30 Apr Terminator Salvation
Since 1984 The Terminator has been a part of pop-culture and is still being referenced in films and series coming out today. Hell, whenever AI makes another leap in usefulness the fears of a Skynet future props up, and no wonder: machines programmed to destroy humanity is really scary, and none of us is sure we’ll be able to survive such a thing.
The film’s folk found in war-ridden 2018 show what a future like that might be like, and it ain’t good. Man and machine fight a seemingly endless war, with the humans desperately trying to survive and the machines coming up with new and interesting ways to kill people and to win the war.
The film starts hard and fast, with a direct attack on a Skynet research facility. John Connor, all grown up and leading the resistance, gets out of a chopper and shoots a downed T-800 in the head, killing it dead. That scene is a perfect precursor to the theme of this film: man against machine, no holds barred. The film is very action heavy and does a good job of shifting between large-scale assaults, small-group battles and one-on-one fights.
The large-scale conflict consists mostly of missiles and air-units obliterating everything underneath them. Along with the sheer spectacle of destruction this form of combat generates, it also gives you a taste of the scale of the fight for humanity. This is a worldwide war without any doubt.
As people do in times of need, they come together in small bands to help each other out. Living in the ruins of fallen cities they stay alive by outsmarting the machines who are dumb enough to fall for their traps. You soon question how it was possible for humanity to last this long when you see how much trouble they have to go to just to survive attacks from the most basic of machines, not to mention the three-story-tall behemoths that make their presence known from time to time.
The one-on-one fights make you realise just how powerful the machines are and how desperate people must be when faced with a force that, on an individual level, overpowers and kills them as though they were bugs beneath a boot.
With humanity’s understandable hatred towards the machines that have ushered in a living hell, things get complicated when a human-machine hybrid arrives on the scene knowing only its memories as a living person. Until now, machines were the enemy to be killed without prejudice, and people were to be protected at all costs. What to do with someone who is part of both worlds? Do you trust that his humanity is intact and he’s telling the truth, or do you suspect that he’s a ticking time bomb just waiting to betray you?
5 May | Sunday | 22:05 | ST Movies | Ch 100