Star Trek Perfected a Sci-Fi Trope Terminator Never Mastered

Star Trek perfected a time travel trope that the Terminator franchise has never mastered. Time travel is a crucial part of science fiction, and nearly every major franchise in the genre has leaned into it. The concept is baked into the 

Terminator franchise’s DNA too, yet Star Trek: Enterprise’s sole comic book one-upped it in a major way.

In the story “The Fragile Beauty of Loyalty,” written by Vivek J. Tiwary and drawn by Hugo Petrus and appearing in 

Star Trek: Waypoint #4, Porthos, the beloved beagle of Captain Jonathan Archer, travels back in time to save a younger version of his human from an attempt on his life by agents of the Temporal Cold War.

Time Travel Is A Key Part of Science Fiction Lore

Star Trek Has Been Leaning Into Time Travel From Its Inception

Stories of time travel have been a part of the science fiction landscape since the genre’s inception. HG Well’s 1895 masterpiece 

The Time Machine helped popularize the concept, and generations of writers across all genres have embraced it. Time travel also found its way into other areas of pop culture, including comics and television.

The Star Trek franchise has been using time travel since its beginnings in 1966. An early first season episode, “The Naked Time,” would be the first of many Star Trek

 time travel stories. Every other Star Trek TV show has used the trope since, and it has even found its way into the franchise’s movies.

The time travel trope has been a controversial one in the 

Star Trek franchise. While there is no denying some of Star Trek’s finest moments have come from the concept of time travel, it also seems as if the franchise relies on it a little too much. This criticism was particularly loud during the Rick Berman era in the 1990s.

These criticisms reached their peak with Star Trek: Enterprise, which premiered in 2001. A “Temporal Cold War” was introduced in the pilot episode. Enterprise’s creative team kept the specifics of the War vague, largely because the writers never fully developed it to begin with. The Temporal Cold War was shoe-horned in at the expense of other stories.

However, despite these criticisms, time travel remains a key part of Star Trek. JJ Abrams’ 2009 film used time travel as a device to establish a parallel timeline. This was a clever use of the trope, and helped ensure canon was not broken during the process of the reboot. It also freed Abrams to introduce new elements too.

Time travel has factored into the current batch of Star Trek television shows. Discovery employed time travel at the end of its second season, sending the ship nearly a thousand years into the future. Much like Abrams’ movie, time travel freed 

Discovery to tell better stories unencumbered by continuity. As a result, the show found its groove.

The Terminator Franchise Uses Time Travel in a Dark Way

The First Terminator

Films Featured Some Unforgettable Time Travel Twists

The Terminator franchise has also used time travel. In fact, the idea of time travel is even more central to The Terminator than it is to 

Star Trek. The Terminator series began with 1984’s film of the same name. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and directed by James Cameron from a script by Cameron and Gale Hurd, the film was a major box office hit.

Cameron and Hurd use time travel as a plot device in the first Terminator movie. A killer robot is sent back to 1984 to prevent the birth of a human, John Connor, who will lead a revolution against a murderous AI. The human resistance sends one of their own, Kyle Reese, back to stop the robot.

The Terminator ended with a twist: the human agent sent back to 1984 ends up fathering John Connor, the very person whose existence he was sent to ensure. This clever twist not only gave the film some unexpected emotional layers, but also set up a sequel, one that would be bigger and better.

1991’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day took the time travel twists a step further. The killer robot from the first movie returned, but this time as a good guy. Captured and reprogrammed by the human resistance, it was sent back to protect John Connor from another, even deadlier robot. 

Terminator 2: Judgement Day was a box office juggernaut.

Since then, the Terminator franchise has chased the narrative rush that came from the first two films, with mixed results. None of the series’ subsequent movies and television shows captured the public’s imagination like 

Terminator or T2, even after stars from the originals, such as Linda Hamilton, made their return.

Both Star Trek and The Terminator Have Made Great Use of Time Travel

Both Franchises Haved Told Clever and Emotional Stories Using Time Travel

Telling a good time travel story can be tricky, but the creative personnel behind both the Star Trek and 

Terminator franchises have used it to brilliant effect on more than one occasion. The best time travel stories from each franchise use the trope as a means to tell compelling stories with deep emotional cores. The time travel aspect is almost secondary.

The curveballs the early Terminator movies threw at fans were smart. Having Kyle Reese father John Connor was a great twist that few saw coming. It created a predestination paradox, a concept important to the time travel genre, but it also made the story more “human.” 

T2 also had its share of surprises.

Fans and critics have speculated why later Terminator movies failed to live up to their predecessors. Some of the blame may lie in the lack of involvement from James Cameron, leading to subpar scripts. Later 

Terminator writers tried to duplicate the twists of the first two, but failed to grasp the human dynamics that made it work in the first place.

Star Trek Showed 

The Terminator How to Do a Good Time Travel Story

Star Trek Set Porthos Up to be a Franchise MVP

The Star Trek and Terminator franchises have little in common. 

Star Trek shows a peaceful, optimistic future, whereas The Terminator is driven by a bleak, post-apocalyptic worldview. Time travel is front and center in The Terminator franchise, but only secondary in Star Trek. It would stand to reason that The Terminator would tell better time travel stories.

In just a few short pages, “The Fragile Beauty of Loyalty” sees Star Trek

 employ time travel to brilliant effect, and improve upon the formula The Terminator created. The story duplicates the emotional impact of the first two Terminator movies, but takes them a step further. 

Star Trek has shown Terminator how to do a time travel story.