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'''''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).
 
In the first film (''The Terminator''), Sarah Connor hears grave news during another average workday: a killer is hunting down everyone in town who shares her name. After two people in her home are murdered in an effort to find her, Sarah hides in a nightclub -- and when the killer catches up with her there, she's rescued by a mysterious stranger. The stranger, Kyle Reese, explains the [[Backstory]]: [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|in the near future]], man will create SkyNet, an artificial intelligence [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|which will promptly]] [[Turned Against Their Masters|turn against its masters]] and attempt to [[Kill All Humans]] in the cataclysmic event which will be known as [[Faux Symbolism|Judgment Day]]. Mankind will eventually defeat SkyNet, but at the last minute, SkyNet will send a T-800 Model Terminator (an [[Killer Robot|android assassin]] wrapped in human flesh to give it the appearance of a human) [[Time Travel|back in time]] to kill Sarah Connor and prevent the birth of her son, John (who will become the leader of the [[La Résistance|human resistance]]). In response, Connor will send Reese into the past to [[Wayback Trip|protect his mother and the timeline]]. After several dramatic battles and a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] from Reese, the Terminator is eventually killed in a [[No OSHA Compliance|Smoke and Fire Factory]] -- but not before Sarah sleeps with Reese, [[Someone to Remember Him By|thereby conceiving John Connor]] (which means John causes his own birth and creates a [[Stable Time Loop]]).
 
In the second film (''Terminator 2: Judgment Day''), SkyNet sends a more advanced Terminator -- the [[Nigh Invulnerability|nigh-invulnerable]], [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|shapeshifting]] T-1000 Model -- to the past. (The T-1000 was far beyond almost any other future technology depicted in any of the films, but at the time, the CGI was [[Rule of Cool|so mind-blowing, nobody really took the time to care]].) In response, Connor sends back a T-800 Model Terminator which is reprogrammed to protect his past self. Both Terminators arrive when John is ten years old and living with foster parents (Sarah was tossed into an asylum for trying to blow up a computer factory and talking about killer robots from the future). The T-1000 kills anyone it chooses to replicate, and when John figures out the T-1000 will attempt to replicate Sarah, he forces the T-800 to rescue his mother before the T-1000 can reach her. After being freed, Sarah -- now an [[Action Girl]] after [[Took a Level Inin Badass|taking a few levels in Badass]] -- learns details of SkyNet's history from the T-800 and attempts to assassinate Miles Dyson, the man who will go on to create SkyNet (though she falters when she sees Dyson's family). Sarah, John, and the T-800 pump Dyson for information, which is when they learn Cyberdyne -- the company Dyson works for and, as revealed in a deleted scene from the first film, the owners of the factory where the T-800 is destroyed -- will build SkyNet using components from the original T-800 (making SkyNet itself part of the [[Stable Time Loop]]). The Connors, the T-800, and Dyson infiltrate Cyberdyne and destroy all of the computers, then steal the T-800 remains to try and thwart the creation of SkyNet...but the T-1000 is not far behind them. After several running encounters, both Terminators -- and the T-800 remains -- are dissolved in a vat of molten steel.
 
From here, the series splits off into six [[Canon|canons]] (not counting various comics crossovers, some of which include various [[DC Comics]] properties):
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* [[Rule of Three]]: {{spoiler|We think the Terminator is dead once, then twice, then finally it sticks when Sarah remembers to deliver a simultaneous [[Pre-Mortem One-Liner]] and [[Precision F-Strike]]}}.
* [[Run or Die]]: Definitely how the T-800 is treated -- attempting to take it in a straight-up fight is suicide.
* [[Sacrificial Lion]]: {{spoiler| Kyle Reese}} and Matt both went out fighting the terminator.
* [[Sawed-Off Shotgun]]: Reese makes one from a pump-action shotgun he steals out of a police car.
* [[Scannable Man]]: Reese and his concentration-camp tattoo.
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* [[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."
* [[Sunglasses Atat Night]]: [[Justified Trope]], because the Terminator uses them to hide his robot eye.
* [[This Is for Emphasis, Bitch]]: "You're terminated, fucker!"
* [[Time Travel Romance]]: One where the romance has a good deal of plot significance.
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*** 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.
** Remember that the Terminator is still under John Connor's order not to kill anyone.
* [[Action Girl]] / [[Action Mom]]: Sarah Connor [[Took a Level Inin Badass|learned a lot between films.]]
** Sarah is arguably a [[Deconstruction]] of the [[Action Girl]] tropes, since she is both indisputably [[Badass]] and ''fundamentally'' screwed-up.
** Given that she's been forced to take antipsychotics (Thorazine is specifically mentioned) for at least two or three years for psychoses that she ''doesn't actually have'', or didn't when she was admitted to the mental hospital, the "screwed-up" part of that may be justified.
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* [[Badass and Child Duo]]: Terminator and John.
* [[Bad to the Bone]]: The [[Trope Namer]] song plays as the T-800 is first shown in leather clothes. And [[Guns N' Roses]]'s "You Could be Mine" playing in the boombox John Connor is carrying in his bike might also fit.
* [[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.
* [[Bishonen]]: John Connor as portrayed by [[Edward Furlong]] is a younger example of the trope.
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* [[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...
* [[Next Sunday ADA.D.]]: Filmed in 1991, takes place when John Connor is 10, which would be 1995 or early 1996.
* [[Not So Different]]: Sarah Connor has effectively ''become'' a Terminator by this point. Noticeable during the scene where she attempts to murder Dyson, where she performs their signature [[Ominous Walk]], as well as attempt to murder someone in the past in order to change the future. Sound ''familiar'', Sarah? Her realization of this causes her to suffer a minor breakdown.
* [[Ominous Walk]]: The T-1000 does this multiple times, which ended up screwing him over in the end.
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* [[Terrifying Rescuer]]: The T-800 showing up at the psyche ward to rescue Sarah is one of the more famous examples in film.
* [[That's What I Would Do]]: How the T-800 knows that the T-1000 is staking out John's house.
* [[Took a Level Inin Badass]] / [[Took a Level in Jerkass]]: Sarah Connor, oh so very, '''very''' much.
* [[Totally Radical]]: John teaching the T-800 how to talk like a human. The film actually made "Hasta la vista, baby" into a genuinely cool phrase, but "No problem-o" is still cringe-worthy.
* [[Trailers Always Spoil]]: The pre-release publicity campaign involved releasing three trailers. The first, a teaser, showed a factory assembling a Terminator, step-by-step, then a close-up on an Arnie's face with the words "I'll be back" heard. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KfJ9kqRec4 The second trailer] revealed there were two terminators, but deliberately avoided spoiling the twist that the T-800 was the {{spoiler|good}} guy. The final trailer, which did spoil it, was released shortly before the film's premiere and is now one of the most famous example of this trope.
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* [[Sean Connery Is Going to Shoot You|Arnold Schwarzenegger Is Going To Shoot You:]]
* [[Backstory]]
* [[Badass]]: Any of the terminators, but particularly the T-101. Reese was the first human badass and Sarah Connor [[Took a Level Inin Badass]].
** And John Connor. In fact, very little of the ''Terminator'' movies [[World of Badass|is not badassery.]]
* [[Badass Longcoat]]: Kyle Reese and Marcus Wright.
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{{quote|'''John Connor:''' "We stopped Judgment Day."
'''Terminator:''' "You only postponed it. Judgment Day is inevitable." }}
* [[Homage]]: {{spoiler|The [[Humongous Mecha]] scooping up humans and dropping them in cages, as in ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]''. And [[Transformers]] too, given the same robots' shapeshifting abilities.}}
** The Harverster's mounted gun fires, sounds and operates like the [[Predator]] shoulder Cannon. Same as the other Plasma guns the Machines use, although the Harvester makes the best resemblance.
** John Connor's Tracker sounds similar to the motion trackers U.S.C.M. used in [[Aliens]].
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** 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 Inin 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.
* [[Made of Explodium]]: Subverted in ''T4'' in one scene where Marcus tries to take out a giant terminator by ramming a tank of gas into it and having Reese shoot the tank as they drove away. The tank of gasoline refused to explode until they finally tossed a lit flare at the leaking gas.
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** 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 Atat Night]]: This time, it has no justification apart from [[Rule of Cool]] and [[Mythology Gag]].
* [[Super Prototype]]: The T-1000 and the T-X. And in Salvation, the first T-800 in history can survive damages that would have destroyed the Terminators seen in the previous movies, such as being dipped in molten iron.
** [[Fridge Logic|To be fair]], the previous Terminators were fully submerged in a huge vat of continuously heated, molten steel until they were destroyed. The T-800 in T4 only gets a blanketing coat of molten steel... you can see it cooling rapidly even before John uses cold air to solidify it all the way.
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** 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.
* [[Took a Level Inin Badass]]: Sarah Connor.
** John Connor since ''Salvation'' uses ''T3'' as canon
* [[Trailers Always Spoil]]: ''T2'' is pretty careful to imply the T-101 is the bad guy; the T-1000 is shown to be non-violent, apparently only knocking out a cop; Arnie instead goes the "violent barfight" route to getting clothes. Unfortunately, the advertising guys decided potential audiences ''really'' need to know Arnie was the good guy, making the whole setup pointless.
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