Milestones in the Science Fiction Genre

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Milestones in the Science Fiction Genre
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Key Facts

• Released in 1984
• The film that made Schwarzenegger a mainstream
  star
• Noted for its vivid post-apocalyptic cut scenes
  and its imaginative time-travel themes
• Extremely violent

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The Terminator as Archetype

• The cruel, unstoppable man-machine has featured
  in mythology and fiction since the days of Homer.

He represents the threatening and unfeeling
father figure which is the basis of the Oedipus
complex
He is the ultimate unit of labour His motives
consist of nothing but ruthless production.
Freud
Marx
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The Terminator through the Ages
Part human or humanoid Supernatural strength or
power A ruthless killer
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We Create our Own Terminators
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The Man-Machine, celebrated in the ideologies of
the Left and the Right, represents a threat to
liberal modernity.
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Terminator and Contemporary Politics

• It is 1984. Reagans USA is pursuing an uneasy
  policy of ideology-based interventionism.

USSR
Libya
The free and liberal American way of life is
perceived to be under threat.
Iran
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Top Gun (1986) American pilots must work as a
team in order to defeat the faceless Soviets.
Firefox (1982) American hero Clint
Eastwood must use his imagination and humanity to
steal the Soviets secret weapon.
Rocky IV (1985) Flawed American hero Rocky must
defeat the Soviet machine in the ring.
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Dystopia and the Machine Aesthetic
The late 19th/early 20th centuries saw mass
production change labour practices for ever.
Rather than being skilled, autonomous
individuals, workers were forced to adapt their
working patterns to the machines that drove the
production lines.
Metropolis (1927)
The fusion between human and machine became a
major theme in art and literature, almost always
accompanied by the notion that human
individuality, accompanied by all its failings,
is preferable to mindless robotic subservience.
1984 (1956)
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Dystopia and the Machine Aesthetic
Despite their grim themes of slavery and control,
the dystopian movie depicts worlds which are both
frightening and beautiful. All that gleaming
metal, effortless transport and powerful
computing is seductive.
Blade Runner (1982)
The Cyberpunk movement, which certainly
influenced the iconography and production design
of Terminator, had the machine aesthetic at its
heart.
Terminator (1984)
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• n. Fast-paced science fiction involving
  futuristic computer-based societies.
• cyberpunk cy'berpunk' adj.

high tech And low life
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Cyberpunk Characteristics
Pervasive influence of computers and data
Dystopian future worlds
Invasive body modifications
Conflict between human/machine
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Cyberpunk - Influences

• Comics/Graphic art

Music Youth Culture
Comics/Graphic art
Film
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Cyberpunk and Terminator

• Human/Machine fusion

Human vs Machine conflict
Dystopian future in which humans are ruled by
machines
Far-future setting and highly advanced
technology, ie time travel
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Terminator, its themes and its place in the
Sci-Fi genre

• Created by man but turns on its creator

Speculative technology (time travel)
Human/non-human ambiguity
Contemporary concerns about science/tech
Dystopian future extrapolated from our present
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Terminator and Classical Narrative The Labyrinth
The labyrinth is a symbol of coming of age The
trial one must undergo in order to achieve sexual
and emotional maturity to become an adult.
Theseus must negotiate the labyrinth and slay the
Minotaur in order to prove his manhood.
Kubricks The Shining (1981) An Imaginative
young boy must negotiate the literal and psychic
labyrinth of the Overlook Hotel, slay his
threatening father, thus resolving the Oedipal
conflict and securing his future with his mother.
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Terminator and the Labyrinth

• Naïve, lonely young woman Sarah Connor leads
• an underachievers life, with a dead-end job and
  a
• promiscuous flatmate. She is not yet a woman,
• more a girl with girlish ideas and no
• responsibilities.

Her involvement in the War Against the Machines
leads to a chase, across time and across an
American landscape. She must negotiate this
labyrinth in order to become a woman. She
finds an inner resourcefulness, love, sex, and a
ruthlessness that equips her for her role of
mother of the saviour of mankind. Through
ingenuity and ruthlessness she slays the
Terminator (her Minotaur), thus saving herself
and her unborn child, guaranteeing the survival
of humanity. Her rite of passage, from girl to
woman/mother, is complete.
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Labyrinth iconography in Terminator

• The Police Precinct In a prolonged and violent
  shoot-out scene, the Terminator destroys a police
  station in an attempt to find Sarah Connor who is
  inside. The labyrinths we construct of law,
  security and authority are literally blown apart
  by an unstoppable killer. Only Connor Is
  ingenious enough to escape with her life.
  Everyone else dies. The corridors of the police
  precinct provide a visual metaphor for the
  labyrinth.

Telecommunications The metaphorical labyrinth of
modern telecommunications is the battleground for
the film. The Terminator uses both the telephone
network and the police database in order to
locate Connor. By return, it is a telephone call
to the police that saves Sarahs life in the
Tech-Noir disco, as well as the answerphone
message to her flatmate going unheeded which
leads to Gingers death. It is Sarah seeing the
Terminators crimes on the television that alerts
her to the danger. It is an irony that
old-fashioned industrial technology saves her and
kills the Terminator An industrial press so
powerful that no technology, no matter how
advanced, can withstand it.
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Terminator and classical narrative The Divine
Conception
Classical mythology, and religious
scripture, are fond of the myth of the immaculate
conception. This frees women from the stigma of
promiscuity and allows the offspring of gods and
other supernatural beings to walk among men.
A Terrible Beauty is Born
Leda and the Swan Leda is raped by Zeus who
appears to her as a swan. She gives birth
to Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman who
ever lived and the cause of the most terrible war
of ancient times.

• The gospels of Matthew
• and Luke suggest that
• Mary was a virgin when
• she bore Jesus.

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Terminator and the Divine Conception

• The love scene between Connor and Reese is
• the one on which the whole film pivots. Firstly,
• their lovemaking is a desperate affirmation of
• the qualities of humanity in the face of the
• threat from the machines.

Secondly, it is a plot device to enable the
conception of John Connor, the future leader of
men in the war against the machines.
Kyle Reese, Sarahs lover and father of John, is
a time-travelling warrior a supernatural being
like Zeus (in the Leda myth) or Yahweh (in the
gospels). Sarahs conception by this
supernatural figure enables her to retain her
virtue. This is a movie in which promiscuity is
punished. Ginger, Sarahs wild flatmate, is
killed by the Terminator. She is oblivious to the
danger because she is having sex with her
boyfriend. The conceit of the Divine Conception
suggests that a powerful, superhuman figure will
be born A Saviour of Mankind such as Christ in
the gospels.
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• Could the narrative of the film be transposed to
  another setting without the sci-fi iconography
  and themes?

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Terminator and Pragmatics

• Even though the film was low-budget (6.5
  million) it took 38 million. In
• This way it set a precedent for high-concept
  movies made on a
• shoestring.
• The film made Schwarzenegger a mainstream star
  and typecast him in
• action roles as a monosyllabic man/machine. (Red
  Heat, Commando,
• Predator, True Lies, etc) but also led to ironic
  departures from that role,
• such as Kindergarten Cop and Twins.
• The film led to a franchise of inferior but
  highly successful sequels
• Which retained the iconography of the original.
• Influenced other high-concept futuristic movies
  such as Robocop and
• The Matrix.