MUSEUM of DITHERED POSTERS

10/12/2023*: THE TERMINATOR (1984)

This movie is great in its entirety; it's an all-time classic for a reason. But I'm especially blown away by how strong its first act is (after I mentally cut out the prologue as usual).

Arnold materializes out of thin air in a burst of light. The Terminator is unfazed except for a sheen of sweat, and I believe Arnold just woke up that way in the '80s. Then Kyle Reese appears in the same way, but he's lying on the ground in agony. Whatever he just did was extremely taxing and Arnold did it without even blinking. He must be one bad motherfucker.

To emphasize the point, the Terminator gets jumped by a gang of punks and effortlessly dispatches all three of them, leaving the encounter armed and clothed. Reese, on the other hand, is immediately on the run from the cops and desperately stealing clothes from the department store he's chased through. He's scrappy, though, and steals a shotgun from one of the cop cars before slipping away.

Sarah Connor is just a regular gal. The writers can't emphasize enough how much of a regular gal Sarah Connor is. She's a waitress and not very good at it. A coworker comforts her by saying, "Think about it this way - in 100 years, who's going to care?" This manages to set up Sarah's ennui and also foreshadow her importance in the timeline. The fact that she's introduced right after two mysterious and dangerous people tells us she's connected to them somehow, but SHE'S JUST A REGULAR GAL, after all.

Seriously, stunning Act I. No matter how many times I watch it I find myself re-invested in these characters. Not to mention the visual language is powerful, but frankly I don't have the expertise to speak on how it's powerful. I just know that it draws me in.

I'm also fascinated by the representation of trauma in this movie. Kyle Reese sees a bunch of machinery at a construction site and is transported to a warzone. This isn't just an excuse to inject some backstory into the narrative, this says something about Reese as a character. The next time I watch this movie I ought to pay attention to whether the themes revolve around trauma in some way. I always just accepted the "indomitable human spirit" thing, which is true, but it seems like the filmmakers were aiming for something more specific.

Honestly I don't know why they even bothered having the detective plotline. The Terminator isn't a serial killer - he's barely even aware of the cops at all and takes no pleasure in killing. He just moves from point A to point B. Only a cop could take so long to recognize the pattern.

It's only now that Reese and Connor meet for the first time and break into Act II. SO MUCH MOVIE happens before that, and none of it feels wasted (except the prologue, but on this site that can almost go without saying). A long Act I wouldn't work for every story - the only other example I can think of offhand is the Lion King - but the Terminator absolutely earns it.

BONUS INSANITY: Can you imagine if the Terminator was written in 2023? The screenwriters vastly underestimated how powerful machines would become. It would take Arnold (or whoever would be cast today... another interesting question) a fraction of a second to obtain a wireless internet connection and locate the correct Sarah Connor with precise GPS coordinates. But that's thinking too small for a truly futuristic Terminator. Here's the thing that most people don't consider when it comes to advanced AI - an off-the-charts intelligence wouldn't have to kill to get what it wanted. It would be irresistibly persuasive. Predicting the actions of a primitive intelligence such as a human's would be child's play. In fact, what it can accomplish would be indistinguishable from magic. It could become a kind of messiah, dominating the world by making us dependent upon its incomprehensible technologies. The Terminator could even become the governor of California. I'm kidding, of course; it's impossible for me, a human, and not even an especially cunning one, to know what paths an advanced AI might take, but I can say with certainty that we wouldn't stand a chance. You know how Sheev Palpatine played both sides in the clone wars and toppled a 25,000-year republic for his own benefit? Now imagine someone so smart that Palpatine would be played even more easily than Anakin.

*Author’s Note: This is a retroactive entry for a movie I saw before I kept a film journal.