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Throwback Theater: Imperfect future: ‘The Terminator’
“I’ll be back.”
Direct and to the point, the iconic phrase and its heavily-accented line reading have become the stuff of Hollywood legend. Even today, 30 years, three sequels, one TV series, and countless parodies later, it is impossible to hear those words without conjuring images of Arnold Schwarzenegger under the direction of self-proclaimed king of the world, James Cameron. Such is the power of zeitgeist. Such is the power of “The Terminator.”
Of course, it wasn’t always this way.
In the late 1970s, Cameron was a bright Physics major who’d dropped out of community college to find something more challenging, working as a truck driver to sustain himself in the meantime. The bolt from the blue that inspired him to pursue a career in filmmaking came in the form of George Lucas’ seminal space fantasy that essentially rewrote the book on how movies were made. The day Cameron saw “Star Wars,” he knew what he wanted to do with his life, and he quit his job in favor of reading everything he could on find on filmmaking before entering the art department of low-budget B-movie king, Roger Corman.
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The official poster. All photos courtesy of MGM
The rest, as they say, is history, as Cameron banged out a screenplay to wipe the bad taste of “The Spawning” from his mouth, then held off on selling “The Terminator” for a high fee in hopes of finding a producer who would let him direct it. That person would turn out to be Gale Anne Hurd, in the first of what would turn out to be numerous blockbuster collaborations between the two. Hurd bought Cameron’s screenplay for the grand sum of US$1 in exchange for letting him direct the film as he saw fit.
The film opens in 1984 Los Angeles as spherical lightning displays herald the separate arrivals arrival of two time travelers. Both of them are seeking out a woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). Of the two, one is a nigh-unstoppable cyborg bent on eliminating Connor before she can give birth to the leader of the human resistance against the machines, while the other is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) a battle-weary soldier sent from the future to protect her and her unborn son. With the cost of failure being nothing less than the fate of the entire human race, Reese must pool all his wits and resources to stay alive and defeat the Terminator.
With the plethora of time travel stories (to say nothing of sequels to this one) we’ve gotten in the years since “The Terminator” was released, it’s oddly refreshing how straightforward the plot comes into play. This is one of those films where, even if you don’t know the exact details, the basic story is —much like Batman’s origin or Luke Skywalker’s parentage—one of those things you just know through cultural osmosis.
As the titular antagonist, Schwarzenegger is seemingly tailor-made for the role. Physically imposing, short on words, and just as robotic in demeanor and tone here as his critics have always accused him of being, you really couldn’t ask for a better Terminator.
Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor here has yet to metamorphose into the more popular, battle-hardened character she would be in 1991’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” serving largely as this film’s damsel in distress until she realizes the veracity of Reese’s words. As the protagonist Schwarzenegger was originally slated to play, Biehn plays Reese as the sympathetic military man that would become his calling card in films like “Aliens,” “Navy Seals,” and “The Rock.” The two display a realistic chemistry here, making for a somewhat plausible scenario when the couple creates the temporal paradox that ensures Reese’s arrival in our time.
Where future installments would feature fully-animated cyborgs trying to tear each other to liquid metal pieces with plasma cannons and oversized blades in increasingly-elaborate set pieces, “The Terminator” is striking for just how low-key the entire affair is, with the lead characters utilizing straightforward guerilla tactics and conventional weaponry to take each other out.
Stan Winston, the special effects maestro behind the film’s prosthetics, animatronics and stop-motion animation, would win an Oscar for his work in “Terminator 2.” It is truly fascinating to see just how effective his early work was, despite the (lack of) budget. Indeed, a grungy, seat-of-the-pants, low-budget sense permeates this production, and it suits the material—one need only compare the climactic truck chase that closes this film versus similar sequences in the first 30 minutes of the second and third films to see how outlandish the series grew with each installment.
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As Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton have a believable chemistry as a couple on the run from the killer cyborg.
And what of the then-infamous level of violence that got everyone up in arms? Truth be told, it’s kind of hard to comment on something like this when audiences now see far worse on television programs like “The Walking Dead.” Sure, there’s a little bit more grit to the action here, but even that can be chalked up more to the low budget (and studios being unafraid of producing action films for adults) than anything else. All told, there’s nothing really objectionable here, and the parts where the Terminator performs ocular surgery on itself are more disturbing than any of the film’s numerous bullet-riddled sequences.
At the time of this writing, a fifth cinematic installment (“Terminator: Genesis”) is being shot, with 67-year old Schwarzenegger returning to the lead, while “Game of Thrones’” star Emilia Clarke takes over the role of Sarah Connor, with former “Doctor Who” star Matt Smith along for the ride.
While we have no idea how that film will turn out yet, there is no denying that the original
stands ever-proudly, not only as a turning point in the careers of several of its key talents, but as a significant achievement in the annals of big screen sci-fi. Violent, visceral, and chock-full of memorable moments, “The Terminator” is one of the greats, and a film that no self-respecting genre fan should pass up the chance to see. — VC, GMA News
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