The Terminator

Cult Film and Launching Pad

James Cameron now requires hundreds of millions of dollars to turn out blockbuster movies. But in the eighties, he created a minor gem for under seven million... and launched his own career as well as that of an action-adventure star and future governor.

Seven Million Dollars?

You can't hardly make an episode of Friends for seven million dollars. And yet, in 1984, a rather unheralded little actioner called The Terminator came out, with just such a miniscule budget. It was more of a cult hit that a mainstream blockbuster, yet as far as return-on-investment, it was a mega-hit, earning six times its original cost, and allowing Cameron to move on to command the huge budgets that he is now known for.

The Terminator: Action-adventure Love Story

This is a surprisingly endearing movie, for all its chases, shootouts and gore. Because at the center of all the action is a really sweet cross-time love story.

We are first introduced to the heroine, Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton), a young woman working as a waitress and living a lower middle-class life, sharing an apartment with a roomie.

We see two 'travellers' arrive in our time; one a hulking specimen (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and the other a more normal sized, yet attractive, young man.

The hulk is a cyborg, sent back in time to locate and kill Sarah Connor. The young man, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), is a soldier also from the future.

Reese rescues Sarah from under the nose of the seemingly unstoppable cyborg, with the words "Come with me if you want to live." This phrase will be echoed with an unusual twist in T2 (Terminator 2), the sequel that will be made seven years after Terminator.

Man versus Machine

In hiding from the monsterous stalker, Reese explains to Sarah. At some point in our near future, computer systems become so sophisticated that they become sentient. They gradually take over all aspects of life, and then decide that humanity is an unnecessary blot on the world.

In Reese's time, humans are almost wiped out. A rebellion against the machines is underway, led by John Connor, Sarah's as-yet unborn son. And the Terminator has been sent back in time to kill her before she can conceive and bear him.

Unable to prevent the Terminator's time-trip, John Connor sends back Reese, a soldier in his army, with instructions to find and protect Sarah from the Terminator.

As they flee from the implacable machine that pursues them Sarah and Reese fall in love. Yes, John Connor sent his own father back in time to make sure he was eventually born.