Essay Database

The movie The Terminator, opens with a brief glimpse of a horrific future, one in which machines have taken over the planet and driven humans almost to the point of extinction. From this future, two men have traveled back through time to 1984 - the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a cyborg sent to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whose unborn son will lead the human resistance against the machines; and Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a soldier who …

…is also pretty interesting and the home to many machines. The texture of The Terminator, (the dirty, dark, but highly complex world we see) places this film and others showing a dark and littered future, as opposed to a future that is (for good or ill) white, shiny, neat and aesthetic. The Terminator films work because they take on a gritty tone, places the action in a realistic setting and is heartless with its characters.