This document provides an in-depth analysis of the Terminator films and how they portray technological change and its impact on humanity. It discusses how the films depict the merging of humans and machines through advancing military technology and the conflict this creates between the body and soul. A key focus is on the character of Sarah Connor and how she undergoes a transformation from a helpless victim to a "cyborg soldier," embodying both pessimism about and hope for humanity's future amid technological integration. The document also examines how consumer technology depicted in the films is alienating humans and eroding individualism.

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In the Shadow of a Terminator
Both The Terminator (Cameron, 1984) and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgement Day
(Cameron, 1991) provide a protracted view of technological change. Whilst they respectively
reveal the consequence of our reliance on technology of the future, this essay seeks to locate
these films within a different discourse of fear. The human body begins to merge with
machine through rapidly shifting military technology and combat, which ultimately produces
a conflict between the dichotomised body and soul. This allows for an analysis of both films’
protagonist Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) as a cyborg soldier that undergoes an immense
internal conflict. She is the site for pessimism of a future punctuated by mechanistic
functioning as well as a site for optimistic hope for the continuity of humanism. This essay
also provides an examination of the way that consumerist technology, presented in both
films, is shaping our future. Rather than providing a social utopia within a post industrialised
society that had been anticipated by Karl Marx, the reverse is vast emerging, which is eroding
the individual.
The Terminator articulates concerns over the ontogenesis of the human within a
postmodernist society. The rapidity of technological change is frequently depicted through
the juxtaposition of primitive and advanced technology throughout the film and the pervasive
militaristic associations seem to permeate, providing a prescient allegory of our destructive
future. This is visualised through the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). In a scene that draws
on slasher film convention, we are offered a glimpse of the T-800’s point of view. An
infrared visual display with crosshair is depicted and calibrates as it tracks its target Sarah
Connor. Until this moment, the T-800 is aesthetically as human as the protagonists but these
shots render him an artificial consciousness that is entirely militarised. For Forest Pyle these

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shots arguably suggest that the T-800 does not perceive by sight, rather he collects
information (Pyle, 1993:232). In this sense, the film provides a startling vision of the
coalescence of future warfare and image technologies such as the television and how these
will mediate the experience of war. In their essay on the televised Gulf War, Kevin Robins
and Les Levidow observe
[t]he Gulf video images gave us closer visual proximity between weapon and target,
but at the same time greater psychological distance. The missile-nose view of the
target simulated a super-real closeness which no human being could ever attain. This
remote-intimate viewing extended the moral detachment that characterized earlier
military technologies. (Robins and Levidow 1995:120)
The image that they use to illustrate this point is
remarkably similar to the T-800’s mechanised point of
view in the film. As American military technologies have
advanced in the latter part of the twentieth century, combat
has progressively become more detached. Contrary to the
close proximity combat that underscored earlier wars, the emerging ‘tele-engaged’ (ibid) war
has begun to appropriate killing of the demonised Other on a large scale but with greater
distance. As the Gulf War and subsequent wars have demonstrated, the human machine
integration is leading toward the sanitisation of war and the symbolised loss of self. The T-
800 in The Terminator therefore becomes a grotesque symbol of human evolution, the
collision of technology and organism. In the same way that the combatant is desensitised and
automatic, the T-800 is displayed in a similar fashion. This arguably suggests that the human
of the future, ceases to be exactly that through physical and emotional hardening. Previous

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wars have led to the automatized soldier and this is something that Chris Hables Gray has
commented on. He observes that the ‘disciplining of individual soldiers into cleanly working
parts, and the military’s fostering of industrialization and automation’ (Gray, 2002:56)
ultimately situates the origin of the human-machine integration as being set within World
War II (2002:56). The T-800 embodies this notion of the highly advanced and pre-
programmed soldier. There is allusion to this when Kyle Reece (Michael Biehn) and Sarah
Connor initially flee the T-800 in a commandeered vehicle. Kyle describes the T-800 as an
“infiltration unit, part man, part machine. Underneath it is a hyper alloy chassis: fully
armoured, very tough but outside it is living human tissue, flesh, skin, hair, blood. Grown for
the cyborgs” (1984). As is consistent with modern and indeed future warfare, this dystopic
image of the unthinking soldier has become a reality. He is no longer impeded by logic,
reason or emotion, he is the ultimate weapon. He is, according to Donna Haraway ‘the
illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism’ (Haraway, 2000:51). During a
visceral scene that lingers on the T-800’s surgical extraction of his human eye, it is a moment
that allows the cyborg to metamorphose into a pure machine; an image that is also echoed
later in the film. Janice Rushing and Thomas Frentz consider this moment important as it
suggests that the machine can function more optimally without the ‘human trapping’ (Frentz
and Rushing, 1995:169). The eyes are widely regarded as the windows to the soul but in this
scenario they are merely impractical tools that serve no means other than to promote
inconspicuousness for the machine. As the T-800 reveals its mechanical red eye it provides a
chilling metaphor for our future selves, one that effaces human agency. This moment reveals
that this “second order simulation” (1995:168) is utterly efficient and no longer requires our
surrogacy. The T-800 in the first film can be read as an uncanny variation of Frankenstein’s
monster. The monster, who laments to his creator “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather
the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from no joy for no misdeed” (Shelley, 1994:96) shows a

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very human depth and range of emotion; including compassion, empathy and wrath, therefore
retaining his human elements. The T-800 does not question his existence like Frankenstein’s
monster. This “new order of intelligence” (1984) as Kyle describes it, has a sole function, one
that is pre-programmed and soul-less. He is our machine ‘double’ (1985:356), a Freudian
figure that is visually referenced in the sequel when the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) copies
prison-guard Lewis’ (Don Stanton) body. This double is no longer a benevolent figure of
immortality, he has become, as Freud observes, an ‘uncanny harbinger of death’ (1985:357);
he is our telos. In his mediations Renè Descartes suggests that there is a duality between the
body and the soul. He states
I possess a distinct idea of body, inasmuch as it is only an extended and unthinking
thing, it is certain that this I [that is to say, my soul by which I am what I am], is
entirely and absolutely distinct from my body, and can exist without it. (Descartes,
1911:28 emphasis in original)
Both the T-800 and the amorphous T-1000 – our future selves – have also become our Other
and their organic structure conceals a void. They are, as Robins and Levidow argue
‘unadulterated efficiency-mentality without a soul, the part that, separated from the whole, is
[…] diabolical’ (1995:168). While the malevolent terminators of both films signify a
humanist detachment from the more efficient machine double, both films explore present
conflict surrounding the human cyborg body.
The cyborg body is presented in a way that verbalises a conservative disintegration of the
family and the individual within both films. Sarah Connor’s body is the primary site for this
fear. As systems become more mechanized, so does the human soldier. Whilst she goes

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through a transformative process from the first film to the second, Sarah remains subsumed
into patriarchy. In The Terminator Sarah spends much of her time in a helpless position,
conforming to what Bryan Turner describes as the psychic structure allocated to women in
science fiction films – ‘affection’ (Turner, 1996:126) and ‘emotions’ (ibid); seeking
protection within a male dominated society. In The Terminator, whilst experiencing a
moment of respite, Sarah automatically dresses Kyle’s wound. Subsequently Kyle teaches
Sarah how to make ammunitions. These of course will become crucial skills for her role
however, this moment serves to alter Sarah both physically and mentally. Samantha Holland
has rejected James Cameron’s claim that both films are thematically feminist. She argues that
while Sarah ultimately becomes a soldier, she can only achieve this by the instruction of her
male counterpart (Holland, 1996:166) and by the momentary negation of her figure as a
mother.
As Sarah becomes more mechanized by becoming highly
weaponised, her gender becomes more fluid, however this has
consequences for her maternal role. In Terminator 2: Judgement
Day, she is visibly detached from John for much of the film.
This reaches a crescendo as she emerges from a parked trailer.
The camera lingers on her militarised body and the soundtrack echoes this with a steady
military style drumbeat. Aside from her exposition at the beginning of the film where she has
arranged her bed into a position that allows her to perform a number of upper body exercises,
this is arguably her most masculinised moment. She rebuffs John and hastily drives away,
thus rejecting her femininity and maternal nature. Gray explores the qualities of the cyborg
soldier and argues that ‘the female soldier’s identity is collapsed into the basic solider
persona, a creature that is vaguely male in dress and posture, vaguely female in status, and

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vaguely masculine-mechanical in role and image’ (2002:58). This is certainly evident of
Sarah Connor in this film. This image is repeated, although in a somewhat hyperbolic style in
James Cameron’s earlier film Aliens (Cameron, 1986) through the character of Private
Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein). Vasquez is overtly coded as a masculine bodybuilder, with her
male comrades being depicted as distinctly inferior. Her weapon – evidently an exaggerated
phallic symbol – is almost as large as she. Holland has noted that this type of cyborg figure
often de-stabilises gender identity (1996:166). She is deprived of any feminine qualities, in
the same way that Sarah is in the scene above. She is wholly mechanical. This is emphasised
further when she furtively stalks Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) at his house and places the
reticule of her gun onto his head; a scene that is mirrored in the first film but with the T-800
adopting the same role. This is an overt reversal of meaning because the ‘shadow’ that is the
Terminator, more specifically the T-800 from the first film and the T-1000 from the sequel
along with Sarah Connor, are merging. Rushing and Frentz argue that ‘Sarah must
unconsciously identify with the overdeveloped shadow before she can consciously recognize
it as part of herself’ (1995:189). This recognition suggests that the emerging similarities
between Sarah as a militarised hunter and the T-800 cyborg situate our pre-determined fate as
beginning to emerge. At this moment in the film Sarah duplicates Kyle’s cold detachment
from The Terminator when he callously remarks “pain can be controlled, you just disconnect
it” (1984). This emergent cyborg soldier, Robins and Levidow propose, is trained for optimal
efficiency. This includes the mastering of biological functions (1995:120). Sarah assumes this
role until she is overcome by pity and empathy, thus allowing her to retain her humanity and
ultimately to restore, as the narrative suggests, her passivity. This serves to highlight the
polarised body and soul opposition that the cyborg has come to signify. The scene is therefore
crucial to understanding the film’s pessimism surrounding technological advancement. The
cyborg can only exist if the soul is disavowed. As Claudia Springer concludes ‘the cyborg

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represents the triumph of the intellect, it also signifies obsolescence for human beings’
(Springer, 1996:19).
This pervasive pessimism for technology is explored further through the blending of the
individual with postmodern technology. Terminator 2: Judgement Day confuses the
boundary between reality and simulation by juxtaposing diegetic combat with video games.
When John Connor (Edward Furlong) is located at the Galleria shopping mall he, along with
many other children are playing video games. More specifically however, John is playing a
simple military game that resembles the T-800’s tracking point of view in the first film.
Shown through degrees of primitiveness, he is later depicted as frivolously enjoying a far
more complex game that allows him to simulate battle in a more physical way. As a
reflection of the televised Gulf War images, Robins and Levidov have argued that
The images evoked audience familiarity with video games, thus offering a vicarious
real-time participation. Video games in the wider culture are also about the mastery of
anxiety and the mobilization of omnipotence phantasies; these psychic dimensions
correspond to the cyborg logic of the military “game”. (1995:122)
What this suggests is that there is a comforting distance between the killer and the victim, a
notion that transcends the video game. This scene is presented in a way that depicts
technology through stages, evolutionary if you will. The vicarious nature of the evolving
video game creates greater distance for the player. Haraway points out that ‘we are all
chimeras theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism, in short, we are cyborgs.
The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both
imagination and material reality’ (Haraway, 2000:50). Through the T-800 then we can see the

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culmination of advanced capitalism and subjugation. It is a truly dystopic vision of our
evolution, which amounts to the reification of the individual and the inevitable split between
the soul and the body.
This technophobia extends to the way modern technology and consumerism is presented in
both The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Consumerist technology is
frequently alluded to as either failing us or alienating us. In The Terminator a short sequence
observes through close-up as Ginger Ventura (Bess Mota) and Matt Buchanan (Rick
Rossovich) have sex and the camera’s eye lingers on the couple, not to arouse titillation
within the audience but to highlight the emerging relationship we have with technology.
Rather than experiencing the intimacy related to such an act, the couple are wholly detached.
Ginger is fully engrossed in the music she is listening to through her headphones and pocket
sized stereo and Matt proceeds to increase the volume for her pleasure. While Ginger and
Matt fetishize technology in this way, they reveal an increasing alienation from one another
and the negation of human interaction, thus creating a lack of individualism. This notion has
more recently been expressed by subversive graffiti artist Banksy, through a mural depicting
the same detachment.
Whilst written within the context of Nazi occupation,
Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s magnum opus the
Dialectic of Enlightenment is a crucial text for
deconstructing contemporary culture. They say that ‘the
unity of the manipulated collective consists in the negation
of each individual: for individuality makes a mockery of the kind of society which would turn
all individuals to the one collectivity’ (Adorno and Horkeheimer, 1944:13). Therefore, if the
individual is negated, then they become more susceptible to subjugation. Both The

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Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day’s narratives draw attention to our relationship
with technology and articulate an emerging subjugation by technology. In the second film an
exasperated Janelle Voight (Jenette Goldstein) struggles to gain the attention of her apathetic
husband Todd Voight (Xander Berkeley). As the camera follows Janelle through the house, it
rests in the living room where Todd is unresponsive and absorbed in a sports game on the
television. Noam Chomsky believes that televised and participatory sport is a form of
indoctrination that reduces the capacity to think (Achbar and Wintonick, 1992). This scene
then supports the argument that both films are presented as expressing fear of technological
change. The scene is mirrored in the first film however, the meaning is reversed. Contrary to
it being a vessel for inertia, in the dystopic future it has become a container for a fire that
provides momentary warmth for two disconsolate children. As is demonstrated, technological
changes have taken place between the two films. The Terminator shows Kyle running
through a single department store in order to elude the police. In the second film a similar
scene has been replaced with a large shopping mall, a fitting symbol of mass consumption
and conformity. This conformity is echoed in the sequel when the T-800 (Arnold
schwarzenegger) explains “my CPU is a neural net processor, a learning computer but Skynet
pre-sets the switch to read only” (1991), to which Sarah responds “doesn’t want you to do
much thinking huh?!” (1991). From Frederic Jameson’s perspective, we are living in an age
where ‘the old individual or individualist subject is ‘dead” (Jameson, 1991:17). Similarly,
Herbert Marcuse pondered this very notion. Reflecting on Karl Marx’ ideas, Marcuse states
that reason would lead to the presupposition that technological advancement within an
advanced industrial civilisation would exert greater freedom for the individual (Marcuse,
1964:14). Marx then viewed technology within utopian terms, suggesting that it would
emancipate the human (Hughes, 2004:127) however, as has been argued by many of his
successors including Marcuse, the technology of advanced capitalism, including its by-

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product consumerism, has developed a false sense of emancipation. Contemporary society
has become ‘totalitarian’ (1964:14).
Whilst both films market themselves as revealing anxiety surrounding future technology as
becoming self-aware, they implicitly express a far more unnerving fear. Fundamentally our
military technologies are providing greater psychological distance between killer and victim
and video games provide a comparative mediation. By looking at a target on a screen the
emerging cyborg soldier need only press a button to cause human destruction. The soldier
becomes increasingly weaponised as well as physically and emotionally conditioned. This
produces a more efficient killing machine, which will ultimately renounce the self. Explored
further through the character of Sarah Connor – a soldier in transition – she serves to remind
us that this fragmentation is a very present threat. She oscillates between mimicking the T-
800 in her mechanistic functioning and her very human, maternal nature. Ultimately she opts
to retain her humanity so that the human-machine may at this point remain separated. A
further commentary is made on technological advancement as alienating us and disintegrating
the individual. In the six years between each film, products and devices have developed
exponentially, thus providing the Galleria shopping mall as a useful image to illustrate this
notion. Indeed, as Adorno and Horkheimer deplore ‘the fully enlightened earth radiates
disaster triumphant’ (1944:3). Technology then has not liberated us, it has only led to greater
confinement. It is however, worth remembering Kyle Reece’s enduring phrase, which Sarah
eventually adopts - “there is no fate but what we make for ourselves” (1984, 1991). The hope
is that we are not destined to become the shadow of the Terminator.

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Filmography
Aliens, 1986 [film]. Directed by James CAMERON. USA: Twentieth Century Fox
Manufacturing Consent – Noam Chomsky and the Media, 1992 [film]. Directed by Mark
ACHBAR & Peter WINTONICK. UK: British Film Institute
The Terminator, 1984 [film]. Directed by James CAMERON. USA: Hemdale Film
Terminator: Judgement Day, 1991 [film]. Directed by James CAMERON. USA: Carolco
Pictures

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