We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.

***

The Movie

‘The Terminator’

The Scene

Why it’s great

Some great scenes feature drama, sadness, joy, or excitement, and others are – at first glance – rather ordinary. One example is Sarah Connor’s introduction in 1984’s, ‘The Terminator.’

On the surface, there’s nothing earth-shattering about this scene: Sarah drives to work, clocks in, delivers the wrong order to a customer, and gets ice cream dumped into her apron by a brat who was probably blasted into a charred skeleton by a T-800 for his unforgivable crime. It’s an ordinary, slice-of-life moment that shows us that the mother of humanity’s savior is a perfectly ordinary woman.

It’s also the last few hours of a normal life Sarah will ever have.

If you consider ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ to be the official third film in the franchise, then the scene of Sarah going into the employee lounge and seeing that report about another Sarah Conner being killed begins decades of fear, horror, and knowing that she’s the only person who can stop a war that will end billions of lives. And even after she succeeds, she still loses her son and eventually learns that she only delayed the inevitable war of humanity vs machines. By then, she’s in her mid 50’s and will almost certainly live long enough to see that war start, and pass away among the ruins of humanity’s civilizations.

These kind of scenes rely on hindsight and re-watching (or re-reading) to deliver their emotional punch of knowing that after this scene is over, our protagonists will never have another ordinary day as long as they live. But these scenes also encourages their audiences to realize that we often take so much for granted, assuming that our steady jobs, our families, and our blessings will last for years to come. But all it takes is one bad day to destroy everything we care about, and the lives we rebuild afterwards may never be truly happy again.