Culture The Terminator Scene That Aged Poorly

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Looper (Archive) - December 13, 2021
by, Carolyn Jenkins

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"The Terminator" had a multitude of timelines, sequels, and reboots, proving that James Cameron's story of a robot war and a messiah meant to stop it continues to resonate for generations of fans. The original 1984 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger maintains a 100% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And while "The Terminator" has many elements that have stood the test of time, not everything about it is perfect.

Most recently, the 2019 film "Terminator: Dark Fate" course-corrected many original elements that may not have aged well. Female representation is present even more than in the first film, as new Terminator Grace (Mackenzie Davis) defends her female counterpart Dani (Natalia Reyes) in the movie. "Terminator: Dark Fate" was also praised for calling out its sexism (via The Hollywood Reporter). Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) assumes that Dani is the mother of another messiah. Instead, it is revealed Dani herself is the messiah and is meant to lead the human race into salvation. This addition to the franchise has made some aspects of the original film more palatable. Even with this correction, one scene from "The Terminator" is more jarring the more times you watch it.

Sarah's personality changes in the last scene

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In the span of a movie franchise that has spanned over three decades, Sarah Connor is considered a feminist icon by many. Director James Cameron has lauded his character for her contribution to feminism. "She was strong, she was troubled, she was a terrible mother, and she earned the respect of the audience through pure grit," Cameron said in an interview with The Guardian. But as Patty Jenkins pointed out on Twitter, women can be more than one thing. This makes Sarah's sudden transformation in the final scene of "The Terminator" a poor representation of women.

After Sarah learns that her son John is meant to lead the human resistance in a fight against machines, she immediately sheds all femininity. In the movie's final scene, Sarah is suddenly hard and tough, with all previous traces of her personality erased. Many fans on Twitter agree that this has not aged well. "James Cameron subscribes to the problematic & entangled Ripley/Sarah Connor movie trope that strong women have to act/look a certain way," states @JBraverman1 on Twitter. Some fans on Reddit agree to this point. "Notice that the characters they cite as 'strong female characters' are basically characters who are strong in spite of being women than strong because they're women," says Redditor u/rattatatouille. This scene implies that in order to be significant, women have to act more like men and give up any traits that are coded as feminine.
 
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Oh for fucks sake Sarah Connor didn't care about being significant she cared about surviving killbots. Femininity would be absofuckinglutely of 0 use once skynet took over.
 
When shit hits the fan, makeup, dresses, long fingernails and friendly, compassionate attitudes are the first shit to go unless you want to die.

Also... Being chased by a near-unkillable death-machine and having a whole substation full of cops murdered right in front of you might change your disposition pretty fucking fast.
 
After Sarah learns that her son John is meant to lead the human resistance in a fight against machines, she immediately sheds all femininity. In the movie's final scene, Sarah is suddenly hard and tough, with all previous traces of her personality erased. Many fans on Twitter agree that this has not aged well. "James Cameron subscribes to the problematic & entangled Ripley/Sarah Connor movie trope that strong women have to act/look a certain way," states @JBraverman1 on Twitter. Some fans on Reddit agree to this point. "Notice that the characters they cite as 'strong female characters' are basically characters who are strong in spite of being women than strong because they're women," says Redditor u/rattatatouille. This scene implies that in order to be significant, women have to act more like men and give up any traits that are coded as feminine.
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so what the fuck was the point of this?

How do you show femininity in a fight? Best you can have is showing physically sexy feminine traits, but that's about it.
 
Person realizes that the literal fate and weight of the world is on their shoulders and nuts up to face the challenge ahead.

Nah, just scrap the whole movie. Because this is how it starts. First it's this complaint, then they start asking why the first two Terminators played into male action tropes and obscene male violence, then we posit why the "hero" of the resistance was a man who probably raped and pillaged women and left no room for progressive sensibilities in his war-torn hellhole and finally we've decided to just cancel the first two terminator movies altogether because they are just not up to modern standards despite being technically brilliant with a solid premise, good screenplays, great action and flawless execution.

The remake will be out in two years. Please consume.
 
Love to hear a movie be critiqued by someone who wasn't even alive when it first came out. "You don't know anything, you were born twenty minutes ago! Your hair's still wet from the fucking womb!"

 
Sarah Connor at least in the 2 first movies is very well-written.
I don't simply touch anything about the franchise after Judgment Day. 3 for me was the last nail in the coffin, and the first.
 
LOL. So assuming a man is the leader of the resistance is bad, yet Sarah/Ripley actually acting like tough leaders is bad as well.

Never mind that the actual point, especially in both T2 and Alien 2, is that Sarah/Ripley's feminine and motherly instincts to protect those they love is what is actually driving them to be strong leaders. Sarah is driven to action by the goal of protecting John and Ripley is driven to action by the goal of protecting Newt.

The leader should be a tiny girl with absolutely no leadership qualities or skills whatsoever and no motherly instincts because she has no children to protect. People told her that she was the most important person evar and she got dragged around by everyone else because the plot said so, with her moments of coming across as a leader were laughable at best.

So Dark Fate took away the entire storyline of protecting and sacrificing for the next generation because the little girl IS the best after she was told so. She made absolutely no character growth on her own because she had no reason to do so and no personal stakes on the line.

Sometimes it's hard trying to figure out what it is the author of articles like this actually wants, and then I remember that what the author wants is just to bitch about oppression.
 
The writer of the article doesn't realize that the last scene of the film takes place months after the ending. So Sarah has had time to change personalities. Also what Mandrake said.
 
I thought I had seen former woke journos praising the likes of Ripley, Sarah Connor and Furiosa for representing nonstandard forms of feminity and being role models for tomboys and butches.

Oh well, guess newspeak has changed form again.

Since wokes are incapable of writing any proper sequels to classic films can't they just let good sci-fi die in peace instead?
 
After Sarah learns that her son John is meant to lead the human resistance in a fight against machines, she immediately sheds all femininity. In the movie's final scene, Sarah is suddenly hard and tough, with all previous traces of her personality erased. Many fans on Twitter agree that this has not aged well. "James Cameron subscribes to the problematic & entangled Ripley/Sarah Connor movie trope that strong women have to act/look a certain way," states @JBraverman1 on Twitter. Some fans on Reddit agree to this point. "Notice that the characters they cite as 'strong female characters' are basically characters who are strong in spite of being women than strong because they're women," says Redditor u/rattatatouille. This scene implies that in order to be significant, women have to act more like men and give up any traits that are coded as feminine.
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I like how they admit that their view of femininity is to be a useless sack of shit deadweight when SHTF. Learning skills that will be useful to accomplish goals and attacking the problem head-on is masculine, apparently.

Like, what is the appropriate "feminine" way to act here? To put on a dress and cry? Wait for the big strong man to save you? Curse the Patriarchy? Can't be proactive here and actually do something meaningful, no no, that isn't ladylike.

Sarah knows the boogeyman is real and it is coming to kill everyone. She then steps up and takes control of her own destiny. This is what strong people do. Sorry you ladies are such entitled lazy parasites to recognize that.
 
Article left out the part about Sarah ackshually being an FTM and that's the reason the movies were testosterone-soaked anti-feminist affairs.

Just a bunch of bio-dudes, trans-dudes and robo-dudes shooting each other full of dick-shaped bullets out of their surrogate-dick guns.
 
I just realized that The Terminator is about the internet doxing the leader of a hate group and getting his mom swatted. The T-800 is basically a glowie infiltrator ("how do you do, fellow humans?"). He even fucks up and gets the wrong person twice, typical. The only part of the movie that aged badly is that it was overly optimistic about the future.
 
I love how they claim she threw away all her femininity in that last scene.

Only some "born 20 minutes ago" vapid ignorant bitch would look at a woman dressed in 80's GRRL PWR! getup, driving a fucking jeep, with a fucking dog (which, you know, can sense terminators ala flashbacks and the motel scene), and think she threw away her femininity.

Hard and tough? She buys the photo off the kid even knowing she's being hustled.

Whoever wrote this is a retard who's father should have pulled out and blow his load on the mattress instead.
 
"better gender representation" meaning some of the evil future killbots are wearing female skinsuits is peak clown world shit. gee I wonder why all the Terminators, which, if we're gonna be generous about the depth of the lore here, are built to be multifarious adaptable killing machines with a high degree of physical strength and resilience, have stocky masculine frames instead of looking like sexy thotbots. are they saying the female frame isn't built for physical strength? that women can't reach the same strength limit as men? incredibly problematic. if they wanted to be actually correct about it, all the "female" Terminators would be played by extremely obviously masculine-framed troonbominations like that dude from Orange is the New Black. hey look, better trans representation! 20th Century Fox hire me cowards

PS throw in an extra stipend to help me start up a gigolo service and I'll have all these fussy culture op-ed writer imbeciles turned into tradwives in a hot minute
 
Salubrious said:
Never mind that the actual point, especially in both T2 and Alien 2, is that Sarah/Ripley's feminine and motherly instincts to protect those they love is what is actually driving them to be strong leaders. Sarah is driven to action by the goal of protecting John and Ripley is driven to action by the goal of protecting Newt.
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Oh yeah both of those movies are heavy on the maternal themes. Momma bear protecting her cub.

In the Terminator the character arc is a transition from childhood to adulthood. Sarah goes from being a dopey carefree child to being a fully grown mature adult with serious responsibilities that she knows how to handle confidently. In the beginning she is weak and scared and unsure of herself but her experiences and the help she gets makes her into a stronger person who can address the world on her terms.

This same arc is then repeated in the second movie with John's character.
 
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