Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Westworld Season 4.
In many ways,WestworldSeason 4 is what the laterTerminatormovies wanted to be — a depiction of humanity’s ongoing war against the machines. Bythe season finale, the machines won. But why is this season ofWestworldmore appealing than the cyber apocalypse depicted in the laterTerminatorsequels(Rise of the Machines,Salvation,Genisys,Dark Fate)? Each successiveTerminatorsequel comes with diminishing returns, perhaps because of the franchise’s refusal to detach itself from the ’80s and ’90s, capitalizing onJames Cameron’sTerminatorandTerminator 2: Judgment Dayandthe returning cast ofArnold SchwarzeneggerandLinda Hamilton.
On the other hand, HBO’sWestworldcontinuously takes risks. Even though Season 1 was reminiscent of the1973 filmandMichael Chrichton’s original novel it was based on, each successive season isn’t afraid to change settings, reinvent its narrative structure, and kill off characters.Terminatorseems to be only interested in one story, that of the Connors and their ongoing war with the machines with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 sprinkled in between. The success ofWestworld,however, is in the show’s ability to enrich both human and machine characters and their stories.Westworldis still about the robot apocalypse, but it depicts it in a more personal and innovative way thanTerminator’s attachment to past entries of the franchise.
Both theTerminatorfranchise andWestworldhave approached how a human can be turned into a machine. InTerminator Salvation, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) volunteers to a military initiative, essentially allowing his body to be given mechanical and cybernetic parts connecting him to Skynet. Marcus comes to terms with the realization that he is now a machine, but not without resistance. When he finds out that he was used by Skynet to lure and kill John Connor (Christian Bale), he destroys his link to the AI system and allows John and the Resistance to win the battle. In a better-written film, Sam Worthington’s Marcus Wright could have delivered a more powerful arc surrounding his loss of humanity. His scene opposite Christian Bale’s John Connor, in which John asks him, “Do you think you’re human?” shows the kind of existential crisis a person can go through upon discovering their cybernetic transformation. Instead,Salvationtries to give us something new that ultimately is more of the same — John Connor, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), and the return of the T-800.
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This kind of existential reckoning is handled much better inWestworldthrough the character of Caleb (Aaron Paul). Caleb, too, has had military experience like Marcus, but there’s more to his story than just some lone soldier who volunteers himself for a greater cause. InWestworldSeason 3, Caleb is an “outlier” of the Rehoboam system, a predictive AI system that essentially dictates every person’s path in life. Recruited by the rogue host Delores (Evan Rachel Wood), Caleb becomes a pseudo-John Connor, the human leader of the resistance against Rehoboam and its oppressive hold over every person’s life.
By Season 4, it seems that Caleb, with the help of Maeve (Thandiwe Newton), has destroyed all traces of Rehoboam. But Caleb is quickly pulled back into the battle as Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), a more sinister copy of Delores, enacts another plan to control all of humanity. He leaves his wife and daughter Frankie to keep them safe and to finally end their fight against Hale. Caleb thinks that he and Maeve have a fighting chance, but he soon finds out that he has, in actuality, lost.In a compelling plot twist, Caleb comes to the realization that he has been remembering these events over and over again as a host.In Season 4, Episode 4, “Generation Loss,” Hale reveals to a now artificial version of Caleb that he died 23 years ago. In Episode 6, “Fidelity,” as Caleb tries to escape his captivity, we see that there have been numerous copies of Caleb, some of which have tried to escape before. These episodes ofWestworldshow the kind of existential conundrum thatTerminator Salvationmerely hinted at with the character of Marcus Wright.
Additionally, there is more to Caleb than just a person coming to terms with his loss of humanity. He is also a father to a now grown-up Frankie (Aurora Perrineau). Frankie not only inherited her father’s skills and training but also his role as a leader of the resistance against Hale, the Man in Black/William (Ed Harris), and other machines. She is one of the many outliers who’ve escaped Hale’s parasitical devices that give her control. Caleb’s longing to see his daughter and to save Frankie from his own fate is at the heart ofWestworldSeason 4. This emotional component has been missing from theTerminatorfranchise sinceT2’s mother-son relationship between Sarah and John Connor.
There have been other humans-turned-machine characters inTerminator. InGenisys, John Connor (Jason Clarke) — for some reason — decides that it’s actually a good idea to become more machine than human. InDark Fate, Grace (McKenzie Davis) is introduced as an “enhanced” human from the future designed to fight terminators. However, in both cases, there is very little analysis or examination of the existential or emotional repercussions of such a transformation.Westworld’s Caleb Nichols, on the other hand, gives us a compelling tragedy about a father’s desperate attempt to save his daughter from a world ruled by machines.
Just asWestworldenriches its human characters with philosophical and emotional challenges, the show gives its robotic, AI characters the same complex development and story arcs. In theTerminatormovies, Skynet is the big, overall villain that enslaves and kills most of humanity. But for the most part, Skynet lacks a compelling motivation, other than the goal of human extinction. InGenisys, there is an attempt to give more character to Skynet, not only by turning John Connor into a villain but also by introducingMatt Smithas Skynet’s personification. But Smith had very little to do, as Skynet was still not much of a character.
Rather than a generic, faceless, and motive-less Skynet,Westworldgives us rich characters in Delores, Hale, andBernard(Jeffrey Wright), among others. By the end of season 4, William is also now a full-on sentient machine as he kills the original, human Man in Black. Ever since Season 1, Delores Abernathy has had an engaging journey, from a damsel-in-distress host at a theme park to a fully realized sentient being. She is so complex that by Season 4, Delores has had multiple iterations, most recently as Hale andChristina. Delores’ shifting point of view, from her vengeful rage against her human creators to her alliance with Caleb and their resistance, is more appealing than a generic, “kill all humans” motivation like Skynet’s. Though the laterTerminatormovies try to give Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 a more “fleshed” out story, like how he becomes a father figure toEmilia Clarke’s Sarah Connor inGenisysand howhe finds an adoptive family as “Carl” inDark Fate, he is ultimately reduced to his physical prowess as a machine rather than given the intellectual, and even human, motivations ofWestworld’s hosts.
That isn’t to sayWestworlddoesn’t have its fair share of action like theTerminatorfilms. ButWestworldshows that the story of the robot apocalypse can be more than just special effects and action spectacle. With human characters like Caleb and AI characters like Delores,Westworldelevates its story by playing both sides, blurring the lines between humans and machines. These layers of emotional and philosophical depth allow forWestworld’s story to unfold in unexpected ways. On the other hand, theTerminatorfilms are almost always beholden to James Cameron’s films. Each new movie boasts its place in the franchise as the true sequel toCameron’sT2. But if the franchise is to achieve success with modern audiences, perhaps it’s time to let go of what came before.What theTerminatorfranchise needs, and whatWestworldalready demonstrates season after season, is to hit the “reset button” and to take a risk by truly rebooting the franchise for the twenty-first century.
