For a film that’s 40 years old, The Terminator still feels like it’s been beamed back from the future. James Cameron’s cyborg classic has been with us for four decades now – spawning one of the biggest franchises of all time, cementing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s metal-boned machine as a cinematic icon, delivering one of the all-time-great sequels (Terminator 2: Judgment Day, as if you needed to ask), and launching the career of the most successful filmmaker all time. Not bad. And now it looks better than ever, arriving on 4K Ultra-HD in a brand new restoration to mark that anniversary, presented in all its tech-noir glory.
While time (and technology) has moved on, The Terminator still glides like a piece of well-oiled machinery – propulsive in Cameron’s extraordinarily-skilled hand, groundbreaking in is effects and ambition, a bruising and thrilling ride from the moment Arnie’s killing machine first appears. Schwarzenegger’s performance is so totemic, the role now so inextricably linked with his image, that it’s near-impossible to imagine that he wasn’t what Cameron – and co-writer Gale Anne Hurd – first imagined for the role. Originally, they wanted a future-assassin who’d blend into the crowd, one that its target Sarah Connor would never see coming. Instead, Arnie’s hulking frame and domineering physicality won out – the Terminator wouldn’t blend in, but stand out as a mountain, a formidable foe who won’t stop.
Hiring Schwarzenegger – then best-known for Conan – was a master-stroke. His Terminator, the T-800, is magnetic from the first moment he steps onto the screen, standing tall (and butt-naked) as he surveys the expanse of LA. The audience doesn’t even need to imagine what he might be capable of – it’s immediately clear from his stature, the way he holds himself. And, of course, from the moment he plunges his arm right through the chest of a belligerent punk without breaking a sweat. He’s the Terminator. He terminates.
It's that impossibly intimidating nature that makes the David-and-Goliath battle at the heart of The Terminator so pulse-pounding, even now. While the T-800 is sent back in time to assassinate Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor, the mother of future resistance leader John Connor, her protector isn’t a machine, but a man – Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese, scrappy and heroic and determined, but without the physical brawn to match up to Schwarzenegger’s walking tank. Watching him try to out-smart the Terminator, to make moves beyond the boundaries of the T-800’s programming, is one of the film’s greatest joys. And one of the best lines in cinema history belonged to him first: “Come with me if you want to live.”
None of it works, too, without Sarah Connor. She’s the film’s beating heart – the ordinary waitress plunged into a living nightmare, as the Terminator tries to hunt her down before she can produce the potential saviour of mankind. Hamilton is pure humanity, engaging and emotive as she grapples with her supposed destiny – and begins to fall for Kyle Reese. Among everything else, The Terminator is a time-twisting love story between its two heroes. It’s a horror film as well, borrowing as much from slasher fare like Halloween as it does from sci-fi tropes – Connor absolutely holds a place in the pantheon of Final Girls.
It's no wonder that The Terminator sent Cameron into the stratosphere. With a modest budget of $6.4 million, the ambitious young filmmaker achieved something that felt far bigger than the sum of its parts – and it propelled him into making Aliens, Terminator 2, and eventually Titanic and the Avatar movies. The DNA of all of those mega-hits can be seen right here in The Terminator, from the crisp clarity of the action, to the boundless imagination of the world-building, to the sincerity of its emotional core.
So, why not revisit the legendary original film in eye-popping 4K – or pick up a copy as the perfect Christmas gift – and remember what made it so special in the first place. A film that can’t be bargained with, can’t be reasoned with, that doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear, and absolutely will not stop. 40 years later, The Terminator stands as a clear message on behalf of its director, its stars, and – of course – the Terminator itself: “I’ll be back.”