A treatise on the economic struggles of California in the early 2000s

Rating: 8/10 (29 March 2014)

It was interesting upon viewing this movie for the 5th time while keeping in mind the struggles that California was going through when Arnold first took office. I saw Sarah Connor as a Gray Davis figure, one who was unfairly hunted down by powerful enemies, for reasons out of her control. If you recall Gray Davis was the very unpopular governor of California during the electricity crisis in 2000 and 2001. He was unfairly blamed for the rolling blackouts in the state, when in fact Enron was to blame because they had a stranglehold on the power plants and were shutting them down, creating excess demand while diminishing the supply.
The Terminator is Enron, a seemingly unstoppable force hellbent on the destruction of its enemies. Like Enron, The Terminator does not play by the rules; it does anything it can to complete its objective.
But the powerful always fall. Enron flew too close to the sun and disintegrated when they could not keep up the facade any longer. The Terminator was destroyed when Sarah Connor lured him into a mechanical press. Although both Enron and The Terminator was defeated, the threat they posed still lingers. Corporate greed is still prevalent, as evidenced by the 2008 financial crisis. Banks and other financial institutions laid waste to the global economy, without sympathy for those whose lives they destroyed. The Terminator is a product of a future, possibly created by another, much more severe financial crisis that is looming over us. Terminators lay waste to everything, destroying the world and making it practically uninhabitable. If we do not learn from our mistakes, and continue to allow corporate greed to permeate throughout our society, big banks and the financial wizards of Wall Street will destroy this society without a second thought. Short-term profits always win out, without any regard for long-term sustainability.