As a story, yes. But Terminator failed on a basic premise: Skynet becoming self-aware.
The future seems more like Blindsight [1]: hyper-intelligent, completely unconscious systems outperform, out-manipulate, and out-compete human beings purely through automated efficiency.
"No, nobody forced me to get the rewire. I could have just let them cut out my brain and pack it into Heaven, couldn't I? That's the choice we have. We can be utterly useless, or we can try and compete against the vampires and the constructs and the AIs. And perhaps you could tell me how to do that without turning into a—an utter freak."
> But Terminator failed on a basic premise: Skynet becoming self-aware.
A strange claim. Why do you think that?
> The future seems more like …
Oh, so Terminator failed because it didn’t match a different fictional speculation about the future?
>Skynet becoming self-aware.
Did it? I thought Skynet was a defense system trained to see humans as enemies, it just worked by design, like HAL 9000. Screamers became self-aware.