Scientists Tempt Terminator's Future By Inventing a Real-life Shapeshifting Robot

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A new shape-shifting robot has many sci-fi fans worried that Terminator 2: Judgment Day might soon become a reality.

Al Jazeera shared a video on Instagram of the shape-shifting robot in action as it transforms from the shape of a Lego Minifigure to a silver puddle to get through a miniature prison cell. According to the outlet, the robot is made of the metal gallium and controlled by a magnetic field, allowing it to climb, jump, split and recombine. The outlet also suggests that American and Chinese researchers envision the device solving issues in medicine and engineering.

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Many are already drawing comparisons to the T-1000 from James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Originally played by Robert Patrick, the T-1000 is comprised of nanobots, allowing it to assume various forms. The T-1000 later appeared in 2015's Terminator: Genisys (played by Lee Byung-hun), while a similar model, the T-1001 (Garbage's Shirley Manson), appeared in The Sarah Connor Chronicles. 2019's Terminator: Dark Fate featured a model called the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna), which was composed of liquid and solid elements that could split apart and act independently.

The Terminator is Gearing Up for a Reboot

While promoting the release of Avatar: The Way of Water in December 2022, James Cameron revealed that he was in active discussions of rebooting Terminator for the modern technological landscape. "If I were to do another Terminator film and maybe try to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided, I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy," he said.

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Cameron also spoke about Terminator: Dark Fate, lamenting how the final film turned out. "I think what happened is[...] I think the movie could have survived having Linda in it, I think it could have survived having Arnold in it, but when you put Linda and Arnold in it and then, you know, she's 60-something, he's 70-something, all of a sudden it wasn't your Terminator movie, it wasn't even your dad's Terminator movie, it was your granddad's Terminator movie," he said.

The filmmaker continued with his assessment, suggesting that he and his team were too focused on the franchise's past. "We loved it, we thought it was cool, you know, that we were making this sort of direct sequel to a movie that came out in 1991. And young moviegoing audiences weren't born. They wouldn't even have been born for another 10 years," he said. "So, it was just our own myopia. We kind of got a little high on our own supply, and I think that's the lesson there."

Source: Instagram