Thursday, 21 May 2009

  • "I'll be back."

    Saw The Terminator for the first time tonight. I was commenting on how unimpressive the situation was in which that famous statement was made, and then he came back. Ah! After 25 years, I finally get it. Don't stone me, please. I'm about ten years older than Sarah Connor and the ads made it look like a "guy movie" that was all about fighting and blowing things up.

    But now I get why so many women like the movie(s). Sarah looks kind of like someone I knew back in the 60s [Odd case where the movie star isn't quite a cute as the "ordinary" person.] I can really see the appeal to women. And it's not naked men or romantic interludes. She's just like us. Sarah starts out so ordinary. Actually, through the whole movie she remains fairly normal, everyday type in a not every day situation. What makes her remarkable is not so much that she rose to the demands of the situation, but that she didn't fall apart afterward, as attested to by the fact that she was in such a dire situation (and Kyle's statements).

    It really makes me think. My nephew is almost exactly John's age and my son is only a few months older. Could I have raised him to be a John Connor? I honestly don't know. (If my sister knew what Sarah Connor knew, she could have!) I think I could rise to a drastic situation 95% of the time, but to live in preparation for what was to come, to know what was to come and prepare my child for it... I really doubt it. I'd have been a basket case after that thing was finally "dead." I have no doubts that I can make it in the world as it is, should I need to, but I have like having someone to lean on. The daydreamer in me says "Of course I could do it," and I'd like to believe it, but the realist is not sure at all.

    Is this the sort of thing other women think about after this movie?

    Shoot! I don't even know any women my age who have seen it. Most of the women I know here on LJ who have seen it were born in the 70's and 80's. Was Sarah a great role model? She sure beats Lucy, Jeannie, Samantha, Laura Petrie or even Lt Uhura (though she's much closer than the rest). [And isn't it sad that those are the only names I can even think of -- oh, yeah, Della Street and, briefly Lois Lane (who I suspect you wouldn't even recognize from the movies or later TV show). Of course, when I was a kid my dad ruled the TV. Maybe there was someone stronger, but I doubt it.]

    The creepy thing about the movie was it was the defense computers that went wacko -- and this was before 9/11. I wonder if the young people who grew up on these movies had a fear that it was/is really going to happen when 9/11 happened, that 9/11 was a precursor.* Anyway, we know that people have gone a bit haywire over national security. I'm not sure that computers can become in any way sentient (Sorry, Data), but they can be programmed by nut cases who think they know what they are doing and it's not impossible that a program could be mutated (intentionally or otherwise) to ensure total destruction. I don't think it would come to the same course of events (machines taking over), but I don't doubt that it could create a serious world wide nuclear war. People could quite possibly create events similar to the Terminator aftermath.

    It came to me as I was writing that last paragraph, that this is a Cold War** era movie. As I grew up, I pushed deeper a lot of my Cold War fears, already acknowledged only in my dreams. Mr Bush woke them up. Even now, when I hear a military jet go overhead, a part of me tenses in fear. I can't imagine living with that kind of fear minute to minute.

    I've been rambling. I haven't really thought a lot about this. Tomorrow I will see the second movie and on Saturday or Sunday night, I'll see the third. I'll possibly have more to say after each and I already want to see the new movie (although I assume Sara isn't in it -- but I've been wrong before, too).

    Ten years ago, I wouldn't even have watched this movie. Back in the late '90s I remember my son liking it and saying it was good. I respect his taste in movies, and did then, but it still wasn't enough to induce me to watch it. (But he got me to aee all 4 Alien movies!?!?) A good part of the credit for my change of mind/heart has been reading about Sarah Connor on LJ. You gals rock!***
    _____________________________________
    *The scary thing is that sometimes things do follow fiction. I recently read a story written in 1998 that pretty accurately described 9/11, except that in the story it was one plane going for the Capitol building and succeeded. Don't forget there was a plane headed for the White House that the passengers foiled. Had someone on that plane read the story?

    **Interesting article about the end of the Cold War that I found while verifying that the movie was made before it ended.

    *** Try not to laugh at my attempt to sound "with it" or whatever the current terminology is. The sentiment is real, even if the specific phrasing is a bit unfamiliar to my lips.

    Currently
    The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits
    By Gregg Braden
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