The Terminator (1984): what the film got right about AI

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 05:00:00 -0300

The first time I watched The Terminator, what stuck was the leather-jacketed robot and the line everybody imitates. Rewatching it now, the scene that weighs the most is the quietest one: the T-800 phones a house, imitates Sarah Connor's mother's voice and finds out where she is. In 1984 it was a plot device. In 2026 it is a scam with a name, a price tag and victims.

The film in a few lines

The film opened in the United States on October 26, 1984, directed by James Cameron, who wrote it with Gale Anne Hurd. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the T-800, a cyborg sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), and Michael Biehn is Kyle Reese, the soldier who follows it back to protect her. It was a cheap production, around six million dollars, and it earned tens of millions at the box office, which paid for the whole franchise. Cameron often says the idea came from a dream of a metal skeleton rising out of a fire.

The Terminator on Locodigital

The Terminator (1984): what the film got right about AI

The film in a few lines