The Terminator

 

Moviedrome Introduction

Film Details

Release Date: 1984

Director: James Cameron

Stars: 

Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator 

Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor 

Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese 

Plot Summary

In The Terminator (1984), a cyborg assassin known as a Terminator is sent from the year 2029 to 1984 Los Angeles to kill Sarah Connor, a young woman whose future son will lead a human resistance against machines in a post-apocalyptic war. To protect her, the resistance sends back Kyle Reese, a soldier who must find and defend Sarah from the relentless, nearly indestructible Terminator. As Sarah and Kyle flee, he explains the future war against an AI called Skynet. Together, they fight to survive and prevent the future from unfolding as foretold. The story ends with Sarah beginning her transformation into the mother of the future resistance leader.

Personal History

Would have watched it - several times - on VHS. Or even BetaMax. There was a time when I was a two VCR Man.

Current Review

A classic B Movie SciFi that can be watched and rewatched for the set pieces. If it was screened on TV tonight, I would probably say to myself, I will give it to the Police Station scene.

But massive eek - the year the robots rise is just 4 years away now! I'm not sure we have to worry two much. Before the re-watch, I saw a news-clip of a game of football in China using robots. They were about as good as Tony Pulis era Stoke City.

2029 

And to be fair, this would be a decent enough place to leave the film. After a very strong opening it does descend into a seemingly never ending series of car, motor-bike and HGV chase sequences.

The special affects are from their time. I never noticed the stop motion animation at the time, not a million miles from Jason and the Argonauts.

The dialogue is quotable and memorable.

And its clever. It plays with the time travel synopsis enough to melt your mind. Forget why they chose the 1980s to send the robot back to - you could spend an eternity discussing how the savior of the human race is conceived.

The ending is clever and nicely nuanced for an action film. We have the finale, the monster is dead but there is time for a matured Sarah Connor to head out into the Mexican desert with the line "There is a storm coming" ringing in all our ears.

Top notch 80s nostalgia.

Quirky Facts

James Cameron got the idea of giving Arnold Schwarzenegger even fewer lines in the film than Schwarzenegger's earlier film Conan the Barbarian (1982), in which Schwarzenegger only had 24 lines. In this film, Schwarzenegger has only 14 lines.

In the film, the name of the night club where the Terminator first targets Sarah was named Tech Noir after a film genre which James Cameron coined himself in describing what category this film falls under after dismissing the notions that it was a mere horror or slasher film. Tech Noir films like Blade Runner (1982) and this film combine the old style grittiness of noir films with the futuristic elements of a sci-fi thriller. Cameron himself had the club built specifically for the film and had to turn away local club goers who thought Tech Noir was a real night club. The building still exists but is now a jewelry store.

Two deleted scenes gave Skynet and the Future War some more background. The first was a scene where Sarah locates the Cyberdyne company that will be responsible for building Skynet and the Terminators. She tries to convince Reese that they should destroy their building in order to prevent the dark future from ever happening, but Reese tells her that his mission is conserving the future, not changing it. The second scene shows that Cyberdyne owns the factory where Sarah battled the Terminator and that one of their employees finds the Terminator's microchip, which actually causes Skynet to exist in the first place. The scenes were originally part of a larger subplot where Sarah and Kyle eventually agree to blow up Cyberdyne, which is why they were making bombs in the first place; ending up inside the Cyberdyne factory while on the run for the Terminator wasn't a total coincidence, as they were purposely heading that way hoping to destroy it (this subplot did end up in the novelization). Skynet's origin and the destruction of Cyberdyne became major plot points for the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) instead. Director James Cameron cut the scenes because he wanted to leave some questions yet unanswered, which he never regretted as he could make an entire sequel out of the unused ideas.

Quotes

The Terminator: [59:15] I'm a friend of Sarah Connor. I was told she was here. Could I see her please?
Desk Sergeant: No, you can't see her she's making a statement.
The Terminator: Where is she?
Desk Sergeant: [uses his pencil to point to the bench] Look, it may take a while. Want to wait? There's a bench over there.
[points to bench]
The Terminator: [looks around, examining the structural integrity of the room, then looks back at him] I'll be back!

Kyle Reese: [36:41] Come with me if you want to live.

The Terminator: [12:46] The 12-gauge auto-loader.
Pawn Shop Clerk: That's Italian. You can go pump or auto.
[hands the Terminator the pump action shotgun]
The Terminator: The .45 long slide, with laser sighting.
Pawn Shop Clerk: [hands the Terminator a .45 gun from a glass case under the counter] These are brand new; we just got them in. That's a good gun. Just touch the trigger, the beam comes on and you put the red dot where you want the bullet to go. You can't miss. Anything else?
The Terminator: Phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range.
Pawn Shop Clerk: [annoyed] Hey, just what you see, pal!
The Terminator: [looks around] The Uzi nine millimeter.
Pawn Shop Clerk: You know your weapons, buddy. Any one of these is ideal for home defense. So uh, which will it be?
The Terminator: [pointing the 12-gage shotgun towards the door] All.
Pawn Shop Clerk: I may close early today. There's a 15-day wait on the handguns, but the rifles you can take right now.
[sees the Terminator load the shotgun]
Pawn Shop Clerk: You can't do that.
The Terminator: [pumps shotgun] Wrong!
[shoots the clerk]

Future Inspiration

I wasn't going to watch T2 but having picked up/been reminded that Cyberdyne Systems use parts of the original Terminator to develop SkyNet, it sounds of interest. We now have a double paradox - John Connor wouldn't exist if Kyle hadn't been sent back to father him. SkyNet wouldn't exist if parts had not been recovered from the original Terminator sent back.

The version I saw has an additional credit to Harlan Ellison. A lawsuit was launched following the original film's release that argued the similarity to an Outer Limits episode called the soldier. Part of the compensation was acknowledgement of his original idea in the film credits.  

A couple of books referenced by AI.

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison (1967)

A malevolent AI tortures the last remnants of humanity. This is the tone and dread behind Skynet — and Ellison is the writer whose work The Terminator was accused of borrowing.

4. Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)

Cyberpunk at its finest — released the same year as The Terminator. Deals with rogue AI, cyberspace, and corporate overreach.