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For video games based on the film, see The Terminator (video game).

Template:Infobox movie certificates The Terminator (also known as Terminator in some early trailers and posters) is a 1984 science fiction-action film featuring body-builder Arnold Schwarzenegger in what would become one of his best-known roles. Directed by James Cameron, the premise of the movie is that a "Terminator" cyborg has been transported back in time from 2029 to May 12, 1984 to assassinate a woman named Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton). Issues raised by the film include time travel, causal loops and artificial intelligence.

The sequels to the movie, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, further developed the story line and explored the ethical implications of machine intelligence as well as what it means to be truly human.

The property has also been adapted into video games and comic books, including some in which the characters are paired with (or against) characters from other movie-licensed properties, including Predator, Robocop, Superman and Alien.

Plot

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A young woman, named Sarah Connor, is inexplicably being hunted by a relentless killer, played by Schwarzenegger, who is apparently tracking down every woman in the city who shares Connor's name and killing them. She is eventually approached by Kyle Reese, played by Biehn, who explains that in the future, an artificial intelligence called "Skynet" will be created by military software developers to make strategic decisions, but unexpectedly becomes self-aware; in a panic, the humans attempt to destroy Skynet. In the interest of self-preservation, Skynet seizes control of most of the world's military hardware (including various highly advanced robots), and launches an all-out thermonuclear attack on humanity, leading to a total war between man and machine. However, a man named John Connor eventually leads the human resistance to victory, only to discover that in a last-ditch effort, Skynet had discovered time travel and sent a Terminator, a highly advanced robotic killer, back in time to the 1980s to kill John Connor's mother before he can be born. John is Sarah's future son, and so he sends back Reese, a trusted lieutenant, to protect his mother at all costs.

The key difficulty in Reese's mission is that the Terminator, variably identified as a cyborg or robot, is of an extremely durable construction that can sustain a considerable amount of damage. Since the time travel mechanism precludes the traveler from carrying non-living matter outside the being's body, Reese was forced to arrive naked and unarmed, and the small arms of the 1980s are barely powerful enough to affect the Terminator; Reese is lucky that the shotgun he steals from a police car is strong enough just to knock the Terminator down. Furthermore, a Terminator's organic covering, when intact, makes it indistinguishable from an average person. This makes it almost impossible to convince anyone of Sarah Connor's time that this assailant is actually an extremely advanced machine.

Upon its arrival in 1984, the Terminator quickly obtains clothes and an arsenal of weaponry, and sets out on its mission. It systematically murders the first two 'Sarah Connors' in the Los Angeles telephone directory before killing Sarah's flatmate Ginger and Ginger's boyfriend while trying to find Sarah at her home. It then discovers that Sarah is in a nightclub called Tech Noir where she is waiting for the police. The Terminator attempts to kill Sarah in the nightclub, but is stopped by Reese. Following a brief chase, Reese and Sarah escape, but the Terminator violently commandeers a police car and follows them.

While hiding in a multi-story parking garage, Reese explains everything to a skeptical, frightened Sarah. However, the Terminator arrives again and a pitched gun battle between the two moving vehicles results in the Terminator crashing its car and Reese being arrested by the pursuing cops. At the police station, Sarah is looked after by Lieutenant Traxler (Paul Winfield) and Sergeant Vukovich (Lance Henriksen) while Reese is interrogated by a fascinated criminal psychologist, Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen), who concludes that Reese's "delusions" are astoundingly intricate and are constructed in such a manner that they require no proof and are thus safe from refutation. During this time the Terminator retreats to a hotel room and performs maintenance on its damaged cyborg arm and eye socket before re-arming itself and heading for the police precinct.

The Terminator arrives at the precinct only to be told by the desk sergeant that he can not see Sarah. After uttering his famous low-key catch phrase "I'll be back", he drives a car through the doors of the building, crushing the desk sergeant. He then proceeds to storm the precinct, shooting his way through the panicking cops. Reese meanwhile manages to break free and rescue Sarah before the Terminator can get to her.

While Reese is hiding that night with Sarah, we see his past (the future) in a flashback. In this post-nuclear world, we see that he once had a Polaroid photograph of Sarah. The photo is burned during an attack by a Terminator on a human base.

The next day, Reese and Sarah take refuge in a motel, where Reese makes pipe bombs, teaching Sarah how to make the explosive from household supplies. Sarah asks Reese if he's disappointed in her (the real her compared to the legends and stories about her) and asks if he's ever had a lover; he replies no to both questions. Reese also confesses that he is in love with Sarah. At first, Reese thinks he has made a fool of himself and tries to shut off his emotions from her, but Sarah reciprocates his feelings and kisses him tenderly, and they make love. Later that night, the Terminator tracks them down and pursues them along a motorway, shooting Reese and wounding him. An increasingly resourceful Sarah manages to knock it off its motorcycle, but she crashes her truck. The Terminator commandeers a large tanker truck and drives it towards the pair's wrecked pickup truck. Sarah and a badly-wounded Reese escape just in time and Reese destroys the tanker with one of his few remaining bombs. The Terminator is shown collapsing in a burnt heap in the remains of the tanker.

Just when they think the Terminator has been destroyed, its metal endoskeleton emerges from the flames, and pursues them into an automated factory. In the ensuing standoff, Reese jams a pipe bomb between its abdominal piston and spine, successfully blowing the Terminator into several pieces. Reese is killed in the ensuing explosion which only succeeds in partially immobilizing the Terminator. Just as Sarah finds Reese's body, the Terminator's mangled torso revives and pursues her, but she manages to crush it in a hydraulic press.

The end of the film sees Sarah traveling in Mexico, several months pregnant. She records audio tapes which she intends to play to the child (clearly the soon-to-be-born John) at some point in his life. Her monologues reveal that Reese is the father, and that John was conceived during their one night together at the motel. While Sarah's gas tank is being filled at a gas station, a young Mexican boy takes a photo of her using his Polaroid camera, and talks her into buying it for a few dollars. We see that it is the same photo Reese will have in the future. The boy then mentions that there is a storm coming, to which Sarah chillingly replies "I know." Calm but determined, Sarah drives off into an ominous future.

Cast

Inspirations

Some aspects of the story were sufficiently similar to two episodes of the TV series The Outer Limits — both episodes written by Harlan Ellison — that Ellison pursued legal action against Cameron. Cameron settled out of court and acknowledged Ellison's work in the film's credits. However, some time later, the credits were mysteriously taken out (rumored to have been removed by Cameron himself). Another lawsuit was filed until the credit was reinserted.

The episodes in question were called "Soldier" (which involves a specially-trained man accidentally sent back in time) and "Demon with a Glass Hand" (concerning a time traveler who suffers memory loss and relies on a computer chip implanted in his artificial hand to give him information about his mission while assassins sent from the future attempt to kill him). There is also some similarity between the concept of Skynet and the evil intelligence featured in Ellison's short story, "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream".

Despite settling out of court, Cameron still maintains to this day that the Terminator was his original concept. He claims that the concept of the Terminator came to him in a dream; furthermore, he states that in his original vision, the Terminator was a small, unremarkable man (as opposed to the large, muscular appearance of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger). This would allow the Terminator even greater ability to conceal itself among the human population. Only when Schwarzenegger, who had originally auditioned for the role of Reese, was cast as the Terminator instead did this concept begin to change.

The story also bears strong resemblance to two short stories by Philip K. Dick: "Second Variety" (1953) and "Jon's World" (1954). These stories feature a post-apocalyptic world where robots (originally designed to fight on behalf of one human faction against another) develop newer models which disguise themselves as humans to infiltrate human bunkers belonging to both factions.

Another potential inspiration is the well-regarded 1962 French film, La Jetée, a short black and white film by director Chris Marker. Told entirely in still images and narration, the film concerns a man in an underground post-nuclear future sent back into the pre-apocalyptic past to obtain resources necessary to continue humanity. The man is selected for his mission because his fixation on a memory from that period, in which he sees a beautiful woman and a man dying. The film concludes, as The Terminator does, with a predestination paradox; while in the past, the man falls in love with a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the woman in his memory, and then fulfills his own destiny by becoming the very man he witnessed dying, thus enabling him to travel back into the past.

A similar plot of a killer machine sent back in time to change history was seen in a fairly obscure film from 1966 entitled Cyborg 2087.

Production

This low-budget movie (at roughly $6.5 million) was a surprise box-office hit, earning $38,371,200, a respectable amount in 1984. The film went on to gross more than $78 million worldwide. A pair of documentaries about the film, which appear on the DVD version, have a number of explanations of various issues about the movie. The Terminator and its sequels all occur (mostly) in Los Angeles, which is also where the films are shot.

Casting

For the key role of the Terminator, Cameron originally wanted a typical-looking male of average size, who could easily infiltrate human society. As a result, Cameron's first choice to play the Terminator was Lance Henriksen, who eventually took the role of Lt. Vukovich. Both Cameron and co-writer William Wisher claim that originally Schwarzenegger was going to be offered the part of Reese, the hero. However, as a result of a lunch meeting, both he and Cameron independently realized that he would be better suited to play the part of the title character. However, Gale Ann Hurd, the film's producer, claims that Schwarzenegger was never considered for Reese's part. Once Schwarzenegger was cast, the film had to be placed on hold for a year after Dino DeLaurentis chose to option Schwarzenegger to film Conan the Destroyer. The film was originally scheduled to be shot in Spring 1983 in Toronto, and filming eventually began in March 1984 in Los Angeles, California. Several date inconsistencies in the film were the result of this change of scheduling.

Legacy

The "first" feature film for director Cameron (he had been replaced on the unsuccessful Piranha II: The Spawning), this low-budget movie established Cameron as a talented action director. He would then go on to produce a string of successful action movies, continuing with Aliens in 1986, and the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (the most expensive film ever produced at the time).

Schwarzenegger had already starred in the hit film Conan the Barbarian and its successor, Conan the Destroyer, but The Terminator solidified his position as a movie star. Reprised in two sequels, it is still considered to be one of his best roles.

Deleted scenes

Several scenes deleted from the theatrical release have been made available on DVD and other media. The most significant of these in the context of later films are a pair of scenes relating to Cyberdyne Systems.

In one deleted scene ("Sarah fights back"), between the scenes in the underpass and the scenes in the motel, Sarah takes to heart John Connor's message to her relayed by Reese ("The future is not set."), and convinces Reese to find Cyberdyne Systems (the creators of Skynet) and destroy it. As it originally played out, Reese disagreed with Sarah, flatly saying that destroying Cyberdyne was "tactically dangerous" and simply not his mission; his stubborness angers Sarah and a confrontation between the two ensues, with Sarah striking Reese in the face. On reflex, Reese pulls the revolver out on Sarah without realizing it; Sarah berates Reese for this and not recognizing her own fear in the situation, but Reese, weary and exhausted, does not listen, for he is too transfixed on their forest surroundings. Reese breaks down in tears as he laments that he "wasn't meant to see this", causing Sarah to develop more sympathy for him as he relates to her how the beauty of her time hurts him more than anything else. "It's gone..." he reminds her, "all gone... all of it... it's gone!" Sarah then uses this to persuade him to help her destroy Cyberdyne, thus changing the outcome. The purpose of this scene was to expand upon the character of Reese, showing his own Terminator like mentality and then showing his vulnerability in suffering the emotional breakdown of a man out of time.

The counterpart sequence to this occurs after the factory fight scenes, when one of the factory workers finds the Terminator's CPU and gives it to another worker, saying he'll bring it to R&D (although never said onscreen, these two characters are sometimes referred to as Greg Simmons and Jack Kroll). As Sarah is taken away by paramedics, the camera pulls out to show the factory sign: Cyberdyne Systems.

Also deleted was a segment known as "Traxler's Arc" which placed more emphasis on the roles of the police officers Lt. Traxler and Sgt. Vukovich, with three scenes intercutting them into the chase sequence following the Tech Noir shootout and two that indicated Traxler had come to believe Reese.

Other, less significant scenes included Sarah talking to herself in her mirror at work, showing her own wry view of herself in the world, the Terminator walking away from the murder of the first wrong Sarah, an extension of the pipe bomb making scene where Sarah talks about all the things she'll show Reese once they get pass the Terminator (meant to show Sarah's growing realization of her importance in the world and contrasting it with her desire to live a "normal" existence with Reese while also indicating her growing affection for him), and a post-lovemaking scene where Sarah tickled Reese in bed.

Philosophy

The movie contains an example of a predestination paradox. The Terminator's mission, as described by Skynet, was to go back in time and kill Sarah Connor, thereby preventing John Connor from being the leader of the resistance forces that would destroy Skynet. However, had the Terminator not attacked the police station in its attempt to fulfill its programming, Kyle Reese would have been kept separate from Sarah Connor and John Connor (Skynet's real objective) would not have been born. This paradox can also be seen generally, in that if the machines had not tried to stop John's birth, he never would have been born (as Kyle Reese would never have had cause to go back in time).

Reese stated to Sarah that he came from "one possible future."

Trivia

• Writer/director James Cameron provided the voice, breaking his date with Sarah Connor on her message machine. Ironically, Cameron would later marry and divorce Linda Hamilton.
• The life-size Terminator model was actually made of steel, a production error which complicated the film's shooting. The model was so heavy that it required four people to hold it and move it during close-ups.
• In 2003, The American Film Institute released its list of the 100 greatest screen heroes and villains of all time. The Terminator appeared as number 22 on the list of villains. He also appeared at number 48 on the list of heroes (for subsequent roles).
• Schwarzenegger's famous line "I'll be back", which originated from The Terminator, was originally written as "I'll come back".
• Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen are the only two actors to play characters killed or injured by a Terminator, an Alien and a Predator. Paxton was killed in The Terminator, Aliens and Predator 2, while Henriksen was killed in The Terminator, ripped in two in Aliens and killed in Alien vs. Predator.
• Every film in the Terminator series has a chase scene featuring a truck. The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day both have scenes in a parking garage.
• When the Terminator traces Sarah Connor to the motel just after the love scene, the eye-vision of the Terminator is displayed. There are several printouts of assembly code from the MOS6502 microprocessors, which is an 8-bit CPU with a 16-bit address bus (meaning it can only access at most 64 kilobytes of RAM. This was the processor that was used by Nintendo 8-bit and Atari.)
• In the UK, The Terminator was originally rated as an 18. When the film was released to DVD, it was re-rated to a 15. Curiously, the U.S. version remains classified as an R.
• The original script had another soldier sent back with Reese to protect Sarah, but the other soldier, called "Sumner", was cut from the final script. He would not have received much screen time, as he died upon arriving, fused into a fire escape by the time displacement field. Interestingly enough, this contradicts what the sequels show of the time displacement field simply melting whatever is in its path.
• The original screen treatment and drafts gave Reese's age as 21 or 22 while Sarah's age was only 19. In real life, actors Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton were both 27 going on 28. The third Terminator film gave Sarah's age at the time of her attack as 23.
• In the original script, the Terminator had to eat in order to maintain its organic flesh. After killing the first wrong Sarah Connor, the Terminator was shown eating a candy bar - complete with the wrapping.
• The original script said that Sarah had a pin in her knee from an old skating accident. The Terminator would then go about mutilating its victims in order to find this identifying pin.
• Although playing arguably the major character, Arnold Schwarzenegger utters a mere 58 words in the film.

See also

• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• T2 3-D: Battle Across Time
• Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
• Hasta la vista
• Terminator argument - an argument in bioethics that sophisticated technology carries an amount of existential risk which should be avoided by slowing or stopping the advance of technology
• Terminator series

External links

• The Terminator at IMDb
• Template:Amg movie
• Wired.com More Robot Grunts Ready for Duty
• The Terminator Narrative Chronology
• The SciFlicks Guide
• The Terminator at Rotten Tomatoes

v t e Terminator
Films	The Terminator Terminator 2: Judgment Day Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Terminator Salvation Terminator Genisys Terminator: Dark Fate
Television series	Live-action The Sarah Connor Chronicles characters episodes "Pilot" "Heavy Metal" "Self Made Man" "Born to Run" Animated Terminator Salvation: The Machinima Series Terminator Zero
Characters	Sarah Connor John Connor Miles Dyson Kyle Reese Skynet Terminators Terminator/Model 101/T-800 T-1000 T-X Cameron Catherine Weaver T-3000 Rev-9
Music	The Terminator "You Could Be Mine" "The Current" The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Video games	Film-based The Terminator DOS Sega Sega CD Terminator 2 arcade computer 8-bit 16-bit Game Boy Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines War of the Machines The Redemption Salvation Genisys: Future War Non-film based The Terminator 2029 RoboCop Versus The Terminator Rampage Future Shock Skynet Dawn of Fate Resistance Survivors
Print	Comics Aliens versus Predator versus The Terminator RoboCop Versus The Terminator Superman vs. The Terminator: Death to the Future The Burning Earth Infinity Transformers vs. The Terminator T2 novels
Attractions	T2-3D: Battle Across Time X: A Laser Battle for Salvation Terminator Salvation: The Ride
Quotes	"I'll be back" "Hasta la vista, baby"
Related	"Soldier" (The Outer Limits) Lady Terminator Shocking Dark Rottweiler The Terminators Light & Magic Special effects of Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Category

• 1984 films
• Terminator films
• English-language films
• Best Science Fiction Film Saturn
• Films directed by James Cameron
• Orion Pictures films