The Terminator

I hadn’t seen this film for 20 years and although I remembered the vast

majority of it, I definitely didn’t recall seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s

twig and berries as he approaches those guys to steal their clothes at the

beginning of the film. Perhaps this is due to the wonders of High Definition upscaling

technology, or perhaps I simply repressed the traumatic image of Arnie’s

bare bouncing bollocks in my barely adolescent brain.

You find out that Kyle Reese is actually John Connor’s father, despite the

fact that Kyle is probably around 17 years younger than John in 2029.

Fair enough, I get that Kyle travelled back in time to bang Sarah… but

who was John’s father the first time around? And does that mean that

he fathers a different John Connor to the original? What if he wasn’t as

great a fighter/leader as the original?

Does it not make sense because it’s a clever paradox – or does it just not

make sense? It’s almost certainly the latter, but I didn’t let that distract

me too much from enjoying what was a solid action film which raises

some valid concerns about the dangers of artificial intelligence.

Whilst this film isn’t necessarily the first or the best film to take on the

subject of AI, it is definitely one of the most memorable… (Slightly off

topic, but if you haven’t watched Ex Machina then you absolutely

should).

We have a lot to thank this film for. Well, mainly just the 1991 Sequel

which is undoubtedly even better and undeniably one of the top 5 action

films of all time.

Unfortunately though, this wasn’t the only sequel... there were four

more after T2 and I’m sorry to say I’ve watched all but the latest

instalment (Terminator: Dark Fate). I’d love there to be another

genuinely good Terminator sequel but I’m not optimistic it will ever

happen. Maybe if they had a decent script and someone like Denis

Villeneuve on board to direct it, then it could be achieved. But instead

I’m sure they will inevitably continue to churn out the same kind of

unimaginative crap until the robots actually do take over the world and

they finally put a stop to this madness. We can only hope that this is

sooner rather than later.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s eyebrows are missing for a disturbingly large

proportion of this film. You’re seemingly supposed to believe that they

were blown off in one scene by an explosion but that this didn’t also

singe the hair on his head or burn his clothes. This bothered me more

than any temporal paradox issues and I therefore had no choice but to

deduct half a star for each missing eyebrow.

★★★★☆