My rewatch of “The Terminator”

I am holding a small Terminator min-marathon this weekend. Last night I watched “The Terminator,” and tonight my goal is to watch “Terminator 2: Judgement Day.” I’ve watched the first movie many times, but its so well written, tightly directed, and action-packed that it is still a really fun ride.

I always loved the details where the terminator learned the addresses of all of the Sarah Connors in LA via a phone book, and then commenced to target them one-by-one alphabetically, because that’s how a computer would approach it. It is funny to believe that those who wrote “The Terminator” felt that a cyborg from the future who could blend in as a human and intuitively complete a mission like a trained soldier would have the same limits to its reasoning as the computers from the 1980’s. Although, to be honest, if I handed my Alexa a gun and asked her to track down a Sarah Connor in LA she probably would follow the same logic. Or laugh at me, given that she lacks legs, arms, hands, or feet.

Anyways, if you’ve ever felt bummed because you’re last name puts you last on any list sorted alphabetically, just think of this movie.

Another interesting detail in the “Terminator” series is that the characters must always travel through time naked. This reduces the chances of bringing any weapons or gear with them into the past. It also means that SkyNet cannot send a legion of killer robots through time, they must be cyborgs covered in synthetic skin. A question which was never really answered, is how did these rules come about? I’m sure that SkyNet would have preferred to have gained total freedom to send whatever they wanted to through time. Perhaps they learned through tests that the forces of time travel destroys metal, so it would have to be a person or cyborg. It is also interesting that SkyNet did not think to construct their time travel around a vehicle, as in Back to the Future or Time Cop, which would protect passengers from the elements. Or, if I recall right, the time machine may have been such a huge hail mary for SkyNet, they really didn’t have the chance to refine the technology. It was really quite the quick-and-dirty solution for time travel and as soon as they determined that it worked, they sent Arnie through. Or, like 5 variations of Arnie, the T-1000, and another terminator that looked like a chick? Oh well, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Perhaps its best to ignore the nitty gritty details behind the time travel, because it doesn’t really impact the rest of the story. It is just a vehicle for getting the terminator into the modern day world of the movie and kickstarting the plot. However . . . much like the phone book thing, the whole “travel through time” naked rule does feel like something that would be either okayed by artificial intelligence, or just ignored because robots don’t really care about being naked at all. Towards the beginning of The Terminator, we seen Arnold Schwarzenegger’s entire naked body and, if you read his character’s mind at that very same moment, you would have learned that it didn’t really care that anybody passing by had a full view of its slong.

One last thing that I thought about is how different the movie would be if it was set in 2025. Just think about it: A terminator is sent from the year 2065 to defeat humans in a war that hasn’t started yet, and all it needs to do is log onto Facebook and review the information about all of the Sarah Connors in LA. Pictures and videos would help it to determine which Sarah it needs to target and then, bam, you’ve skipped the first half of the original movie.

I have always thought about how reliant of technology we’ve become in the 2020’s, and how a futuristic enemy like SkyNet wouldn’t have to send a cyborg to kill someone. All you need to do is send a cyborg with adequate skills, and to ruin their target’s life they might shut down their Facebook account, or kill them by sending them incorrect GPS coordinates that cause them to drive off a cliff. Or, hack into their phone and send rude messages to their boss. Or order a SWAT hit on their house. Yes, an updated version of “The Terminator” would play out more like “The Net” or “Hackers.”

So, thank goodness for the technologically simple days of the 1980’s when there were still phone booth on street corners, people carried maps in their cars, and you could say the name “Alexa” without drawing the attention of a little glowing box in your bedroom.