The Terminator
Well, her certainly looks the most evil-roboty of all the evil robots so far doesn't he. He was a bit of a sod too when it came to butchering people. The Terminator is essentially a superior killing machine of great strength and durability encased in living flesh so that he can kill better. The resultant cyborg is sent back to the '80s by Skynet (a kind of man-made, computer, uber-intelligence that rules Earth in the future) to kill Sarah Connor who will eventually have a child that will lead the resistance to the machines back in the future. Still with me? Good, well hang on tight 'cos this is where it gets bumpy. Back in the future, John Connor (Sarah's son) learns that Arnie has been sent back to kill his mum before she has him and sends back a bloke to stop the Terminator. Now this bloke (Michael Biehn) is clearly not much of a match for the robot/Arnie death machine and he soon gets the chop but not before he's had a bit of nooky with Sarah Connor thus getting her preggers with the bloke who sends him back to protect her. Still there, well hold on...
Eventually Sarah traps Arnie and the film ends with the future looking rosy because her baby is fine and the Terminator got squashed flat. Or so it would seem...
In Terminator 2. Judgement Day it's revealed that Skynet (remember them) actually came about when the remains of the Terminator were found in the machine room where Sarah rather stupidly left him lying around for any well meaning but misguided, techno-genius to find. It also turns out that Skynet, knowing they'd failed, sent back the even more serious and fiersome T-1000 (who's a liquid metal terminator and can turn his arms into big, fuck-off knives and stuff) to do in John Connor in his bratty, American, teenage, motorcycle riding, parent-annoying years. John Connor in the future knows this however (by virtue of it being an historical fact to him) and sends back a second protector in the form of a captured and reprogrammed Arnie-style terminator. I don't know about you but just typing this load of old nonsense is doing my swede in.
Naturally old iron-balls Arnie wins and they manage to stop the creation of Skynet too which puts a smile on everyone's faces.
But hang on a minute. Who's that foxy, naked chick that's just materialised out of thin air in a ball of lightning and smoke? Why it's Terminator 3!
Now Skynet is clearly not a happpy puppy (computerised puppy) and he's knocked up this new experimental Terminator (the T-X to be precise) who can create proper weapons, like laser guns and flamethrowers, inside of herself and he's despatched her through time (must be choca-bloc in that ol' time macine room by now) to locate and kill John Connor, his future wife (who's now running about with him) and his lieutenants. But Arnie's back again to stop her. To add yet another wriggle to the crazy, melon-twisting plot Arnie has been sent back this time not by John, but by his wife! Arnie reveals this particular nugget of craziness to John Connor and then goes on to tell him that he was reprogrammed by his missus shortly after he himself killed Mr. Connor. It's all going to Hell in a handcart now isn't it.
In a rather melancholy end to the trilogy, John Connor is tricked by his bird's Dad (who's heading up the Skynet project) into trapping himself in a Cold War-era VIP fallout shelter called Crystal Peak, by making them believe that it is where the Skynet mainframe is located. The nukes fly and the trilogy ends with a glimmer of hope as John takes up the mantel of leader that destiny has marked for him.
Now, for anyone not in a coma, here's a little treat. It's the very first terminator as seen in T3. He's called the T1-8 and I kinda like him.
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