I’ve been binging the Terminator movies randomly and a weird question popped in my mind at 3 in the morning. How do the machines lose? I know the original movie, and I mean original original movie, was about how Skynet’s plan is to send a terminator back in time to kill resistance leader John Connor’s mother, thus killing the future savior of humanity.

Then the second movie comes around and Skynet sends another terminator back in time to kill John Connor. And then the third one comes around to Skynet sending back another terminator to kill Connor and his lieutenants. Needless to say the plot of the Terminator franchise repeat themselves alittle.

Now back to the question. How do the machines lose in the future? In the first Terminator, the machines sent back a T-800 model played by the hulking Arnold Schwarzenegger. In that movie, the T-800 was unstoppable. It killed an entire police department with no trouble. It got hit by cars, shot, blew up and kept coming. Ultimately being crushed under a hydraulic press, but before that it did a ton of damage.

 The movie even showed what Earth looked like during the war with the machines. We aren’t doing very well in that fight. What’s left of humanity is hiding underground and barely able to fend off the massive robot army.

In the sequel, we have another T-800 return as a good guy and we are introduced to the T-1000, a robot comprised of liquid metal who can shapeshift, form his arms into swords and other weapons and take endless amounts of damge. Again, we get a glimpse into the future of hundreds of T-800s walking across the destroyed cities of the world. The T-800, even though he’s a good guy, goes through an entire SWAT team, taking bullets to the face and keeps coming. And the T-1000 finally met its end after being outsmarted, but for most of the movie he was winning.

In the third movie we are introduced to the T-X which is comprised of a metal skeleton and has the liquid metal on top. This lets it use the same spike arms and also be able to shoot out laser beams and use other gadgets.

So the point I’m making, is how does a robot army lose the battle. This isn’t like Mel Gibson rallying the famers against the British. This is clearly a no-win situation. As we’ve seen in the previous films, we are losing this battle.

In Terminator Salvation we actually get a movie centered around the battle for the humanity against the machines. And in that one we are shown massive Terminators the size of buildings, motorcycle robots and massive air crafts that take hostages.

The Terminators get deadlier with each film and even though Dark Fate was terrible, I thought the concept of a Terminator who can separate from its liquid metal to make 2 Terminators was a cool addition.

And with the last 2 movies in the franchise were reboots, I don’t think the creators actually have a realistic way the humans win. Even copying the Terminators concept of going back in time to stop Skynet and Legion before it ever gets started is a concept that would get old fast.

Its sad to see a franchise that started off so strong go downhill in just a few short movies. Unless they throw some serious money into the script or have a solid, multi movie plan, then this series will never return back to its glory days.

Let me know what you guys think about the Terminator franchise moving forward and what changes need to be made.

Simptastic Joe