Robots, Androids, and Cyborgs

In the opening scene of James Cameron’s Terminator (1984), cyborg T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) travels from the year 2029 to 1984 (the present) via a device known as Time Displacement Equipment. When he arrives in the present it’s late at night, it’s an industrial setting, and he’s completely naked. Crouched low to the ground, his head tucked into his chest, arms relaxed by his side, hands resting on the ground, T-101 rises with a slow, steady, highly controlled movement during which there is no extraneous motion. His spine slowly straightens until he is standing head rising to rest atop an aligned neck, arms straight along his sides. T-101’s “hyper-alloy combat chassis” stands there as motionless as a stone statue. After a moment’s pause, the cyborg begins to slowly scan his new environment, his head turning in a 180-degree arc, his chin moving on a plane horizontal with the ground. As he scans the environment, he cognitively defines and categorizes each object with no apparent emotional commitment to any single object. He begins to walk, his feet exactly parallel and pointing straight ahead, his legs in direct alignment under his spine, his torso motionless as his head continues to scan the industrial wasteland, his head pivoting from side to side on a horizontal plane. Coming upon three hoodlums, T-101 quickly scans the thugs, his focus suddenly shifting on the thug who most resembles himself in shape and body mass. All other perceptual input takes a backseat in his concentration on this punk. When his demands for the man’s clothes are met with poorly considered guffaws and the display of switchblades, T-101 strikes. In a series of rapid fire, precisely measured movements the cyborg lays waste to the three ruffians and claims a set of clothing for himself.