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The Terminator (1984) Kyle: "Come with me if you want to live." I love science fiction, time travel stories, and strong female characters. And I'm a romantic. So you can imagine how I've always felt about this movie. The whole freaking story is a paradox. How could John Connor even exist in the first place if John himself had to send his father back in time to rescue and impregnate his mother? And yet, it's the circular time travel elements that I love most. Like the photograph of Sarah that Kyle carried with him in the future. He always wondered what Sarah was thinking when it was taken, and of course, she was thinking of him. I always wondered why James Cameron didn't give us the biggest paradox of all: the name of the factory in that final action sequence, Cyberdyne Systems. I've never liked Arnold Schwarzenegger. I particularly dislike him in his most recent role as governator. But I will grudgingly admit that he was pretty much perfect casting as a killer cyborg, and this movie launched his career. His best work as an actor was always physical, and this was a very physical role. And his expressionless and memorable delivery of the line, "I'll be back," has become part of our culture. Anyway, Arnold, smarnold. I've always felt that this was Michael Biehn's movie. Kyle Reese was a tragic, memorable character. A refugee from an unspeakable future, he made a quixotic, heroic journey through time because he fell in love with a photograph, and sacrificed his life after only one night of love. His death was painful; we didn't want him to die, and it hurt when he did. No wonder Sarah threw herself at him. I'd do it. Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor was also very good, although the sequel was where her character really shone. Sarah started out as an aimless young waitress who was helpless and completely out of her depth. She weathered the deaths of her best friend, her mother and her lover, along with the complete rearrangement of her entire universe, and she became exactly what Kyle believed she was in the first place. She was the one who had the strength to kill the Terminator in the end, after all. I've always loved the way Linda Hamilton delivered the line, "You're terminated, fucker." This movie was James Cameron's first original work, and it was pre-CGI and made on the cheap since Arnold wasn't a big name yet. Nearly all of it holds up, though, because the story and the acting were the center of the movie, not the effects. The stop-motion metal skeleton in the final action sequence looked a bit jerky, but when we saw it in close-up, it looked really scary. (And it even looked like it could be Arnold.) The only scenes that looked fake to me were the ones with the cyborg head. It just doesn't look real, and I can't imagine that it did when the movie first came out, either. I think Cameron should have made do with just the actor, the X-acto knife, and eyeball plopping into the sink. It would have worked. This is a fast, exciting, memorable movie. It's also bleak and dark, with a fatalistic, negative view of a future where technology has destroyed our humanity. In the end, Sarah, like a pre-apocalyptic Madonna, is waiting for the world to end in order for her son to play his part. John Connor is the holy child, the twenty-first century Jesus who will come to save us. Bits and pieces: -- The action takes place in May and November, 1984. The future sequences were set in 2029, although they were mostly Kyle's dreams, all of which ended with his death. As the movie did. -- I've always loved the skilfully filmed scenes in TechNoir (which means "black technology", exactly what the Terminator was). There were other interesting, negative images of technology throughout the movie, too, like the answering machine that "needed love, too." My favorite was the children staring into a fire burning inside the shell of a television set. -- The scenes of the future showed wreckage twisted in on itself, like the story. When the metal skeleton of the Terminator rose from the fire (the scariest moment in the movie), the wreckage behind it was twisted in much the same way. -- The opening scene with Arnold and the three punks was shot at one of my favorite places in Los Angeles, the Griffith Observatory. One of the punks was future star Bill Paxton; another was Brian Thompson, who played multiple monsters on Buffy. -- Paul Winfield and Lance Henriksen were just marvelous as the two cops, bouncing lines off each other like the pros they are. Henriksen was originally Cameron's choice to play the Terminator, but the concept of the movie changed. -- We got a very romantic, poignant and sexy love scene. You don't usually get those in sci-fi movies. I've always loved it. Why can't sci-fi movies be romantic? -- In an early scene, Sarah was wearing a tee shirt with the Jetsons on it. -- I just have to say that most single women don't put their entire name in the phone book. If this had been done realistically, the Terminator would have had to work his way through every S. Connor in the listings. -- The music Ginger was listening to when she was killed was "It's a mistake." One of the songs in TechNoir was, "You've got me burning," which is what happened to the Terminator. -- Sarah called her mother. What was she thinking? Yes, it was the only way to start the action again, but come on. She called her mother? Quotes: Waitress: "Look at it this way. In a hundred years, who's gonna care?" Traxler: "A one day pattern killer." Vukovich: "I hate the weird ones." Vukovich: "That coffee's two hours cold." Traxler: "Um hum." Vukovich: "And I put a cigarette out in it." Kyle: "That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." Silberman: "And this computer thinks it can win by killing the mother of its enemy. Killing him, in effect, before he's even conceived. A sort of retroactive abortion?" Kyle: "He'll find her. It's what he does. It's all he does." This has always been one of my favorite quotes, especially the last two sentences and the way Biehn said them. Dan and I say it all the time about a lot of things. Mostly about my cat Spike. Sarah: "So Reese is crazy?" Silberman: "In technical terminology? He's a loon." Kyle: "I'd die for John Connor." Sarah: "At least now I know what to name him. I don't suppose you know who the father is, so I won't tell him to get lost when I meet him?" Sarah: "You're talking about things I haven't done yet in the past tense. It's driving me crazy. Are you sure you have the right person?" Kyle: "I'm sure." Sarah: "Come on. Do I look like the mother of the future? Am I tough, organized? I can't even balance my checkbook." Sarah: "What have we got? Mothballs, corn syrup, ammonia. What's for dinner?" This is classic, excellent sci-fi. Four out of four stars, Billie |
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