trappedslider
Legend
Only at the sense of humor commentDid you laugh at Arnie?
Id say the nuclear war premise is more relevant more now than then. Back then it was beat into our heads, with movies like the Day After. With North Korea testing missiles now and not mention that when the USSR fell alot of nuclear. Weapons went missing and have never been accounted for. I wouldnt be surprised if a small scale nuclear war happens sooner than later.
Maybe it doesn't have the same cultural impact though.
As someone who dabbles in Cold War History and Nuclear War, the premise of an all out intentional war between the East and West at the time of the original Terminator's release year '84 was very very likely*
and in the for front of a number of folks' concerns. The Day After had just been on tv the year before. A month before Terminator, Threads** had just been on tv in the UK. Red Dawn two months before.
Culturally, Nuclear war with Russia isn't really a high point anymore,it's more of NK launches a nuke or a stolen/dirty bomb goes off in a major city.
But Terminator 1 is more horror than sci-fi,just switch robot killer to masked killer. (Jason,Haloween etc) And considering James Cameron originally based the movie on a nightmare he had of a robot skeleton emerging from a fiery explosion and coming after him.
*likely to the point of almost happening twice in '83
** It's on youtube, not for the faint of heart