The Terminator (1984)
Director: James Cameron
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, and Paul Winfield
Rated: R
Runtime: 108 min.
by Brian Eggert
Reviewed:
05/09/2009
Original Release Date:
10/26/1984
The Terminator works today on a level of oddity and nostalgia more than actual entertainment value. There’s no denying that upon its release, the film boasted impressive effects from Stan Winston’s wonderful robot design and some neat miniature work to create grim visions of its apocalyptic future overrun by machines. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes his most iconic onscreen appearance, saying the line that he’d fall back on for, well, ever. And writer-director James Cameron starts a career that only gets bigger and more impressive as it continues. But looking back, the material fails to be much more than a product of its time, despite the franchise’s ongoing popularity.
Cameron, then an unknown whose only legitimate screen credit was Piranha II: The Spawning, devised his concept from two Harlan Ellis-penned episodes of The Outer Limits. Cameron’s scenario involves a cybernetic organism called a Terminator (Schwarzenegger) traveling back in time from the machine-ruled future of 2029, to 1984, where it hunts and kills women named Sarah Connor, hoping to find the mother of John Connor, the rebel leader of its time. The correct Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is saved by a human soldier from the future named Reese (Michael Biehn), who was sent back by her future son to protect her from the Terminator. After hearing Reese’s stories about his difficult post-armageddon lifestyle, wherein he confesses he’s a virgin, Sarah and Reese end up in bed, and the result is the future’s savior. In the finale, Reese dies trying to stop the Terminator, and Sarah crushes the thing, surviving with the knowledge that her unborn son will lead humanity after Judgment Day.
But you know all this, don’t you? You’ve seen the movie, probably more than once, and looking back on it, maybe you’re like me and you find it just doesn’t work anymore, and perhaps never did. The entire Terminator franchise is based on a time travel paradox. Let me explain: How could there have been a John Connor to send Reese back in time if Reese was indeed his father? Consider time like a straight line moving forward. As the line progresses, Sarah Connor gives birth to her son John and he grows up to lead the human rebellion against the machines of the evil computer Skynet. Time doubles-back when John sends Reese back to protect his mother, and the straight line becomes a loop. But before it could become a loop, it had to be a straight line. Understand? So, by this logic, someone must have impregnated Sarah on the original timeline strain to create John in the first place, because without him, Reese would have never been sent back. Who is this other guy? We never know. He must exist, however, because without him, the wishy-washy science Cameron suggests just doesn’t cut it.
Then again, this is an action movie. However much Cameron wanted to make science-fiction, the director has always been better at big and noisy and explosive, versus exact science. He works in clichés and heavy artillery to create his own brand of actionized entertainment. Just watch Aliens or True Lies—movies with the potential for smarts that are reduced to formula, no matter how visually or technically innovative they may be. This is not to suggest that his movies are less than exceptional diversion, just that he typically engages only the senses, not the mind. His rare diversions from this approach are Titanic and his Director’s Cut of The Abyss, the latter being his best and most undervalued work.
Cameron originally saw the Terminators as inconspicuous in shape, making it easier to blend-in and infiltrate their targets; in fact, he wanted actor Lance Henriksen in the title role, who instead was cast as a detective when Schwarzenegger signed on. Schwarzenegger’s bulk seemed a more naturally intimidating choice, which is curious, because if there’s anything deserving the description of robotic and unnatural, it’s Mr. Schwarzenegger’s acting. Why, for example, would the machines design a cyborg with an Austrian accent? To confuse the enemy with its bad pronunciation? Within the movie, it hardly matters, since anyone with the potential of realizing the Terminator is actually a cyborg is filled with a barrage of bullets, or deemed crazy, before the machine’s identity is revealed. Then again, looking for logic in a 1980s action movie is like fighting a Terminator with a Nerf gun.
Cameron’s Terminator franchise remains one of the most dated in the history of blockbusters. Each film’s era can be identified by the oodles of pop-culture poured into the backdrop. Look at Hamilton’s shaggy dog hairdo, which serves as better evidence for the film’s year of origin than carbon dating could provide. Or the mohawk-laden punks the Terminator wipes out when he first arrives in 1984, among them a young Bill Paxton. And in the hipster nightclub called “Tech Noir” where Sarah Connor hides out from her tail, the slow-motion ‘80s dancing gyrates like a bad music video. A product of its time in the worst possible way, revisiting this action flick is an exercise in time travel itself.
Indeed, looking back, there are many questions. Why did Schwarzenegger’s career and not Biehn’s take off from this launchpad? After all, Biehn plays the sympathetic hero and displays wild ferocity, whereas Schwarzenegger is static and unappealing. Cameron would use Biehn twice more on Aliens and The Abyss, both with incredible results. Still, he’s forgotten today in favor of Schwarzenegger’s robo-acting. And what is it about the line “I’ll be back” that stuck with people? Within the story it’s rather inconsequential, leading to the Terminator driving a car into a police station. Is that all it takes to build a Hollywood career, not to mention a political station as California’s governor? Audiences’ blind enthusiasm for The Terminator, and their will to propel Schwarzenegger into superstardom, baffles me like few other successes have. But alas, there’s no changing the past…
But here I go again, looking for brains in an action movie. Shame on me. The Terminator is mindless entertainment, worthy of viewing with the understanding that you’ll probably laugh at its dated quality and scoff at its science. Drift off into the sound of gunfire and you might have a good time, but only if time is something you’re willing to disregard—meaning the misused time travel contrivance, the time you’ll put into this viewing experience, and the era of its creation. Ignore these details, and there’s plenty to savor in terms of brainless violence.
More from this series:
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Terminator: Salvation (2009)
