[Dull Surprise]]: [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]]. Very well [[Justified Trope|justified]], because his character is an emotionless robot.

* [[The End of the World As We Know It]]

* [[Eye Scream]]: When the Terminator repairs himself in T1, he gouges out the organic part of his eye with a scalpel.

** The T-1000 stabbing the security guard with his finger.

* [[Genre Savvy]]: John Connor was purposely raised to be this way.

** A great example is in ''Salvation'' while his team-mate is celebrating disabling an Aerial HK, Connor calmly picks up a bazooka and blows it up just to be sure its [[Playing Possum|actually dead.]]

* [[Heroes Want Redheads]]: John Connor does, certainly.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Reese, Miles Dyson, the Terminator in T2 and T3, and Marcus Wright.}}

{{quote| '''John Connor:''' "We stopped Judgment Day."<br />

'''Terminator:''' "You only postponed it. Judgment Day is inevitable." }}

* [[Humongous Mecha]] / [[Transforming Mecha]]: Is a 60-foot-tall Harvester with a huge Frikken Laser Cannon for a head (plus [[Cool Bike|mototerminators]] coming out of its legs) enough for you? It also forms part of (or changes into -- I'm not sure which) an even bigger prisoner transport aircraft armed with its own Hunter Killer parasite escort.

** Earned some [[Transformers (Film)|uncomfortable comparisons]], mostly from detractors of the movie.

* [[Immune to Bullets]]: It takes something with explosive power or a hell of a lot of kinetic force to damage a terminator.

** ''Chronicles'' and ''Salvation'' both show that modern, military hardware tends to work. You still need [[More Dakka|a whole lot of it]] though.

*** In retrospect, it's probably best John Connor doesn't tell Kyle Reese outright. In the first film, Reese has a lot on his mind as it is with adjusting to a world he never knew and trying to protect Sarah Connor from the original Terminator. Telling him before sending him back in time would influence his actions in 1984. Not to mention that he would think of conceiving John Connor as "part of the mission" and not a natural act out of love for Sarah.

* [[A Nazi By Any Other Name]]: Skynet and the machines' rule are pretty much the future version of [[Nazi Germany]]. In the first film, Kylr Reese has a barcode tattoo that is similar in vein to the barcode tattoos for Nazi concentration camps, and in Salvation, Kyle Reese and several other humans are being placed in what is unmistakably an extermination camp.

** But why does Skynet know that Kyle Reese is the father? Are there records?

*** The ''Salvation'' iteration of Skynet has apparently discovered evidence of previous temporal incursions to assassinate John Connor and as such is using the information to upgrade its Terminator production. This is why its already creating the T-800, 10 years ''early''.

* [[Properly Paranoid]]: When your enemy has [[Time Travel]] and unstoppable killing machines, constantly looking over your shoulder and staying on the move off the grid is entirely sensible. {{spoiler|This saves John Connor's life in ''T3'' when the future associates of his who didn't even know they were targets are summarily executed by the T-X because they have public records.}}

* [[Premature Encapsulation]]: Surely ''Judgment Day'' would have been a better subtitle for ''T3'' than ''T2''...

* [[Rasputinian Death]]: All Terminators take a while to kill.

* [[Reality Ensues]]: They really are that armored, that accurate, that persistent and that totally merciless. Consistently. Absent explosives, you have, regardless of training, skill and determination, about as much chance of stopping one as waving your arms at a tsunami.

* [[Reality Subtext]]: Remember the orderly that Sarah brutalizes during her breakout? The one who beat her so she could be restrained? The actor kept pulling that blow too much, and Linda Hamilton badly bruised her knees on the hard floor with each take. She took out her frustration on the poor guy.

* [[Recurring Character]]: Dr. Silberman, who shows up in the first three movies and ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]].''

* [[Redshirt Army]]: Any member of the L.A. police.

** Or various Resistance members in ''Salvation.''

* [[Robot War]]

* [[Sand in My Eyes]]: John says that Sarah does this when she cries about her lost love Kyle Reese.

** In ''T4'' John Connor can't get his story straight about whether destiny can be averted or must be fulfilled. It's possible he's just hedging his bets just in case.

* [[Sequel Gap]]: 7, 11 and 6 years between installments.

* [[Shapeshifter Default Form]]

* [[Timeline Altering MacGuffin]]: The first terminator remains.

* [[Time Travel]]

** And yet, [http://io9.com/5191092/10-different-timelines-from-the-terminator-universe people] [http://io9.com/5192446/a-whiteboard-that-explains-terminators-entire-history try].

** In ''T4'' how any of this works is not clear at all.

[[Category:One Hundred Scariest Movie Moments]]

[[Category:Terminator]]