My Favourite Movies: The Terminator

This is, of course, an obvious choice for me. You would’ve heard me talk before about how much I love the Terminator ‘franchise’ and how much I’m already looking forward to the second series of The Sarah Connor Chronicles as well as the next three Terminator movies.

But it all started back in 1984 with James Cameron’s breakthrough movie (after Xenogenesis and not to be forgotten Piranha Part Two: The Spawning) made on a comparatively tiny budget from an idea that apparently came to him in a nightmare. For those of you who were away on Mars at the time the story revolves around the waitress ‘nobody’ Sarah Connor who, unknown to her, will sire the saviour of mankind – her as yet unborn son, John. Unfortunately for her (and I guess the rest of us) the machine intelligence known as Skynet has developed time travel technology on the eve of its destruction by human forces led by John Connor. Determined to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat Skynet sends a cyborg infiltration unit called a Terminator (played robotically by Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to kill her, thereby preventing its own destruction in the future. The resistance manage to send a lone soldier (Kyle Reese played by the superb Michael Biehn) back to stop it and thereby ensuring that John is born to ‘smash the metal mother-fuckers into junk’. The rest of the film is basically a chase sequence as Reese and Sarah (played by Linda Hamilton) try to avoid and later ‘kill’ the implacable Terminator assassin.

Made almost 25 years ago this film has dated quite badly – especially with its then cheap (but state of the art) SFX. Despite that its still a great story told fairly well. What I loved most about this film (as well as T2 and T3) is the concept of Terminators and the inevitable “War Against the Machines” brought on by Judgement Day. These are, I believe, very powerful ideas. The parts of the movies that particularly gripped me where the scenes based in the future as John and his army of human survivors fought against robotic machines directed by the evil Skynet bent on their extermination. I longed for a full movie made after the nuclear war pitching man against machine in the ultimate battle. By the looks of things my wishes have been answered and there are THREE movies planned to be filmed during the War. Needless to say I’m having a hard time actually waiting for them and worry that they won’t live up to my high expectations. But I can hope [grin].

As I said this film besides being dated and ‘so’ 80’s it hurts is a truly iconic movie and still, despite its many faults, remains one of my all time favourite movies. Too obvious I know but then again – sometimes I am.