1984
DIRECTOR: JAMES CAMERON PRODUCER: GALE ANNE HURD SCREENPLAY: JAMES CAMERON WITH GALE ANNE HURD STARRING: ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (THE TERMINATOR), LINDA HAMILTON (SARAH CONNOR), MICHAEL BIEHN (KYLE REESE), PAUL WINFIELD (LIEUTENANT TRAXLER), LANCE HENRIKSEN (DETECTIVE VUKOVICH), BESS MOTTA (GINGER)
The Terminator
ORION • COLOR, 107 MINUTES
A post-apocalyptic cyborg travels into the past to kill a waitress, but must also contend with the soldier sent back in time to protect her.
The Terminator is one of sci-fi’s greatest unexpected triumphs. Shot guerrilla-style on a modest budget, it raked in an enormous profit, earned critical praise, led to one of the biggest sequels in history, and still holds up as essential viewing. The surprise hit not only established Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hollywood’s premiere action hero and launched James Cameron as a major filmmaking force, it was considered one of the ten best films of 1984 by Time magazine and the “Most Important Film of the ’80s” by Esquire. Not bad for a B picture made by a neophyte director.
Though expectations for the film were low, the gripping story, relentless pace, and tinges of tongue-in-cheek humor elevated it from other action adventures of its day. Its clever, mind-boggling time-travel loop thrusts a cybernetic killing-machine from the future into an average young woman’s life in present-day Los Angeles, a concept born in James Cameron’s fever dream. While sick in bed, the young director of Piranha II (1981) envisioned a damaged metal robot dragging itself away from a fire, an image that may have been inspired by a similar scenario in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). Encouraged by producer Gale Anne Hurd (who first worked with Cameron on Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars [1980]), Cameron fleshed out his battle-scarred robot with a complex backstory about a nuclear war started by defense-network computers that “got smart” and created “a new order of intelligence.” Though Cameron invented little from scratch, he began with vaguely familiar science-fiction tropes and built a violent, high-energy thriller around them. With its every word and deed driving the plot forward, the movie is just as chillingly efficient as Schwarzenegger’s Terminator.
Lance Henriksen and Paul Winfield
Linda Hamilton and James Cameron on the “Tech Noir” set
Kyle Reese places an explosive inside the endoskeleton.
In the title role, the Austrian bodybuilder turned actor speaks fewer than seventy words and kills more than twenty-five people. Given his limited range and distinctive accent, the novice Conan the Barbarian (1982) performer was savvy enough to recognize The Terminator as the ideal vehicle to unleash his unique brand of star quality upon the world. After reading the script and meeting with Cameron, he later recalled, “I knew I was sitting on a goldmine.” Aided by the amazing prosthetic effects of makeup expert Stan Winston, Schwarzenegger became the screen’s quintessential cyborg and the movie’s most impressive special effect. “Somehow, even [the] accent worked,” Cameron has noted of his star. “It had a strange synthesized quality, like they hadn’t gotten the voice thing quite worked out.”
Unjustly overshadowed by Schwarzenegger’s epic role are the powerful performances of Linda Hamilton as the Terminator’s target, Sarah Connor, and Michael Biehn as her protector, Kyle Reese. Underneath the film’s tough hyper-alloy exterior throbs a passionate love story between these two fated souls who have a brief window for romance while escaping the mechanized killer. Biehn—who had to execute many of the same stunts as Schwarzenegger and also deliver pages of exposition—rivals the Terminator for ruggedness, but with a sensitive human heart. As a woman forced to develop courage she didn’t know she possessed, Hamilton etches a profound character arc from victim to victor. Every chase scene is fraught with tension because we know the fate of the human race literally depends upon the survival of Sarah, the mother-to-be of a future savior. By the time Reese is seriously injured near the film’s conclusion, Sarah has assumed his position as the hero, dragging the fading soldier to his feet and barking commands like a harsh drill sergeant. Cameron’s later films, such as Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), and Avatar (2009), would reinforce the director’s predilection for female characters who prove to be stronger than the men in their lives.
When the movie was released in October 1984, Orion’s head of marketing dismissed it as an “exploitation and action film that will come and go in one week.” But, due to audience word of mouth, it topped the box office. On TV and home video, the film’s popularity skyrocketed. Eventually, public demand for a sequel grew to such a fever pitch that Cameron, Schwarzenegger, and Hamilton reteamed for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), a mega-blockbuster with an incredible $100 million budget (nearly twenty times greater than the original) and the latest in computerized effects by George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic. In an amusing reversal of their original roles, the Terminator is reprogrammed to be good, while Sarah has become a steely fighting machine, fiercely protective of her young son, John Connor (Edward Furlong).
After starring in two of the four subsequent sequels and planning to come back for more, Schwarzenegger promised a reporter in 2017 that “the Terminator franchise is never finished.” Cameron agreed, announcing later that year that he would direct Hamilton and Schwarzenegger in a sixth installment.
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