Movie Lovers Only

Terminators from 1984 to 2009

It took me awhile to realize that, as much as I’m looking forward to seeing Terminator Salvation, this might not be nearly as interesting to people who haven’t seen all three previous films.  The first two installments were highly successful in their time, but the third was not as well-received, and much of the target population of such movies nowadays grew up on The Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Transformers, and haven’t even seen this sci-fi action saga.

This being the case, I thought I’d do what I can to help mankind and offer a quick rundown of the original trilogy, so if you haven’t seen all three movies, or if you’ve just forgotten the major plot points, you can absorb the important details and go into the new film and enjoy it instead of trying to figure out what you’re missing.

If you’d rather start from the beginning and just not see the new film until you’ve caught up, more power to you; don’t read any more.  That said, I’ll try not to overindulge in my descriptions so that you can still watch the older movies and enjoy them as they are.

*****SPOILERS BELOW*****

The Terminator (1984)

The premise is actually similar to The Matrix, if less complicated:  In the year 2029, machines controlled by a central computer called SkyNet have decided to take over the world and crush humanity.  A small but fierce human resistance led by a man named John Connor refuses to be quashed, so the machines send a Terminator T-800 cyborg (a humanoid machine disguised with human flesh) back in time to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, John’s mother, destroying the resistance before it starts.  However, the humans send their own man, Kyle Reese, back as well to stop the Terminator and save Sarah.

The entire film is a battle royale between the soldier Reese and the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), with the human Reese no match for the larger, indestructible killing machine.  Sarah, who is neither married nor pregnant, slowly learns to trust Kyle as the film progresses toward the final showdown.  In the end, the Terminator is finally crushed in a factory, and it turns out that Kyle is the one who impregnates Sarah with the future John Connor.  If that sounds like a time paradox, that’s because it is.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Taking place eleven years after the events of the first film, T2 finds Sarah Connor institutionalized for her perceived schizophrenia based on her belief in what Kyle Reese told her about the future.  John, whom she had begun raising to lead the eventual resistance movement, is now a problem kid in foster care, believing that his mom is crazy.  As before, two visitors from the future appear: another T-800 (Arnold again), this time reprogrammed by the human resistance to protect John Connor from the bad guy, a T-1000.  This new threat is simply a hunk of liquid metal that can take any form, impersonating police officers and creating metal blades out of its body, designed specifically to kill John Connor.

For its long runtime and much more involved plot than its predecessor, there’s very little to know about this film.  It really only brings one thing to the table, and that’s the concept of “Judgment Day,” a date in 1997 when an automated defense computer system created by the US military called “SkyNet” would gain sentience and trigger a nuclear holocaust in an attempt to wipe out humanity, starting the war.  Using intelligence provided to them by the T-800, the Connors manage to destroy SkyNet and the T-1000, supposedly preventing Judgment Day from ever occurring and saving the future of humanity.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2004)

As it turns out, victory is short-lived.  Now an adult, John Connor lives in constant paranoia that Judgment Day has not been averted, only postponed.  His fears are confirmed when a T-X, a female terminator that carries an arsenal of futuristic weapons, arrives not to kill John Connor, but to kill all future leaders of the human resistance, hoping to weaken the movement before it can gain momentum.  However, in the course of carrying out its assassinations, it gets wind of John Connor and his future wife, Katherine Brewster, and sets off after them.  Of course, yet another T-800 (Arnold is back, as promised), sent by the resistance, arrives to protect them from the much more advanced threat.

A chain of events reveals that SkyNet wasn’t destroyed, but absorbed by the US government.  When activated, as predicted all along, it locks out all human interface and sends nuclear missiles all over the globe to wipe out humanity.  Meanwhile, the battle of the terminators ends at a fallout shelter where both machines are destroyed.  John and Kate (minus eight) are among the very few protected from the nuclear holocaust and begin to make contact with any survivors in order to explain what’s happening and what to do about it.

History of the Future

The timeline of future events is hazy at best and obviously complicated by the paradoxes that make up each film.  Kyle Reese recounts his days as a soldier when the machines had begun making more and more realistic-looking terminators in order to infiltrate the human resistance’s bases.  Reese also claims that the first T-800 was sent back to kill Sarah Connor in 2029 because the human resistance had destroyed the machines’ command center, effectively turning the tide of the war.  However, this would appear to be premature celebration, as the machines not only survived to send two more terminators back, but made significant technological advances between them.  We know that the war continued at least to 2032, when a T-800 killed John Connor.  Ironically, this same T-800 was immediately captured, reprogrammed, and sent after the T-X to protect John and Kate.  All other details are either superfulous or speculative.

Terminator Salvation

I must admit, after seeing T3, I had very little interest in seeing any more sequels.  I felt that the story had ended in a good place and that the war of the future was useful as a backdrop but not really worth exploring.  As I followed production of Terminator Salvation, I found myself more and more engrossed in the story possibilities and the world that the filmmakers were creating for this post-apocalyptic story.  Set 14 years after Judgment Day but 11 years prior to the first T-800 being sent back, it tells the story of the advent of cyborgs designed to eliminate the human resistance and the complications thereof, personified by the first truly sympathic terminator.  The director has plans for a fifth and sixth installment, meaning he intends to fill in a lot spaces on this virtually empty canvas.  We’ll just have to see if it brings anything to the table that actually enhances the existing mythology or if it’s merely content to connect the dots.