Terminator Salvation

It’s a sad confession to make, but I’m a huge fan of the Terminator franchise.   James Cameron’s original, casting Arnold Schwarzenegger as the iconic Terminator (a T-800), was an excellent chase movie.   The formula was largely unchanged for T2, and the lamentable T3.   Each of these films present a relentless and ruthlessly efficient robotic assassin being sent from the future to prevent John Conner from living to lead humanity to victory against “The Machines”.   Each film has it’s saviour too, a warrior sent back by John Conner to protect himself in the past – Kyle Reese in 1, and Arnold’s reprogrammed Terminator in 2 and 3 – who introduce themselves with the great line, “Come with me if you want to live.”

Like most summer blockbusters, Terminator Salvation is an effects-laden advert for modern US Military equipment (the trailer for Transformers 2 looks like more of the same!).    Set in the future, after the Skynet Artificial Intelligence has devastated the human race with nuclear attack, the film again depicts The Machines trying to wipe out the resistance leadership.   The war is taking it’s toll, everything looks beat up; The Machines are getting more sophisticated (the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing tactic of Arnold’s human-looking robot-inside-human-tissue is being developed), but they cannot beat the human spirit – leaders like John Conner continue to thwart their complete domination.   In some ways, the formula of the previous films is still the same in T: Salvation.  The Machines have an over elaborate plan to break the resistance once and for all.

If there’s a theme running through the Terminator films it’s this: Everybody needs a saviour.   Sarah Conner (at the time the yet-to-be-born John’s mother – time travel makes the plot confusing), in the first film, needs Kyle Reese to teach her how to fight The Machine trying to kill her.   He dies in the effort.   In T2, John Conner needs a reprogrammed Terminator to save him from an even more advance model assassin (a T-1000).   Arnold’s T-800 dies in the effort – destroying himself to remove all evidence of The Machines, hopefully averting their creation in the first place.   In T3, another Arnold-model T-800 blows himself up sacrificing himself to stop  another cyborg assassin (a T-X) – but this is too late to stop Judgement Day (the day Skynet became self-aware and dropped nuclear weapons on humanity).   Saviours die with alarming frequency in the Terminator films.   They die sacrificial deaths, but never manage to deal a decisive blow to end the war.   The Machine goes on, relentlessly trying to stomp on humanity.

Another unifying thread is the line, “Come with me if you want to live.”   Life – survival is the most important thing.   In T: Salvation, there’s a horrible scene, where captured humans are being herded like cattle to some unknown but grizzly fate – and the young Kyle Reese reminds these hopeless people to stay alive in their heads and in their hearts.   There’s nothing like a positive attitude, but what real hope is there?   Doesn’t real hope demand something you can hold onto, something outside yourself?

In T:Salvation, these themes merge in the character of Marcus Wright.   At the start of the film (set in 2003), he’s a killer on death row, signing his body over to medical research – a second chance to redeem himself.   By the events of the film (2018) he’s been resurrected as a human-machine hybrid.   There’s ambiguity about which side he’s on.   Marcus seems to be driven by a desire to help the humans, and in a decisive scene, John Conner decides to trust him, after he says, “I’m the only hope you have.”   It turns up this is all part of the afore mentioned elaborate plan – but no Machine can keep the Human Spirit down – Marcus betrays his programming, and sacrifices himself to save John Conner, not once, but twice.   This time, self-sacrifice becomes a vehicle for his own salvation, his own death atoning for his own sins – both as a killer in 2003, and as a Machine collaborator in 2018.

All the best stories are ones about the Gospel.   T:Salvation tries to be about the best story – but it’s message falls short.   Self-sacrifice is noble, but it doesn’t atone for your own failure.   Hope is vital, but it doesn’t come from inside.   The one last comment I should make is about John Conner’s radio broadcast.   He’s a leader, issuing a rallying call for the resistance – and he signs off with these words, “If you’re listening, you are the resistance.”   I can’t help myself, looking at Scotland and seeing the parallel – The Machines have taken over, in part helped by “human” collaborators – people who have compromised for a long time.   I think it’s time Gospel leaders started making the same call – all Christians who are listening are part of the resistance: not just the leadership of our churches, but more importantly the membership who have been told for too long that things going against them is not their problem – just mind your own local church, and everything will be all right.   It’s a lie – eventually The Machines will come for them too, the time to fight is now.   They are the ones who’ve got to stand up and be counted, maybe they are the ones who should be calling for a united resistance to fight the Machines?