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The Terminator

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Retrospectives - July 2003

USA, 1984 & 1991. Directed by James Cameron. Written by James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, William Wisher Jr. Produced by Gale Anne Hurd & James Cameron. Photographed by Adam Greenberg. Edited by Conrad Buff, Mark Goldblatt, Richard A. Harris. Music by Brad Fiedel. Released by Orion & Carolco.

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Joe Morton, Earl Boen.

The impending release of "Terminator 3" has been weighing on my mind. I'm not one of those guys who count down the days when the sequels of classics are coming out -- unless they're natural continuations of stories, like the sequels to "The Matrix", I put them out of my mind until they reach the screens. The term "long-awaited sequel" is thrown around too much. When a good deal of sequels just plain suck, what's the point of awaiting something that's going to burst our bubbles?

Now I've seen the trailer for "T3", and I'm sort of excited. It looks like it will be an efficient summer action picture, with well-crafted footage of nuclear explosions and an interesting new villain. But the first two movies are flat-out genius, and how can the series go any further? There was closure at the end of the second film, and besides, this new one has not been made by James Cameron, who gave the original movies strong value as both art and entertainment, in ways that fit perfectly with each other but still managed to go in separate directions.

"The Terminator" was basically a chase film -- it introduced the story of an ordinary woman named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), living in 1984, finding herself pursued by a giant killing machine (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and accompanied by a freedom fighter from the future (Michael Biehn). Sarah was to be the mother of a great man, said the soldier; there was to be a nuclear war in 1997, provoked by computers who got smart and found all humans a threat, and John Connor would grow up to lead the resistance.

The background of the story gives the character struggles grand importance, and lends itself to great visual ideas, like Biehn's memories of his war-torn time, and the concept of the terminator itself. This was of course the movie that turned Schwarzenegger from a well-known muscleman into an international screen star; he was originally supposed to play the role of protector, but I can't imagine him doing too convincing a job of running around all vulnerable and delivering lines like, "I love you, Sarah… I always have." Instead, his performance is based around the imposing nature of his physical presence. His robot is controlled, emotionless, only ever moving to get somewhere, kill someone, fix himself up or take creepily mechanical inventories of his surroundings. Is it convincing that a hulk as big and mean as Schwarzenegger would be able to get around crowded city streets more or less unnoticed? Maybe, as the movie is set in Los Angeles, but it doesn't really matter -- it's all about mood.

There is a stunning sense of momentum about that original film. Even in the scenes where nobody is fighting, Hamilton and Biehn are hiding, planning, feeling and expecting the presence of the stalker. Like some of the best of horror villains, like Jaws and Michael Myers, the terminator is absent of reason, and goes forward constantly, acting on purpose and programming. "That terminator is out there!" says Biehn. "It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear -- and it absolutely will not stop. Never. Until you are dead."

The fact that the movie is so tightly wound takes the attention off its cheapo qualities. "The Terminator" went on to be a massive hit, but it was made in a matter of weeks on a budget of $6million. In many ways it looks like an exploitation film -- the images of the post-nuclear landscape are awesome, but you can tell they're model shots, and you can notice the stop motion in some of the robotics. Humans are seen in sketches that exaggerate the fashions of the time; the multi-coloured punks who get attacked at the beginning, the patrons of the Tech Noir nightclub, the cops in the station house -- they're well-acted cartoons. Even the darkly rain-washed and neon-lit streets seem to rehash imagery from classic crime fiction in the same manner as contemporary comic books. It's not that the film is cheesy, just that it's a lot more rough and ready than memory and reputation would suggest. Within this style there are some joins, but the intensity of the plot and the intricacy and passion in Cameron's vision sweep up our attention and wash them over.

If "The Terminator" was the little movie that could, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" was a monster -- released in 1991 after budgeting at $100million, it was the most expensive movie ever made up to that time, a big, brash crowd-pleasing epic that made us rethink the way we viewed cinematic special effects. "I have to feel sorry for the movie industry," said Schwarzenegger at the time. "From this movie on, they're going to be screwed. Where else can they go? This is it. This is the answer and these poor studio executives are sitting out there trying to figure out how to top it. And you know what? They can't!"

They did of course try, and we're still suffering the consequences, but that doesn't detract from how good "T2" was in itself. Again, this one is sort of a stalk-and-run movie, but on a grander scale, with rearranged pieces. Cameron's masterstroke this time was to recognise the changed star image of Schwarzenegger, to play on the way we associated him with the unstoppable terminator and mix it up with the one-liner tough guy hero he became in "Commando" and "Predator". Once more the machines have sent a terminator back through time, but Arnie is on a mission for the resistance, reprogrammed by the future John Connor to go back and protect his younger self.

Edward Furlong (who will not be appearing in "T3", allegedly because the studio pussied out after getting scared by his history of drug problems) played young John as a kid living in a foster home, who had grown up being told that Sarah's stories about the future were the rantings of a madwoman. He's getting to that stage of young life where the clothes become scruffy and attitude disobedient, while Sarah is stuck in a mental institution. Terminator busts them out, and lays it out for them: There's another cyborg out there, better, slicker, and come with me if you want to live.

Sarah is harder now -- angry that she's got to put faith in one of the machines that turned her life upside down and killed her one love, sober from years of nightmares about the upcoming apocalypse. Furlong is mainly lost in thought, trying to get over his teen angst and realise that all the stories were true. He forms a bond with the Schwarzenegger character, finding solace in its matter-of-fact responses, getting a kick out of teaching it funny phrases. The memorable lines in "T1" revolved around how trouble was coming: "Nice night for a walk, huh?"; "Sarah Connor?"; "I'll be back." Here, they underline how the terminator has become John Connor's pet, and provide theatrical laughs: "Because you told me to;" "No problemo;" "Hasta la vista, baby."

Back in the day, the original terminator was supposed to be played by Lance Henriksen, a lean, composed actor who ended up in the first movie in the supporting role of a cop. As the villain in the sequel, Robert Patrick uses a Henriksen kind of presence; we've already seen one entry where the bad guy is arresting for his size, and the follow-up creates an atmosphere of menace with a character whose human form is unnerving by way of being slight, compact, friendly. The T-1000 is a liquid metal executioner, able to slurp along the ground, assume the forms of things it touches or turn itself into stabbing weapons. It looks so amazing that we have no idea how the good characters can beat it; shoot the thing, and it just oozes around and heals itself up again.

Do you remember the first time you saw the liquid metal special effect, when the movie was being hyped and clips were starting to get on TV? I'm assuming nobody forgets it. Cameron had used the technique before, in "The Abyss" (1989), but there the story didn't rest on it, and it wasn't that great a movie anyway. Digital technology is more commonly used now than in 1991, but it's looking faker and feeling more redundant by the day, being used by artists and technicians who think it's a magic all-purpose solution for creating hits. "T2" found the perfect use for computer graphics; they visualise something that would look otherworldly even if it really existed, and somehing essential to the plot.

And after all the showdowns, explosions, crazy bits of art design and technological reinventions, the "Terminator" movies offer something else. At the end of both, I find myself overcome by an extraordinary swell of emotion. It's not exactly that we mourn for how the state of technology is going to expand just like the movie says it will, or even for the masses of men and women who would die in a nuclear war -- the movie deals with those things, but the impact is created by putting them in direct human terms, showing people who are willing to take the weight of those grand issues on their shoulders. By the finale of the first film, Sarah is ready to look within herself and find courage and strength without quite knowing how. "There's a storm coming," say the folks at a gas station as she travels into the desert. "I know," she replies, and leaves it at that, knowing she has to keep it together. In "T2", there's the sequence where Arnie has to lower himself into molten steel, and if it feels like we're choked up by the death of a killer robot, the reaction makes sense, because John Connor's father figure is leaving him.

It all revolves around the different ways the movies use the figure of the terminator, and his mechanised, unstoppable nature. The original was mean, compact and scary, while the second film has more breathing room for the finer points of science fiction and drama. "It absolutely will not stop" is still true, but now, as Sarah muses, it means something else: "Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The terminator would never stop -- it would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there, and it would die to protect him."

The films are not moving despite being action spectaculars, but because of it. The violent clashes and detailed stories get us close to the characters. We've been anxious for them, we sympathize with their responsibilities, and ultimately we're proud of them. The essence is all there, in that classic Brad Fiedel score… thudding and metallic, rhythmic and precise, but with trumpeting, anthemic strains underneath, suggesting a lot of meaning and stirring us in the way that movies should. "Terminator" will be back, but can it ever be this good?

COPYRIGHT© 2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani

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