The Rise of the Machines

One of the most popular themes in science-fiction is the nature of the future, which is generally explored through the medium of time travel (which some authors refer to as a “fantasy” rather than science-fictional element). An author may, over the course of his writing years, present a number of different views of how the flow of time into the future functions. He or she will, however, generally stick to one particular philosophy in a particular story, whether it appears as a single book or as a series. Not so the “Terminator” films.

Those who can cast their minds back 19 years to the original Terminator will remember the basic points of the future: an automated defense computer network, “SkyNet”, becomes self-aware sometime in the late 1990s and launches a nuclear holocaust that destroys half the human race. SkyNet’s robots then set out to eliminate the rest. Within a couple of decades, however, the survivors have become united under a great leader, John Connor, who turns the tide and sets out to eleminate SkyNet and its mobile representatives. SkyNet devises time travel and sends a “Terminator” robot (“AS”-model, where “AS” stands for “Arnold Schwarzenegger”) back in time to eliminate John Connor by murdering his mother while she is still unwed and unimpregnated. Connor sends back one of his soldiers, Reese (Michael Biehn), to protect his mother Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) from the Terminator. This, of course, results in the very situation that SkyNet wanted to prevent (the birth of John Connor, whose father is Reese). So the philosophy of the series appeared to be: the future is immutable; anything you do will help cause it to happen.

This carried over into the second “Terminator” movie, made seven years later (Judgment Day), when it became apparent that an advanced CPU found in the remains of the original “Terminator” was the basis for the construction of “SkyNet” in the first place. But then, about halfway through the movie, the philosophy changed: the protagonists managed to destroy this CPU (along with its equivalent in a new Schwarzeneggeresque Terminator), thus bankrupting CyberDyne, the company that constructed SkyNet, and preventing it from being built. So there would be no SkyNet and Judgment Day would _not_ occur in 1997 after all. The future is infinitely mutable; it is not yet written.

Now we have Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and yet another philosophy of the future: details are mutable but the flow of time is constrained to pass through certain major events such as SkyNet, Judgment Day and John Connor. Connor (Nick Stahl), here shown as being in his early to middle twenties — which suggests that, as he was born in 1985, the events in this film happen late in the current decade — is a bum, living “off the grid” (no telephone, no e-mail, no point of contact), taking occasional work where he can find it, traveling by motorcycle until one night he wrecks the bike, and himself, trying to avoid a deer. He manages to make his way to a local animal hospital, where he steals some phenobarbitol to kill the pain, not realizing that his old middle-school chum Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) is an employee there. At about the same time, two more Terminators arrive at the same animal hospital: a good old-model Terminator (Schwarzenegger) and a bad hitech T-X model (Kristanna Loken) whose capabilities include infinite flexibility, expandable boobs, and the ability to stick her arm clear through a human body. T-X is trying to wipe out certain acquaintances of John Connor, as well as Connor himself; the Terminator, reprogrammed by a future Kate Brewster, is there to protect them all. From this point on, it’s a race against time (and, apparently, the insurance companies) to prevent Judgment Day from happening — a race, it turns out, that it’s impossible to win. For SkyNet exists; absent CyberDyne, the U.S. government has had it built, and it is already infiltrating all the world’s computer networks. Judgment Day is a decade late, but it remains scheduled.

There’s a lot of “theft” from Terminator 2. T-X is very, very similar in capabilities and behavior to Robert Patrick’s “T-1000” in the earlier film. There is a similar destructive auto chase. Schwarzenegger’s Terminator makes pretty obvious (cute) plays on things said and done by his earlier incarnations (“I’m back!”). Even psychologist Dr. Peter Silberman (Earl Boen), who popped up as a minor character in both earlier films, is back for a cameo appearance.

Other gripe: the big car chase early in the movie. Lots of stuff in my car is computerized (e.g., the fuel feed), but as far as I know the steering remains purely mechanical; so I consider it very, very unlikely that T-X could take over a bunch of police cars and emergency vehicles and compel them, by remote control, to go where she wanted. “Steering protocol” my a…Arnie.

I won’t give away the ending here, but I will say: if you will keep the mission of Schwarzenegger’s Terminator firmly in mind, and remember that we are dealing here with a robot, you will probably figure it out. (You can also do what I did and peek at the ending of the novelization — certainly available in your local bookstore — before seeing the film.) Another possibility is to read basically the same story in Arthur C. Clarke’s “Dial F For Frankenstein”. It was, if I remember correctly, three pages long.

Oh, and what is my own philosophy of the future? Harlow’s Second Law of How the Future Works ⁽¹⁾ : Time will flow in such a way (which may vary from point to point) as to make it possible to produce a sequel in any lucrative film franchise.

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⁽¹⁾ Harlow’s First Law — for which various science-fiction writers may have priority (John Brunner springs to mind) and which some have certainly discovered independently — is: In any universe in which time travel is possible, the only stable timeline is one in which it is nowhere and never implemented. Pretty obviously, the “Terminator” timeline and universe are far from stable.