ScreenFish

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Terminator

6.07 Fighting the Future in TERMINATOR: DARK FATE

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The past and future collide once more in the latest (and potentially final) entry of James Cameron?s famed sci-fi series, TERMINATOR: DARK FATE. Nearly 30 years after the events of T2, Sarah Connor returns to battle to protect Dani Ramos, a mysterious young woman who may be the key to saving the future of the human race. This week on the show, author Troy Kinney and ScreenFish film analyst Chris Utley return to talk about the films portrayal of fate v. free will and it?s questions regarding modern technology.

You can also stream the episode above on podomatic, Alexa (via Stitcher), Spotify or Soundcloud! Or, you can download the ep on Apple Podcasts or Google Play!

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ?Fishing for More? ? some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

6.07 Terminator: Dark FateDownload

Terminator 2: Judgement Day Theme
Written by Brad Fiedel, 1991
All rights to their respective owners.

Terminator: Genisys – This Movie Has Daddy Issues

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As the one person I know who enjoyed?Terminator: Salvation, I was sure that I would find something to like in the universally panned fifth installment of the franchise. Here, future John Connor (Jason Clarke) sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back in time to save Connor’s mother, Sarah (Emilia Clarke, no relation except to the Targaryens), from Skynet’s shapeshifting robots. We’ve been here, we’ve done this, but who doesn’t love a little cyborg dustup, right?

Unfortunately (with apologies to those who don’t know), the trailer spoiled quickly that the future John Connor was co-opted by Skynet in the future, and he travels after Reese. What occurs is some classic Shakespearean drama where in true Oedipal form, Connor the cyborg tries to kill off Reese and his mother to prevent them from ending Skynet. Nevermind that we’re supposed to buy all of the scientific hoopla surrounding time travel: we now are supposed to buy that whacking a couple in the past won’t prevent a future offspring from still existing,?and?there is something so rudimentary about humanity that it can be connected by a set of 1s and os into being part-human, part-machine (but mostly machine).

In the one scene that soared above the others (with apologies to Arnold Schwarzenegger who plays his T-800 to the hilt as protector/papa), Connor has a showdown with the three heroes in a parking garage and offers them the chance to join him or die. While I am not much for lengthy discussions on spiritual warfare and conflict, I found the scene carrying me back to Matthew 4:1-11 when Jesus is tempted three times by the devil. He’s offered sustenance, safety, and power, which he rebuffs.

But isn’t it always the case that temptation is most enticing when it looks like what we think we need? When it’s what we want or comes packaged in a way that we think we ‘love’ it? For Sarah and Reese, the temptation comes in the shape of their own progeny, their own love, their own future. It tries to sell them on something that doesn’t even exist anymore, but which they would, in?their heart, want to be true.

And still, they fight it off. They prove heroic by turning aside the lies and fighting for the future, and for those innocents around them. Unfortunately, it gets lost in the shuffle of confusing what-ifs and special effects overload, but it’s why there will be another?Terminator?film, too.

As much as I hate to admit it, when that time comes – “I’ll be back.”

T3: Finding Your Purpose (Terminator)

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t31In the third installment of the Terminator films, we find a John Connor (Nick Stahl) who is no longer thirteen, and ?lives off the grid.? John is a young adult living on the streets, with no phone, no home, nothing. He is working in manual labor, recalling the past through a voiceover narration. ?They tried to kill me,? he says, ?before I was born, and again when I was thirteen.?

?I feel the weight of the future,? John narrates at the beginning of the film. ?So I keep running.? He is running from the vocation that has chosen him and from the Terminators that may be coming to kill him. We see him next as he is breaking into a veterinarian?s office in the hopes of finding drugs. This is evidence of how far he is willing to go to relieve some of the weight carries.

In the meantime, a T-X has been sent from the future. The T-X is even more deadly and destructive than the T1000 in T2. The T-X has arrived to kill not John Connor, but other resistance leaders of the future. SkyNet has taken a different approach. John Connor is no longer a priority, it is the other young adults who are his followers who will be leaders of the movement.

One of these leaders is Kate Brewster (Claire Danes), who is getting married and has a somewhat estranged relationship her father. She is a vet, who answers an emergency call in the middle of the night. When she arrives at the clinic she finds a high John, whom she locks into a dog kennel. While attempting to calm a distressed cat owner, Kate comes face-to-face with the T-X.

The T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) arrives in his usual nude way. After gleaning clothes from a stripper at a ladies? night bar, he sets out to find and rescue Kate from the T-X. He also has to rescue John.

T-101: John Connor, it is time.
John: Are you here to kill me?
T-101: No. You must live.

t3John assumes his future-self sent the terminator as he did in the last film. But it was actually Kate who sent him. While running away from the T-X, John and Kate learn a lot about their future together from the T-101. Most surprisingly, they learn that SkyNet still rises to power.

As Kate runs for her life, her general father is battling an unknown virus spreading quickly through the computers. They have a ?secret weapon? they have developed that could take care of this virus. Kate?s father, General Robert Brewster, is high up in the federal government who has the ability to tell the Pentagon no, they will not release SkyNet to deal with a major computer virus. His job is actually a cover up for a top-secret security work, which will become important when our three heroes discover that a nuclear holocaust is upon them. Eventually, though, his hands are tied. SkyNet is release, however, instead of destroying the virus, it takes over all the machines.

While this is not the best of the Terminator films, it is still worth watching a few times. The CGI used in this film makes the first two look antique. And the film continues in developing John Connor as a Christ-figure.

?They tried to kill me before I was born.?

As John tries to explain the situation to Kate, he tells her, ?Imagine that you were going to do something important with your life.? This line sums up John?s story perfectly. His life is at stake because he is going to do something important with his life. It is his life will save humanity, in the fullness of time. In the first Terminator film, the objective was to kill Sarah Connor in order to ensure that John Connor, savior of the world, does not come to be. In Matthew?s gospel, Mary and Joseph are informed by the wise men that King Herod is planning to kill all the Jewish baby boys. King Herod wants to ensure that no future leader rises against his rule. Mary and Joseph along with the infant Jesus escape the genocide by fleeing into Egypt. At one point T-101 tells John that he will die, which is why Kate is the one who sent T-101 to the past. It alludes to the fact that John gives his own life to save that of others.

?It is your destiny.?

John Connor has a purpose in life. A vocation that the whole world depends on, whether they know it or not. He has a hard time, however, accepting the fact that he will be kept in the equivalent of a ?safe house.? As the apocalypse of the computer-age gets underway, Robert Brewster tells Kate of a secret underground weapons control facility. She and John head there. These scenes were actually filmed on location at a decommissioned federal control center in West Virginia.

This underground center could symbolize the tomb of Jesus Christ. It will be after this tomb experience that a new life will be found. Not necessarily an easier one, which speaks volumes to the human condition. While new life is apart of the journey of humanity, it does not always mean life will be easier. Life is still hard. Life is still challenging. Life is still a battle between good and evil.

The greater lesson that John learns is that the person he is now, is not the person he will become. That is the good news about new life. We are becoming into someone new, transforming the old. He is becoming the one who will bear salvation for the world.

?You?re terminated.?

The T-X is evil, no doubt about it. She is an agent of SkyNet, which is the big bad in the film. It is not a mistake that the enemy takes on the shape and appearance of a human. She looks like one of us. ?And no wonder!? Paul writes to the Corinthians, ?Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.? (2 Corinthians 11:14, CEB). The T-X can take on the appearance of others. At one point she becomes Kate in an attempt to trick Kate?s father. This enemy is deadly and determined to put an end to any possibility of salvation. She does not want there to be salvation. Her mission is to eliminate the possibility of hope.

This hope, however, is not lost. It is while John and Kate are in the underground control center, with computers that are thirty years old, that voices from across the country are heard. They found a radio range that SkyNet did not affect and they call out for anyone else who might be out there. And through these radio waves, the people hear the voice of John Connor, from the walls of a borrowed tomb, offering them hope in the midst of destruction and judgment.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

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I really never understood the title of Judgment Day for this film, because it really wasn’t a “Judgment Day”. It doesn’t take away from the film which in its time was pretty great. However, rewatching it you can see how storytelling and movie magic has evolved greatly. Even if you compare this to Avatar (another James Cameron film), the storytelling has definitely changed. I remember as a preteen when I first saw this film, my first thought was “wait, there was a first one, I have to see that one as well”. I loved it that much because it was something I had not seen since Star Wars really. I felt like this was the next step in sci-fi film evolution.

T2 was everything a sequel should be. It outshone?its predecessor and really had several elements that really stood out in the film. First was the new terminator, the T1000 (Robert Patrick). Visual effects aside, he was a cunning and sophisticated enemy that was both charming and deadly at the same time. He played the role of wolf in sheep’s clothing perfectly, although being far more advanced, he lacked the good detective skills to really excel as the ultimate threat. When?you throw in those visual effects, one can only wonder if this film was made today how much greater the T1000 would be.

Another element that really stands out in this film is the ability to fill in the background without having to drag out long, unneeded backstories. The new terminator was out to kill John Conner (Edward Furlong). The old terminator (by looks) was reprogrammed to save him. Meanwhile, the events of the first film made Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) go completely crazy. Of course, why wouldn’t she? If you had a maniac robot come from the future to kill you because your son will be this great leader for the resistance, that would do a number on you too. Sara is institutionalized because no one will listen to her. The great thing is that we don’t have to go through a long backstory to see how she got there. Between the institution?and her rescue by John and his new terminator friend, we know exactly how crazy she has gotten. She especially goes off the deep end when she attempts to assasinate a guy who has no idea that, in the future, he will be the cause for the near extinction of humankind. Hamilton does a wonderful job playing the role of warrior, mother, and lunatic all while keeping her character grounded as well.

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Finally, it is the relationship between John and the Terminator. This is an interesting relationship in that John Conner for all intensive purposes is a bad apple. He’s a teenage/pre-teen trouble-making kid who doesn’t respect anyone. He was raised by a woman who spent his early years teaching him to be a soldier and survive. Now here he is with what turns out to be his own personal terminator to control. As we see their relationship evolve however, we see that the terminator becomes something more. The boy for so long was waiting for a father figure. A real father figure. And here is this robot from the future that ends up playing that role. As for the terminator, we see him evolve from just a machine to something more human. He learned what it is like to be human, and felt compassion. He realizes that, although there are some that appear are not worth saving, it is the few that outweigh the many. I automatically think of how we have all fallen short and not worth saving yet God shows us mercy and Jesus meets us right where we are. Though our mother or father forsake us, God is there to fill that parental role we need in our life. No matter how much the world around us seems to crumble and fall, we have a God that is willing to die for us just so that we can be saved. The few outweigh the many, and Christ died so that we can have a chance.

T2 is definitly a film worth revisiting, although I would caution that, when seeing it now, it is not as amazing as before. But who cares right? Just to hear Arnold say “Hasta la vista, baby” is good enough for me.

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