THE TERMINATOR (1984) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

the terminator (1984) movie

Genre              |   Science Fiction

Classification   |   M

Running time   |   107 minutes

Released         |   28 Ocotber 1984

cast

Arnold Schwarzenegger ... Terminator
Michael Biehn ... Kyle Reese
Linda Hamilton ... Sarah Connor
Paul Winfield ... Lieutenant Ed Traxler
Lance Henriksen ... Detective Hal Vukovich
Rick Rossovich ... Matt Buchanan
Bess Motta ... Ginger Ventura
Earl Boen ... Dr. Peter Silberman
Dick Miller ... Pawn Shop Clerk
Shawn Schepps ... Nancy
Bruce M. Kerner ... Desk Sergeant
Franco Columbu ... Future Terminator
Bill Paxton ... Punk Leader
​Brian Thompson ... Punk

director

James Cameron

writer

​James Cameron ... (written by) and
Gale Anne Hurd ... (written by)
 
William Wisher ... (additional dialogue) (as William Wisher Jr.)

cinematographer

​Adam Greenberg ... director of photography

music

​Brad Fiedel

film editor

​Mark Goldblatt

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​78,371,200 ​

Australia                 $​​​​​ not available

North America       $​​​​​​​38,371,200 ​

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movie minutiae

The beginning of production was postponed for nine months, due to Arnold Schwarzenegger's commitment to CONAN THE DESTROYER (1984). During this time, James Cameron wanted to be working but didn't have the time to do a whole other film so he took on a writing assignment; this turned out to be ALIENS (1986).

The relationship between James Cameron and executive producer/Hemdale head John Daly deteriorated during post-production. According to Cameron, Daly and Orion executive Mike Medavoy (who recommended Arnold Schwarzenegger to Cameron) wanted the film to end right after the tanker explosion, removing the climax at the robot factory and epilogue. Orion Pictures, which co-financed the movie, wanted to be known for its quality movies (like AMADEUS (1984) and PLATOON (1986)), and perceived this film as little more than a low budget vehicle to make some quick money. Quoting from Cameron: "Daly said, 'The film has to end right after the tanker explosion.' I told him straight, 'F**k you! The film isn't over yet.'" Daly would ultimately back down, a decision that led to the sudden success of the film. However, Orion's advertising support for the film was minimal in Cameron's eyes. Three weeks after the film was released, Medavoy still ignored Cameron's request to beef up the film's ad-campaign: "They told me, when you have a dirty-down action thriller, the film can last in the box-office for about three weeks plus or so. They are treating the film like dog-s**t!" Hemdale ultimately raised money to fund more advertisements. Reportedly, Schwarzenegger still holds a grudge towards Orion Pictures due to their lack of support.

​Russian arthouse filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, while critical of mainstream cinema, praised The Terminator, stating that its "vision of the future and the relation between man and its destiny is pushing the frontier of cinema as an art". He was however critical of its "brutality and low acting skills".

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related movies

TERMINATOR 2:
​JUDGEMENT DAY (1991)

THE TERMINATOR (1984) MOVIE IMAGES

Images

Posters

Images

Posters

THE TERMINATOR (1984) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Disguised as a human, a cyborg assassin known as a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) travels from 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). Sent to protect Sarah is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), who divulges the coming of Skynet, an artificial intelligence system that will spark a nuclear holocaust. Sarah is targeted because Skynet knows that her unborn son will lead the fight against them. With the virtually unstoppable Terminator in hot pursuit, she and Kyle attempt to escape.

THE TERMINATOR (1984) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 6 July 2015

​​Pop Movee Rating

James Cameron announced himself as a Director of substantial potential with the release of the action-packed, high-intensity science fiction movie THE TERMINATOR in October, 1984...

The film, also written by Cameron, found an audience upon release, many of whom were children of the STAR WARS era and, in 1984 were no longer 10 years old, but 17 and, for the first time, were able to support this type of action film at the box office.

THE TERMINATOR also capitalized on the emergence of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had moved from bodybuilding into acting and had already played the titular character in the 1982 fantasy-epic CONAN THE BARBARIAN. Despite its science fiction plot, most of the action takes place in early 1980s Los Angeles and the gritty nature of that city’s less appealing parts were a great back-drop for the film’s protagonists to battle against a killing machine sent from the future.

Cameron’s screenplay for THE TERMINATOR draws from many different sources, but its central motif (that of an unstoppable machine emerging from the flames) came to the Director whilst visiting Italy, trying to rescue his first feature film (PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING).

Having succumbed to stress, Cameron took ill and, while trying to sleep-off the effects of his sickness, dreamed of the robot surrounded by fire. What developed was a time-travel story of a cyborg sent back from a nuclear-devastated future to kill the mother of the man who would save humanity from their machine oppressors. To prevent the woman’s death, the humans also send a man back through time to thwart the cyborg’s murderous mission.

Throughout THE TERMINATOR's pre-production process, various actors were slated for different roles in the movie, including both O.J. Simpson and Lance Henriksen in the Terminator role. Eventually, Cameron cast Schwarzenegger in the title role, Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese (the human sent back in time) and Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, the Terminator’s target. The trio combined to deliver solid acting and outstanding physical performances that sold the reality of the threat posed by Schwarzenegger’s T-800 killing machine.

THE TERMINATOR features some outstanding set-pieces...

Cameron’s ability to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear is on display throughout and he uses his locations to maximum effect. The mid-section of the movie is sensational, as the Terminator locates Sarah Connor in a downtown LA nightclub, leading Reese to reveal himself as her protector. Reese’s subsequent arrest allows the T-800 to reacquire his target, as Sarah is put under protective custody by Paul Winfield’s Lieutenant Traxler, making her the proverbial sitting duck. The police building shoot-out sequence, at the time, was cited for its hyper-violence with scores of police officers gunned down by the Terminator.

Beyond that however, was Schwarzenegger’s famous “I’ll be back” line, as the T-800 goes in search of a vehicle to smash through the entry of the heavily fortified police building. The line has entered the lexicon of pop culture since it was first uttered in 1984.

Cameron also manages to create one of the most convincing war-ravaged futures ever put on screen up to that time, using Reese’s dreams as a means to show audiences the devastation caused by the sentient machines that had taken control of Earth. (His next feature film, ALIENS (1986), made even better use of the style on display in THE TERMINATOR, as a team of intergalactic Marines go on a search and rescue mission only to be confronted by the equally hard-to-stop Xenomorph aliens!)

By the time THE TERMINATOR reaches its climax the viewer is already aware that they have seen something that is different and exciting...

The finale ramps up the tension as Sarah and Reese play a deadly game of cat and mouse with the Terminator, now stripped down to just its endoskeleton, as one mishap after another has steadily peeled off its skin. Cameron wisely chose to confine the last minutes of the film to a factory setting and provides the protagonists a plausible opportunity to disorientate the pursuing cyborg and give themselves the chance to destroy it. There are some obvious budget limitations in evidence, as the full-scale Terminator endoskeleton is not that convincing as a piece of stop-motion animation.

Fortunately, Cameron was able to use all of the film-making tricks he had learned to that point to de-emphasize the stop-motion and create a sequence that relies on edits and the Terminator’s point-of-view to capture the action. It’s fitting that Sarah fulfils her part of the mythology Cameron had created for the story and defeats the Terminator, setting her up as a plausible figure relative to the back-story as the mother who would teach the future leader of the human who would find a way to destroy the out-of-control machines.

The legacy of THE TERMINATOR is not to be under-estimated...

The film launched the career of both Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron, whose contribution to movie-making over the last thirty years has only been surpassed by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg (Cameron’s; not Schwarzenegger’s…)

Had it not been successful, it can be argued that Cameron’s path to success may have been very different and his contributions to the science fiction and action film genres may not have been as substantial as they have been.

Other behind-the-scenes technicians may have had a different path as well...

The late Stan Winston gained great recognition for his work and he remained in demand for most of the next two-and-a-half decades up until his untimely death in 2008. Other specialists in their field, such as Cinematographer Adam Greenberg & Editor Mark Goldblatt, worked with Cameron on subsequent projects and earned individual acclaim for their work on many films, including TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991), GHOST (1990), TRUE LIES (1994) and RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011).

The appeal of the THE TERMINATOR is varied, but most agree that it’s influence has been great and continues to be regarded to this day as a classic film of the 1980s and of the Science Fiction genre.

THE TERMINATOR (1984) USEFUL LINKS

The Terminator - Wikipedia
​The Terminator (1984) - IMDb
​​The Terminator (1984) - Rotten Tomatoes

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