Say what you want about James Cameron - and people have said plenty - you can’t deny that he’s an absolute genius of a movie storyteller. And his first major film (no, I don’t count Piranha II) is an excellent example of why.
The TerminatorIt’s 1984 and everyone is Wang Chung-ing all over the place. Little do they know that two naked dudes have been sent from the future - a future where machines rule the world. One dude’s mission is to kill a woman who will give birth to the boy who will grow up and save the human race by leading a resistance against the machines. The other dude’s mission is to stop the woman from being killed.
This is, for all intents and purposes, a horror movie. Sure, it has the trappings of sci-fi, but the set-up, devices, and even some of the camera angles are undeniably influenced by horror. And the Terminator reminds me a bit of Halloween’s Michael Meyers - that blank slate of a being that has only one mission and can’t be stopped or reasoned with.
It’s kind of funny that this is maybe Schwarzenegger’s greatest role. It seems strangely suited to his gifts as a performer. He is … not a great actor, by any means, but he makes a great machine, and he has enough of a threatening look to make the Terminator duly terrifying.
What amazes me about this film is that, unlike its sequel, it was shot on a rather small budget. Small budgets force filmmakers to use their storytelling mojo, and Cameron really cut his teeth on this one. Of course, there are lots of stories about how he supposedly stole ideas from other writers, but Cameron was able to put those ideas with his own and make a very compelling story.
One challenge the small budget brings to the table is that it puts some strict limits on what a writer or director can do to build up the world he’s created. Most of the film takes place in the 1980s, in somewhat normal surroundings. We only get small glimpses into the future that both Reese and the Terminator come from, but the film makes it completely believable that such a future exists.
This movie works on a couple different levels, because it came out at a time when there was a huge surge in technocology and it seemed like this technology was taking over our lives (and, in a way, I suppose it was). This movie could not have come out in the 1940s, I don’t think, or even the 1970s. It seemed to resonate with the 1980s audience in a way that it couldn’t possibly have done just a few years before.
Often imitated, but never (in my opinion) duplicated, The Terminator is a classic piece of storytelling and worldbuilding.
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