Fellman's Movie Reviews

Red = Spoilers 

The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction film directed by James Cameron. It is widely known as the film that turned Arnold Schwarzenegger into a leading man in Hollywood. It has spawned numerous sequels as well as comic books, video games, and multiple other media within the franchise. It is credited with launching James Cameron’s career of award-winning movies.  

What’s it about? A cyborg travels through time from the year 2029 to 1984 to the city of Los Angeles to find Sarah Conner. The future mother of the leader of the resistance against the machines in 2029. The machines have taken over and have exhausted all other options, so now their last resort is to travel back in time and kill Sarah Conner before she can even give birth to John Conner and prevent him from ever starting the resistance in the first place. The resistance sends Kyle Reese back to try and protect Sarah from the Terminator. Only, the new versions of Terminators are hard to spot because they’re so lifelike, he has to wait for it to make its move on Sarah before he can protect her by attacking back at it. They have a shootout in a nightclub before Reese and Sarah escape and drive off with the Terminator following closely behind them. After a long chase, the police show up to apprehend Sarah and Reese and take them back to the station for questioning. Nobody believes Reese because his story is so ludicrous until the Terminator comes back and kills everybody in the station. Reese and Sarah escape the police station and hide out in a motel room. The Terminator uses Sarah’s address book to find her mother and waits for Sarah to call her so he can intercept her call and trick her into giving him the motel room information. They escape once again, with the Terminator in pursuit, until Reese blows up the truck he’s driving and burns its endoskeleton off. It follows them into a factory where Reese shoves the last pipe bomb into the Terminator, blowing it in half, but killing Reese in the process. The torso of the Terminator, still alive, comes after Sarah, and she fools it into following her through a hydraulic press where she traps it and presses the button, finally killing it. 

What’s good? For being made in 1984, there’s a reason this movie is known as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. Because it quite possibly is. It’s a great story. It’s a great plot. The writing’s not half bad, for what it’s worth. It gave us quite literally one of the most famous lines in cinema history with “I’ll be back”. It was Arnold’s catchphrase for like, a decade.  

What’s bad? It was 1984, so special effects and technology aren’t exactly up to speed yet. Green screen technology and laser blasts look like they were just getting used to the equipment, you know? But that’s to be expected. You’ll know a plastic face when you see one. Especially in 1984… 

The actors? There’s nothing wrong with the actors in this movie. Everybody’s doing a good job. Except for maybe the punks in the beginning. But they’re just your average 80s actors. That’s kind of what people were like in the 80s… 

The effects? As I already said, it was 1984, that’s a good enough excuse for what it looked like. And it didn’t even look half bad when you think about it. The gunfire and explosions were pretty good, considering. The stop motion was alright when you think about when this was coming out. The lasers and green screen were as good as you could get for the time, I suppose. But that’s just because of the technology that was available. Things weren’t digital back then.  

Five years from now. If you think about it, The Terminator happens in 2029. That’s only five years from now… We’re only five years away from time travel and robot executioners… 

Carpets of skulls. There were literally carpets and layers of human skulls on the ground. How many people were dying and how did the machines build up so much on top of it with literally no resources left. What was powering the machines? There has to be something. 

The 80s. The 80s was like puberty for America. America was all awkward and angsty. It was going through its “weird” phase. Media was especially weird. Movies and television moved towards a different crowd. Music started taking a different turn. Politics were in upheaval throughout the 80s. It was a tumultuous time for the nation as a whole.  

Your clothes. If a naked guy as big as Arnold Schwarzenegger showed up and demanded my clothes, I would just give them to him and get the hell out of there. There’s gotta be a reason he’s naked, and I don’t want to know what it is. I’m just gonna stay out of that one… 

Arnold’s the bad guy. This is the only movie where Arnold is the bad guy. From T2 on, he plays the good guy, trying to save whoever from some other Terminator for whatever reason. It was only in this first film that he was the bad guy that made him an action star. And then when he became a star, they wanted to keep him one, so they rewrote the character… 

Give me a cigarette. For some reason, when the chief is talking to the other detective, he tells him to give him a cigarette when he’s talking on the phone, and then he puts a cigarette in his mouth that he’s already smoking. I don’t know if this is a joke that they were making with the character, or if it was just an accident that happened while they were filming, but I think it’s funny either way.  

Ginger’s headphones. For some reason, Ginger is wearing her headphones and listening to music, literally while she’s having sex with her boyfriend. Now, that’s either a really good song, or her boyfriend is really bad at sex, because that is not supposed to be how things work… 

911’s busy. When is 911 busy? Don’t they have like, a whole bunch of extra operators just so something like that doesn’t happen? So you can call 911 whenever and instantly get a live agent? Isn’t that the entire point of 911? That kind of defeats the purpose of an emergency number if you dial it and it’s busy… 

Human bites can kill. When she bites Reese and it makes him bleed it reminded me of this article I read one time that said human bites are the most dangerous. Even more dangerous than venomous animals. If you get bitten by a human and it breaks the skin, you should immediately go to the hospital because of all the different bacteria that humans carry in their mouths. It can easily spread into your bloodstream and create an infection that kills you. 

Unlimited rounds. How many rounds do these guns carry? He was riding on that motorcycle, he must’ve fired that shotgun 14, 15 times. Now, I know it was an automatic shotgun. But even automatic shotguns don’t carry 15 rounds… 

We’d have to call them crazy. Let’s be honest. If a guy showed up, ranting about cyborgs coming back in time and looking to kill somebody and he was the only one who could save her, nobody would believe him now, would they? That is, until somebody showed up at the police station with a couple of assault rifles and started taking out the entire squadron by themselves. Then, we’d kind of have to believe him, wouldn’t we? 

I’ll be back. One of the all-time most iconic lines in movie history. Right up there with “No, I am your father…” Although, not nearly as misquoted.  

Takes out an entire police station. The Terminator takes out an entire police station almost effortlessly, before going after Reese and Sarah again. 

They take turns getting shot. The cops are essentially taking turns shooting at, and then getting shot by, The Terminator. After seeing that shooting him does literally no damage, and he’s not taking any cover from their bullets, they watch cop after cop shoot him, and step out of cover, only to get shot by the unstoppable killing machine with two assault rifles… 

The Terminator kills the dogs. Every time I see a dog die in a movie, I’m like “aww, not the dog…” Like 100 people died in The Terminator, the only time I felt bad was when the robot shot the dogs down in the basement… 

Walking around the park at dawn. I mean, I know they’re hiding from The Terminator and everything, but a sleeveless guy walking around the park at dawn with a .357? That might raise some suspicions. At least put the gun away.  

Gently with the plastique. He tells her to screw the cap of the plastique on “gently” and he acts all wary about it, but then he starts cramming it into the bag like they were his dirty laundry. Not being very “gentle” with it now… 

Built to last. Terminators are built to last. It’s been getting shot this whole movie. It’s been hit by cars, run over by trucks, had its eye pulled out, and been blown up three different times. No scrimping on quality over at Cyberdyne.  

Abstract thinking. The ending of Terminator is why I’m not worried about AI taking over humanity anymore. Computers are too easily fooled. They’re too single-minded. When it comes to video games, people always find some inventive way to outsmart the most complicated games and levels. Machines don’t possess abstract thinking. That’s what makes them machines. If they could think abstractly, they’d be sentient… 

Pretty good hustle. At the end, there’s a kid who takes her picture and says she should give him $5 for it, or his dad will beat him. And she goes “pretty good hustle, kid…” And you gotta admit, it’s pretty slick… 

So, yeah. Go and see The Terminator if you already haven’t, because it’s one of the all-time greatest movies ever made. Officially. It’s been recognized as culturally significant and has been preserved in the National Film Registry. You almost have to see it. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…