What we talk about when we talk about The Terminator

I've been trying to figure out why I care so much about The Terminator and its first sequel, and have been mildly disappointed with all its subsequent iterations. Age has a great deal to do with it, I'm sure: the two films bridge my high school and college years, and like music, films often make the greatest impact in one's youth. Still, in my typical self-congratulatory manner, I like to think there's a bit more to it than that.

(I suppose I should insert a spoiler alert here, as I will be discussing points in a metanarrative kind of way. But why would you still be reading if you didn't already know these movies intimately?)

All the Terminator movies take place in a timeline in which, at some future date (called "Judgment Day"), a computer program takes over the world and very nearly wipes out humanity. Of the five films, in the last three the protagonists are attempting to either prevent Judgment Day or reverse its consequences. That's a plot point in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but as in its predecessor, is not the main conflict.

The Terminator (1984) is remarkably simple: a cyborg from the future tries to kill a young woman, who is protected by a human soldier sent back from the same future. It's one long chase sequence, one narrow escape after another, ending only when, against wildly improbably odds, said cyborg is destroyed with great difficulty, mayhem, and collateral death.

For those of us of a certain age, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) was a revelation because it told THE EXACT SAME STORY, except that this time the protector is another cyborg who looks exactly like the terrifying cyborg from the first film. It was thus able to tap into all the emotional resonance of the first installment while simultaneously disorienting the audience and upending all expectations.

That disorientation was important because the first two Terminators retold one of our most primordial and universal nightmares: you are being chased by something terrifying, and wake up screaming just as it catches you. Those movies are about running away, and their conclusions provide such satisfying relief because, after all those sweaty nights, we finally, even if only vicariously through the magnificent Linda Hamilton, escape.

The next three installments are about achieving a goal, but achievement can never be as certain or absolute as escape. Moreover, the protagonists must decide to move toward their objectives, whereas one never has to decide to escape danger: it's a simple, thoughtless, and absolutely necessary instinct.

The first two Terminator films succeed so marvelously because they retell a universally shared nightmare and promise an escape from it. Until the franchise can figure out how to tell us that story again, all its installments will leave us a little bit disappointed.