DC Film Society: Adam's Rib December 2024

Modern Classics: The Terminator

The Terminator, 1984 – Directed by James Cameron. Written by James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd and William Wisher. Produced by John Daly, Derek Gibson, and Gale Anne Hurd. Key Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, Rick Rossovich, Bess Motta, Earl Boen, Dick Miller, and Bill Paxton.

Forty years ago, Ronald Reagan’s reelection campaign featured the famous “Morning in America” TV ad, filled with sunny optimism. Many blockbusters that year, such as Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, The Natural, and Splash reflected those good spirits. In November 2024, I did not feel optimistic. I did not feel happy. So when I decided to go back to 1984 I did not pick the films listed above. I picked The Terminator.

While James Cameron’s film stylistically fits the 80s, it also evokes the spirit of 70s dystopian science fiction. Soylent Green, Rollerball, Logan’s Run, A Clockwork Orange, Westworld, and THX-1138 all reflected the fear and paranoia of their time. That fear did not go away in the following decade, but it manifested itself differently, like a dark undercurrent beneath the bright surface. Cameron ingeniously tells a futuristic dystopian story set mostly during the present day.

In a documentary about the making of The Terminator, James Cameron said the story came to him in a dream where he saw the Terminator exoskeleton emerge from a pile of flames. At that time, he was in no position to act, having been known primarily as an art director with Piranha 2: The Spawning as his only directing credit. Many studios turned the project down, but finally his producer and then-wife Gale Anne Hurd made a deal with Orion Pictures. Cameron had to have known that this was his one shot. Given that he had no track record, if this film bombed, he might never get another one. You can feel that desperation in The Terminator, as Cameron and his team made the most of limited resources. They only had $6.5 million to work with, small for a science fiction action film even then. Every cent of that money is on the screen.

Cameron’s lean, mean style grabs the audience and doesn’t let go. That style serves the story as the relentless, propulsive pace keeps coming, just like the Terminator. Even the exposition, which can so often slow down a film, happens during a car chase. Scenes that should give us a breather do anything but. Think of arguably the film’s signature sequence. Our heroes are in a police station after a shootout and the resulting chase. The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), informed that he can’t see Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) right away proclaims the iconic “I’ll be back!” For the time being though, Sarah is OK, right? After all, she’s in a police station surrounded by cops. The Terminator’s logical course of action would clearly be waiting until Sarah leaves the station and becomes more vulnerable. Logical to us humans, but not the Terminator, as he stages a brutal assault. With that bravura scene Cameron drives home that the Terminator will not be stopped, and that Sarah can never be safe.

Later Terminator films increasingly relied on digital effects, so going back and seeing the original relying solely on practical effects felt refreshing. The film’s DIY style feeds into a grittiness that keeps it grounded. Cameron wisely hired special effects guru Stan Winston to develop the look, feel, and the mechanics of the Terminator. At various points of the film the film uses humans, animatronics and Ray Harryhausen-style stop-motion to depict the Terminator. The level of detail and the seamless blending of different techniques gave believability to something that might otherwise seem completely implausible.

Many critics and fans argue that the greatest special effect in The Terminator is Schwarzenegger. While he became so identified with the role that made him a star, Cameron initially did not see him for the part. Cameron wanted the Terminator to look ordinary, so he could blend into a crowd. None of that applies to Schwarzenegger, but once again the cinematic triumphs over the logical. Schwarzenegger’s build and his demeanor fit someone or something that couldn’t be stopped. Cameron took Schwarzenegger’s limitations at the time, a blank expression and speaking English in an artificial, mechanical, way, and turned them into strengths. Schwarzenegger’s movements also fit the cyborg’s manner perfectly.

The Terminator did not have the same effect on Michael Biehn’s career, but that takes nothing away from his heartfelt, intense performance. He’s the film’s unsung hero who must do much of the heavy lifting, including the explaining of the plot and the stakes. Biehn’s physicality makes Kyle Reese convincing as a soldier. While the Terminator has no emotions, Reese has to control his, and that struggle draws us in. Reese does not want to tell Sarah how much he loves her, which makes it so moving when he lets his guard down. Biehn tells us volumes with just his soulful eyes.

Linda Hamilton redefined Sarah Connor in T2 so fully, so brilliantly, that seeing the beta version here feels strange. Here Sarah is just an ordinary person struggling to make ends meet. This young, naļve woman feels worlds apart from the buff, tough warrior she would become. That Hamilton played both these versions so well speaks to her talent and dedication. The first film shows her range more, as Sarah must show hints of the woman she’d become. While Biehn depicts vulnerability under the toughness, Hamilton brilliantly does the opposite.

No one would call The Terminator a political film, but Cameron features signs showing life heading in a direction possibly leading to the apocalyptic AI-dominated future. Early on we hear Ginger, Sarah’s roommate, saying in a message that “You are talking to a machine.” Later, she is so connected to her Walkman that she doesn’t hear her boyfriend beaten to death. Meanwhile, the Terminator easily arms himself at a gun shop thanks to an owner who doesn’t think twice about all of the weapons this strange man wants, saying “Any one of these is ideal for home defense.” The Terminator, Reese, and Sarah meet for the first time in a club called "Tech Noir". The term has come to mean the blending of science fiction and film noir, defined by this film and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, but taken literally it means black/dark technology.

The Terminator’s relentlessness, performances, and shades of darkness come together in the ending. Or to be accurate, the three endings. First there’s the conventional ending, where Reese blows up the Terminator’s truck, the music swells, and our heroes embrace. Of course that’s too easy. Instead of the end credits we get Cameron’s fever dream with the Terminator, now without the flesh, just a machine, rising from the fire. From here on Schwarzenegger is out of the film, but his presence remains. Many slasher films have an indestructible villain who seems down but keeps going on, but here it actually makes sense. Reese warned us that this would happen.

Reese, shot and bleeding out, can barely move. When Sarah after trying to carry him yells “On your feet soldier!” I got chills. Here’s the Sarah that Reese spoke of, the one we will see again in T2. Finally, Reese sacrifices himself to blow up the Terminator by literally sticking a stick of dynamite in him. Interestingly, Cameron would return to this formula 13 years later in Titanic where the hero dies so the heroine, formerly weak but now emboldened, can carry on. However that’s not entirely the case with Sarah, as the top half of the Terminator still keeps coming.

By now we are in an automated factory. The Terminator first clashed with Reese and Sarah in a nightclub filled with people, but their final fight comes in a place filled with machines. These machines make whatever they are making, with humans only having to press a button. The first step to the machines taking over perhaps? Ironically, it’s the factory press that Sarah uses to finally destroy the Terminator.

Even that’s not the end. While T2 would end with hope, The Terminator ends with foreboding. A weathered, determined Sarah knows what’s coming and knows what she has to do. A little boy says something in Spanish. When Sarah asks the attendant what the boy said, he replies “He said there's a storm coming in.” Sarah responds “I know” and then, in the last shot of the film, drives straight into the storm. An obvious metaphor perhaps, but one that feels more reasonable these days. Maybe we are all Sarah Connor right now, driving into the storm ahead.

Adam Spector
December 1, 2024