Widely regarded as a classic, The Terminator is a film I have only seen twice, but I thought I’d lay down my thoughts on it, why I think it has reached such an iconic position in our culture, and whether or not it deserves such praise.
The Terminator follows Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton, as she becomes unwillingly involved in a conflict between man and machine from decades into the future, all while hunted by the Terminator, famously played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, a machine designed to relentlessly pursue its target and kill it without hesitation or mercy. Along the way, she has to make an uneasy alliance with Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a hardened yet unstable soldier sent back in time to protect her.
The film essentially plays out like a slasher film, albeit with sci-fi elements thrown into the mix. Using Schwarzenegger, an actor famous for larger-than-life action films, feels like a clever subversion of his usual roles. While usually playing gun-wielding, indestructible and physically imposing figures, we now get to see that at its extreme as an unstoppable robot who can literally take a hail of bullets with little to no effect, and by hunting the inexperienced and vulnerable Connor, it creates a tense, captivating premise.
The game of cat-and-mouse, with the Terminator always pursuing Connor makes the film engaging from start to finish. It’s just a matter of time as to when he will catch up with her, and the fear of what will happen when he does fills the viewer with both excitement and dread. As it is stated in the film, the weapons of the time aren’t nearly adequate to hope to stop it, and so Connor and Reese have to use a variety of methods just to to survive, and buy themselves a few more hours.
Like many science-fiction films of the time, it plays off of fears of nuclear war, artificial intelligence and rapidly advancing technology to create a dark and foreboding vision of the future, and the unstoppable Terminator perfectly reflects this thematically.
Considering the slasher angle, the film is very well acted. Reese in particular always comes across as a man who has been scarred by what he has seen, understanding the seriousness of the situation without much sympathy for those who don’t. One the other hand, Connor is understandably terrified by what is happening, but grows and matures in character as her learns to see more from Reese’s perspective. I can’t think of a single scene when anyone acted out of character, or cringeworthy. The performances feel honest and real.
The technical strengths and weaknesses of the film come in the practical effects. The car chases and body horror makes the film feel grounded and distinctive, but admittedly, some of the latter scenes are a bit cheesy by today’s standards. That being said, it seems a little cruel to judge a thirty six year old film by its effects, and when the practical work is executed well, it knocks it out of the park. This commitment to genuine, tangible effects is not only admirable, but incredibly endearing, and one of the things that gives the film a timeless quality.
So, with a cast of talented actors committing to their roles, practical effects that, while inconsistent in quality, make the events of the film feel authentic, and a conflict filled with dozens of captivating themes and ideas, it’s no wonder that it has stayed in the hearts and minds of viewers for nearly four decades. It would be almost criminal to give the film anything less than a nine out of ten.
9 out of 10
SPOILER SECTION
The film does everything it can to isolate Sarah and Reese from the rest of humanity, something that it really benefits from. Anyone else for us to get emotionally invested in is killed by the Terminator at one point or another. Sarah’s friends, family, even the police officers who had been trying to protect her, are snuffed out by the T-800, either completely unaware of the Terminator, or dismissive of it as the words of a lunatic. This allows the protagonists to constantly feel vulnerable, with no outside help. They’re on they’re own.
I remember hearing an analysis of tension that suggested that if the powerful enemy can be hurt or killed, then it is all the more tense, as you are unsure as to exactly which party will come out victorious. The same applies to the Terminator. While Connor and Reese don’t get to see the degradation of the T-800, the audience does. After crashing the car and retreating to repair, it has to remove the flesh on its arm, and an eye, covering them up, along with its singed off eyebrows, in order to maintain his cover. This demonstrates to the audience that it isn’t infallible, and, just like the humans it is hunting, it can be destroyed, amping up the tension in scenes like the police station massacre, or the final confrontation, in which it is reduced to a skeletal state, clearly slower and less stable, yet advancing nonetheless.
Again, the skeleton imagery is reflective of the inevitability of the future, and the death that will come with it, almost as if it embodied death itself in its final form.
At no point in this film is the dystopian future attempted to be diverted. Instead, it is implied that the time-travel of this film may be self-creating, with every action in the past inadvertently causing the future. The biggest examples of this is Kyle Reese becoming the father of John Connor, and Sarah Connor having the knowledge to prepare John for his role as humanity’s savior.
The nuclear war cannot be stopped, all that can be done is wait for history to take its course, getting unimaginably worse before it can get better. Because of this, a pregnant Sarah driving into the stormy horizon is perhaps the ultimate way to end the film. She alone knows what will happen, and faces that future, and the responsibility of raising John, alone. I couldn’t describe this as anything less than cinematic genius on the part of James Cameron.
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