Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

"(The) Terminator" was the first real big time movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger There were "Pumping Iron" and the Conan movies but for many people this was their first exposure to the Austrian Iron-Man. Arnie plays the machine soldier of the title -- I am going to assume for a second that you have been living in a cave or something and have never heard of this movie -- he's been sent back through time to destroy the mother of the leader of the resistance to the machines that dominate the post-nuclear landscape of the earth in the mid 21st century. Records are sparse, nuclear holocausts tend to play hell with libraries and the like, and all the machine knows is the last name of it's target, Connor. So, once it arrives and gets some threads, grabs a phone book and gets busy. Fortunately for Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) her future son has sent back one of his men to try to protect her from the Terminator, Reese (Micheal Biehn).

This movie was director James Cameron's first big feature. Cameron, who went on to do "Aliens", "The Abyss", and some movie about a sinking boat, was a protege of cheap-meister Roger Corman. Cameron, despite his subsequent big spending, knows how to stretch a dollar. This movie shows it. In 1984 this movie was visually spectacular encompassing all of the latest special effects technology -- but that was a long time ago and while "Terminator" is still a load of fun it's starting to show it's age a bit.

The whole look of the movie is very "last, sad days of disco". Be warned, the sight of Linda Hamilton with a Farrah Fawcett hairdo may be disturbing to small children and persons with sensitive dispositions. Some of the background music (by somebody called Tryanglz) is particularly bulimic. Depending on how much fun you were having in the early 80's this movie may bring back fond memories -- or maybe not.

The special effects are about as good as pre-CG technology allowed. "Star Wars" era motion control model work and what must be close to the last hurrah for stop-motion animation. These were cool at the time but now look a bit shopworn. The stop motion work is especially elderly looking. All of the nifty "Terminator-Vision" graphics are still cool, unless you stop them and realize that a lot of the text scrolling on the screen is actually COBOL source code. I didn't ruin it for you, did I?

I'm not saying that this is a crappy movie, far from it. The story, based on the old Harlen Ellison "Outer Limits" episode "Demon With a Glass Hand", is original and thought provoking, is the future set in stone or are we the masters of our own fates? Whatever their faults, Cameron's movies aren't allowed to get bogged down in talk-talk-talk (well hardly ever, there's that boat movie...) Schwarzenegger is excellent as the inexorable machine killer. (Fun fact: Cameron originally wanted Lance Henriksen (who has a small role as a cop) to play the role -- would have been a different movie... Performances by Hamilton and Biehn are good if not especially memorable, (well, Biehn does have some cool dialog and he avoids carpet-chewing, for the most part.)

This movie belongs to Arnold, though. It is the perfect break-in/break-through role for him. He isn't called on to express any emotion or complex English sentences, both of which he was not equipped to do at the time. All he has to do is be violent, menacing, inexorable and mechanical. Not hard. Despite his limited dialog, Arnold has some of the most memorable lines: "I'll be back", "[Sex Act] you, [Rectal Orifice]", etc.

Now as you may expect from a movie called "Terminator" there is a fair bit 'o violence. Quite a bit. Lots, actually. If that bothers you, watch the boat movie. There is one rather tame sex scene as well and a fair bit of swearing. Again, if this makes you faint-headed -- there's always the boat movie.

So if you've just come out of your cave or bomb shelter or whatever and you haven't seen "Terminator" will you like it? If you loved "Star Wars" and "Aliens", yes. If the boat movie is your favorite, I think rather not.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older