29 Years Ago in Sci-Fi Movie History, A Rogue AI Became Sentient & Nuked Humanity

AI has been pitted against humanity as the number one enemy of life on Earth in movies for decades now, and the most iconic AI movie apocalypse just hit a major milestone. Evil AI have made their way into all kinds of iconic franchises and movies, from classics like Metropolis and 2001: A Space Odyssey to modern blockbusters like The Matrix and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Of all the movie series about evil AI, however, Terminator remains the king. James Cameron’s 1984 classic The Terminator introduced the world to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s titular killer robot, with it becoming a surprisingly massive hit, making $6.4 million against a budget of $78 million. The film launched a massive franchise that has continued to this day, telling an incredibly complex overarching story about an AI apocalypse.

Judgement Day Occurred 29 Years Ago, Today

The first The Terminator film sees Sarah Connor learn the truth about her role in the future, with her being told that her son, John Connor, will become a resistance leader in a future War Against the Machines. This war will be properly kicked off by an event called Judgment Day, in which an artificial intelligence called Skynet becomes self-aware and launches a nuclear war on humanity, killing around three billion people. In the gap between the first and second film, Sarah spends her time training to help John Connor prepare for the oncoming war, if they can’t prevent Judgment Day first.

Judgment Day is (aptly) the main focus of 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in which Skynet sends a T-1000 back in time to 1995 in order to kill a young John Connor. Luckily, the human resistance sends a reprogrammed T-800 back in time to protect him, while also giving them more information about their role in the future. Sarah and John eventually learn how long they have before the apocalypse, with them being told that Judgment Day will occur on August 29, 1997 — 29 years ago, today.

Luckily, the gang defeats the T-1000 and blows up Cyberdyne Systems, successfully delaying Judgment Day. With this being the start of the future AI apocalypse, this was a major win for the human resistance. However, the second film was far from the end of the Terminator franchise, with the first of many changes to the Judgment Day timeline occurring in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

August 29, 1997, Is Far From The Only Potential Judgement Day

While it is believed that Sarah and John successfully prevented Judgment Day at the end of the second film, this wasn’t the case. Sarah was always worried that Judgment Day wasn’t fully averted, leading her to maintain a weapons stockpile in case Skynet returned. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines reveals that Judgment Day can’t be prevented, just rescheduled, with its new date being July 25, 2003. This event actually occurs in the timeline of Terminator 3, although later retcons and time travel storylines eventually change this.

The TV show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is framed around a countdown to Judgmetn Day, although this time it is much later. In the TV show, Judgment Day is said to occur on April 21, 2011, although The Sarah Connor Chronicles untimely ending means that this story was never properly concluded. 2015’s Terminator Genisys reveals that Judgment Day will occur at a new unknown point in the year 2017, with the actions of Terminator 2 only delaying the event by 20 years. The events of the film likely delayed Judgment Day again, and 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate revealed that Judgment Day would occur on June 18, 2020.

Judgment Day is always chanigng, and while the date of the apocalypse isn’t now known in the Terminator franchise, the lore of the series means that it still hasn’t been fully avoided. A new date for Judgment Day will probably get revealed in the inveitable Terminator 7, with the heroes hopefully winning and delaying it once again. While Judgment Day is an exciting event, this cycle is what has led the Terminator franchise to feel a bit repetitive, as the impossibility of a true end to Judgment Day means that the franchise doesn’t have a clear end goal. New Terminator movies can still tell fresh and exciting stories, but if the franchise continues going down this path, it’ll continue to make Judgment Day even less interesting and impactful.