I shared this on the IMDB page for wolverine then realized I should share it here with the CBM community.
While watching the film wolverine I started to notice some similarities to another very familiar franchise - The Terminator franchise. Wolverine is a character who is well known and its no stretch to see why the two characters are so similar. But the truth is that Wolverine even came first. I think the similarities are not necessarily intentional but more of a cultural subconscious. I gather wolverine always had a metal skeleton but I cant be certain, I dont know the back history too well. Here are just a few similarities I found:
The main one that stood out to me is that he has a "metal endoskeleton encased in living tissue". As he crashes after the helicopter crash you get to see a giant metal gash on his face. Bloodied scrapes on the face like that with metal skeleton showing through strongly resembles the terminator.
In the film, Wolverine essentially becomes a terminator. He goes on a termination mission to kill creed and puts on his metal skeleton to do so. The terminator is programmed to go to the past to terminate and thus change the future. Wolverine is attempting to right a wrong by doing the same thing. He is "programmed" by stryker by having him believe his love interest has died.
After Wolverine is programmed this way he begins living in the past, mentally, and wants to take his revenge on creed in order that the future will be "better". The funny thing is that his girl never died so in a way its true. By taking revenge he actually fixes the future and gets his girl back. Unfortunately she dies another way, though that doesnt matter because he dies in that moment too and that version of Wolverine is lost.
Wolverine is indeed heavy like the terminator and can sustain nearly unlimited abuse and damage and still go on with his mission.
Wolverine rides a giant motor cycle as does the terminator in T2. He nearly bottoms it out in the barn just as the terminator would.
When he escapes the installation where his adamantium was installed he runs to the barn. When the old man finds him in the barn, Wolverine is doing the same nude time traveling pose that arnold did in the old movies. This suggests that our new terminator has arrived.
The terminator series depicts the terminator coming from a time far away to the present. More specifically from the future. In the Wolverine origins film we too get to see how wolverine transcends time to come to the present moment. He does this in a very relatable way. We cannot relate to time travel the terinator partakes in because we cannot do it the same way. However we can all relate to the type of time travel that wolverine went on during the film.
These sort of culture based ideas are things we are all self identified with. That is why they are popular. We can see parts of ourselves in them. To me this new terminator (wolverine) shows us that we are becoming more comfortable to our animalistic natures. Terminators were calculating fake human robots. So in the 80's there was a disconnection from our real nature. Our demand for more realistic movies has yielded a very human terminator. He still has the abilities of a terminator but is a thinking, feeling, relatable human. Him being a mutant only enhances our own "out of place" feelings we all typically feel. If you look at it as if the cultures psychology is evolving then you can see how we are seeing more of those natures in ourselves and being ok with them instead of fearing them.
By the end of the movie the wolverine we knew the whole film is terminated (his self image through memory), but he lives on. In terminator the skeleton is crushed and dies. Its arm and chip live on and are researched. You could say that is the same thing as losing memory. The life still goes on but the memory of where it came from is lost. The terminator comes back with a new mission in T2. Memory erased and new programming installed. Hes a new "man". I suspect Wolverine 2 will resemble the second terminator in that same way. He will most likely have to rediscover himself and grow in new and exciting ways.
On top of all that you could say that stryker represents cyberdine. He develops these new weapons and needed time traveling wolverine to make a better one.
Thats all I have for now though Im sure there are more. If anyone else sees any please post them.