it’s a subset of villain decay
You have a horror antagonist, it becomes the most popular/recognisable part of your franchise, you can’t make it too hateable, so it becomes less evil over time.
Terminator 2 was a dramatic subversion though, no decay there. They told you, straight up, in-character, “we reprogrammed this evil robot to fight the other evil robot” and the rest of the movie is an exploration of morality.
“What are you doing!? I told you not to kill anyone!”
“They’ll live”
it’s a subset of villain decay You have a horror antagonist, it becomes the most popular/recognisable part of your franchise, you can’t make it too hateable, so it becomes less evil over time.
See also: Terminator 2
Terminator 2 was a dramatic subversion though, no decay there. They told you, straight up, in-character, “we reprogrammed this evil robot to fight the other evil robot” and the rest of the movie is an exploration of morality.
“What are you doing!? I told you not to kill anyone!”
“They’ll live”
The whole point was that the T-800 was a bottom barrel cyborg. They were all modeled after Arnold, but there were thousands of them.
They basically found a junker in the trash and reprogrammed it. He was NOT the same T-800 from The Terminator. He was a completely different robot.