The Terminator
The Terminator was an influential action film, released in 1984. It was writer-director James Cameron's second film, and the first film were he had real creative control. the film only cost $10 million, and relied almost entirely on practical effects, and traditional stop-animation, with almost no use of computers.
Arnold Schwarznegger, who played the villain, the Terminator, was not yet well-known.
Plot
[edit | edit source]A pair of warring time travelers appear, in 1984. The Terminator is a killing machine, engineered to look like a massively muscled human, whose assignment is to kill women named Sarah Connors. Kyle Reese, is a subordinate of the leader of the anti-computer resistance, John Connor, assigned to protect the life the leader's mother, Sarah Connors. After a long and destructive war, humans, lead by John Connors, had almost defeated the computers that tried to subordinate humanity. As a last resort the computers try to forestall their defeat by using time travel to assassinate the leader's mother, so he is never born.
The Terminator is shown to be resourceful, intelligent, extremely strong, and essentially unkillable.
Catchphrases
[edit | edit source]The film was so influential that other films and television shows repeat phrases from the film.
Sequels
[edit | edit source]Cameron wrote and directed a sequel, Terminator 2, set fifteen years after the original. Based on the success of the original, and several other highly successful films, he was given a large budget for the sequel. Schwarznegger played a second Terminator, this time sent by the human resistance. One of the film's taglines was, "This time he is back for good". The sequel was also very popular, and very influential.
It was followed by four additional sequels, not directed by Cameron, which received lukewarm receptions.