The Terminator: A modern day sci-fi classic!

Out of all three terminator movies, the first one by far is the most genuine. Done in 1984 on a shoestring budget by James Cameron, The Terminator was an instant success, and starred a tight, well cast group of actors against an urban backdrop with a Science Fiction theme.

The year is 1984, and a Terminator (an android assassin from the future) has been sent "back from the future" to Los Angeles to commit a murder in order to alter the future. The Terminator is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose massive physique and monotone one liners are perfect for the role. The intended target? It's Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton). Connor lives a pretty simple life; she has a roommate, a mode of transportation, and a thankless job as a waitress. She has no idea what tomorrow brings, let along the year 2029!

All that suddenly changes as Connor is suddenly being contacted by the police. A serial killer is on the loose and it's systematically taking out every Sarah Connor in the phone book, starting at the top. After the second one is killed in less than 48 hours, Sarah realizes that something terrible may soon happen to her. She is at a dance club when she feels she is being watched, and soon thinks that the killer is in the club! Frantic, she phones the police, who she's been in contact with, and they send units right away. In the meantime, the Terminator makes his move. Things are not what they appear as the man Sarah thought was the killer suddenly saves her and help her escape the club, all the while the real Terminator (Schwarzenegger) is spraying the place with an UZI. Sarah is now scared for her life as she takes a ride with the suspected killer, who identifies himself as Reese, and tells her he is from the future, and has come back in time to save her. Sarah learns she someday soon will give birth to a son named John, who in the future ends up leading a resistance against the machines of earth that have done everything they can do to make mankind...extinct.

The Terminator is rough, raw and real. Many scenes take place at night and with the well done musical tracks that are laid down, we feel the fear Sarah is going through, as well as the awe the city feels as it realizes it cannot take down the Terminator. Hamilton is superb in her role as a woman who is hunted, and at the same time having a hard time coming to terms with the reality that someday soon the Earth she knows, according to Reese's authentic telling of the future, will be altered forever. Cameron does a great job in directing this film. Some of the most basic of scenes still carry a lot of power and don't allow the viewer to lose focus. The scenes where the Terminator was "injured" and takes up in the bathroom of an apartment complex to remove it's eye in the sink is great! It shows how systematic the terminator really is. It doesn't think, it reacts and responds, while still always retaining it's initial mission of "terminating" Sarah Connor. Done with it's eye, it dones a pair of Gargoyle sunglasses and views itself briefly in the mirror before accepting the new look, counting it's losses of flesh, and continuing on with it's deadly conquest, which often times turns into a rampage of death as people and police get in it's way.

Michael Biehn is great as Kyle Reese. He conveys his characters traits well, which are loyalty and despair all rolled into one. The way he is frantic and also very focused on HIS mission of informing and protecting Sarah comes through to the viewer well. He has a strong screen presence and has a great chemistry with Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). We find ourselves cheering for the two as they dodge obstacles and defy doubters in their attempt to escape the Terminator. The storyline behind the "future" is wonderful, as a landscape is often shown of a ground covered with human skulls and the resistance force that takes on Skynet (the program/company/ that developed the machines in the first place) in the future, where humans are living underground, and killer machineds strafe and search, search and strafe, for any survivors it can find...that need to be terminated.

The low budget aspect of the film is easily overlooked; as we're dealing with the time before the advanced CG we have today. The look through the terminators vision as it glances around and scans everything, constantly returning readout of statistics and probabilities, is never dull. The car chases are edgy and also great, as this was before the time of Matrix type CG where a crashed car was something created by someone behind a computer keyboard and some high tech modeling/animation software. We run with Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese as they start to bond, and eventually realize that it is in fact Kyle who will become the father of her future son. "I came back across time for you Sarah" is a poignant line during this part of the film. Kyle cannot go back to the future, as now his fate is sealed in dealing with the terminator. The terminator, Sarah realizes, is jus that; the ultimate killing machine! The police soon capture Sarah and Kyle after they are nearly killed by the terminator in a parking garage. Upon coming to the scene where they are arrested, the Terminator is nowhere to be found. Sarah tells their story to investigators as best she can while Kyle (Michael Biehn) is deemed a nutcase by Dr. Peter Silberman (played by Earl Boen). Soon the Terminator has arrived, and is looking for Sarah Connor. This is the scene where the desk clerk says "she can't see any visitors right now" whereupon the terminator looks around the framing of the clerk's booth and responds "I'll be back".

The action of the chase is spread throughout the film as we continue to follow Sarah and Kyle on their journey to escape the impossible: A showdown with the Terminator. The Terminators skills are revealed more as we learn it can copy the voices of people it interacts with. Sarah calls her mom against Kyle's wishes and tells her where they are hiding. However, it isn't her mom, but the Terminator! The final showdown at an industrial factory is sad but settling at the same time, as it sets up the story for a perfect prequel in "Terminator 2: Judgement Day". Cars, motorcycles, and big rig trucks are all used in some great and thrilling chase scenes. The movie overall has great feel of the impending doom it is trying to create, whether it be the chase, the showdown, or the reality that mankind's machines end up killing him and his mother planet in the future. This film is a classic among science fiction circles and I, for one, never get tired of watching it now and again. If you're looking for a scare, a thrill, and some socialistic humanity as well as some tightly written sci-fi that deals with time/space conundrums long before the "Matrix", this film is for you.

This movie is great in all ways!

This movie has the best actors, great action, and everything! Arnold has done it again! This movie is great. But I like Terminator 2 more than this one. Cuz it has more action and stuff. This movie got really freaky when the terminator's skin fell off and became a robot. That was freaky! But I think You guys will totaly love this! I give it a 5 out of 5. And don't forget to get Terminator 2!

CLASSIC!

I miss the time when movies were made good like this ,Oh well classic none the less plus Bill Paxton is a punk and his crew gets wrecked by The Terminator.OWN THIS!