Despite the postponement of his latest theatrical release, the vigilante-fireman thriller Collateral Damage, I think Arnold Schwarzenegger could still experience a career renaissance in this post-September eleventh landscape. They say the public's appetite for action will dwindle, if it hasn't already, but while I see the Lethal Weapons of this world being shunned, cartoonish action in the name of patriotism could once more find an American audience if the political climate returns to the chilly temperatures of the 1980s. Two recent Special Edition DVD releases inure us to the concept of Arnie Values circa 2001, the nuclear-themed The Terminator and the misogynistic Total Recall. In the light of the new dawn, the timeliness of the former, like that of many innocent old films, has been recapitulated.

In his only bad guy role besides Mr. Freeze, Schwarzenegger brings hulking menace to The Terminator's titular cyborg, a future artifact that falls from the sky in 1984 to spread doom. More than indestructible, the terminator feels no compunction for even wounds to his own synthetic flesh; Schwarzenegger hasn't glowered so convincingly, so purposefully, since, and his impossible build has never seemed so chic. The first time you see the film, the character's mission--to kill an urban dweller who'll one day give birth to the leader of a resistance movement in a war against "the machines"--is almost secondary to his presence. The woman he must terminate is named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), and to achieve his task with a thoroughness, he offs the foremost Sarah Connor in the phonebook and works his way down.

The positioning of machines as the enemy isn't Luddite protest, but rather a trenchant war metaphor: whatever its ancestry, our battlefield opposition is seen as heartless, programmed. A guerilla effort, The Terminator was James Cameron's second film as writer-director and remains his most crisply written in every respect. When Reese (Michael Biehn), a man sent to the past by her own son as protection, lays out his cards (in effect, the human race is doomed without Sarah), she responds, "I can't even balance my checkbook." It's a comprehensive piece of characterization: little needs to be said before or after that, and little is. While Hamilton's performance in the sequel drew more attention, she's better here, in my opinion--a real person instead of Rambo with boobs. There isn't a moment we aren't looking at her and saying, "Yeah, I'd have that same reaction," as the cosy layers of Sarah's dull life are gracelessly stripped away.

Schwarzenegger inherits her mantle in Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall, playing an average Joe caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Plagued by nightmares set on Mars, Arnie's Doug Quaid decides to take a virtual trip to the red planet. Ensconced in a dream chamber at the Rekall Corporation, Quaid has a "schizoid embolism" and flees, spooked. Snatches of a past, brainwashed existence then surface in the form of government agents and double-crossing loved ones. Soon Quaid is chased all the way to Mars, where he tries to assist a band of oxygen-hungry mutants his former self may have very well helped to oppress.

Perhaps it goes without saying that Total Recall is no Terminator, but let the records show. Its ambiguity about whether or not Doug is dreaming from Rekall on conflicts with the storytelling basic, which violates Doug's point-of-view often enough that if the events aren't meant to be genuine, then Doug isn't dreaming, either--he's simply being fed a movie with scenes in his sleep. (If Doug is only fantasizing, what's our investment? What's at stake? Answer: nothing.) Total Recall also looks hideous: bright, claustrophobic; everything has a plastic sheen. (And yes, the Oscar-winning effects have dated.) Schwarzenegger is pretty good, though the supporting cast is unmemorable to a fault, even Sharon Stone, the continual mistreatment of whom loses its forbidden novelty--fast. If Arnold becomes an icon again, I hope we embrace the right pictures.

MGM's Special Edition DVD of The Terminator arrives on a DVD-14, a single layer/RSDL hybrid flipper that prevents bonus material from either compromising the bitrate of the film or necessitating a second disc. Side A contains The Terminator and multiple soundtrack configurations for it, plus three drafts of Cameron's screenplay accessible via DVD-ROM. The 1.85:1, 16x9-enhanced transfer of The Terminator, a HiDef downconversion, is handsome, the film's best home video incarnation yet. I'm reluctant to raise expectations for something miraculous, although I can't imagine a cleaner, more articulated The Terminator.

As for the remixed, remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 EX audio: unable to comment on the 'EX' factor, having no centre-rear speaker in my home theatre; admired it all the same. The sweetened bass--the occasional thick, rolling blast of the subwoofer--doesn't always blend in with the mid-range timbre of the original dialogue and foley, and many of the re-sampled sound effects are unmistakable, but I found myself enjoying The Terminator in a way that I hadn't my last couple of viewings because I was finally enveloped by it. The piano parts of Brad Fiedel's score really resonate now. The 1984 mono track is included for posterity.

On Side B, you'll find two documentaries: the 1991 Arnie and Jim rap session "The Making of The Terminator: A Retrospective" (approx. 20 mins.) and Van Ling's "Other Voices-Back Through Time: Creating The Terminator" (approx 60 mins.). The former is an oldie but a goodie found on certain cassette copies of T2; the latter is a looking-back made earlier this year. Anybody you can think of and a dozen others contribute new interviews, with the ironic exceptions of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton. (They're there in segments taped ten years ago.) The highlight is Fantasy II's Gene Warren, Jr.'s tale of how The Terminator's concluding shot was stolen--er, achieved; the lowlight is producer Gale Anne Hurd's incessant use of the word "literally," which is hardly a substantial criticism. I thought I knew the film's entire backstory, and Ling has proved me wrong.

Seven "Terminated Scenes" of high image quality have optional commentary from Cameron (in his commentary debut), who speaks breathlessly over the shorter ones. The impetus for T2 is here in sequences that address Cyberdyne's role in WWIII, though Cameron is glad he cut them. Long teaser, standard, and foreign trailers, two TV spots, five still galleries (James Cameron artwork; production photos; Stan Winston effects; Fantasy II visual effects; and publicity materials--see The Terminator in a bowtie!), James Cameron's Terminator treatment, and a collectible booklet round out this fittingly smaller companion to Artisan's T2: Ultimate Edition. The available James Cameron SE DVDs (The Abyss, T2) aren't my favourite deluxe packages because they boast of too many text-based supplementals; one sits before a television to get away from reading. MGM's disc manages to be thorough without giving us paragraph after paragraph to wade through, James Cameron's welcome treatment excepted.

Total Recall is the lesser DVD. Housed in a CD-sized, mock-Mars circular metal tin with red foam and two promotional inserts inside, the DVD consists of a respectably remastered version of the film and a couple of cool supps. The soft 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is adequate, and the 5.1 Dolby Digital mix is powerful, if lacking in nuance. Of the premiums, Jeffrey Schwarz's "Imagining Total Recall" is the best; we're more enthralled as screenwriter Ronald Shusett, Schwarzenegger, Verhoeven, et al. retrace the project's staggered footsteps to the screen than by anything in Total Recall proper. And only during their discussion of the film's ultra-violence do we realize what a friggin' bloodbath Total Recall actually is!

An additional featurette is worthwhile viewing as well: in "Visions of Mars" (5 mins.), simulated footage of Mars is interspersed with discourse from Dan McCleese of Jet Propulsion Laboratories, who dispels the myth that we'll be living on Mars someday soon--scientists won't even get to study its soil samples until 2014! We learn in three "Storyboard Comparisons" that Verhoeven sticks to the sketches; ditto the free-flowing "Conceptual Art Gallery". Capping off the DVD is a block of trailers and TV spots (the trailers in weak 2.0 Dolby Surround), a photo gallery, step-frame production notes, cast and crew bios/filmos, a (huh?) JVC commercial (located in the "Setup" menu), three trés lame "Rekall Virtual Vacations" (looped 30-second static shots of decidedly earthbound locales), and commentary from Schwarzenegger and Verhoeven. It's a great chat when they're not doing a play-by-play on the action or arguing that Quaid's adventure is a delusion, and Schwarzenegger had me laughing off the top when he said "That's me running towards the camera!" regarding the Tri-Star horse.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening