Unreview: Terminator Salvation
For some people, one of the things that makes science fiction interesting is the way it deals with ideas. I’m one of the old school that prefers the scientific and technological ideas over philosophical ones, as I find most philosophy (particularly when it’s in the context of science fiction) to be pretentious and illogical. Technology is a tool for building things and making people’s lives longer and more comfortable. It can’t change who we are (which could be a reference to the exceptional TV show Dollhouse or it could just be a segue into the discussion that follows. Don’t ask me which. I just write this stuff, I don’t analyze it).
Lately, due to the release of the new Terminator movie (Terminator: Salvation – a title apparently chosen more for dramatic impact than for anything that happens in the movie), there has been a slew of articles about how technology – especially robots – will shape the future of the human race. Usually the headline is something like, “Real life Terminators: How much time do we have?”
I’m not going to link to any of those articles because they are, almost without exception, not worth the paper that no one is bothering to print them out on (Sorry. This isn’t supposed to be a “what’s wrong with newspapers” post). For the moment it should be enough to say that the technology to build terminators doesn’t yet exist. Not the hardware and not the software. The robot apocalypse proposed by the Terminator movies is not just around the corner. Those movies came out of a different time and a different generation that grew up with the idea that some kind of apocalypse (probably a nuclear one) was always around the corner.
In any case, I found that the movie was good enough that I only mildly resented the $7 charged for a matinee ticket. This was the first of the Terminator movies that did not feature Arnold Schwarzenegger, so they were able to do something a little new and a little different. They actually made an attempt to develop the story, though at times the story looked like Mad Max with robots. For those of us who like action, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
In true science fiction tradition, the technology displayed in the movie appeared to be quite a bit beyond even the stated time frame, which was not far from now (2018). But then, a massive artificial intelligence might be able to push the boundaries of technology in very interesting ways and we know from the recently (and moronically) canceled Terminator TV series that someone – possibly Skynet, possibly future Terminators sent back in time, or maybe someone else entirely – has already developed some of the flying devices shown in the movie. We know from Iraq and Afghanistan that there are already unmanned flying machines with military applications, though these are not yet independent of remote human control. So some small portion of the tech is there.
A self-aware computer might be able to set up and run countless simulations to determine useful technological configurations. And it might be able to direct its own servant robots to run vast numbers of tests to see if those configurations work. Seems like a lot of trouble to be going to during a war, though. It was never stated in the movie but the war seemed a bit too even. Too many humans survived against a relentless and powerful enemy. This is something good science fiction could be used to explain (something lacking in almost all movies these days). When Skynet set off Judgment Day (the nuclear devastation of the planet), it must have destroyed much of its own infrastructure for building robots, along with most of human civilization.
Also, apparently, by the time of Judgment Day, there was no human presence in space that could strike back or rally the resistance or rescue survivors and take them off to another planet to restart the human race. When the first Terminator movie came out (1984 according to imdb.com) maybe the writers could have been forgiven for that. At that point, the Apollo program was done and NASA essentially just going through the motions without any actual plan for a real space program.
Hmmm. Come to think of it, not much has changed since then. Maybe we should work on that before Skynet or some other planet killing threat becomes a reality. Colonies in space might come in very handy at that point. Just a thought.
Anyway, the central question of Terminator: Salvation, asked more than once in not very subtle terms, is, “What makes us human?” The movie explores this a little by tackling an issue that always annoyed me about both the movies and the TV series: Why were terminators referred to as “cyborgs?” In the old Six Million Dollar Man series (based on the infinitely better books), the main character was referred to as a cyborg (cybernetic organism) because he was a human with highly sophisticated cybernetic components replacing his lost parts. He was part human, part robot. What made him human was largely his hatred of being part robot (You saw this more in the book than the show).
In the first three Terminator movies, the terminators were called cyborgs without any evidence that there was anything human about them. They seemed, at best, androids (robots that appear human). The latest movie shows that at some stage of their technological development, at least some of them may have had human components. Not just killer robots but robot shells with the brains of biologically based killers (not to be confused with Daleks).
Fortunately, this movie left the existential question of what makes us human and not them as an exercise for the viewers. There was lots of action, nice explosions and plenty of room left for another sequel or four. There are some things I would like to see in the sequel(s), such as a return to the question of alternate time lines that the TV series was getting deeply into (at the time it was so stupidly canceled – did I mention that?). It would also be nice if the next movie explored the question of what Skynet hopes to accomplish with its technology besides the eradication of humanity. What is the sense, after all, of making cyborgs that can only be distinguished from people by their vast capacity for violence, if you don’t want people around? What do you do when the war is over and these super-dangerous cyborgs don’t want to be turned off?
Maybe then Skynet will have to recreate humans to terminate the terminators. Or something.
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I think this is a great question you posed, and one I haven’t really thought about: “What is the sense, after all, of making cyborgs that can only be distinguished from people by their vast capacity for violence, if you don’t want people around? What do you do when the war is over and these super-dangerous cyborgs don’t want to be turned off?”
What do the “cyborgs” plan to do after all the humans have been destroyed? I suppose Earth would be a derelict planet, and the cyborgs would turn to eradicating each other, b/c that’s all they’re programed to know how to do.
How do you like the movie with Arnold? Do you wish he had made an appearance?
Would you recommend seeing it in theatres?
In several science fiction stories, once the machines have finished wiping out their creators, they spread out into the universe destroying everything else (See Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker series, for example). This may make a good story but doesn’t seem very logical.
Terminator’s are NOT programmed only to kill. They’re also programmed to mimic humans. They have a considerable drive to survive, too, which means they won’t easily go along with mimicking the humans-as-targets-for-terminators schtick. It’s a conundrum.
The series is primarily action but they’ve at least made an attempt (especially in the show – did I mention that canceling it was stupid?) to look at some of the ideas that it brings up. Without the governator’s ego as the main driver, they have the chance to tell much more interesting stories now.
But seeing it at the theater? Don’t see anything at the theater. Ticket prices are ridiculous.
Thanks for the heads-up. I never got into the series. Didn’t have the time. I’m guessing you were a big fan?
How could you tell? Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was the most creative thing on TV.Plus it had lots of violence, frequently perpetrated by Summer Glau. It just doesn’t get better than that!
Nothing wrong with a little violence
I definitely love me some action. As far as television goes, really the only two dramas I watch at the moment are 24 and Lost.
I’m a big fan of the Terminator movies, so I want to see the latest one, but I think I’ll wait per your suggestion. Terminator 2 is probably my favorite Sci-Fi movie of all time.