The Terminator  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Related e

Wikipedia Wiktionary Shop Featured: Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction film directed by James Cameron. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, a cyborg assassin sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), whose son will one day save mankind from extinction by a hostile artificial intelligence in a post-apocalyptic future. Michael Biehn plays Kyle Reese, a soldier sent back in time to protect Sarah. The screenplay is credited to Cameron and producer Gale Anne Hurd, while co-writer William Wisher Jr. received a credit for additional dialogue.

Cameron devised the premise of the film from a fever dream he experienced during the release of his first film, Piranha II: The Spawning (1982), in Rome, and developed the concept in collaboration with Wisher. He sold the rights to the project to fellow New World Pictures alumni Hurd on the condition that she would produce the film only if he were to direct it; Hurd eventually secured a distribution deal with Orion Pictures, while executive producers John Daly and Derek Gibson of Hemdale Film Corporation were instrumental in setting up the film's financing and production. Originally approached by Orion for the role of Reese, Schwarzenegger agreed to play the title character after befriending Cameron. Filming, which took place mostly at night on location in Los Angeles, was delayed because of Schwarzenegger's commitments to Conan the Destroyer (1984), during which Cameron found time to work on the scripts for Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Aliens (1986). The film's special effects, which included miniatures and stop-motion animation, were created by a team of artists led by Stan Winston and Gene Warren Jr.

Defying low pre-release expectations, The Terminator topped the United States box office for two weeks, eventually grossing $78.3 million against a modest $6.4 million budget. It is credited with launching Cameron's film career and solidifying Schwarzenegger's status as a leading man. The film's success led to a franchise consisting of several sequels, a television series, comic books, novels and video games. In 2008, The Terminator was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

In 1984 Los Angeles, a cyborg assassin known as a Terminator arrives from 2029. Kyle Reese, a human soldier sent back in time from the same year, arrives shortly afterwards. The Terminator begins systematically killing women named Sarah Connor, whose addresses it finds in the telephone directory. It tracks the last Sarah Connor to a nightclub, but Kyle rescues her. The pair steal a car and escape with the Terminator pursuing them in a police car.

As they hide in a parking lot, Kyle explains to Sarah that an artificial intelligence defense network, known as Skynet and created by Cyberdyne Systems, will become self-aware in the near future and initiate a nuclear holocaust. Sarah's future son John will rally the survivors and lead a resistance movement against Skynet and its army of machines. With the Resistance on the verge of victory, Skynet sent a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah before John is born, to prevent the formation of the Resistance. The Terminator, a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, is an efficient killing machine with a powerful metal endoskeleton and an external layer of living tissue that makes it appear human.

Kyle and Sarah are apprehended by police after another encounter with the Terminator. The Terminator attacks the police station, killing police officers in its attempt to locate Sarah. Kyle and Sarah escape, steal another car and take refuge in a motel, where they assemble pipe bombs and plan their next move. Kyle admits that he has been in love with Sarah since John gave him a photograph of her, and that he traveled through time to save her; reciprocating his feelings, Sarah kisses Kyle and they have sex.

The Terminator kills Sarah's mother and impersonates her when Sarah, unaware of the Terminator's ability to mimic voices, attempts to contact her via telephone. When they realize it has relocated them, they escape in a pickup truck while it chases them on a motorcycle. In the ensuing chase, Kyle is wounded by gunfire while throwing pipe bombs at the Terminator. Enraged‚ Sarah knocks the Terminator off its motorcycle but loses control of the truck, which flips over. The Terminator, now bloodied and badly damaged, hijacks a tank truck and attempts to run down Sarah, but Kyle slides a pipe bomb onto the tanker's hose tube, causing an explosion that burns the flesh from the Terminator's endoskeleton. It pursues them into a factory, where Kyle activates machinery to confuse the Terminator. He jams his final pipe bomb into the Terminator's abdomen, blowing it apart, injuring Sarah, and killing himself. The Terminator's torso reactivates and grabs Sarah. She breaks free and lures it into a hydraulic press, crushing it.

Months later, a pregnant Sarah is traveling through Mexico, recording audio tapes to pass on to her unborn son, John. At a gas station, a boy takes an instant photograph of her and she buys it—the same photograph that John will one day give to Kyle.

Cast

• Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, a cybernetic android disguised as a human being sent back in time to assassinate Sarah Connor.
• Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese, a human Resistance fighter sent back in time to protect Sarah.
• Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, a 19-year-old diner waitress and the Terminator's target, who is soon to be the mother of the future Resistance leader John Connor.
• Paul Winfield as Ed Traxler, a police Lieutenant who tries to protect Sarah.
• Lance Henriksen as Vukovich, a member of the LAPD.
• Earl Boen as Dr. Silberman, a criminal psychologist.
• Bess Motta as Ginger, Sarah's roommate.
• Rick Rossovich as Matt, Ginger's boyfriend.

Additional actors included Shawn Schepps as Nancy, Sarah's co-worker at the diner; Dick Miller as a gun shop clerk; professional bodybuilder Franco Columbu as a Terminator in the future; Bill Paxton and Brian Thompson as punks who are confronted and killed by the Terminator; and Marianne Muellerleile as one of the other women with the name "Sarah Connor" who is shot by the Terminator.