I saw Terminator 3 a few days ago.

It was really good. There were plenty of high-intensity (and quite destructive) action sequences, there was a good deal of amusing deadpan humor (one of my favorites: Arnold as Terminator asks a man to remove his clothes--Terminators have that habit of traveling through time in the nude--and the guy tells Arnold to "talk to the hand"; so, Arnold grabs the dude's hand, leans in, and repeats himself).

Beware, major spoilers ahead.

T3 also had a very interesting take on determinism. Rather than pose the free will - determinism questions as movies like the Matrix have, it presents a very classical model for its story line.

If you saw T2, you know that at the close of that movie John Connor and his mother thought Judgment Day was averted. All Terminator parts and chips were destroyed, as was the research facility where Skynet was in development.

That assurance didn't last, and thankfully both characters prepared for the worst. When the Terminatrix T-X (played by the lovely Kristianna Loken) appears John Connor (now portrayed by Nick Stahl) is an anonymous drifter; Sarah Connor is long deceased, though she took some helpful precautions before she died.

The T-X (out to kill Connor and his future lieutenants, such as Kate Miller, played by Claire Danes) is fought off by Arnold's character, the T-800. The T-800 breaks some very disturbing news to Connor, confused because he thought he saw Judgment Day averted in T2: Judgment Day is inevitable.

In fact, quite a few things turn out to be inevitable. Connor and Miller first met a day before the events of T2 took place, at a make-out party organized by a mutual friend. In the future, they are married. Apparently, had the events of the second movie never happened they would have furthered their relationship a lot sooner. Their union was inevitable.

Connor spend the entire movie fighting off the idea of inevitability, rejecting the notion that Judgment Day must come and that he must be a leader in the post-apocalyptic war. He is focused on destroying the mainframe to Skynet (which Miller's father has been working on, another "reason" for their inevitable connection). Skynet manages to take over the world's computer systems and is about to launch a nuclear war. Connor and Miller make it to the government facility where the mainframe is stored, to finish Skynet off once and for all, but it's just an abandoned nuclear bomb shelter. Skynet is software, housed in no one place. It's spread was inevitable, and uncontrollable.

Connor's heart sinks as the bombs fall, and he realizes he has failed. That's when a voice breaks the silence. Someone is radioing them, confused and horrified by the sudden rain of nuclear death. Connor picks up the radio microphone. The military official at the other end asks Connor to identify himself. He responds: "This is John Connor...I'm in charge."

It's a moment of incredible power. Like characters from ancient Greek tragedy (Oedipus, for example, who an oracle foretold would kill his father and marry his mother; though his parents sent him away, the prophecy came to pass regardless; the same is true of Perseus and his father), Connor was faced with an end he did not want and could not escape. He had to overcome two hurdles: to resign himself to the inevitability of fate and to steel himself so that he could accept it with honor and strength.

This story will probably have a happier conclusion than Oedipus's tale (he blinded himself to atone for the sin that was his and yet was not), since Connor's resignation to fate will lead to pick up the mantle of general and save the human race.

This is the most interesting sort of determinism or fatalism I can think of, precisely because it includes free will and is premised on tragedy. It is a philosophy that straddles a fine line, taking away just enough agency to render him impotent before the great tides of history while still giving him enough room to put up a valiant last stand.

It makes for good viewing, whether it is a play or movie.