This article was originally published in summer 2009. [Thanks to Leave Me The White for some of the screencaps] I'm reposting with minor edits in celebration of the 20th anniversary of its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day on this 4th of July Weekend. Plus, what's more American than spectacles of Hollywood violence that launced billion dollar franchises?
Arnold Schwarzenegger as "The Terminator"
"Tech Noir"
In March of 1984 when The Terminator began filming, the director James Cameron and the producer Gale Ann Hurd were no Hollywood heavyweights. Cameron was no one's idea of a visionary (except for perhaps his own) and had only one feature under his belt, Piranha 2: The Spawning -- auspicious beginnings! Hurd had learned the production ropes on B movies for Roger Corman. Cameron and Hurd intended for the dark, fast and cheaply made robot movie to be their calling card. Seven months later in October the movie premiered with only its deceptively simple premise (killer machine hunts woman) and Conan the Barbarian (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to sell it. The Terminator was an immediate hit, though not quite a blockbuster. It earned a Conan-like $38 million gross in its initial run (which I believe is something roughly in the ballpark of $100 million in today's ticket sales).
As a franchise it was a slow starter but as a stand alone movie The Terminator was anything but. The movie begins with a bone crushing (literally) view of "The Year of Darkness", in which massive machines hunt humans in desolate post-apocalyptic ruins. Very quickly we're thrown back to present day Los Angeles ...present day in in the 80s at least.
An electric storm begins and a naked crouching man rises from the clearing smoke. He proceeds to walk emotionless through LA and slaughters some punks for clothes. A second electrical storm follows dropping another naked man into downtown LA. The twin sequences are mostly wordless but already Cameron's story instincts are shining: The first man (we don't technically know he's a machine) is already embedded in the audiences mind as an cool collected deadly force to be reckoned with, the second Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is, in contrast, a scurrying, less capable and frankly desperate looking man.
Contrasting Entrances
In short, he's mortal.
We don't know why he's there but his world is already merciless with him (damn that pavement smacks him hard) Before he can even get his bearings "What year is it?" he's being hunted. Soon both men are armed and searching for the same woman "Sarah Connor". A smartly recurring shot has all three lead players scanning the phone book for the name, followed the first time by an expository cut to the Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) we're looking for.
The large stone faced man quickly dispenses with the first two unlucky Sarah Connors. We learn that dogs don't like Terminators. We learn that the Terminator can mimic voices. The police realize someone is scrolling down the list and even Sarah Connor herself, the Sarah Connor, hears about the first murder. As she gets ready for a night out, we realize she's next... and that her roommate is probably done for, too, even if they remain ignorant to the bad omen the first murder portends.
The Phonebook! The Fashions! The Suspense!
All of this happens very swiftly, sometimes with almost inhuman proficiency (thank the sharp editing by Mark Goldblatt) like the brutal unfeeling demise of the first Sarah. In its early sequences, The Terminator has the timber of a slasher movie. It's over in a flash. Cameron wastes no time in his calling card film. Would that more action filmmakers would have learned from his economy. He doesn't stop to explain. He just shows with clarity and moves on. His films are so precise that sometimes I think he's a Terminator himself, a T-Auteur2000.
Next comes the pivotal plot braiding sequence as all three lead characters are finally threaded together at the brilliantly named dance club Tech-Noir. This leads to possibly the most brilliant shot in the movie as the T-800 stands firing his heavy artillery in front of the blinking sign.
Tech-Noir, indeed: He's a futuristic machine and this movie is pitch black with menace.
The night club sequence ups the ante considerably. We're finally shown, without a shadow of a doubt, that Schwarzenegger's character is, in fact, a machine. He rises from what should be death and we get our first shot from inside his head as he targets the fleeing Sarah and Reese. We're nearly 40 minutes into the movie before Cameron finally stops and lets us breathe a little, letting the exposition in. Reese tells Sarah what the T-800 is, putting the sci-fi threat in all too human terms
It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity. Or remorse. Or fear. And it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead.
Reese and Sarah are caught by the police after a high speed chase with the T-800 and in the police station the psychiatrist also gets to restate the franchise plot and laugh at the absurdity of it all.
This computer thinks it can win by killing him before he's even conceived. A sort of retroactive abortion?
Apparently, in the 80s you could say the word "abortion" onscreen. How far we've regressed.
Come with me if you want to... f***. (the non-immaculate conception)
Speaking of regression... in the 80s action/horror hybrids were rated R (It's called The Terminator. It needs to be violent and scary) and women were usually naked when they had sex instead of leaving their bras on as they rolled around in strangely adhesive sheets. It's true. I'm not trying to be a horndog by why shouldn't Sarah Connor be naked? We're visualizing the conception of our new savior J.C. (John Connor) and that's important. If The Terminator were made today they would cut out the goriest bits and make Sarah wear a bra during her world-saving orgasm.
But I digress... in the last half of the film we basically morph from a sci-fi horror film to a chase picture, as Sarah and Reese run from the increasingly robotic looking killing machine and fight him when they have to. Unless there was a heroic woman in Piranha 2 (I haven't seen it) this 1984 classic also gives us our first ultra satisfying taste of James Cameron's respect for powerful women. When Reese is finally put down by the big bad machine, there's no prince to rescue Sarah Connor and she takes matters into her own hands.
You can see her pooling her strength to help Reese and then herself in the last intense fights in the movie. The damsel in distress within her has to die. She's her own savior. And she's the killer now.
You're terminated, fucker.
Sarah Connor crushes this machine but the story isn't over. Storm clouds gather in the sky as she drives away to Mexico and the credits roll. A
The first poster for this 80s classic referred to the original T-800 as "something unstoppable." It was a rare case of marketing as prophecy. The Terminator wasn't a critical sensation and received no Oscar nominations (not even for that brilliantly metallic and frightening theme by Brad Friedel, something like the The Jaws of sci-fi). It started life as a mid-sized hit but snowballed into a massive one on home video in the following years, eventually becoming a billion dollar avalanche of a franchise.
What a calling card The Terminator turned out to be.
