Terminator and Philosophy: I’ll Be Back, Therefore I Am Review

The Terminator series of movies, comics books, and associated canon-related texts have always been an interesting read. From Wiley, another entry in their philosophy series, this time various philosophers discuss the universe that the characters in the Terminator movies reside in; in comparison with philosophical theories.

It’s sad that the movies and television series are only discussed in this book, the other media-related entries in the Terminator universe had expanded the world post Terminator 2 in positive ways. Expanding mainly from the first two movies by James Cameron, the comics dealt with the post-Terminator 2 time line, which was effectively destroyed by the third (and lackluster) film in the franchise.

In Terminator and Philosophy, there’s a fifty-fifty split between the interesting and repetitive in regards to the essays written by the contributors. One possible issue is that when considering the three films in the series, as a more visual media, the themes and philosophical elements are a bit more straightforward than other media, such as novels or sequential art.

That’s not to say there aren’t interesting essays in the book. Part Three: Changing What’s Already Happened contain many complex discussions of time and the paradoxes that the Terminator films created.

Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles are also included in many of the essays and another point is brought up through them. When the time line of Terminator is laid out, Terminator and Terminator 2 follow each other with little issues.

But the inclusions of Terminator 3 and Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles create more universe time paradoxes for the series overall.

I do enjoy Terminator: SCC, but there is a certain lack of the Terminator universe feel in the series, and the inclusions of that series in some of the essays actually weakens the arguments the writers are creating.

I believe that the format of the book placed many of the stronger essays in the front of the book, because the last two sections, The Ethics of Termination and Beyond the Neural Net, lost a lot of the energy that the first few sections had. There were some misplaced interpretations about the CPU of the model T-800 that plays such a large part in the movies.

Terminator and Philosophy: I’ll Be Back, Therefore I Am is only for fans who want everything related to the Terminator franchise. The book doesn’t really expand on many important themes as a whole, and appears to cover a lot of topics and reoccurring plot points on a very surface level.

The book isn’t bad, but it’s just not compelling enough to actively search for.