I’d watched about half of The Terminator when I said “I’ll be back” to my screen and began to ponder what I’d watched. First thoughts included how bad ass and violent the Terminator is. He is the ultimate killing machine, and I would be just as scared as Sarah if I knew he was after me. I enjoyed the fight scenes and the tension pervading the movie. However, the fundamental and crazy idea in this movie is that someone could go back into the past to change the future.
The Terminator's purpose is to kill Sarah, whose survival is necessary to the birth of the rebellion against the bad guys. By killing her, he is supposed to make the rebellion never come into existence. Doing so would stop this specific rebellion started by a specific person at a specific time, but there are infinite possible futures and it’s possible that different rebellion might spring up. The people who sent back the Terminator certainly understood this, but they were being defeated by the rebellion and were desperate.
This idea of changing the past intentionally is also present in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, where Harry and Hermione use a Time-Turner to go back in time to save a griffin and Harry’s uncle from death. As Hermione explains before they do this, they must not be seen by anybody or they will cause unintended consequences such as making their other selves go crazy.
Time-travel is tricky stuff. It’s certainly unnatural and something humans should never have access to because it would be an extremely powerful tool, which humans are notorious for misusing. Time travel eliminates the one certainty we all face - death after living, and could be used to make small changes that affect the future hugely. Is it ethical? I don’t think it would be ethical to use, but, like an atomic bomb, it could be used for the right reasons or for the wrong ones.
