It is hard to believe, looking back on it, that The Terminator was made over 20 years ago when you consider that many of the effects used in that movie are still being used today. The Terminator was made in 1984 and it was written and directed by new comer at the time James Cameron. Considering the stories he would tell in the future, The Terminator was a departure for Cameron as its violent nature is not a trademark of his future movies. However, the use of cutting edge and spectacular special effects is a Cameron trademark and those are used in The Terminator throughout the entire movie. The Terminator stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator and right from the start we get a funny story because originally OJ Simpson was considered to be the Terminator but he was rejected because his look and demeanor was considered to be too nice to be believable as a mechanical killer. When you can consider OJ Simpson too nice to have the look of a killer then you are really looking for something special. Schwarzenegger was in the middle of doing his series of Conan movies so his physique was very toned and looked the part of a menacing robot. This was Schwarzenegger’s first blockbuster hit and it would not be his last. He would be back.

The Terminator is a movie about a man and a killer robot that get sent back into the past from the future. The robot is called the Terminator and he was sent to kill Sarah Connor who was to be the mother of the man who would lead a revolution against the robots in the future. The man was sent to protect Sarah Connor and he was sent by Sarah Connor’s future son. The man, who’s name is Kyle and is played by Michael Biehn, carries a picture of Sarah Connor with him to not only help him find her but to also remind her of how beautiful she is. Sarah Connor is played by Linda Hamilton who had just got done making Children Of The Corn when she arrived on the set of The Terminator. The movie is filled with some of the most spectacular, and gruesome, special effects scenes ever made to that point. They didn’t have the computer technology they have now so the way they made many of these visual effects is fascinating. For some of the scenes involving the Terminator’s face, including one scene where he slowly removes his own eye, they had to make a duplicate of Schwarzenegger’s head and the detail they used was amazing. Although not as gruesome as some of his future films, like Aliens for example, The Terminator was filled with violence that is not normally part of a James Cameron movie and to make that violence seem authentic Arnold Schwarzenegger trained for months on how to properly use the weapons he would be firing in The Terminator. The training paid off as the movie’s use of weapons was praised even by the most hardcore weapon’s fanatic.

The Terminator sets up a complicated story that leads to two sequels that attempt to follow the initial story to its conclusion. But The Terminator story is one of those stories that can make movies for as long as people will see them. It is a story line that can be spread out over several movies and never end if need be. It seemed like, when The Terminator first came out, that people would pay to see several sequels of a movie like this but in reality the series is starting to come up a little dry after three movies. But the original Terminator remains as a triumph of low budget special effects, superb acting, and writing that leaves so many doors open that you just have to see what happens next.