Creator Versus Creation

In the world of The Terminator, humans have created machines only to have the machines turn against humans. If this somehow reminds you of Frankenstein and his monster, then you are on the right track. The battle of a creator versus his or her creation is a longstanding motif that hearkens back to Biblical writings. How and why does a creation begin to oppose its creator? Can the creator survive?

Such concerns lie at the heart of The Terminator. However, rather than talking about God and his people or Frankenstein and his monster, The Terminator suggests a battle to which people in contemporary times can quite easily relate: man versus machine. Playing on both traditional philosophical and religious preoccupations of the past and newer technology-inspired fears about the future, The Terminator seeks to address the question of whether machines might someday take over Earth and destroy...