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The Terminator (1984) - James Cameron: Writer, Director
Source: wikipedia.org, imdb.com
Synopsis
In a post-apocalyptic 2029, artificially intelligent machines seek to exterminate what is left of the human race. Two beings from this era are transported back in time to 1984 Los Angeles: one is a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a cyborg assassin programmed to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). The other is Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a human resistance fighter sent to protect her. The Terminator stalks Sarah by killing all of the Sarah Connors listed in the telephone directory one by one.
Hearing of the "phone book killer", Sarah seeks shelter in a nightclub and phones her roommate to warn her, leaving a message on their answering machine indicating her whereabouts. However, the Terminator has already killed her roommate and tracks Sarah to the nightclub after hearing her message. Kyle also tracks Sarah to the club and saves her from the Terminator's attack. Kyle explains that in the near future an artificial intelligence network called Skynet will become self-aware and initiate a nuclear holocaust of mankind. Sarah's son John will rally the survivors and lead a resistance movement against Skynet and its army of machines.
With the Resistance on the verge of victory, Skynet has sent a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah before John can be born, as a last-ditch effort to avert the formation of the Resistance. The Terminator is an emotionless and efficient killing machine with a powerful metal endoskeleton, but with an external layer of living tissue so that it resembles a human being. Kyle and Sarah are again attacked by the Terminator, leading to a car chase and their arrest. Lieutenant Ed Traxler (Paul Winfield) and Detective Hal Vukovich (Lance Henriksen) tell Sarah that Kyle is crazy.
Kyle is questioned by psychologist Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen), who concludes that he is paranoid and delusional. The Terminator attacks the police station and kills many police officers in its attempt to locate Sarah, but she and Kyle escape and seek refuge in a motel. Kyle confesses that he has long been in love with Sarah, having been given a photograph of her by her son John. Sarah and Kyle then have sex. The Terminator tracks them to the motel and wounds Kyle. In the ensuing chase the Terminator is caught in the blast of an exploding gasoline tank truck. With its external flesh burned away, it pursues Sarah and Kyle into a factory.
Kyle jams a pipe bomb into its abdomen, blowing off its legs and one of its arms, but Kyle himself is killed. Still partially functional, the Terminator drags itself toward Sarah by its remaining arm. She leads it into a hydraulic press, which she uses to crush it, causing it to deactivate. Some time later, a pregnant Sarah is traveling through Mexico. Along the way she records audio tapes which she intends to pass on to her unborn son John. She debates whether to tell him that Kyle is his father. A young Mexican boy takes a photograph of her which she purchases—it is the photograph that John will later give to Kyle. She drives on towards approaching storm clouds.
Production
James Cameron originally envisioned the Terminator as a small, unremarkable man, giving it the ability to blend in more easily. As a result, his first choice for the part was Lance Henriksen. O. J. Simpson was on the shortlist but Cameron did not think that "such a nice guy could be a ruthless killer". According to him and co-writer William Wisher, Schwarzenegger was offered the role of the human soldier Reese. However, they realized that he would be better suited as the Terminator, which as a result became large and muscular. Michael Biehn was also on the shortlist for the Terminator, and not the hero Kyle Reese.
The idea of Schwarzenegger as the hero would be revisited for the sequel. Production was originally scheduled for Spring 1983 in Toronto, but after Dino De Laurentiis chose to option Schwarzenegger to film Conan the Destroyer, filming was delayed until March 1984 in Los Angeles. Several scenes cut from the film are available on some DVD releases. The secondary police characters Vukovich and Traxler had several of their scenes cut, in one of which we see Traxler realize that Reese is right, and hand over his weapon as he dies. One particular scene, involving the destruction of Cyberdyne, inspired a very similar plot point in the sequel.
In this scene, Sarah suggests to Reese that they find Cyberdyne Systems and destroy it before they can invent Skynet, preventing the war. At the end of the film, when Sarah is being taken away by the ambulance, two factory workers find the remains of the Terminator and decide to turn it over to Research and Development, with the camera zooming out to reveal the name of the factory: Cyberdyne Systems. These two scenes set up major plot points in Terminator 2, where the CPU and arm from the Terminator in this film are reverse engineered and used to create Skynet, and where Sarah, John, and the Terminator blow up Cyberdyne to prevent the war.
Director James Cameron has said that The Terminator was inspired by two episodes of the 1960s television science fiction series The Outer Limits – "Soldier" and "Demon with the Glass Hand" – both written by science fiction author Harlan Ellison. When Ellison threatened a lawsuit, Terminator production company Hemdale Film Corporation and distributor Orion Pictures gave him an "acknowledgement to the works of" credit on video and cable releases of The Terminator, as well as a cash settlement of an undisclosed amount.
In addition to Harlan Ellison, other writers have been pointed to as possible sources of inspiration for The Terminator, such as Philip K. Dick. Critic Zack Handlen, reviewing Dick's 1953 short story "Second Variety", wrote: "Cameron’s lucky [that] Dick died two years before [The Terminator] was released, or he might have had another lawsuit on his hands." "Second Variety" was adapted to film in 1995 under the title Screamers, which also attracted comparisons to The Terminator.
Reception
The Terminator was a low-budget movie, at roughly $6.5 million, which turned out to be a box-office hit, earning $38,371,200 domestically. The film went on to gross more than $78 million worldwide. The film has received mostly positive reviews. On At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, Ebert gave the film "thumbs up" and described it as a very violent, sometimes sadistic, yet solid action picture.[citation needed] Siskel gave the film "thumbs down".
Currently, The Terminator has ratings of 100% and 84% positive on popular review aggregator websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic respectively. The film was placed in Time Magazine's Top 10 Films of 1984. In 2001, The Terminator was ranked 42nd on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills. In 2005, Total Film named The Terminator the 72nd best film ever made. In 2008, The Terminator was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
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