A cybernetic assassin (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has been sent to the past to eliminate an important target, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). Sarah’s unborn child will one day lead humanity against the machines. However, Sarah is not alone, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) has been sent from the future to protect her from the indestructible killing machine. The future of humanity is hanging by a thread and Reese is all that stands between the Terminator and Sarah Connor.
The movie catapulted a phenomenon and at the same time established an incredible long lasting franchise. The franchise has produced much more content than many other sci-fi franchises. The cybernetic metallic skeleton is synonym of fear and well recognized. The franchise has some very low budget roots but what has followed is nothing short of blockbuster category.
The Terminator is a visceral and raw action packed film. James Cameron who directed the film really brought a lot of his ideas to life and even though they didn’t all click well together the film works so well. The story from the get go is very ambitious and has many carefully plotted themes. But many of these ideas remain unfinished or do not develop well throughout the film. The film remains a solid piece, but there are a few issues here and there that should be pointed out. The dialogue is also up to par as sometimes is just well very cheesy. But for every low moment of the film, relentless action sequences follow.
Featuring one of the most feared and intimidating enemies to ever appear on screen, which even today it still has a great appeal. Arnold Schwarzenegger embodied the cybernetic assassin and he did it without a problem. It was a role that he was simply born to play. Not much more can be said about his portrayal, it is just simply good. Hamilton and Biehn do a good job with their part with what they had with the script which didn’t really help them to further perfect their roles.
With The Terminator we saw the genius work of Stan Winston, whose make up work took the film to a whole another level. Even though the film is old, the work done by Winston was phenomenal for its time. The special effects done on the film are nothing short of genius, but also full of creativity regardless of how low budget the film was. This is one of Cameron’s great accomplishments.
The Terminator arrives on Blu-ray with a 1080p MPEG4-AVC encode framed at 1.85:1. The new remastered edition finally offers fans of the movie a more satisfying transfer; however, I will say that even after all the work done the film it is showing its age. For starters The Terminator has a much cleaner picture and it is definitely more consistent.
The picture features a greater sense of depth. As mentioned above the picture has been cleaned and it the change is night and day as now more is visible. Due to this new transfer, the detailing has gone up a notch. Colors are more stable and black colors are deep and more inky. I did notice that there was a blue tint on the image; this is new in comparison to the previous releases. It fits well and I want to say that this is perhaps how the directors intended the film to look. The film is showing its age though, so this is probably the best it will ever look.
The Terminator arrives on Blu-ray with a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio lossless track. The track doesn’t appear to have changed since the film was last released, previous mix was in LPCM. The dialogue reproduction is mediocre since plenty of action scenes completely overwhelm it. The rears do provide some support and there’s a great deal of good moments with lasers and gun shots flying all around. Most of the audio does come from the fronts; however, directionality isn’t up to snuff. There is still no sign of the Mono track so with all this being said the track could definitely be better.
Terminator: A Retrospective – The cast and crew talk about the film’s production and everything that goes involve in it. There are some great topics and look behind the scenes. This feature is about 21 minutes long and it’s a great piece that should be watched.
Creating The Terminator: Visual Effects and Music – This is an excellent piece that takes viewers behinds the scenes and shows them the creation of some of the special effects of the film.
Terminated Scenes – 7 deleted scenes
The Terminator finally has a decent release, but even with subpar audio mix the film remains an excellent science fiction classic. The film it is showing its age now, but the film that started it will never leave the minds of the science fiction aficionados. The Blu-ray definitely deserves new extras, but we’ll have to do with the same old supplements from past releases as they aren’t bad at all. Even if you already have the previous I would tell you to replace it, at least this release is watchable.