1]Just because some one else says the Terminator is the protagonist doesn’t make it so. ?

2] Just because Sarah doesn’t (initially) fill the bill for however one defines the protagonist does not mean that, ergo, the Terminator must be the protagonist.

Yes, the Terminator is pursuing an objective goal. ?As all antagonists should.?

And so is Reese. ?His objective goal — the mission given to him by the future John Connor– ?is to save Sarah ?from the Terminator so that John Connor can have his future. ?In your schema, why couldn’t he be the protagonist –a heroic one? ?After all, he makes the ultimate sacrifice a hero can make.

3] Stories have points of view (pov). ?If “Terminator” were told from the sympathetic pov of Skynet, ?then, yes, the Terminator could be the protagonist.?But that’s not the pov ?the story takes. ?James Cameron wrote from the sympathetic pov of humans, not cyborgs.

I appreciate the time and thought you’ve taken to explain your ideas, and I sympathize with your frustration with my answers. ?But our points of view just don’t align, don’t converge on this film. ?That happens. So it goes.

regards

Dkpough1:

I read the link you referred to. ?And I understand why the the poster would argue that although Sarah Connor is the main character, the Terminator is the Protagonist.

He has a point. ?The Terminator is introduced with an objective goal. ?In contrast, ?Sarah Connor ?is introduced without an objective goal other than making ?living, earning tips. ?Now, that would not automatically qualify the Terminator to be tagged as the protagonist. ?Because it’s quite common for the protagonist to have no particular goal or quite a different goal until the inciting incident.

However, in “Terminator”, ?Sarah Connor does not lock into an objective goal after the inciting incident, nor by the end of the 1st Act, per the standard plot formula. ?All she does is react by fleeing. ?Her only goal is immediate: stay alive. (Objective goals are proactive and take a longer view.)

Nor does she embrace an objective goal when Reese informs her of her destiny, well into the 2nd Act. ?She only finally accepts her destiny, locks into an objective goal at the end of the story.

So, although it takes longer for her to do so, she is the only person in the film with with a character arc, the only one who grows, changes. ?That is a defining characteristic of a protagonist, btw. ?So by that criterion, how does the Terminator qualify to be the protagonist when he undergoes no character growth? ?His purpose and motivation remains the same throughout the movie.

Once upon a time, I was hung up on definitions. Because I came to screenwriting from computer programming where definitions are precise, specific, binary. ? But screenwriting is not a science, it’s an art — nothing is binary, everything is multivalent and fuzzy. ?I finally came to accept the reality that in the arts definitions tend to be inconsistent, even contradictory across paradigms.

So I treat terms like ?hero, protagonist, main character as tools, not rules. ?I have assembled my own private toolbox of terms. ?They work for me. ?But I do not insist that others use my toolset. ?Every writer has to acquire his own.

And no matter how you want to define her role, the story is about her. ?She has to have top billing in the logline. (Even though the cyborg gets the title role.)

fwiw and regards