A movie like The Terminator could’ve easily been a huge disaster. It featured an Austrian bodybuilder whose accent wasn’t the right tone for actors of the era. The “hero” dies at the end. And the main character is a young actress who was in that Children of the Corn movie.
Oh, the director was also a Canadian filmmaker who had done technical behind the scenes work for Roger Corman and looked more like he should be a special effects guy than an auteur. His previous movie, Piranha II, about flying piranha fish is as silly as it sounds and the director, James Cameron, had actually been fired and his name was left on the credits under a contractual obligation.
A lot of the filming took place at night because the production couldn’t avoid all the permits so a lot of it was guerilla filmmaking where scenes were shot quickly before people got word of what they were doing. During the filming of the last scene in the movie, a police officer actually showed up leading to Cameron and producer Gale Anne Hurd successfully convincing the officer this was just a UCLA student film. Yet there was something about the movie that made it click with audiences.
Arnold Schwarzenegger had been making movies in the 1970s but he was mostly known as a bodybuilder. His previous lead role was in Conan the Barbarian which had been a hit, so the production had that going into the movie. But during the first scene where we see the T-800 terminator show up near the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, we knew we were in for a different style of movie.
The plot is set in 1984 which was the present time when the movie was released during the Fall season. Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is a young woman living and working as a short-order waitress. Her life is pretty much basic for a woman of her age and means. When she is stood up on a date, she decides to go out anyway to get a pizza. But she hears on the news that someone is killing people with the same name as her.
It’s the T-800 who found the addresses out of a phonebook. There is another person from the future, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), who is an infantry member of a resistance. Both Kyle and the cyborg T-800 have been sent back in time from 2029 as the resistance has learned Skynet, an artificial intelligence program, intends to kill Sarah Connor before she can give birth to her son, John.
Kyle explains to Sarah that John Connor will become a major resistance leader in the near future after Skynet becomes self-aware and leads killing machines designed for the military against humans. Kyle says that the resistance has finally won in 2029 and beaten the machines which is why they’ve been sent back to 1984.
However, Kyle has a hard time getting people to believe him. The police investigating the murders thinks Kyle may be having mental delusions. Lt. Ed Traxler (Paul Winfield) of the LAPD tells Sarah that the T-800 she escaped from initially was probably wearing a bullet-proof vest, which is how he was able to get back up after being shot. And another detective, Hal Vukovich (Lance Henriksen), tells Sarah that a lot of people are using PCP which explains the T-800’s resistance to pain.
Yet the T-800 attacks the police station with Schwarzenegger coining his catchphrase “I’ll be back” before leaving and driving a car right into the front of the station killing the desk sergeant. Schwarzenegger originally wanted to say “I will be back,” but Cameron insisted it had to be “I’ll” which he had problems saying correctly. He then murders and injures other officers as he tracks down Sarah. But Kyle is about to get free and find her so they can go on the road.
Eventually, Kyle and Sarah become more attracted and while hiding out at a roadside motel have sex. It turns out that Kyle had been given a Polaroid snapshot of Sarah presumably from John that he has kept with him for years. Over time, he fell in love with the woman in the photo and they have conceive during their stay at the motel.
Yes, it does seem crazy that Sarah would be so easily attracted to a man she just met a few days earlier. (A popular meme mentions how Kyle is actually wearing a homeless guy’s pants with no underwear.) Terminator: Genisys actually mocked the foolishness they would have sex so fast especially considering that Jai Courtney and Emilia Clarke had about as much chemistry as Gina Gershon and the fried chicken leg she was made to perform fellatio on in Killer Joe.
But Hamilton and Biehn somehow make it work. I think it’s because neither was really a big name at the time so they’re is a genuine every-person quality to them. However, the true star is the titular character played to perfection by Schwarzenegger especially considering some of his acting and line reading isn’t that good. But it matches the monotone robotic style you’d expect from a cyborg. Schwarzenegger actually only has 17 lines of dialogue and speaks less than 100 words throughout the movie.
Yet, his bulking body, flat top style hair and huge muscular face and jaw makes him look like someone who isn’t real. And despite criticism, Schwarzenegger actually spent months of weapons training and even would blind-fold himself to change out the magazines in the handguns so quickly. His feeling was that a real machine wouldn’t bother to even glance down at the weapon.
When the T-800 has to remove one of his damaged fake eyes, it does look fake considering today’s technology, put as Schwarzenegger puts some sunglasses on to ride his red eye, he looks at himself in the mirror and makes a little mouth movement that speaks volumes. It’s mostly a silent movie role for Schwarzenegger, which is actually harder for more actors today than decades ago.
I think too many actors nowadays and even back in 1984 have been counting not only the words in their dialogue but the number of letters per word. It takes a lot of humility for an actor to take on an role like this because if the T-800 repeatedly talked like he was in an Aaron Sorkin movie, I don’t think it would’ve worked as good. One of the funniest lines is when the T-800 is sitting in a hotel room while the manager outside is saying something stinks, the T-800 turns and says “Fuck you, asshole.”
This is also where a filmmaker nowadays might mess things up under the direction of another filmmaker. The Terminator is basically a variation of the slasher genre with science fiction elements, but the T-800 only kills out of necessity. He shoots the gun shop owner (Corman movie regular Dick Miller), but doesn’t bother with a biker at a pay phone or a pick-up truck driver outsider the motel. And he doesn’t harm the sleazy hotel manager because he knows it will attract more attention.
It could be because of the limited budget as it was produced on a $6.4 million budget through the now-defunct Hemdale Corporation, an independent film studio. While the movie is violent, we see little blood considering things. (And despite another meme, I don’t think Bill Paxton as one of the punk rockers who first sees the T-800 nude is actually killed. The only person he see killed is the other one played by Brian Thompson.) By keeping a lot off-screen or off-camera, Cameron works better by letting us use our imagination. We see Hal fire on the T-800 with an AR-15, but all we see is the T-800 turn around and then we cut to the sound of gunshots as Sarah cowers under a police desk.
Cameron was actually opposed to casting Schwarzenegger in the role of Kyle as he felt a more famous actor should play the T-800. Cameron even to the point of setting up a meeting to discourage Schwarzenegger’s interest. However, Cameron and Schwarzenegger actually had a good meeting with the filmmaker going back to film producer John Daly saying Schwarzenegger would be a better terminator. And yes, it is true that Cameron actually considered O.J. Simpson for the role but didn’t think people would believe him as a killer.
Filming had to be halted six months because Schwarzenegger was obligated to complete filming of Conan the Destroyer. But when interviewed on the set of that movie, he commented he was hesitant about this movie. Yet, it’s become his iconic role. And you can understand why he was worried. Schwarzenegger had worked with Bob Rafelson, Robert Altman, Dino De Laurentiis and even Lucille Ball, so he could’ve been worried about making a low-budget movie especially since the production had to be moved from Toronto to L.A. because of the delay.
Yet, it all worked out in the end. Despite the eye-surgery scene, just about everything in the movie seems impressive decades later. And even though he was playing a killer, it helped boost Schwarzenegger into the spotlight. Reviews were mixed but it was a good success at the box office making over $78 million worldwide. It also helped make Cameron a more sought-after filmmaker. Hamilton and Biehn had rocky performances as she would appear in the colossal failure that was King Kong Lives and Biehn was a last-minute replacement for James Remar as Cpl. Dwayne Hicks on Aliens.
Hamilton would go on to co-star with Ron Perlman in the TV series Beauty and the Beast before she totally changed in the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Gone was the timid young woman and now we saw a tough-as-nails badass who didn’t take shit off anyone. Hamilton’s transformation between the first and second movie would forever change Hollywood as it would help usher in women who were tired of playing the damsels in distress and the victims.
But Cameron’s behavior on the second movie would lead crew members to make shirts that read “Terminator 3, Not With Me.” And most fans would agree the franchise should’ve just been a duology. Instead, the third movie was good but had a lot of problems. Then there was The Sarah Connor Chronicles on TV and whatever Terminator: Salvation was supposed to be. Now, the movie is more famous for a rant Christian Bale did against a crew member that has been more justified when you consider the member was trying to take a picture after the cast and crew had been setting up a scene for hours.
There were two attempts to reboot the franchise, first with Terminator: Genysis and then Hamilton returned as Sarah in Terminator: Dark Fate, which was more favored by critics but didn’t make enough worldwide for a sequel. It’s been reported that Cameron has been considering rebooting it himself. But I say, leave it all alone. Schwarzenegger isn’t getting any younger. And now, the whole dystopia future has been played out ad nauseam. Incidentally, Cameron reportedly just used the dismal future as a throwaway backstory to explain why the T-800 is sent back.
In a world where everyone is trying to just make reboots/remakes and legacy sequels that retcon previous movies, we should just try to enjoy the movies that came first. They may not have been 100 percent perfect and you can see the rough edges on this movie. But it’s a lot better than a $200 million movie that just recycles old ideas.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 