THE TERMINATOR was merely telling the truth as he/it discerned it when delivering one of movie history’s most universally resounding simple declarative sentences: “I’ll be back.” Not one but two new sheriffs were in town, with a couple of up-to-the-mark deputies. The former crashed the party in the the gruff & rumble personages of star Arnold Schwarzenegger and director-writer James Cameron, the latter were served up by raw & willing recruits Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn.

“ Sarah Connor?”

Los Angeles had enough problems in 1984 without being rudely visited by two troublesome time travelers from 2029. Both fit the definition of  ‘intense’, each know how to fight, but only one, ‘Kyle Reese’ (Biehn), is a human being. He’s after the other, a ‘T-800’, a cybernetic assassin whose metal endoskeleton is covered by synthetic tissue to make it appear as a human (Arnold, whose own framework pushes the norm). The ‘terminator’ is after a seemingly ordinary young woman named ‘Sarah Connor’, who it’s programmed to see as a threat to the future.  Kyle, however, knows she is fated to be crucial to mankind’s coming survival battle against machines in a nuke-aftermath landscape. *

“Do I look like the mother of the future?”

Tech noir dystopia meets hyper-action thrills. With cocky one liners, a distinct feeling of foreboding, sympathetic, attractive flesh & blood heroes, and a pitiless antagonist who makes flick robots of the past look like Hasbro discount items: “It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop… ever, until you are dead!”

Modestly budgeted at $6,400,000, the property was considered a B-level  item by the studio suits, with Cameron, 29, having only one directorial credit under his belt (the nothing ball Piranha II: The Spawning, which he inherited and then disowned). A driven, self-created and self-promoting personality from a different showoff arena, Schwarzenegger, 36, had been hovering around movies since 1970, his stock rising in (with fans, not critics) thanks to 1982’s Conan the Barbarian. His range limitations (thick Austrian accent, otherworldly look and manner, bod from fantasyland) made an ideal fit for the role, tasked with delivering a mere 17 lines of matter-of-fact but heavily loaded dialogue and carrying deadly intent in his literally steely gaze.  Hamilton and Biehn, both 27, were fresh to the fray, each with just a few low-ball credits. Initial shrugs were replaced by energized teamwork as ingenious and unrelenting taskmaster Cameron whipped it together, his high velocity direction mix-mastering the actors intensity, the cold chill cinematography and precision-cut editing, Brad Fiedel’s mournful synthesizer score, the art direction and sound and the great special effects (Stan Winston and Gene Warren Jr.) into a surprise hit. When the receipts for 1984 were tallied, this was the 13th biggest haul, $53,100,000 domestically, $38,371,000 internationally. Schwarzenegger’s career notched into high gear (not that his material always did) with his topping point the first sequel to this, impacting in 1991, joined by Hamilton, who would really show her mettle in that epic. Biehn went on to ace roles in Aliens, The Abyss and Tombstone. The biggest splash and longest-lasting run was Cameron’s, who proved to have a seemingly inexhaustible imagination and a cornucopia of technical tricks, demonic energy and—refreshingly—heart, with which to put his ideas and gifts to work. **

POLICE SHRINK: “Why didn’t you bring any weapons, something more advanced? Don’t you have, uh… ray guns? Show me a piece of future technology.”   KYLE: “You go naked. Something about the field generated by a living organism. Nothing dead will go.”  POLICE SHRINK: “Why?”   KYLE: “I didn’t build the fucking thing!”

With Paul Winfield (cop who’s ‘seen it all’, he thinks), Lance Henriksen, Bess Motta, Rick Rossovich, Earl Boen, Dick Miller and Bill Paxton (one of the unlucky punks who first encounter Arnie). 107 minutes.

* —-He told us. Now you tell me.—-“Defense network computers. New… powerful… hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.”

The above was laid down in 1984, with the script’s 2029 as comfortably far off as the acid-rained L.A. of Blade Runner. Now, halfway into the batshit crazy Deploring 20’s, with homicidal clowns at the wheel and AI filling the mirror that says “closer than they appear” it looks perilously near time-on-target. Might be a good idea for all the Sarah’s and Kyle’s out there to develop plan B. And C, etc…

** Audition postponed—Orion Pictures exec Mike Medavoy proposed O.J. Simpson for the Terminator role. Cameron nixed, thinking smiling ‘nice guy’ Simpson wouldn’t be believable as a killer.