# Terminator Terminator is the sci-fi action film franchise that kicked off with James Cameron's 1984 original starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a killer cyborg sent back from 2029. The series produced two catchphrases, 'I'll Be Back' and 'Hasta La Vista, Baby,' that fueled decades of parody videos, wiki pages, and YouTube death-battle mashups. ## Origin The Terminator was released on October 26, 1984, directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a T-800 cyborg sent from 2029 by the AI network Skynet to kill Sarah Connor, mother of future resistance leader John Connor[3]. The sequel, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, came out on July 1, 1991, adding a shapeshifting liquid-metal T-1000 antagonist and a reprogrammed Schwarzenegger T-800 as protector of a teenaged John Connor[3]. The franchise added three more theatrical entries: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines on July 2, 2003, Terminator Salvation on May 21, 2009, and Terminator Genisys on July 1, 2015, the last of which brought Schwarzenegger back as a T-800 who had raised Sarah Connor in an alternate timeline[3]. - **Platform:** Theatrical film (source) / YouTube (parody spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 1984 ## Overview Terminator's online life runs on two Schwarzenegger catchphrases: 'I'll Be Back,' delivered flatly to a desk officer in the 1984 film right before the T-800 drives a car through the front wall, and 'Hasta La Vista, Baby,' spoken to the T-1000 just before Schwarzenegger fires in the 1991 sequel[1]. Both lines get pulled into reaction posts, YouTube parodies and image macros, and the first quote is closely associated with Schwarzenegger himself[2]. Beyond the quotes, the visual shorthand of the T-800's chrome endoskeleton and glowing red eye, plus the liquid-metal T-1000, powered a wave of animated parodies, versus-battle videos and mashups pairing the cyborg with other pop-culture killing machines like RoboCop[3]. Urban Dictionary entries also picked up on the name, using 'terminator' as slang for anything that refuses to stay down[4]. ## How It Spread The franchise's quote catalog got an early online home when a Wikiquote page for The Terminator was created on December 4, 2003[1]. The Terminator Wiki on Fandom launched on September 25, 2006 and grew past 1,100 pages over the following decade[5]. A franchise entry on TV Tropes followed on August 7, tracking recurring devices across the films[2]. Parody video work drove much of the meme footprint. On September 30, 2009, the channel How It Should Have Ended posted an animated Back to the Future themed Terminator parody that pulled over 14 million views[3]. YouTuber Ihugeny put out an animated parody music video on March 12, 2012 that hit around 4.2 million views[3]. A 'The Terminator' Facebook page started on January 27, 2012 collected more than 3.7 million likes over four years[3]. Versus content also picked up. On March 4, 2014, ScrewAttack! aired a Death Battle episode pitting the Terminator against RoboCop that pulled around 9.8 million views[3], and Epic Rap Battles of History released a Terminator versus RoboCop episode on June 22, 2015[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Terminator? Terminator is an action sci-fi film franchise about a future war between humans led by John Connor and the AI network Skynet's cyborg army[3]. ### Where did Terminator come from? The first film, directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, was released on October 26, 1984[3]. ### What does Terminator mean? In the films it refers to a cybernetic assassin, a metal endoskeleton under living tissue, built by Skynet in models like the T-800, T-1000 and T-X[4]. ### How do you use Terminator? Fans typically pull the Schwarzenegger catchphrases 'I'll Be Back' and 'Hasta La Vista, Baby' into reaction posts, and remix the T-800 and T-1000 into parody videos and versus-battle mashups[1][3]. ### Is Terminator still popular? The franchise is a classic reference source: the Terminator Wiki grew past 1,100 pages by the mid-2010s and parody videos on YouTube kept pulling millions of views through 2015[5][3]. ## References 1. [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Terminator]() 2. [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/Terminator]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/terminator]() 4. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Terminator]() 5. [https://terminator.fandom.com/wiki/Terminator_Wiki]() 6. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBBw9E2Q_aY]() 7. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgLfOrVJJMg]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/terminator Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library