The Terminator (1984) was the winner of three Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Writing (James Cameron. Gale Anne Hurd), and Best Make-Up (Stan Winston). It won eight awards from 1985-2021, where OFTA added Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator character to the OFTA Film Hall of Fame. The Terminator was James Cameron's directorial breakthrough. After the film's success, Cameron found himself in more science fiction projects like Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and Avatar (2009). He also directed Titanic, which earned him the Oscars in Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Film Editing. Cameron's influences for The Terminator included 1950s science fiction films, the 1960s television series The Outer Limits, and films such as The Driver (1978) and Mad Max 2 (1981). The movie is not on the IMDb's Top 250 Films list; however, its sequel (Terminator 2: Judgement Day released in 1991) made the 34th spot. The Terminator is considered a Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with 100% in critic ratings and 89% in audience scores.
While the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is the titular role, the main characters are Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn). Set and filmed in the Los Angeles area, the story follows a human soldier sent from 2029 to 1984 to stop an almost indestructible cyborg killing machine, which has been programmed to execute a young woman whose unborn son is the key to humanity's future salvation. The Terminator franchise marked the beginning of a new subgenre of science fiction dubbed 'technophobia.' How does The Terminator show the dangers of humanizing technology and creating fear for the future of technology?
As mentioned before, the film's particular brand of paranoia is called "technophobia," the fear of advanced technology. Any living person would be afraid of the Terminator: a machine designed for the sole purpose of killing all humans as quickly and brutally as possible. But the technophobia infects this story on more than just the surface level. The backstory of the destruction of the human race tells us that people lost control of the tools we created to make our world a safer place. Now that the machines have taken over, these units can blend into human societies, making it difficult to distinguish between the man and the machine. The film makes a point to show that the Terminator does not have emotions. It is programmed to kill, and that's all. The only thing that resembles humans is its outer layer of hair, flesh, and blood. Under that, it's a computer. This shows that while the intelligence of machines has advanced past human capabilities, it will never be able to replicate emotional intelligence.
The film shows the future tech as a dark reflection of their present-day (1984). The Terminator is connected to answering machines, can manipulate its voice, analyze responses, and zoom and infrared eyes. These terrifying features already exist in the current world, albeit in different devices rather than one killing machine. But, it's a matter of time before some genius nerd figures out a way to make it a reality. It's no coincidence that Sarah Connor runs from the evolving tech in the city to the technology-free Mexican desert at the film's conclusion. She sees the lack of technology as a comfort, serving as a haven from the modern (1984 modern, that is) world.
Throughout the movie, the threat of the Terminator shows that technology has evolved to the point of world domination – raising the question of cyber security. Unlike today, where we have to think about if our computers are keeping our information safe from other people, the Terminator raises the question of whether our computers are keeping us safe from different computers or other pieces of technology. Unlike my essay on Droid slavery in Star Wars, the Terminator doesn't have its own emotions and is not a conscious life form; therefore, one cannot argue that it deserves the same rights as humans because it lacks the fundamental meaning to be human. I love watching old Hollywood film studio movies because, in my opinion, Hollywood movies made before 2005 essentially did what current indie film studios are. Philosophical questions are being raised that don't have a concrete answer, and that's what genuine filmmaking is all about.
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