Rating: 
Summary: Terminator: Get out, go buy it
Review: I dont care who you are "The Terminator" is without a doubt one of the greatest science fiction films ever released. Arnie is well cast in this blockbuster film about man vs machine. Kyle Reese(Michael Biehn)is a soldier sent back though a time machine back to the year 1984 from his own time of the year 2029 where a war is fought against mechanical monsters controlled by a computer called skynet. Skynet already sent a machine through called a Terminator (Schwarzenegger). Its mission: Terminate Sarah Connor(Linda Hamilton) the soon to be mother of John who will lead the humans to victory against the machines. Kyle's mission is to stop the Terminator before its too late and the future takes on a new owner. With car chases and special effects that will leave you wanting more, Terminator is one to add to your collection. Buy it now.
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Summary: Unstoppable Killing Machine -- Original Tech Noir
Review: 5 Stars for originality, story, effects and action! The DVD is solid too, with a fair amount of extras. Some of you may remember when we all feared the Ruskies would nuke us any day -- this film capitalized on that fear and introduced us all to a new terror -- the evils of machines rising up against mankind. Plot revolves around deadly battle/chase to stop a cyborg sent back thru time. Many other reviewers will relate every detail, but I suggest you watch the movie. Keep in mind this was the one that started it, before the matrix and all the others. Film has a dark tone that is compelling. Lots of action, weapons, and some Sci-Fi but not too much. Man vs his creation in a sci-fi tech nightmare. That theme has since been redone several times since in many ways. The Terminator set the bar for Tech Noir films, and is the best of the series of three (T2 Judgement Day and T3 Rise of the Machines). Ironic that after all the Hollywood destruction now the Terminator "runs" California. . . Rise of the Machine? This movie is the role that defined Schwarzenagger's career more than any other. See the DVD and you'll know what I mean. The Special Edition Terminator DVD is worth the price! Quality of sound and video is excellent, bearing in mind that it is almost 20 years old now. Effects are awesome for the 80's. But Cameron's original Terminator was made without a major budget, and before Arnold was a big star. Still they pulled it off nicely! Not as much as later version, but the Extras (artwork, trailers, deleted scenes, & a sort of screenplay) on this DVD are worthy of the $15 price. I just watched it again, go get yours. This version (special ed) is worthy of a place in your collection too, although a boxed set may be coming out with all three sometime.
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Summary: Arnold premieres as the evil cyborg
Review: Recently I rented Terminator 3-Rise of the Machines and went ahead and rented this original version as well.I actually liked T-3 better with one exception---no Linda Hamilton.This movie like T-2 and T-3 is action packed. The special effects were better in T-2 but there is something special about an original movie.Terminator is an outstanding movie and was wel worth watching again---18 years later.Good job by The Governator.
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Summary: Arnold's best film!!!!
Review: This is Arnold Schwarzenegger's best film yet. It's about a robot from the future(Arnold's charictor)who has been sent back though time by an evil computer called "Skynet" to kill a young women named Sarah Coner(Linda Hamilton)because of her unborn child John Coner, Skynets rival. Sarah only hope is a man named Kyle Resse. Great acting by the entire cast. Arnold makes a perfect villion. This is the best of the three films. If they make Terminator4 (which they probuly will) they should make Arnold evil again(and I'm not counting those 2 mintues of Terminator 3 where he was evil). Great film, good for anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: "Your clothes, give them to me."
Review: "The Terminator" is a significant film for many reasons. It put James Cameron on the map, it proved Arnold Schwarzenegger was not a one-hit wonder after "Conan the Barbarian" (1982), and it introduced the general public to Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn. It also reinforced the notion that vision and filmmaking ingenuity play a greater role in creating a quality film than exorbitant budgets and the casting of award-winning performers. In the future, humankind is locked in a deadly struggle with machines that want to eradicate them. The machines send back in time a robot (Schwarzenegger), dubbed a Terminator, to kill the mother of the man who will lead the human resistance against the machines. They reason that by removing the mother from the timeline, the son who will battle them in the future will never come to be. The woman the machines seek is a waitress named Sarah Conner (Hamilton). Leaning of the plot against her, the human resistance tries to foil the machines' plan by sending back in time a lone soldier named Kyle Reese (Biehn). Reese is charged with keeping Connor alive in order to preserve the timeline but that mission proves challenging as the relentless Terminator proves extremely adept at tracking down its prey. "The Terminator" can be interpreted as a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence, but to be honest it is better remembered as an exciting and entertaining chase film. The energy generated by the pursuit of Sarah Connor is so intoxicating that any deep thoughts over the film's message is deferred until long after the end credits have finished. Hamilton and Biehn are great in their parts but it is Schwarzenegger who steals the film. He is perfectly cast and somehow manages to imbue his emotionless character with more charisma and humor than the average flesh-and-blood cinematic character. Sure, the time paradoxes that the story poses might not stand up to close scrutiny when you think about it, the musical score is hopelessly dated, and the special effects are not top-of-the-line. However, Cameron's determination to turn out a good product in spite of the limitations that confronted him comes through in every frame of "The Terminator." Who would have ever guessed at the time of its making that this small film would continue to endure decades after its initial release?
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Summary: Believe the hype!
Review: I said a couple weeks ago on this site that I considered "Terminator 3" arguably the best of the series, but having just watched this one again after buying it on DVD I have to rethink my position. In the few years since I last watched this movie, I had forgotten how dark and disconcerting it managed to be without any uber-expensive special effects. Since it didn't have anywhere near the budget of its sequels, the original "Terminator" had to rely on some old-fashioned devices like detail, atmosphere, and characterization. The second and third installments were certainly solid efforts, but they seem almost sterile in comparison. This is easily the rawest "Terminator" movie, and all the better for it. While the screenplay is a model of tightness and efficiency, it's James Cameron's grim vision and stark direction that steal the show. Nuclear-age paranoia has been a staple of filmmaking at least since "Dr. Strangelove," but the image of the future depicted here is even more unflinching than most. The L.A. of the 1980's is made to look pretty dark and desolate, but the post-apocalyptic dystopia of 2029 is much worse. It's a cold, mechanized world, with laser-firing machines roaming around and human skulls littering the landscape in a very nice touch. And in 1984, man and machine do battle with nothing less than the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. "The Terminator" is probably most notable for introducing a new entry into the pantheon of legendary movie supervillains with the role that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger into mega-star status. As the fearless, guiltless, pitiless twenty-first century killing machine known simply as the Terminator, Schwarzenegger cuts a largely silent swath of destruction through 1984 Los Angeles, killing almost everyone unlucky enough to get in his way. With the square-jawed Schwarzenegger striking a very imposing figure, the Terminator has become an enduring film villain precisely because it's so mechanical and unfeeling. In one especially chilling scene, a heavily armed Arnold nonchanlantly strolls through a police station, wordlessly shooting up defenseless cops who have no idea what they're up against. I can't help thinking that the Terminator would've made a great Nazi. And when its skin gets burned off and it's reduced to a metal skeleton with fiery red eyes and an evil grin, the Terminator is even scarier. The movie's human characters don't fare too badly either. If there's one area in which "The Terminator" clearly outdoes its successors, it's emotional depth. Arnold may be the picture of cool detachment, but the unfairly neglected Michael Biehn (who managed to carve out a decent career himself) turns the future soldier Reese into a tortured soul worthy of Shakespeare. Everything this guy says and does is intense, fuelled by the horrors that he's experienced and that he knows are coming. And over the course of the movie Linda Hamilton turns the hapless Sarah Connor into a genuine tough chick, a role that would be taken to its logical conclusion in "Terminator 2." Since this movie the "Terminator" franchise has taken on a life of its own, with Arnold playing no less than three different cyborgs in increasingly expensive epics. The original still hits the hardest though, precisely because it relies more on writing and direction than the special-effects blockbusters of today (this certainly doesn't just apply to the "Terminator" movies either). Not to mention, this movie introduced the line "I'll be back" to the national dialogue, for which we should all be eternally grateful. In this writer's humble opinion, the "Terminator" series decks it out with "Lord Of The Rings" for the title of THE movie trilogy.
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Summary: Still the best
Review: Two sequels later, there still isn't a _Terminator_ movie that comes within miles of the first of the series. Oh, I like T2 well enough on its own terms, but even though it's got much higher production values than this one, it pretty much wrecks the premise on which the series is based. If the future is really changed, there's nowhere for the Terminators (and Kyle Reese) to come back _from_, and the whole house caves in. (T3 makes a valiant effort to overcome this problem but doesn't quite make it.) This first one is complete as it stands. Shot on such a low budget that James Cameron couldn't even afford to record it in stereo (a shortcoming finally remedied in the 2001 DVD release), this film sets the standard of logical consistency for time-travel action-thrillers (admittedly a pretty narrow genre; the other reasonably well-known one is _Timecop_, and it's far from consistent). See, the plot in this one is carefully constructed so that when Skynet sends the Terminator back in time, it's actually helping to _bring about_ the past in which John Connor is conceived: by sending Arnold, Skynet seals its own fate. If you're an SF reader, you'll be thinking of Heinlein's 'By His Bootstraps' at this point, and you'll be right. There's lots of cool action, too, and even the low-budget special effects have held up well against the last twenty years of cinematography. But the film doesn't actually rely on them all that much; it's really Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, and the terrifying Arnold, under James Cameron's direction, that keep the tension high here. I saw this movie in 1984, almost by accident. I was living on Long Island as a graduate student (math) and my housemate and I headed out one Saturday night to see a movie. By the time we got to the theater, it was already ten p.m. and this was the only one that hadn't already started. I expected to be disappointed, and instead was very pleasantly surprised. It's still one of my favorites, and it's still every bit as watchable as it was twenty years ago. It's a pre- and post-apocalytpic thriller, a man-vs.-machine action flick, and several other things. But mostly, it's just a great movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Arnold=machine
Review: I saw the 2nd Terminator before the first one,and when I saw the first one my sisters didnt like it,but I did, my sisters like the 2nd and 3rd one but some reason they dont like this one that much.Arnold is a machine that trys to kill the mother of General John Conner.In future and a soldier protects Sarah from the Terminator.Can Kyle Reese protect Sarah and stop the Terminato, find out and watch this.
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Summary: Cyberteutonics
Review: MTV gothic Riefenstahl Mr Olympia sci-fi Wild One road trip to hell.
Rating:
Summary: Very nice
Review: This is a really cool movie, which easily deserves 5 stars, but unfortunately the DVD is a bit lacking. It has deleted scenes, and "making of" extras, but only the deleted scenes have a commentary. I'm really a stickler for audio commentary in Special Editions, it just makes it......well.....special.
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