The Terminator

So last year I did my first full review of a Terminator movie... and it was Terminator Genisys... Yeah... I have not begun my Terminator viewing experience very well. Terminator Genisys is a special piece of garbage that I will not be able to unlive.

But since The Terminator is leaving Netflix pretty soon I thought it was about time to see this movie finally. Its not that I haven't tried in the past, I just tried and failed, the movie starts out very slow and that made it difficult for me to watch it the first time. Honestly I fell asleep. But I won't hold that against the movie just yet, I don't totally remember the circumstances that made me fall asleep to this movie but maybe I was tired. There's a lot of reasons why I could have fallen asleep...

The Terminator begins by telling the story of humanity in the future. In 2029, humanity has been fighting a war with machines in a hive mind called Skynet.

The backstory of the Terminator franchise is almost the best part about it because its become somewhat of a modern day legend.

At the end of the war, as the humans are about to defeat Skynet, the machines send a single Terminator robot back in time to 1984 to murder the mother of the human resistance's leader, John Connor. Humanity also sends back a soldier by the name of Kyle Reese (played by Michael Biehn) to find the woman who would give birth to John Connor in order to protect her and preserve the existence of their savior. This woman's name was Sarah Connor.

Oh did I mention the Terminator they send back is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger?

The Terminator is arguably the role that Schwarzenegger is probably the most well known for. And its kind of amazing because its really not a role at all.

The Terminator is a robot. So all Arnold needs to do is walk around a look a little bit scary, and I'll give him the credit he deserves, being the scary Terminator is a role that suits him.

Honestly I've never really understood how Arnold became a huge action star because the honest to god truth is, he is a god awful actor. I have only seen a couple of movies that I really liked where he starred and a lot of those movies had really good stories and distracted from the fact that Arnold cannot act. So yeah, The Terminator is a great choice for Arnold because all he has to do is act like a robot, which he is most of the time anyway.

So anyways, the major story of The Terminator is that the Terminator and Kyle Reese both are sent back in time to pursue Sarah Connor.

Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton) is a pretty average woman in the 80s. She works at a diner, she has a roommate, there's nothing incredibly important about Sarah Connor.

And that is the problem with this character. Now I've heard that Sarah Connor becomes a better character in the 2nd movie and you can kind of tell by the end of this movie, however, this version of the character is kind of boring and just not as interesting as you think she would be.

She's very much the damsel in distress in this movie and while she has some moments where she distinguishes herself, she's not really the star she should be in this movie.

That is why Genisys had so much potential. While it was just a down right crappy movie, Emilia Clark had a perfect position to become a great female heroine. And again, I'm sure Linda Hamilton does a great job in the second Terminator movie, but in this one, she's just kind of boring.

But hey... we get to see her boobs?

And honestly, that's the entire movie. Kyle Reese is helping Sarah Connor survive the assassination being brought on by The Terminator, or Arnold.

One thing I will say about The Terminator story in general is that it really has become a legend in its own right. There is a great originality about this story that has really reverberated in the pop culture community.

Now I could talk about the continuity errors and the paradoxes that are created in this movie, like how (SPOILERS) Kyle Reese is in fact the father of John Connor even though it doesn't really make logical sense for that to take place, because John couldn't exist if Kyle was never sent back and Kyle can only be sent back if he's sent back by the savior of the human race, John Connor.

So yeah I don't really need to talk about the paradoxes in this movie, and instead we should talk about the execution of the legend as opposed to the legend itself.

And honestly, this is the biggest problem I have with this movie.

Now I'm watching Terminator in 2016 after there have been four sequels. I've also grown up in a world where Terminator is a pop culture icon, I knew the story of Terminator well before I ever thought about actually watching the movie.

And honestly, I didn't think the execution of that legend was as good as the legend itself.

Yes, the savior of the human race sending a man back in time to save his mother from being killed by the machines, all while that man that was sent back turns out to be the father of said savior is a great story. But in essence, without the novelty of the story, Terminator is kind of a boring movie.

Back in 1984, The Terminator was more of a horror movie than it was an actual science fiction phenomenon. A killer machine with some cool imagery and "state of the art" visual effects that in reality didn't really age that well, really makes this movie a little bit boring.

Maybe back in the day Arnold was scary. Maybe his weird, deformed, obviously a mask, broken up face was really cutting edge at the time. But today it just looks cheap and just not that great of a movie. Its not scary and it doesn't totally embrace the originality of the story as much as I think its sequels do. Like I said before, Sarah Connor is a boring character and by today's standards, The Terminator could have been played by a plank of wood.

But let's not totally downplay this movie.

There are good things about it. Arnold does still have his iconic lines and again, this is arguably his most iconic role. I think its a role that works perfectly for him. Furthermore I liked the relationship between Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor.

Furthermore, I like Kyle Reese. I think Michael Biehn did a good job in this movie and its kind of interesting that he didn't have resonating career you'd think a movie like this would give him.

Like the rest of this movie, I just don't think the performance really holds up. Overall, that's the theme for this entire movie, it just doesn't hold up.

Its got a good story that I think because the visuals were good at the time, lasted long enough to become iconic, but again, thinking about it now, the concept of Terminator is a lot better than the execution, because the acting isn't great. The action is so-so, and a movie that was supposed to be scary at the time is more funny now than anything.

Now I have told myself that I will be watching Terminator 2 soon so I can get a real fair look at the Terminator franchise but the two movies that I've seen in full haven't impressed me. For different reasons of course but overall, I'm not a fan of The Terminator.

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Thanks for reading.