It's possible to argue that the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series helped launch the current trend for man v machine sagas in movie science fiction. If so, the Sci Fi Channel's 2003 reimagining moved matters smartly forward by introducing updated Cylons who believe themselves to be human, and often act accordingly.
It's an intelligent repositioning, which draws on the idea that any organism that believes that it is alive, and appears to be so, might be indistinguishable from one that really is alive, even if it originated as a machine. The British science fiction writer Iain M Banks (among others) covered a similar theme extensively in his 2005 novel The Algebraist: could sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence be capable of possessing a soul?
The Terminator series has also touched on the idea that machines can possess a certain humanity, particularly in James Cameron's second and final effort from 1991, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger played a benevolent robot sent back from the future to rescue the young future resistance leader, John Connor. I'm encouraged to see, in the latest Terminator Salvation TV spot, that the new McG offering looks to be continuing the trend.
The YouTube video above shows three of the new spots back-to-back, but it's the fourth and final promo that deserves attention. We see Connor (Christian Bale) and his team encounter a cyborg (Sam Worthington), who believes himself to be a human named Marcus Wright. Is he truly ignorant of his origins? And more importantly, can he be trusted?
While McG himself – if his recent frat-boy style challenge to Michael Bay is anything to go by – does not appear to be the intellectual type, it looks like someone on the screenwriting team (The Dark Knight's Jonathan Nolan, perhaps) has realised that this is a concept that science fiction fans clearly enjoy grappling with. Terminator Salvation hasn't had much luck in terms of hype so far, what with the Bale rant and those rumours [or spoilers?] of a very silly ending indeed, but it certainly looks the part. And with this type of intelligent thinking on board, perhaps we've judged it too soon. The film hits cinemas in the UK on June 3 – what do you reckon?
Elsewhere, the new Star Trek continues to garner strong reviews and plenty of hype. Having finally caught a screening, I can tell you it's unlikely to disappoint. This is a sharp, perfectly-paced, bracing blockbuster thrillride of a movie, which both reinvigorates the franchise and rids it of much of the baggage built up over 10 previous films and countless TV series. The CGI is near-perfect, the casting spot on and the ingenious design of some of the new spaceships and monsters makes George Lucas's recent efforts look like the hamfisted creations of a four-year-old messing about with Duplo.
On the other hand, there are more gaping plot holes than an episode of the A-Team, Anton Yelchin's Russian accent is quite possibly the worst effort since Don Cheadle's attempt at "cockney" in Ocean's Eleven, and director JJ Abrams bewilderingly fails to wipe away some of the franchise's more ridiculous tropes: why, for instance, do the Romulans in the film all speak American English? Would it have been so hard to have them speak, I dunno, Romulan?
Finally, Marvel reportedly has a new frontrunner for the job of Captain America in the superhero's forthcoming big screen outing, which is set for release in 2011, with effects specialist Joe Johnston at the helm. Matthew McConaughey is showing tentative interest and certainly looks the part, but is this the sort of role that ought to go to an unknown? Let us know who you think should be cast below, and your latest thoughts on Terminator and Star Trek while you're at it.
