Terminator = Cinematic Perfection

Rating: 10/10 (18 September 2006)

James Cameron's 1984 low-budget blockbuster film The Terminator, one of the most popular movies of the 1980's, has become an American cinematic legend whose follow-up installments T2 and T3 continued to push the boundaries of action, suspense, and special effects. The success of the first film is due to many factors, primarily Cameron's cinematically efficient illustration of a tight story that he fills with powerful and iconic imagery frequently interspersed with dark humor.
Following an ominous credit sequence perfectly paired with Brad Fiedel's metallic 13/8 score, the scene of the garbage truck and the dumpster immediately conveys Terminator's power and effect on its environment. Its flaming time-travel arrival, like the detonation of a nuclear blast, renders the truck useless and sends the terrified driver scurrying for cover (after uttering "What the Hell--" the identical ADR soundbite looped from his previous interior cab shot).
The three punks at the Griffith Observatory are perfectly rendered. While horsing around with a coin-op telescope, Brian Thompson's character spots the approaching muscle-bound, completely nude Terminator and wonders, "What's wrong with this picture?" Bill Paxton's tire-tread facial tattoo and sneering opener "Nice night for a walk," and Brad Rearden's guffaw and arm tap response, are potent character details. In T2, we learn that the T101's cpu is set to read-only since he's out alone. However, the conclusion of this exchange seems to display its capability as a "learning computer;" Paxton's obscene three-word rebuke to the cyborg's clothing request was later included in the Termo-vision response choices to the flophouse janitor's query, "You got a dead cat in there, or what?" Arnold's flat Austrian-flavored delivery dynamically reinforces the reality of the machine beneath the rotting flesh, functioning as designed despite its chronically damaged exterior.
The scene in the gun shop, the deadly conclusion of which is obvious from the worm's eye POV of Arnold's entrance, is another example of humor and violence. After handling the AR-180, the Franchi SPAS 12-gauge auto-loader (you can go pump, or auto), the 45 long slide with laser sighting (that's a good gun), the T101 requests a "phased plasma rifle in a 40-watt range," to which the salesman matter-of-factly replies, "Hey, just what you see, pal" as if he had simply asked for an illegal weapon like a rocket launcher. Or as if a secret code word would avail him to the shop's special selection of weaponry a la the white supremacist's private cache in Falling Down.
Rising from Kyle's first volley of blasts in the nightclub, he kicks his firepower up a notch as he unleashes the Uzi. His deliberate, "here-it-comes" lock'n'load is a choreographed ballet of impending destruction, as seen from Sarah's POV. After being blown back through the glass, he rises from the sidewalk and begins chasing Kyle and Sarah, his pace accelerating steadily just like a machine. Or a hyper-alloy combat chassis, tersely described by wheel-gripping, teeth-baring Reese as "microprocessor controlled, fully armored, very tough." He then sums it all up for a dubious Sarah: "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!" Classic.
The nonchalance with which the T101 smashes the window of the station wagon, gets in and slams the door, and sends glass flying into his hair and face, is comical in its depiction of Terminator as a cold machine. As he pulls up to the curb in front of the first Sarah Connor's house, the front tire stops on and partially crushes a blue toy truck. Arnold the destroyer. Chasing Kyle and Sarah in the tanker truck, his red eye can be seen glowing from behind the cab's darkened windshield. He absolutely will not stop!
The overwhelming brutality of the Terminator is most clearly displayed in the police station "I'll be back" scenes. Easily wielding the AR-180 with his right hand and the infamous Franchi auto-loader with his left, he marches through the corridors wasting everyone he sees (17 in all), complete with a flanged Termo-vision braaaaap! across the wall after a fleeing cop. In Cameron's ever-increasing display of force and destruction, Terminator wraps up the massacre by taking out detective Vukovich with half a dozen automatic rounds AND a shotgun blast.
You might notice during that police station sequence a scene where the T101, back to the camera, swings the 12-gauge up with his left hand. When he pulls the trigger, they foleyed in (twice) an automatic-rifle burst instead of a shotgun blast. Another continuity issue: Reese saws off the stock of the shotgun and loudly racks it toward the camera. He wakes from the future-war nightmare in the car, and racks it again. No shell ejected? Then, in the night club, he whips it out from under his coat and does it one more time. Visual power trumps continuity. And it is exactly that frequent insertion of forceful imagery throughout Cameron's epic story that has made The Terminator one of the most memorable icons of 20th-century American cinema. -Ben Strout, 2006