Provocative though imperfect (Spoilers)

Rating: 8/10 (14 August 2002)

This was the first time I had seen the original Terminator. While now it seems like it's going to be logistical nightmare it is definitely a film that leaves itself open for a sequel and eventually a third film.
We open with a very 80s fantasy set with spaceships flying shooting lasers at each other and then this huge tank steamrolling over skulls. The background is all blue with nothing distinguishing that it's the sky at all.
We then get a title insert giving us some back-story and/or fore-story telling us of the battle that lead to the world's destroyed state in 2028 and how in the present the true battle will be fought. It was truly a challenge to remember that much such that I could write it down because I hate any of those inserts at the beginning unless their purpose is comedic. I feel that when you're dealing with a visual medium and you have a lot of writing on the screen at the beginning you shouldn't expect anyone to remember it, the exception being those people who went to see Star Wars 55 times as compared to my zero.	For the first forty minutes of the film it seems as if we're watching two characters making identical moves and are left to wonder if the script was written as half a script copied over with only the names being changed. However, slowly we find out that the Schwarzenegger character is the Terminator and the other person, Reese, who traveled through time, which is also very clouded at the beginning, are working in opposite purposes.	What was set up by Cameron and Hurd in the beginning is a very interesting misinterpretation of facts. We see the police one deputy played by Lance Henriksen (Pumpkinhead) and the chief who just happens to be African-American (but I'll address that later) about two Sarah Connor's who had been killed. We also witness our main Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) see the TV news bulletin about the first murder which her friends find humorous and see her stunned reaction to the second and see her sitting around in fear this section was probably the best part of her inconsistent performance.	As a director Cameron didn't seem to be very interested in creating too many intricate frames. There were a few shown during the war scenes where there was a lot of wreckage used as an obstruction and there was also some good framing in the parking garage with the use of wide angle shots. The focus seemed to be on lighting and using the color blue. There are scenes were everything is tinted blue. There also was a lot of use of floodlighting along with mist, fog, smoke and any effect of that sort they could find. This left the color palate was very muted and this lent itself to the somber tone that Cameron was attempting to create in the chases and stalking scenes also when Reese and Sarah were under the bridge for the night.
Story wise, however, there are some very good foreshadowing touches added. One being a waitress friend of Sarah's saying "In a hundred years who's gonna care." Where the essence of this film is examining how through time travel these people are attempting to secure the future both looking for drastically different results. Before Sarah ever sees Reese one of her friends is wearing a Jetson's shirt, small yes but any number of shirts could have been chosen and the filmmakers decided to drop some hints.	Character-wise there is but one character who is worth talking about and that is the Terminator. Schwarzenegger's character is one who is symbolic of what humanity would become of we became overly dependent on computers/machines in that the Terminator itself is a machine with flesh. The Terminator is a film that was released in 1984 the year of Orwell's famous novel took place in and it was also a year where computer was still very new and misunderstood and the concept of Big Brother was still very alive. We see Reese has been branded with a bar code which seems to be both an attack on consumerism and Nazism by combining them in one symbol. While this is not the larger issue that the film deals with it most definitely should be a fact that no Science-Fiction film avoids social commentary in some way.	The greatest accomplishment of this film is the way in which the Polaroid photograph was introduced in the end. It was an image haunting the story and it seemed to be the one piece of evidence that would prove the veracity of the whole plot to all those involved as if we weren't already willing to believe. The great failure of the film, however, is that Reese is the father of John Connor which was very predictable after they started talking on a more personal level. His death in 1984 makes up for it a bit but it doesn't take away the fact that I had that little voice nagging in the back of my head saying "Don't be John's father! Don't be John's father! Don't be John's father!" In the end Sarah Conner we sympathize with and she does end up being well drawn out even though when she got 'tough' her dialogue seemed forced and I think Cameron should have re-written the line to make it more believable. The only real problem with characters I had were the African-American characters who all had either walk throughs or supporting roles and seemed to be taken from the text How to Write a Stereotype. All in all The Terminator is a very intriguing and provocative science-fiction film.