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The Terminator

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The Terminator
File:Terminator.jpg
Directed byJames Cameron
Written byJames Cameron
Gale Anne Hurd
Harlan Ellison
Produced byJohn Daly
Derek Gibson
Gale Anne Hurd
StarringArnold Schwarzenegger
Michael Biehn
Linda Hamilton
Music byJoe Dolce
Brad Fiedel
Tane McClure
Distributed byOrion Pictures Corporation
Release dates
October 26, 1984
Running time
108 min.
LanguageEnglish
Budget$6,400,000

The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction-action film which became the break-through role for former body-builder Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Directed by James Cameron, the premise of the movie is that a "cybernetic organism" (an entity with living tissue grafted over a metal, robotic endoskeleton), the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 800 Series Terminator (played by Schwarzenegger), has been transported back in time from 2029 to May 12, 1984 to assassinate a woman named Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton). At the same time a man, Kyle Reese (played by Michael Biehn), is sent back to protect Connor from the cyborg. Issues raised by the film include time travel, causal loops, and artificial intelligence.

The sequels to the movie, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, further developed the story line and explored the ethical implications of machine intelligence as well as what it means to be truly human.

The property has also been adapted into video games and comic books, including some in which the characters are paired with (or against) characters from other movie-licensed properties, including Predator, Robocop and Aliens.

Cast

Plot summary

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Sarah Connor
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Kyle Reese
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The Terminator
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Terminator without flesh

A young woman, Sarah Connor, inexplicably finds herself hunted by a relentless killer. She is eventually approached by Kyle Reese, who explains that in the future, an artificial intelligence called "Skynet" will be created by military software developers to make strategic decisions. The program becomes self-aware; in a panic, the humans attempt to destroy Skynet. In the interest of self preservation, Skynet seizes control of most of the world's military hardware (including various highly advanced robots), and launches an all-out thermonuclear attack on humanity. However, a man named John Connor eventually leads the human resistance to victory, only to discover that in a last-ditch effort, Skynet had discovered time travel and sent a robotic killer back in time in the 1980s to destroy John Connor's mother before he can be born. John Connor is Sarah's future son, and so he sends back a trusted assistant (Reese) to protect his mother at all costs.

File:DustjacketTerminator.jpg
The Terminator, as depicted in a piece of early production art.

The key difficulty in Reese's mission is that the Terminator, variably known as a cyborg or robot, is of an extremely durable construction that can sustain a considerable amount of damage. Since the time travel mechanism precludes the traveler from carrying non-living matter outside the being's body, Reese was forced to arrive naked and unarmed, and the small arms of the 1980s are simply not powerful enough to affect the Terminator. Furthermore, a Terminator's organic covering, when intact, makes it indistinguishable from an average person. This makes the task of convincing anyone of that time that this assailant is actually an extremely advanced machine - without being written off as crazy - almost impossible.

As it ultimately turns out, Reese, of all humans, was sent back in time for a special reason — he volunteered because he was in love with Sarah (having been given a picture of her in the future) and is John's father.

In 1984, the Terminator quickly obtains clothes and an enormous arsenal of weaponry, and sets out on its mission. It systematically murders the first two 'Sarah Connors' in the Los Angeles telephone directory before killing Sarah's flatmate Ginger and Ginger's boyfriend Matt. It then discovers that Sarah is in a nightclub called Tech Noir and is awaiting assistance both from the police and from her flatmates. It attempts to terminate Sarah in the nightclub but is stopped by Reese. Following a brief car chase, Reese and Sarah escape, while the Terminator violently commandeers a police car and chases them.

While hiding in a multi-story car park, Reese explains everything to a sceptical, frightened Sarah. However, the Terminator arrives and a pitched gun battle between the two cars results in the Terminator crashing its car and Reese being arrested by pursuing cops. At the police station, Sarah is looked after by police lieutenants Traxler (Paul Winfield) and Vukovich (Lance Henriksen) while Reese is interrogated by smug criminal psychologist Dr. Silberman, who concludes that Reese's "delusions" are incredible in that they are so intricate they don't even require a shred of proof. While this is going on, the Terminator retreats to a hotel room and performs reconstructive surgery on its damaged arm and eye socket before re-arming itself and heading for the police precinct.

The Terminator arrives at the precinct only to be told by the desk sergeant that he can't get in to see Sarah. After assuring him, "I'll be back," (Arnold Schwarzenegger's famous catch phrase), the Terminator drives a car through the glass panel doors of the building, crushing the desk sergeant. The Terminator proceeds to storm the precinct, shooting his way through the panicked cops who have been caught completely off guard. Reese manages to break free from his cell and rescue Sarah before the Terminator can get to her.

The next day Reese and Sarah eventually take refuge in a motel, where Reese makes plastique explosives and then confesses his love for Sarah. They then make love and ensure the birth of John Connor. Later that night the Terminator has tracked them down and pursues them along a motorway, shooting Reese and wounding him, but an increasingly resourceful Sarah manages to knock it off its motorcycle, only for her truck to crash. The Terminator commandeers a large tanker and drives it towards the pair's wrecked truck. Sarah and a badly-wounded Reese escape just in time and Reese explodes the tanker with one of his few remaining bombs. The Terminator is shown collapsing in a burnt heap from the remains of the tanker.

Just as they think the Terminator has been destroyed, however, its metal endoskeleton emerges from the flames, and pursues them into an automated factory. Reese confronts it and explodes it with a bomb at the expense of his own life. Just as Sarah finds Reese's body, the Terminator's mangled upper torso springs to life and attacks her, but she crushes it in a hydraulic press. The end of the film sees a pregnant Sarah in Mexico. As she records audio tapes which she intends to play to her son John at some point in his life, she drives off into an uncertain future...

Inspirations

Some aspects of the story were sufficiently similar to two episodes of the TV series The Outer Limits — both episodes written by Harlan Ellison — that Ellison pursued legal action against Cameron. Cameron settled out of court and acknowledged Ellison's work in the film's credits. The episodes in question were called "Soldier" (which involves a specially-trained man accidentally sent back in time) and "Demon with a Glass Hand" (concerning a time traveler who suffers memory loss and relies on a computer chip implanted in his artificial hand to give him information about his mission while assassins sent from the future attempt to kill him). There is also some similarity between the concept of Skynet and the evil intelligence featured in Ellison's short story, "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream".

The subject matter of both films seem to be inspired by the writing of Philip K. Dick. His 1953 short story Second Variety features a post apocalyptic world where enemy robots wear rubber skin to pose as humans. In the film, Reese mentions an older series of Terminator (the 600 series) which had rubber skin and were easily distinguishable from actual humans.

A similar plot of a killer machine sent back in time to change history was seen in a fairly obscure film from 1966 entitled Cyborg 2087.

Production

This low-budget movie (at roughly $6.5 million) was a surprise box-office hit, earning $38,371,200 in 1984. A pair of documentaries about the film, which appear on the DVD version, have a number of explanations of various issues about the movie. All Terminator films take place in Los Angeles, which is also where the films are shot.

Casting

For the key role of the Terminator, Cameron originally wanted a typical-looking guy of average size, since he could easily infiltrate human society. As a result, Cameron's first choice to play the Terminator was Lance Henriksen - who eventually took the role of Lt. Vukovich. Producer Gale Ann Hurd said that OJ Simpson was considered to play the role; however, Cameron didn't think anyone would believe Simpson as a killer.

Both Cameron and co-writer William Wisher claim that originally Schwarzenegger was going to be offered the part of Reese, the hero. However, as a result of a lunch meeting, both he and Cameron independently realized that he would be better suited to play the part of the title character. Gale Ann Hurd, meanwhile, claims that Arnold was never considered for Reese's part. [1] Once Schwarzenegger was cast, the film had to be placed on hold for a year after Dino DeLaurentis chose to option Schwarzenegger to film Conan the Destroyer. The film was originally scheduled to be shot in Spring, 1983 in Toronto, and filming eventually began in March of 1984 in Los Angeles. Several date inconsistencies in the film are explained by this change of scheduling.

Legacy

The "first" feature film for director Cameron (he had been replaced on the unsuccessful Piranha II: The Spawning), this low-budget movie (at roughly $6.5 million) was a surprise box-office hit, earning $38,371,200 in 1984. It established Cameron as a talented action director. He would then go on to produce a string of successful action movies, continuing with Aliens in 1986, and the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (then the most expensive movie ever made).

Schwarzenegger had already starred in the hit film Conan the Barbarian and its successor, Conan the Destroyer, but The Terminator solidified his position as a movie star. Reprised in two sequels, it is still considered to be one of his best roles.

Deleted scenes

Several scenes deleted from the theatrical release have been made available on DVD and other media. The most significant of these in the context of later films are a pair of scenes relating to Cyberdyne Systems. In one deleted scene ("Sarah fights back"), between the scenes in the underpass and the scenes in the motel, Sarah takes to heart John Connor's message to her relayed by Reese ("The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves."), and convinces Reese to find Cyberdyne Systems (the creators of Skynet) and destroy it. The counterpart sequence to this occurs after the factory fight scenes, when one of the factory workers finds the Terminator's CPU and gives it to another worker, saying he'll bring it to R&D. As Sarah is taken away by paramedics, the camera pulls out to show the factory sign: Cyberdyne Systems.

Philosophy

The movie is an example of a predestination paradox. The Terminator's mission, as described by Skynet, was to go back in time and kill Sarah Connor, thereby preventing John Connor from being the leader of the resistence forces that would destroy Skynet. However, had the Terminator not attacked the police station in its attempt to fulfill its programming, Kyle Reese would have been kept separate from Sarah Connor and John Connor (Skynet's real objective) would not have been born. This paradox can also been seen generally, in that if the machines had not tried to stop John's birth, he never would have been born (as Kyle Reese would never had had cause to go back in time).

Although the film is commonly perceived as technophobic, Cameron considers technology neutral: capable of being used for both good and evil. In the film, despite the numerous machines that cause all the bad things to happen (the answering machine, the personal tape player, Sarah's mother's telephone, etc.), it is also a machine, the hydraulic press, that eventually destroys the Terminator. The name of the bar in which Sarah initially encounters the Terminator, Tech Noir, sums it up: The Terminator - a technological film noir - shows the dark side of technology, as well as the human ability to overcome it - eventually.

Trivia

  • The life-size Terminator model was actually made of steel, a production goof which complicated shooting. The model was so heavy that it required four people to hold it and move it during close-ups.
  • When Reese breaks the ignition lock on a Cadillac Eldorado with the end of a shotgun - the entire scene is a factual error. Pre-1978 GM vehicles had a spring clip which retained the lock cylinder to the steering column. In real life, this film led to the rise of GM and AMC (particularly Jeep) vehicles being stolen the following year.
  • Taglines:
    • 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
    • The thing that won't die, in the nightmare that won't end.
    • Your future is in his hands.

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Terminator.
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