The Terminator

There have been many memorable villains throughout film history, Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, Darth Vader, Kahn from Star Trek, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger just to name a few. But one of the most unique villains to EVER grace the silver screen, came in the form of a cyborg from the future. In 1984, a low-budget science fiction film was released to theaters. The Terminator.

The film opens as a garbage man is collecting garbage when a small electrical storm comes out of nowhere. When the smoke and electricity clears, a lone figure stands up. The stranger(Arnold Schwarzenegger) finds a couple of punks and kills two of them and takes the clothes from the last one. The film then cuts to an alleyway, when a similar electrical storm happens. A man falls out of the storm and finds some clothes. His name is Kyle Reese(Michael Biehn). Later we see a young woman, Sarah Connor(Linda Hamilton) on her way to work. One of her co-workers has her watching television when a news story describes another woman with the same name that has been murdered. She eventually ends up running into Kyle Reese, who tells her that he and the man that's trying to kill her are from the year 2029, and that the man trying to kill her is actually a cybernetic organism called a Terminator. Reese then tells her that the reason he is there to protect her is that she will become the mother of the man who will lead the human race to victory against Skynet, an artificial intelligence that nearly wipes out the human race with nuclear weapons in the future. The Terminator is there to kill her to prevent John Connor from being born.

There's a lot to say about this movie, that I honestly don't know where to begin. When this movie came out in 1984, it was one of the most unique and original films that anybody had ever seen. A killer machine from the future? Nobody had seen like that before. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator? Arnold was the perfect fit. As a body-builder, Schwarzenegger had the body and the build to play a killer cyborg. As a result The Terminator has become of the most iconic film characters ever, and the role that really catapulted Schwarzenegger to the top. His performance as the Terminator was intimidating, not because the script required him to emote, he played a machine, but he came across as intimidating and unstoppable. Linda Hamilton played a fairly care-free woman who got caught up in a situation that would determine the future of mankind. Michael Biehn plays Kyle Reese with grit and determination, but also comes across as a real human being trying to protect humanity's greatest asset. The film would also put Lance Henriksen on the map. He plays a regular cop, but he still stands out. Henriksen would work with James Cameron again in Aliens.

The story in the film is really good and fairly original. Skynet, an A.I from the future that sends machines to the past to change the future was a pretty unique concept. Of course, with a film like this, you would have to expect special effects, action and thrills. The Terminator delivers on all counts. As this was a low-budget picture, the visual effects would have to be done practically, as CGI was still in its infancy. Stan Winston, who would go on to become a star in the special effects world alongside the likes of Dennis Muren, crafted a very unique villain in the shape of a metallic skeleton that didn't really appear until towards the end of the movie. A lot of the make-up effects, while seemingly primitive by today's standards, were nothing less than revolutionary, as Winston created a look-alike of Schwarzenegger. A lot of the techniques you saw in Terminator really hadn't been used to that degree before. One of the most important aspects of the film was also the music by Brad Fiedel. The music was more synthesized than orchestral, but the main theme of The Terminator is one of the most iconic pieces of music.

Is the film perfect? No, but honestly, there's really not a whole lot wrong with it either. The visual effects are kind of what you would expect for a low-budget movie, and yet they still stand up 30 years later. The Terminator has become a classic in every sense of the word. This is the movie that launched James Cameron's career as a director and it put Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn on the radar. Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton would work together again in Terminator 2, while Arnold would reprise his role for a third time in Terminator 3. As a result of The Terminator, Schwarzenegger has had an impressive body of work, that includes: Commando, Twins, Predator, Total Recall, Kindergarten Cop, True Lies and Eraser. Michael Biehn would work with Lance Henriksen and James Cameron again in Aliens, while working with Cameron yet again in The Abyss. Michael Biehn has landed some of the most iconic roles, which include not only Kyle Reee, but Corporal Hicks in Aliens, Lt Coffey in The Abyss, and Johnny Ringo in Tombstone. Linda Hamilton would go on to star in The Beauty and The Beast television series with Ron Perlman, and would eventually play a relatively normal person in Dante's Peak. Because of The Terminator, James Cameron would go on to have the two highest-grossing movies in history under his belt: Titanic and Avatar.

The Terminator stands out as one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made. It would spawn several sequels, a live-action television series, video games, comics and books. After Terminator 2, the movie sequels dropped in quality of story-telling, but necessarily special effects. Even Terminator 2 would retread some of the ground that put the original film on the map, but T2 would take visual effects to a whole new level. I'll review the other Terminator films later, but right now, The Terminator stands on its own, with a story that has heart and soul and just thrills you almost every minute of the movie. It is one of the centerpieces of science fiction. It's a movie that gets nearly everything right. If you are a true science fiction fan, you will have already seen this movie. More than once. More than twice. On a side note, a 5th Terminator film is in the works. And as a result, I felt it was time to revisit the Terminator franchise again. Say what you will about the sequels, but the original Terminator is magnificent. There's not enough that I can say about this film other than it's one of my favorites, easily in the top 3. If you haven't seen it, for shame! See it now. 10/10. To quote somebody when I review the other Terminator films: "I'll be back."