Terminator’s fantastic and real technology

Today, Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrates his 70th birthday, and in less than a month he will return to the screens in his main film. “ Terminator 2: Judgment Day ” will reappear in theaters in the updated 3D version. In Russia, the premiere will be held August 24, 2017.

As you can see, the interest in the fantastic action movie, which was released 26 years ago, has not disappeared so far. What is the reason for spectator interest? Of course, in this great merit of James Cameron, but the film has gained popularity not only because of the talent of the director. We just like good stories about the uprising of machines, artificial intelligence and cyborgs.

It is surprising that the story told in the language of science fiction is today taken for granted. We live in the world of drone drone, vast amounts of information, actively developing AI technologies and weapons, which every year becomes smarter. Therefore, for the geek culture today it is interesting to analyze the life and death of the Terminator from the point of view of real technical progress.

The famous teaser in which SkyNet’s Terminator factory was shown for the first time.

The article will focus on the "Terminator" and "Terminator 2". Because everything that follows, either borrows Cameron's original ideas - borrows again and again until you start to stir up repetition - or violates the laws of logic not only from the technical side of the issue, but also within your own universe. It would be a mistake to analyze from the point of view of the reality of the technology of history, which the writers themselves cannot figure out - good, they did it for them in many devastating reviews.

Yes, if you liked “ Terminator: Genesis ” and you want to learn more about time travel - you will learn more, but there will be no detailed analysis. Let us touch only the ideas that Cameron laid.

It is interesting to observe the difference in the approaches of Cameron and other writers. In the picture above, you see an image of actor Lance Henriksen, made up under the Terminator. According to Cameron's original idea, the Terminator should act covertly, not standing out in the crowd. And this is logical - if you are sent from the future into the past without any weapons in order to destroy the most important person in the history of mankind, you are unlikely to appear to the world as a two-meter pumped-up bodybuilder with a memorable face of a foreigner ... Although in the end it all happened.

And here you see a model created by a concept artist for the film “Terminator: Let the Savior Come” (such a Russian translation of Terminator Salvation). T-400 - Terminator with a plastic coating, armed with a plasma rifle.

And the work of Cameron, and the concept of an unknown artist in the end were not used in the films. In the case of the movie "Terminator", the original idea with an inconspicuous killing machine seems logical. In turn, the plastic-coated Terminator raises many questions in terms of the safety of such a device.

The image of the Terminator at Cameron was formed immediately - he just sketched his nightmare

Instead of actor Lance Henriksen, Arnold Schwarzenegger became the model of the 101 series T-800, although the studio initially called him to the role of 22-year-old Kyle Reese. Cameron, who sold the rights to the film for the sake of financing the filming, was strongly opposed, but could not have a significant impact on the producers. Fortunately, Arnold himself became more interested in the role of the machine. As a result, from the inconspicuous special agent T-800 became the embodiment of a formidable weapon of retaliation.

The director did not forget about Henriksen and gave him the role of another cyborg - in the film “Aliens”, which followed “The Terminator”

In our reality, robots that are truly capable of causing harm to humans look exactly like machines. No one is trying to disguise the automatic turret under something nondescript. There is a logic to this - the weapon must be frightening even before the active use phase. The enemy is demoralized from one type of high-tech soulless device.

The T-800 was preceded by other series of machines and many of them showed in the subsequent sequels of the films. There were Terminators that looked like cars, there were Terminators who ineptly disguised themselves as human with rubber masks. And, of course, ideal “copies” of people appeared - T-1000 from liquid metal and T-3000 from nanorobots. They could take any humanoid form, imitate voices, ideally integrate into human society.

T-1000 does not like when it's cold

Why precisely humanoid form? From the point of view of formal logic, there is only one restriction: a liquid metal can take any form within its scope. But seeing a dog or a T-1000 cat was not allowed to restrict the film’s budget. However, there is a scene in Terminator 2 where the T-1000 is firing from a helicopter. If you look closely, it will be noticeable that in order to control the rotary-wing machine at this moment Terminator raised two additional hands for himself.

In the fourth film, there appeared hydrotherminators living in the water, and mototerminators dissecting along the destroyed highway. However, all these devices looked primarily like cars, without much disguise. In addition to the human appearance, the Terminator T-800 had other masking features. His flesh consisted of real cells. In the script and in some scenes remote for a cinema show, special attention was paid to the features of the “human” structure of the Terminators: the T-800 plot sometimes needed to be there to maintain the normal state of the cells; The T-800 was also constantly sweating, because the flesh was tearing away the metal parts of the body.

By the way, mototerminators can appear in our reality. The Blue Team research team is working on a robotic motorcycle. Their Ghostrider Robot perfectly keeps balance, is able to recognize obstacles and go around them. Yes, and hydrotherminators should no longer surprise you - the Norwegian University created the snake robot Eelume. The robot is designed to work underwater, mainly the observation of oil and gas equipment.

As we know, modern machines do not have any problems with the flesh - they just are not familiar with it. And people who implant various implants in themselves easily carry small-sized devices. But we still experience significant problems with capacitive batteries - there are no suitable batteries that allow robots to function autonomously for a long time. It's funny that the T-800 in the original scenario had only one power source.

Variety of features

The fourth "Terminator" is remembered by the variety of roles of robots. There are just combat vehicles, there is a familiar T-800, there are hydrotherminators, flying machines, fighting house-like robots the size of a house, and also hybrids - machines that integrated the human brain.

The scenario, which was changed at the very last moment, “went to the garden” by Isaac Asimov and immediately reminded many stories about artificially created creatures. It first appeared Terminators, serving as a servant. There was a scene in which the Terminators-gardeners took care of the garden in a city inhabited by cyborg. By the way, this is not an original idea - a similar world of the future was described in the series of comics on the film "Terminator", published in the late 80s.

But the Terminator itself was not an original idea, inheriting many elements from science fiction of the 20th century. Inherited so intensely that the writer Harlan Ellison sued Cameron for court that the plot of The Terminator is an episode of the Twilight Zone series, the script of which the writer worked on the basis of his own story.

Machines that are not trying to kill everyone (it doesn't matter if they are with a human brain or on a microchip) are much closer to our present reality. In the comic books of the 80s, for the first time, there appears something that today, probably, it is quite possible to build without AI: female terminators, children terminators, dogs terminators.

Cameron initially had no “peaceful” cars. In the image above, you see the Centurion - this is a huge walking four-legged robot designed to protect Skynet's critical objects. Armed with plasma weapons.

In concepts for the T-2 was a lot of amazing technology. For example, a huge trilobite robot of an incomprehensible purpose (except for the main goal of all robots is the destruction of all humanity).

SkyNet's robotic train, which remained at the concept stage. Perhaps, if “Terminator” had a budget like “Avatar”, we would see a completely different film.

Something like a robotic train for many years tried to embody Giger on the screen. His nightmare train behind each car had a retractable scoop, which threw people running across the platform - it was chewed there, and thick blood ran through the train. The result was just 5 seconds of the train in the film “The Individual”, from which nothing is clearly clear. But there is still a chance to see the AI ​​hidden in the railroad cars - once, perhaps, the screen version of Stephen King’s Dark Tower will get to the plot about the train that has gone crazy.

We are still lucky that in the first films at least something got from the war of the future. On the screenshot above, you see the “Hunter Killer (HK) Drone”, but its larger, heavily armed version of the HK-Bomber, which is present in the concepts, remained only in the drawings.

Cameron drew the underground complex Skynet and even the time machine itself, but budget restrictions did not allow these objects to be displayed on the screen.

There was no money for the first “Terminator” and special effects were done in an artisanal way. The budget for "Terminator 2" was already exceeded, so the time machine was shown only in the fifth film. Although it would be better not show. From the point of view of the logic of time travel for the film "Genesis", too many questions arise.

Critics of the 4th Terminator often focus on the Skynet headquarters, which looks like a factory built by people. In the original concepts of Cameron, the factories are made by machines for machines and are a little like the creations of human hands.

You can see the similarity with the city of machines in the "Matrix" - another house for AI.

Real combat conditions

It’s not good for a car from the future to deal with people with bare hands, so the T-800 is armed with a Westinghouse M95A1 plasma rifle. Model made from a submachine gun Calico M960.

Tracked tanks appeared in the first film - huge armored vehicles weighing at least 100 tons.

Which of the above looks like reality?

Modern autonomous combat systems are closer to the classic weapons developed in the last thirty years. UAVs look like ordinary fighters, combat robots are simple wheeled, tracked or stationary platforms. A series of failures that accompanied Boston Dynamics led to the sale of the company. We still don’t have any real robots capable of performing at least auxiliary functions - delivering ammunition to soldiers.

However, there are significant similarities between some experimental samples and SkyNet equipment. Crusher - all-wheel drive robotic combat reconnaissance machine of all terrain, developed by order of DARPA National Engineering Center for Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. The 6-ton Crusher is designed to operate in an autonomous mode (outside military units) and to independently solve a wide range of combat missions with various weapon variants.

But this is already a Russian robot. In Russia, light-middle class robots are actively developing. In the first place - " Platform-M ". This is not a specific type of robot, but a whole family of machines built on the basis of a unified tracked chassis. Depending on the installed equipment, Platforma-M can be a fire support vehicle, a scout, a patrol and a sapper.

The weight of the robot is up to 800 kg, the payload is up to 300 kg, the radius of action is up to 1.5 km. Armament: Kalashnikov machine gun, grenade launcher, ATGM. The reservation protects the robot from small arms and small fragments. Platform-M is equipped with two 6.5 kW electric motors, the maximum speed is 12 km / h. Batteries last for 6-10 hours of movement.

There are more impressive models in our country. The BAS-01G “Companion” is a seven-ton mini-tank designed for semi-autonomous destruction of targets using a PKTM machine gun and Kornet-EM anti-tank missiles.

Robotic machine guns SGR-A1 (manufactured by Samsung) in test mode protect the border of South Korea. The first time the border guard robot was introduced more than 10 years ago and since then has been constantly being upgraded. Equipped with a 5.56-mm machine gun, grenade launchers, numerous sensors, thanks to which it can automatically identify and hit targets at a distance of up to 3.2 kilometers.

Beautiful drone X-47B is able to solve various combat missions in a fully autonomous mode. At the moment, the program X-47B is frozen due to the high cost (or, perhaps, so reported for hiding information), but in the UK are developing a similar concept drone Taranis. The mass of the British drone is about eight tons with a length of 12.4 meters, a height of four meters and a wingspan of ten meters. And, of course, he is able to carry weapons.

Experiments with liquid metal is one of the most promising areas of research in the field of metal physics. Scientists from the University of North Carolina have developed a method for controlling the movement and shapes of gallium alloy droplets, the melting point of which is below room temperature. Unfortunately, for the time being, it is possible to control the metal using electrical voltage only in water.

Self-propelled liquid metal was developed by a group of scientists under the leadership of Professor Kurosh Kalantar-zade. Scientists used a chemical solution in which, by changing the acidity and ionic composition, the researchers managed to control the movement of the metal droplets.

Separate parts of the T-800 have already been created (with the exception of the notorious power source and processor with AI). An electronic implant of the retina that transmits an image from a camera over a wireless network is installed to restore vision - why not a bionic eye ?! Roboruka does not surprise anyone, but there is a KATIA project - not just a robot hand, but a mechanism capable of self-learning.

Conclusion

We have already written about individual successes in the field of artificial intelligence. Here, scientists look at the process with great optimism. In the films, AI played the role of the code, which was pulled from different programs. So TX from the third part is generally running on Mac OS 9 and updates itself with Quicktime Player in its non-routine time.

But the future of the Terminator franchise is a big question. In 2019, the rights to the film will be returned to James Cameron. Cameron announced his intention to restart the story of "Terminator" and give the fans three more new pictures about cyborg-killers. Can these films remain relevant in our time, when so much of what was previously considered to be science fiction in the times of the first two films becomes reality?

Sources:

Terminatorium

http://www.jamescamerononline.com/T2FAQ.htm

Terminator Wiki | FANDOM

Kirill Razmyslovich: Script Reviews