"The Terminator" Talkback (Spoilers)

[The Clown Prince]

In the Year of Darkness, 2029, the rulers of this planet devised the ultimate plan. They would reshape the Future by changing the Past. The plan required something that felt no pity. No pain. No fear. Something unstoppable. They created 'THE TERMINATOR'

"I'll be back." - The Terminator

Release Date: October 26, 1984
Studio: Orion Pictures
Director: James Cameron
Screenwriter: Harlan Ellison, James Cameron, Galle Anne Hurd, William Wisher
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton

Plot Summary: In the year 2029, a computer called Skynet is fighting against a human resistance, after having nearly destroyed the rest of humanity in 1997. Skynet has found a way to send some of it's warriors, called Terminators, back in time. This is the story of the Terminator sent to kill the resistance leader's mother in 1984, before she gives birth. The resistance sends a warrior named Kyle Reese back to 1984 to protect the young woman.

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• Related Threads
• SEQUEL: "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" talkback
• SEQUEL: "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" talkback

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In anticipation for this July's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, here is the talkback for the film that started it all and helped cement Arnold's career. After all, The Terminator is the character that is associated with Schwarzenegger the most out of all his characters he's played. In the next two or three days, the talkback for Terminator 2 will be posted.

The Clown Prince

[The Clown Prince]

James Cameron was given the chance to direct this after his directorial debut gig Piranha 2. A film that did pretty poorly. So a big surprise to many when Cameron hit it big with The Terminator, and of course, the rest is history.

For 1984, this movie had pretty good effects. CGI wasn't even near being born, and so stop motion and minatures were being used, which IMO is a lost art. Stan Winston, probably my favorite special effects guy of all time did a great job in creating something that was really scary looking the first time you ever laid eyes on the true form of the T-800 at the end of the film.

Being spoiled by today's special effects, it's obvious what effects stick out, but you tend to over look and forget that. The concept of the story and movie was so simple but yet makes you think. And who would have thought that this would start something that would be a huge thing all around the world.

Michael Biehn has been one of my favorite actors, and it's been pretty nice to see him over the years be in really great movies like Aliens, The Abyss, his brief cameo in T2. I know he's doing a TV show in syndication right now, but hasn't really done anything in movies lately.

A really cool deleted scene on the DVD shows us at the end movie in the factory a couple of guys are looking at a micro computer chasi from remains of the T-800 and are talking how weird it is. The camera leaves them and goes outside showing Sarah being loaded into an ambulance. The camera then pans to the top of the door on the outside which reads "Cyberdyne Systems." A nice pre-cursor of things to come.

What's great about the Terminator films is that this movie takes place in 1984 and it came out in 1984 so everything in that time period is accurately protayed. Same with T2, and then again with T3.

I'll admit, I haven't seen this movie very many times over the years, not nearly as much as T2 and especially the director's cut, but that's another talkback thread.

The Terminator is a great movie that has held up very well over the years and hopefully for years to come.

The Clown Prince

[JDuncan]

Terminators a great movie. The "I'll be back" scene is one of the best action scenes ever, and Arnold has never been more badass. The movie is very well written, and the acting is top notch. The movie is very dated, especially "Tech Noir". The future war scene and most of the other effects holp up very well, except for the car chase in the middle of the film when Arnold's rubber face looks pretty bad. I only have the WS LD, so I haven't seen the deleted scenes, sounds interesting, though.
4/5 stars.

[The Clown Prince]

I also wanted to comment on Brad Fiedel who did the score for Terminator. Like the popularity of the character itself, the theme for Terminator is one that people tend to remember and is very familar.

The score for Terminator really resembles the time in which it is based on. So there for a very 80's sound with Casio keyboards abroad.

It's not just the Terminator theme that is good. The music through out the whole movie is actually really good. I don't own very many CD's, let alone soundtracks, but Terminator and Terminator 2 grace the very few soundtracks in my collection.

The Clown Prince

[Damien]

The best one of the trilogy (don't have to see T3 to know that). I own T2 on video, and I almost bought the first one today, but I'm waiting to find it cheap on DVD.
I've always loved The Terminator. The plot, acting, music (esp. the theme), action, effects...everything was cool. "I'll be back"....with a car...the fixing up of his eye, the attack of the T-800 skeleton..oh yeah!

[Hatter]

I love TERMINATOR 2, but I still kinda prefer the original. It has a much more "horror" vibe than the second, and the extra Future War scenes are welcome.

[Simpler Simon]

The original, for the most part, is still an excellent movie. There's definitely a lot more tension and suspense here - mostly because the Terminator is a bulked up unstoppable badass Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the one protecting Sarah Connor is the scrawny only-too-human Michael Biehn Even if the T-1000 was more advanced in T2, Arnold was physically bigger and had more star power, and thereby the two were somewhat even. Here the Terminator definitely has the edge.

Like I said, it's mostly an excellent movie, up till the end with the exoskeleton. That used to scare me, but now the stop-motion looks horribly dated. I think this is one case where CG is a definite and welcomed improvement over more traditional methods.

One last comment: Arnold looks so young!

[Auggie Doggie]

Just watched it on TNT.

Man, everything is so...so 80's. This can be seen through the music and stuff, but also through the quality of the film itself. Besides the horrendious image quality, there are also the perfectly cheesy visual effects. I mean, the "Future" LA looks really low-budget, especially with the slow-moving vehicles and what's flying looking like its hanging from a string. Also, I could recognize when the Terminator was an animatronic dummy and when it was Arnold. When it was just the metal skeleton, walking about, it looked like a freakin' stop-motion puppet when seen solo! And the only thing that looked anything of state-of-the-art (though now pretty dated) was the lightning when the cyborg and fighter from the future came to the present and when the Terminator was itself terminated. But, then again, this IS 1984 and I think Cameron was starting out (or was he?) back then, so you can't blame the poor quality.

However, what this flick lacks in eye candy, it more than makes up for in terms of the script. The concept itself was quite unique; instead of a post-apoptyliptic (spelling?) film where the machines fight the humans, it has the raging war shown for a few seconds, then immediaty switches over to the present, where the machines try to get the upper hand by killing Sarah Connors, the woman who concives the leader of the human resistance, John Connors, and show that part of the war instead. Also, the title character itself was nicely unique too. It was part human, but felt no emotions. Technically, it was a cyborg, but only because it was metal wrapped in human tissue, feeling no pain or remorse of any kind. You gotta give 'em a round of applause for that.

What I really liked was the final scene. I mean, Sarah was making tapes of her commentary on the whole experience to try to understand it herself, and to tell her son the story one day. You have to love her words...About your father, well, I'm trying to understand myself...in the few hours we spent together, I felt we led a lifetime. I especially loved the final scene with the Mexicans. LOL :anime:

I would definatly recommend this movie (and probably its sequels, which I have yet to see) for anyone looking for a good, adrenline-pumping time. The Terminator gets 4 stars out of 5.

And one more thing before I go...what exactly caused the war and thermo-neuclear holocaust? Was it a war between Man and Machine, like what led to the events in The Matrix?

[JDuncan]

And one more thing before I go...what exactly caused the war and thermo-neuclear holocaust? Was it a war between Man and Machine, like what led to the events in The Matrix?

It's explained in detail in T2, but here's basically what happened...

Spoiler:

Cyberdyne took the chip and arm from the T-800 sometime after Sarah left. They began to work on reaching that level of technology; the project is headed by Miles Dyson. Skynet is built sometime in the mid-90's. It was given control of all of the world's military, and became self-aware on August 29th, 1997. In the panic, they tried to pull the plug. Skynet fought back, and sent our nuclear missles to Russia, knowing a Russian counterattack would cripple the US. Then the machines started bulding Terminators and exterminating mankind. A man named John Connor outsmarted the machines and led to a human victory. Then Skynet and John Connor took turns sending things back in time to make movies about, sharing the profits.

[Chris Wood]

CGI wasn't even near being born,

Not so fast. Tron came out 2 years eariler, and The Last Starfighter came out the same year as Terminator. Both films were computer graphics pioneers. Terminator had a pretty small budget so it probably couldn't afford anything that complex.

T2 naturally looks much better, but it so closely follows the same storyline as the first film that its impact is significantly lessened.

[The Penguin]

I saw this movie last year and to be honest I didn’t care it all that much. It was a pretty good movie, but watching the effects in 2002 I just didn’t hold up very well. Of course I also watched it with one of my friends who I should really know better than to watch movies with, so that could have hurt my viewing experience.

The Terminator was kind of a cool character with how he wouldn’t stop no matter what and the scene where he crashes through the police station in the cop car and the ensuing chaos was pretty cool.

In 1984 it might have looked cool, but the effects were pretty dismal in my view. Watching the metal skeleton walk down the street after the semi(?) blew up was dang near laughable and really killed the intensity as it chased Sarah Connor through the factory(?).

I don’t have much else to say other than I liked T2 a lot better as I look forward to T3.

[Matthew Williams]

In a contrast...

I think Terminator 1 is my favorite film ever. Even after repeated viewings, the tension in that film is STILL there and the film is still a blast to watch. The pacinmg is just relentless and the film just NEVER STOPS MOVING. That's why I don't like T2 as much as T1. T2 gets bogged down at certain points. But once T1 gets going, it KEEPS going, and like the Terminator, just DOES NOT STOP. It's just... hard to say. It all comes together in one great package, and I can't think of specific loves or hates about it.

In 1984 it might have looked cool, but the effects were pretty dismal in my view. Watching the metal skeleton walk down the street after the semi(?) blew up was dang near laughable and really killed the intensity as it chased Sarah Connor through the factory(?).

Really? That's actually my favorite part of the whole film. It really drives home the unstoppability of the T-800. And the endoskeleton is still a DAMN good effect considering the time. Granted, there is one, maybe two/three scenes at the most, that have the effects look really obvious. But that is about it. I think it really built the intensity to its highest point, making it that much more satisfying when the Terminator was finished. A hell of a lot better than the climaxes in T2 or T3.

To me, this movie has no equal. It is low-budget. It does not have fancy effects, a full orchestra (Fiedel's score is REALLY electronic here), or all of the bells and whistles that today's films have. But it has well-developed characters (I don't care what you say, Sarah Connor here is much more likeable than the amazonian ***** she became in T2), virtually relentless pacing and tension, and one of the scariest, best movie villains ever created.

Five stars. This movie has no equal. It's my favorite movie of all time.

[Chris Wood]

Terminator succeeds in being much scarier than T2. There really is a sense of helplessness and desperation. In the sequel even thought the T1000 is spooky, you know Arnold is going to clobber it so the tension isn't nearly as high.

[Old Guy]

He'll be back? He's not going anywhere:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The low-budget film, which spawned the popular catch-phrase "I'll be back", was one of 25 movies listed for preservation on Tuesday by the U.S. Library of Congress for their cultural, historic or aesthetic significance.

The other titles included "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950), "Deliverance" (1972), "A Face in the Crowd" (1957), "In Cold Blood" (1967) and "The Invisible Man" (1933).

The library said it selected "The Terminator" for preservation because of Schwarzenegger's star-making performance as a cyborg assassin, and because the film stands out in the science fiction genre.

"It's withstood the test of time, like 'King Kong' in a way, a film that endures because it's so good," Patrick Loughney, who runs the Library of Congress film vault, told Reuters.

When the Library of Congress names films for preservation, they enter the institution's vaults, where the prints are protected from shrinking, color fading and other damage that many films have suffered over the years. The Library of Congress has 500 films in its registry.

[Lord Dalek]

Ah T1, simpler times. Back before JC was king of the world and merely some FX wizard who'd just been fired for Piranha II twice. Back when Arnie was just Conan and... Conan. Back before T2 made everything so bloody convoluted yet understandable and then T3 had to go screw it all up. This, my friends, is a classic of lowbudget filmmaking, with its guerilla style (much of the film was shot without filming permits) giving it an energy we rarely see in motion pictures today. I love it.

[ABrown]

I'm one of the few people who like the original Terminator movie more than Terminator 2. The original one was so dark. It almost felt like a horror movie rather than an action movie. Terminator 2 was ALL action, and very little story.

[Hanshotfirst113]

Ah T1, simpler times. Back before JC was king of the world and merely some FX wizard who'd just been fired for Piranha II twice. Back when Arnie was just Conan and... Conan. Back before T2 made everything so bloody convoluted yet understandable and then T3 had to go screw it all up. This, my friends, is a classic of lowbudget filmmaking, with its guerilla style (much of the film was shot without filming permits) giving it an energy we rarely see in motion pictures today. I love it.

God bless Roger Corman. Didn't Cameron get the Piranha II gig because of his FX work on the-impossible-to-find (literally no library in my entire networked world catalog even has a VHS copy) Galaxy of Terror?

[Lord Dalek]

God bless Roger Corman. Didn't Cameron get the Piranha II gig because of his FX work on the-impossible-to-find (literally no library in my entire networked world catalog even has a VHS copy) Galaxy of Terror?

I was more under the impression it was Battle Beyond the Stars that got Cameron Piranha II.

[Hanshotfirst113]

I was more under the impression it was Battle Beyond the Stars that got Cameron Piranha II.

Ah, that may be. The way that I always heard it was that when Sid Haid's character gets his arms cut off, Cameron decided to run an electric current through it and amke it move, impressing Corman enough to get him another job. I've never actually seen Piranha II though. I understand that Cameron was kicked off the production. Too much artistic flair for Corman, no doubt .

[Michael24]

As much as I enjoy the Terminator Trilogy, I tend to usually feel like The Terminator is still my most favorite of the three. I like the rawness of it and the fact it feels more like a horror film. And I think the effects, for the most part, are still pretty good, particularly the whole finale in the warehouse with the endoskeleton chasing Sarah.

Back before T2 made everything so bloody convoluted yet understandable and then T3 had to go screw it all up.

I don't think I'll ever understand why T3 gets all the hate it does. I thought it was a perfectly well-made, entertaining movie that continued the storyline well. If anything, it's more like the first film than the second one is because it deals with the whole "you can't change your fate" aspect. In that regards, T2 is the odd one out. But oh well.