MovieChat Forums > The Terminator (1984) Discussion > Kyle Reese is stupid (sorry, but he is)

Kyle Reese is stupid (sorry, but he is)


Ok, of all the stupidities of Skynet, Kyle Reese and the people in the future, from the 'massive bodybuilder is the best infiltration machine' to 'bad breath is essential, so let's divert our scarce resources to developing that, otherwise infiltration unit that solves every problem by mass-murdering and shooting everything in sight is not going to be a believable infiltration unit' to 'let's open the door to a bodybuilder-looking stranger although the dogs are going crazy, they don't know any passwords or the secret knock and their voice isn't recognizable'...

..I think the stupidest thing is Kyle's definition of 'cyborg'.

Why bring such a 'futuristic terminology' into the past, if you don't even know what it means?

A cyborg does not mean 'robot covered with 'living tissue' (and tissue is NEVER alive anyway, it's the soul that makes a dead tissue SEEM alive when it's still inhabiting a body, without this energy, nothing is ever 'alive') - which, for some reason, is shown as ROTTING anyway.

A cybog would have organic parts that are actually ESSENTIAL to its function, like an actual, organic brain or heart at least.

Just covering a robot with ANYTHING does not make it a cyborg, I don't care WHAT you cover it with - if it can function fully without that covering, and that covering isn't essential to its functioning, it's not a cyborg.

Now, is a human being cyborg if you replace the biological limbs with technological ones?

I am not sure where the limitations lie, but to me, a human being is a human being as long as a human soul is in charge of the entity, so even a fully 'robotic body', inhabited by human soul, is still not even a robot, but a human being in a robotic body, and not a cyborg, either. Maybe you could call that an 'android', but because of the human soul, I would call it a human, regardless of the physical body's shape (or existence! Humans are humans even when they exist without a physical body!)

Of course you can talk about biological robots as well, and if those biological robots have some replaced robotic parts, does that make them cyborgs, or just 'enhanced biological robots'?

I honestly don't know, but what I do know for sure, is that these 'terminators' are DEFINITELY robots, not cyborgs. Just because you cover a robot with something, doesn't make it something else. It's akin to saying that a robot is a jacket just because you put a jacket on it, or it's a mannekin because you put a hat on it.

No, it doesn't change, it will remain a robot, regardless of WHAT you cover it with, 'living tissue' or otherwise.

The makers of this movie didn't know what cyborg is, but it's sad that our hero, Kyle Reese, has to be made to look like an idiot because of that.

reply

Obviously the word cyborg has an updated definition in the future.

reply