[Nerdspresso] Arnold, Guns, Blood, and Hobo Pants: The Terminator at 40

The Terminator turns 40 this year. It came out in theaters in 1984 when I was in high school. I first discovered it’s b-movie brilliance on VHS at a friend’s house. It was a wrap party for our high school musical. Us drama nerds played hard. There were a lot of chips and some Jolt Cola. Plus Arnold on the VCR.

It was 1985.

I was hanging out with my fellow thespians and trying desperately to get my crush to notice me. We were all basking in the glow of our final show and pleased with ourselves for remembering how to sing and dance at the same time. Someone finished the last slice of pizza and then it was time to blow things up. It got real, y’all.

The host pulled out one of those enormous brown plastic boxes from the local Mom and Pop video store. He waved it around and announced, “Let’s watch this movie. It’s got killer robots.” We all huddled around the big TV in his living room as he fired up the family VCR. The action was non-stop. By that, I mean all the other kids were making out so I watched the movie. That crush of mine never looked my way. She may have been blinded by the glare from her braces.

I comforted my rejection by getting lost in James Cameron’s dystopian vision of unstoppable metal men and muscle cars. I was hooked the moment that big robot tank rolled over those skulls in the opening scene. Do you remember when Cameron made movies instead of building worlds? Sure, it’s cool to see planets with floating mountains and giant blue people, but this guy used to tell killer stories. Back before he got lost in his own ego, James Cameron kicked ass.

And that first Terminator movie is stone-cold proof. Is this Cameron’s best film? No, but it’s close. For my money, his best flick is Aliens. There’s not a single wrong note in that movie, but The Terminator is a pretty close second. It’s a smart, fast chase movie that you should watch late at night with the lights off and the sound turned way up. It’s a low-budget treasure built to satisfy your action jones. This flick is relentless. It’s all about a time-traveling killing machine pursuing a young woman who has no idea she holds the key to humanity’s survival. Her only hope is a soldier from the future with a sawed off shotgun and pants he stole off a hobo.

The Terminator was Cameron’s second movie after a ignominious debut as director of Piranha 2: The Spawning. No one knew his name, let alone regarded him as a decent filmmaker. The cast included the chick from Children of the Corn and Captain Terrell from Star Trek II. The biggest star was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was more well known at this point for his muscles. He had made a name for himself a few years earlier as Conan the Barbarian, but he wasn’t winning any awards for acting.

I don’t remember much buzz about this movie when it came out but I was a teenager and it’s not like I had my finger on Hollywood’s pulse. This was way before the internet so we got all our movie dirt from Starlog and Cinemagic. I remember a photo of Arnold holding an Uzi on the cover of a magazine in the summer of 1984. That was about it. I saw this flick with no expectations.

The Terminator may have been the first time in my movie-watching life that I was genuinely surprised by a flick. It was certainly the first time I ever saw a bad guy who just would not stop. Not being a huge horror movie fan at the time, I wasn’t familiar with the trope of the never-ending killer. Here was a movie where that cliche actually made sense. Of course he’s not going to stop. He’s a machine.

This concept also helped cover up the fact that Arnie was not a master thespian. You forgive the monotone line readings and lumbering gait. Is it bad acting or is he just imitating a robot? Who cares? This movie is awesome! Arnold chased Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn all over late-night Los Angeles, destroying cars and property in the process. He was like a bulldozer running through a Macy’s.

I watched The Terminator again recently and it totally holds up. You owe it to yourself to catch it on streaming or DVD when you can. This flick still delivers the goods. It has aged so much better than most its peers. And by that, I mean so many of those ’80’s action movies, but also the other films in the Terminator franchise.

Yes, Terminator 2 is pretty cool, but the gloss from the mega budget sequel with the groundbreaking CGI seems kind of meh by today’s standards. After 40 years of moviegoing since then, we have all gotten a little jaded. A movie has to work hard to wow us these days. CGI has raised the bar on our cinematic expectations, but it’s also made us a little numb. Once you’ve seen everything, nothing impresses you.

The Terminator still packs a punch, resonating on a very visceral level. Those are all practical stunts. They really happened. When Arnie takes an X-Acto knife to his eyeball, that’s not computer effects. That’s the genius of Stan Winston’s makeup artistry. I would put it next to any action flick, past or present (Hell, even future), and it’ll hold its own.

This movie is like that old guy working out that’s doing more reps than all the gym rats half his age. The Terminator is a shining example of a B-movie with A-movie ambition. A popcorn muncher done right. It proves that a little vision, a decent story and a smidge of ingenuity can create something timeless and vastly entertaining.

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