The Terminator (1984)
You're talking about things that I haven't done yet in the past tense.
THE SUMMARY: A robot Arnold Schwarzejogger travels back from the future to stop some other guy from the future from banging the chick who births the guy who stops Arnold’s robot army back in the future. A little confusing? Plenty unexplained? Yes - but although I wasn’t totally satisfied with this movie, the intrigue of the concept has me interested in the rest of the franchise.
THE BEST:
Creative concept and plot: I love ‘butterfly effect’ stories. Going back in time to change a particular event and get a different future outcome is now a common story theme, but this movie is nearly 40 years old and does it well. I enjoyed the concept applied to a villain purpose. Often going back in time to change an outcome is a plot point to make something good happen for a ‘good guy’ - in this case, it’s an effort to crush humanity in a robot future war.
Though somewhat confusing and unexplained: Still, much of the plot and the concept is unexplained. I’ll leave this point under ‘the best’ section because I expect these points to be clarified throughout the series, but some questions I had while watching:
If Kyle travels to the past and dies, then how is he still in the future to see the photo that Sarah took thinking about his death?
If Sarah now knows about the robot war future, does she then get humanity to prepare? And if so, wouldn’t that affect or change the robot war future?
California gun laws don’t stop Arnold: I loved the gun shop scene.
“It’s a 15-day wait on the handguns.” … “Wrong!” (BANG)
I wish Hollywood had the sense to see the real-world application of the logic here.
THE WORST:
Horrendous effects: Many of the visuals were comically hideous. The fake Arnold face was absolutely awful and looked nothing like the guy. The exoskeleton animation during the chase of Kyle and Sarah looked like some sort of hasty concept flip-book demo. In the closing scene, Sarah drives off into an absurdly fake desert landscape. You can make the argument these effects are so bad that they’re charming or funny, and in that ‘so bad they’re good’ way I enjoyed them, but the movie wasn’t trying to make me laugh at these scenes.
Someone better have been blacklisted from the industry for this.
It’s not hard to get a real desert scene outside of LA - just why?
Arnold’s swingin’ wang: Why did I need to see that?
THE RATING: It’s more like a 3.5, but half rounds up, so we’ll go with 4. I’d be a little harsher on this movie on its own, but as a stage-setter for the franchise, I think the concepts are good enough to get a solid rating.
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NEXT WEEK: GROUNDHOG DAY (1993)
AFTER THAT? YOU PICK - VOTE!