Happy 40th Anniversary to The Terminator Movie

The year 2024 marks 40 years since the release of the movie The Terminator.

There have since been 5 more Terminator movies, as well as one TV series, an anime show on Netflix coming soon as of this writing, and I’m sure more to come after that.

I love it all and I’ll watch all of the future ones, but again, it all started with the first movie in 1984.

For a one night only screening somewhat near where I live, The Terminator showed at a movie theater on Tuesday of August 13th.

Now, I’ve owned this movie for decades, on both VHS and DVD, but I could not resist going to see this movie on the big screen.

It was a great experience.  I truly felt like I was in that world.

For those of you who may not know, The Terminator is a about a cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) traveling back through time to kill a woman (Linda Hamilton) before she can give birth to her son, who in the future will help humanity conquer the machines who have mostly destroyed the world.

Another man (Michael Biehn) travels back through time to protect her.

I must say with full disclosure:  I first watched this movie after I had seen Terminator 2:  Judgement Day several times.  So T1 was a shocker to me.

Also, I was still pretty young then too, and T1 actually scared me.  In some respects, it still does, even though I’m quite a bit older now and think the movie is great, and actually better than T2 and the others, which I also love too.

I think that since this movie was a lower budget project, everyone had to really be even more creative with what they did, and ultimately did a lot with little.

Whereas the later movies had bigger budgets and they show it all on the screen.

And I love all of them too, but T1 really says and shows it all.

It has future war sequences.  It shows how Terminators work.  It really takes you into that scary world and gives you the whole scenario.

And it’s such a gritty movie too and it works brilliantly that way.

Michael Biehn (Kyle Reese) arguably plays his best character ever in this movie.

Arnold Schwarzenegger does not have a lot of dialogue, or quite frankly many scenes, but wow does he make his presence felt.  Arnold is one of my biggest heroes and I’ve been lucky to briefly meet him and be around him a few times.  And I can say he is a very driven, but positive person.

But in T1, he really is scary.  He is brilliant in this part.  

Linda Hamilton really plays her part, Sarah Connor, very well.  And if you watch T1 and T2 back to back, wow do you really see her acting range, and in Terminator Dark Fate, too, which I think is highly underrated.

The supporting cast in T1 is quite good, especially the police characters (played by Lance Henriksen and Paul Winfield).  I could have used more of them in the movie.  They bring just a tinge of  humor to what is mostly a very bleak, scary story.

Even the score, made by the amazing Brad Fiedel, is quite haunting and scary, but brilliant and perfect for this movie.

The effects may look dated to some people in 2024, but to me, they work brilliantly.  Stan Winston and his team and Gene Warren Jr. and his team really brought their A+++ game, as did everyone, to this movie.

This is Director/Co-Writer James Cameron’s arguably finest work, in my opinion.

He’s gone on to do bigger movies, but for me, none of them have the impact this one does, and I’m a fan of his work.

He and Producer/Co-Writer Gale Ann Hurd (who I have a ton of respect for and consider to be a pioneer in the movie and TV industry), along with everyone else who made this movie, really made magic here.

And to me it is a very powerful movie that has a story that I feel is more topical and current than it was then.

The story is very straight forward, but also has a lot of layers to it.

And even though this movie still scares me (I’ve had several dreams over the decades of a Terminator coming after me or of me just being in that world because of this movie.), I find it to be a great thrill ride that does not let go.

I love the whole franchise, but to me, T1 is the best.

It was great seeing it on the big screen for one night only.

And the special edition DVD I have of it is phenomenal.  It includes a few awesome documentaries and Easter eggs.

If you’ve never seen The Terminator, give it a watch.  And watch the others too.

One of my favorite movie franchises.

Thank you to everyone who made T1.