1177: Time Robot

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Time Robot

Title text: NO FATE BUT THE NARRATIVES WE IMPOSE ON LIFE'S RANDOM CHAOS TO DISTRACT OURSELVES FROM OUR EXISTENTIAL PLIGHT

Explanation

The comic starts with a scene from a 1984 science fiction action film The Terminator, in which a killing robot (played by Arnold Schwarzenneger) is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor, the main female protagonist of the movie, and a human, Kyle Reese, also travels back in time to protect her (and he acquires a sawed-off shotgun which Cueball holds in the strip).

However, in the following panels, Cueball changes the narrative so that instead of a real killing robot, he explains that we all are hunted by an unstoppable enemy trying to kill us – the time. And he goes on to point to the similarities between the time and a Terminator. The clock visible in the third panel features a red light in the place of a 3-hour marker, which is probably a reference to glowing red eyes of a Terminator.

In the final panel, “come with me if you want to live” is a famous phrase from the movie, but in this case, amended with the facts about the inevitability of eventual death.

Also, the title text is a play on a quote from The Terminator, where Sarrah Connor starts to believe that “There's no fate but what we make for ourselves.”. It is also a reference to the character 'Death' in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. In the discworld novels, his dialogue is always depicted in small caps and he is often caught making sometimes bizarre philosophical statements about life and death.

Transcript

[Cueball runs towards Megan with shotgun in hand.]

Cueball: I'm from the future!

Cueball: You're being stalked by an unstoppable robotic assassin!

[Close up of Cueball's head.]

Cueball: Of course, in a sense, we're all being stalked by an unstoppable robot.

Cueball: A robot called time.

[Cueball looking at a clock.]

Cueball: I see it in the mirror. I see wrinkles, grey hairs.

Cueball: I hear its metallic footsteps in the relentless rhythm of the ticking clock.

[Cueball reaches out to Megan.]

Cueball: Anyway, uhh - come with me if you want to live for a while.

Cueball: You'll still die eventually.

Cueball: We all will.

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Discussion

A lot of Randall's recent comics are quite poetic. It's like some kind of trend. Davidy²²[talk] 05:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Is this a Terminator reference? (Never seen the movies) Alpha (talk) 05:20, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it probably is. Davidy²²[talk] 11:26, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

And you should see them sometime. They're pretty good. (The first two.) 67.51.59.66 22:48, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I concur. The last few movies are just bad. 172.69.34.226 07:58, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

It certainly is. Beanie (talk) 13:19, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Lego movie: "Come with me if you want to not die". Jacky720 (talk) 19:36, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

A similar reference has been made before(by Randall).09:22, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Did you mean to post the ep602 link against the previous comic 1176? DD (talk) 11:20, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Probably 652. Wwoods (talk) 20:53, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes.Guru-45 (talk) 15:14, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I've learned that death is the only certainty in life, until we develop technology to avoid that. Until that time we should just relax and enjoy the adventure, even if we find ourselves in the scary movie sometimes, as a human race we will come out fine at the end. - e-inspired 24.51.197.187 19:01, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, if we colonize in a distant star system that just happens to have an Earth-like planet before our sun dies, and even then, the universe will die, be it by the Big Rip, Big Crunch, Big Freeze, or just heat death, and even if it is revived in a Big Bounce, all of human achievement will have been lost and the short-lived activity on the skin of a tiny rock orbiting a tiny star in a tiny galaxy will have been for nothing. It really sucks, too, since we've done so much, including developing multiple theories on our ultimate fate and the possible values of certain variables that would cause each one. 71.225.14.203 00:43, 25 April 2013 (UTC)