The Terminator

Rating:
Summary: "It doesn't feel remorse. Or pity. Or fear..."
Review: The Terminator is thrilling, edge-of-your seat entertainment, but it not so subtly begs the examination of man's quest to create the perfect machine only to have his creation turn against him. This is expanded upon in T2 but the original appeals to me more because the viewer has to do the thinking. The icons and imagery are all there, but it doesn't detract from the action and suspensful aspects of the film. Don't misunderstand me; the sequel was great. Cameron had less to work with here and success was not assured. As for the presentation of the DVD, I can say that it's impressive. I remember the film being dark and grainy. The colours are rich and warm, considering much of the movie is at night. The deleted scenes are a bonus. I can see why they were left out, though upon viewing them they add much depth to the story. This is the only sci-fi movie I'd recommend to those who normally would not venture into the genre. "The Terminator" is a violent and chilling action film with spirit and humanity.

Rating:
Summary: He will not stop - EVER - until you are dead.
Review: I've never traditionally been drawn to science fiction and "techno-thriller" films. One notable exception to my lukewarm attitude toward science fiction films is a 1984 James Cameron film that I consider to be one of the very best of its genre. "The Terminator," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, and Michael Biehn, is a very, VERY good film indeed!

Before this week, I had pretty much forgotten just how good "The Terminator" is. I had seen it in the theater in 1984, and perhaps two other times on VHS in the years that followed. I was re-introduced to the film recently when I received in the mail my latest order from Amazon.com: a "Special Edition" copy of "The Terminator" on DVD.

This film is just as good now as it was seventeen years ago! It has lost none of its intensity, none of its non-stop, heart-pounding excitement, none of its originality. Recently, as I watched "The Terminator" for the first time in perhaps ten years, I found myself once again transported to the dark world created by director/screen writer James Cameron, and brought to life by Schwarzenegger, Hamilton, and Biehn.

Five minutes into "The Terminator" (counting the opening credits), and the screen literally explodes with action and excitement as the Terminator relentlessly hunts his prey, catches up with her, and finds himself coming face to face with her protector. Watch the spine-tingling, non-stop action as our protagonists constantly try to elude their predatory robotic nemesis, and the Los Angeles Police Department gamely tries to figure out just whatintheheck is going on here anyway?!?

The acting in "The Terminator" is actually pretty good. Certainly not Oscar-contending material, but definitely of a lot higher caliber than I expected the first time I saw the movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his first role of real substance (and the role that made him a box-office star) proves that, yes indeed, he really can act.

Linda Hamilton is excellent as Sarah Connor. Her evolution from a cute, all-American girl, to a victim of a seemingly random crime, to a disbelieving participant in a battle through time, to a woman of substance with a tortured soul and highly developed sense of responsibility, is gradual but quite noticeable, and an excellent acting achievement.

Michael Biehn is also very good in his role as Kyle Reese. He delivers his lines powerfully and demonstrates a wide spectrum of on-screen emotions. Like Schwarzenegger, he possesses tremendous physical acting ability.

"The Terminator" conveys a certain "film noir-ish" feel that greatly adds to the film's overall suspensefulness, tension, and excitement. By design, most of "The Terminator" was filmed at night. The result: a dark, almost sinister atmosphere prevails.

MY VERDICT: Although it's seventeen years old now, "The Terminator" remains an intense, exciting film, imbued with a highly original story line, excellent special effects (at least for its day), and pretty darn good acting to boot. A "must own" DVD for "sci-fi" and Schwarzenegger fans alike!

Rating:
Summary: Classic science-fiction
Review: This classic piece of science fiction is one of James Cameron's best works, and better than its sequel, excellent though that is. It begins in the future, with machines ruling the Earth, before backtracking to present day. It turns out that the machines have sent back a cyborg in the shape of Arnie to kill the mother (Hamilton) of what will be the leader of a human war against the machines. Yet the humans send back a human protector for the unaware Sarah O'Connor called Kyle. Thus ensues one of the most compelling chase movies for a long time, with a dark plot that adds to a sense of despair and panic.

The acting is all spot on, with Hamilton being especially impressive as the ditzy waitress who suddenly has to come to terms with the fact that she holds the key to humanity's existence. Surprisingly Arnie is also incredibly well suited to the menacing role of the terminator - the role that launched him into super stardom. The action sets are all superb too, with some great special effects even by today's standards. All this and there are some fantastic one-liners, some of which have deservedly gone down in movie history. However, it is the dark nature of the story that really gives it the nudge above countless other such movies. The city streets that the heroine runs through look wasted enough for the audience to consider if it's worth saving or not. That the movie manages to tackle a romantic subplot successfully should also be noted. This is one of those rare movies where looking back, it is still the genre classic now as it was then.

Rating:
Summary: Good Old Stuff
Review: Who's not seen the Terminator? This is a good transfer. Only thing missing is a commentary, but why should we assume these guys always want to do one? They don't need to, unlike poor Dustin Hoffman in "The Sphere".

The Terminator will always stand for the concrete and steel in us all. Thank the Lord it was made before the current cleaned up morals.

Rating:
Summary: Sci-fi classic looks a little dated
Review: I loved this movie came out. At the time, there was very little CGI, if any, in movies of the time. The models looked a little cheesey, but not too bad. Seeing this now, the models look almost comical. The action is still great, but the advances in movie making really come to mind.

Rating:
Summary: This movie could have only been made in the 1980s
Review:

I was born in 1974, so I'm now old enough to remember two entire decades - the 80s and 90s. Compared to the somehow-hopeful, PC 1990s, it's amazing to see how dark, terrfying, and graphic many mainstream 1980s movies were. The Terminator embodies many qualities of such dark movies, and serves as a historical social record for the paranoid, technophobic, cold-war 80s.

It's also an awesome, balls-to-the-wall sci-fi film that pretty much set the standard for action movies.

First off, this movie wouldn't have been half of what it was without Arnold Schwarzenegger. Holy #$&8! this guy embodies the movie concept - an unstoppable killing machine, who, in the words of frail human protector Kyle Reese, "Can't be reasoned with, can't be bargained with, and absolutely will not stop, until you are dead!"

Death, destiny or doom, love, and courage are all themes wrapped into this outstanding movie, which refuses to be dated or made obsolete even in the face of advanced computer CGI that flood movies made these days. They used stop-action animation in this movie, but it still looks good even 18 years later. And though you can tell it's animation, you don't care, which is powerful proof that story drives a movie, not FX.

Five stars all around. And the DVD Dolby soundtrack is outstanding, too.

-- JJ Timmins

Rating:
Summary: Not All Re-releases are the same
Review: This is defintely a Sci-Fi classic. My review is gonna be a comparision to the previous DVD release and not about the movie since probably half the planet has seen it. Picture quality is the same as before with extras footages among other 'extras' to make it a 'Special Edition' This was a nice addition. Sound quality on the other hand was VERY DISSAPOINTING since it's suppose to be Dolby Digital 5.1 EX encoded. Compared to the Star Wars EP 1's DD 5.1 EX, this DVD should have been just left with the original surround sound instead. Even in 'Enhanced 6.1,' other DSP formats, it's still kinda flat with what you would expect of this DVD compared to other movies. Bottom line: picture quality, movie and extras were great. Sound quality was lacking though.

Rating:
Summary: He's come back!
Review: The Terminator, while fun, has never really been held up as a great film. Certainly it was notable for the never ending climaxs that seem to keep coming. But it is most notable for pushing Schwarzenegger into the stratosphere. Still, the crisp, clean sound and video are great, and show how a scene contained a real mixture of the two. For me, the deleted scenes were the big draw - showing what was shot but not used. Watch it once to enjoy the scenes (or scene snippets), and then watch it with the commentary track and find out why it was not used. Some of the reasons you may agree with, but some you may not. I suppose it is extras like this that make owning the DVD worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: Science fiction excellence
Review: It is significant that the end title to James Cameron's 1984 classic _The Terminator_ is an acknowledgement to Harlan Ellison. Like Ellison's work, the film strikes a nerve in being thought-provoking as well as compulsively entertaining. These features are never far from quality science fiction, and _The Terminator_ does not disappoint as action thriller as well as anti-technology treatise.

The entire film is a sustained attack on man's over-reliance on gadgets and machines. It may indeed rank with a film like Chaplin's _Modern Times_ as a statement against the increasing mechanization of society. From the opening scene of a garbage truck to the movie's climax at a factory (a one-two punch which its sequel also utilizes) the film is as virulent an indictment of the negative effect of technology as has been produced onscreen. From headphones and hair dryers entangling themselves among characters in an apartment bathroom to a psychologist's persistent, annoying beeper, the theme of technology obfuscating people's lives more than it helps is present throughout. "Tech Noir," the title of the dance club featured in the movie's midsection, is itself a comment upon "the darker side of technology," as producer and co-writer Gale Anne Hurd says in one of the disc's documentaries. This is illustrated by the inability of the police to contact the story's main protagonist, Sarah Connor, in the very same dance club, until it is almost too late.

Sarah is a character whose life is thrust into turmoil by her placement in an almost unimaginable situation. When it is revealed that the future survival of humankind rests on her giving birth to a son not yet conceived, she is not eager to accept the challenge. "Do I look tough? Organized? I can't even balance my checkbook!" she says at one point. However, the crux of the story lie not with her, and humanity's, weakness, but with her strength. She is able to find in herself by story's end a wellspring of courage and perseverance, and it remains one of the picture's touchstones.

Cameron never allows the spirit of individuals to be obscured by the grim elements of the technology they have created. Sarah's roomate-- content with copulating and making a sandwich with headphones blasting, mentioning Sarah's cancelled male date in terms of the Porsche he drives (his car yet another symbol of a machine creating a dubious status for the owner)-- is revealed as a contrast to Sarah's level-headedness and refusal to be swayed by the superfluous. This is commented upon in her shunning of Pugsley, Sarah's pet lizard. The iguana is something organic and alive, a chaos that obtrudes her ease of making a midnight snack and has no place in the alphabet of her life's routine. Her boyfriend mistaking Sarah for her over the phone is another example of the shadows, real and imaginary, that technology casts. The answering machine message greeting a caller to the apartment masquerades as a real person, then posits that "machines need love too," fleshing out further the moral Cameron is crafting.

Mistreated and criticized at her job, Sarah is told to view the experience as meaningless by a fellow waitress: "In 100 years, who's gonna care?" This is a line that in the context of the story is darkly ironic. Yet, the film is not as outrightly pessimistic as it may seem: the point is that we do care, and should. This leads to the other major theme of the movie: love. Indeed, Sarah and her assigned protector from the future, Kyle Reese, are as coherent and strong a love as any movie-- be it science fiction or not-- has witnessed. It's also one of the very few love stories included in a movie that doesn't reek of sentiment and insincerity. It is not merely there for lip service or titillation's sake.

Sarah and Kyle's union is intricately yet carefully developed, and functions as a key plot point as well as both a physical and a metaphysical transcendance of the ill effects of society's machinations. From their subtle glance outside Tech Noir to the final battle they share against the Terminator-- the ultimate if fictional outcome of the failure of man's grip upon technology-- the two form a bond that events fortify rather than rend. Reese we learn travels time for Sarah-- for him she represents determination and hope, even beauty, in the face of fear-- and the photo he treasures of her sad countenance is in fact her at a different point in the narrative thinking wistfully of him and the feelings that grew between them. The result is that the future existence of humanity rests upon a child conceived by both out of love and admiration. The scene at Tech Noir when the two first exchange gazes of recognition is a powerfully imagined counterpoint to the haze and shadow that is the unwanted offspring of technology's dark side. Occuring during a song whose refrain is "You've got me burning," it is a reference to their upcoming coupling as well as a visual pun on the above mentioned photograph, which is eventually destroyed by flames. (The film as well as its sequel is filled with such jokes: in one scene the Terminator runs over a toy truck with a car, mirroring a sequence later on when he himself is run over by a real truck.)

_The Terminator_ is a remarkable piece of work, birthed in the dark period before the end of the Cold War and during the beginning of the amazing leaps technology has undergone. Made on a small budget, its large themes and concern with the "one possible future" that the world is faced with resonate still. Its message is plain: "the future is not set; there is no fate but what we make for ourselves." One of the most important science fiction films of all time, it contains a dark, stylish atmosphere that its successor's big budget and essentially grander treatment prevents. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Definative version of the original cyborg flick
Review: Well I doubt I need to paraphrase the plot, so I won't. But what i will do is discuss the DVD, which most of the time the only info I really want to know.

OK, first of all the picture quality is EXCELLENT. In fact, it's so good that it looks as if it were filmed just yesterday. (Except for the occasional Gremlin you see in the film, LOL!) But anyway, the DVD case states that it was transfered from a HD master and it shows.

However the new 5.1 soundtrack is not bad, but you can tell that it's all new as to everything hasn't been "stereo-ized". For example, in the police station scene where Arnold is walking through and shooting everybody he sees his guns, there are instances when the gun sounds are in stereo in one shot and then not in another while in both instances they should be as they fire to the left or right. Also the sound is really bad during the film's numerous car chases where the most dominant sound is the music while the car sounds are barely audible and then all of a sudden you get a sound in the left or right channel when the car hits something or makes a powerslide around a corner. But...what can you expect from a soundtrack that was originally just Monoaral.

One note though, since I don't have a true surround sound system, that above complaint may not be as bad as I made it out to be. (I have a TV with simulated surround and a 2 speaker stereo that has SRS sound)

But as for the Bonus Features, that's where you get your money's worth. First of all it has several deleted scenes w/ or w/o commentary, all of which are in as good as shape visually as the Feature. Second of all it comes with 2 really great documentaries. "The Terminator: A Retrospective" that was shot in '92 (a year after T2) that's OK, but not too indepth, and "Other Voices" that is brand new that really goes into the making of the film that mirrors in quality the documentary that's on the T2: Ultimate Edition.

The Menu Navigation is also very cool which sort of takes you through several "Cyberdyne" animations.

So if you're looking to complete your Terminator DVD collection as I did after already owning T2, grab this one as it's the best version we'll have for a while, or forever.

Oh, one more thing about the sound. They have changed the sound of the Flying HKs. They no longer have that strange screaming robotic sound. They now have a jetliner sound, which may or maynot sound more realistic to you. In fact all of the Future War sequences have been totally revamped sonically.