Classic 80s Movie: “Terminator”
Movie Title: Terminator
Year: 1984
Writers: James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, William Wisher, Jr.
Credited with story idea: after a lawsuit, Orion Pictures agreed the idea was based on "Soldier" (an episode of the 1964 TV original The Outer Limits) by Harlan Ellison (which is, in turn, based on his 1957 short "Soldier From Tomorrow"). However, in 2009 In an interview from 2009, Cameron reportedly strongly disagreed with the story credit settlement given to Ellison.
Lead actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton
Director: James Cameron
One draft of the script is available here:
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Terminator.html
Plot Summary:
IMDB summary: A robotic assassin from a post-apocalyptic future travels back in time to eliminate a waitress, whose son will grow up and lead humanity in a war against machines.
My summary:
After a near-deadly encounter with a robot from the future, Sarah Connor's life is transformed from a dead-end job as a waitress at a fast-food restaurant to the only person who can save humanity from destruction.
Why I Think This Is A Classic 80s Movie:
Financial reasons: This movie earned 12 times its original production budget, and spawned three movie sequels (a fourth sequel is in pre-production), a TV series (a second TV series is in development), and an animated series (not to mention novelizations, video games
and comic book series). The Terminator movie franchise has reported total gross profits of about 1.2 billion dollars.
Other reasons: "The Terminator" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the American National Film Registry, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It has created some of the most recognizable characters in the action/scifi/horror genres, sky-rocketing the career of writer-director James Cameron.
My Favorite Moment In The Movie:
I remember when I first saw it, I found the silent scene of the Terminator repairing himself in a mirror fascinating. I still do. No dialog, but it reveals what the robot is underneath and that it feels no pain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQPOEWo3RDA
Of course, the "I'll be back" scene in the police station is a classic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYt2HmAxHL4
My Favorite Dialogue In the Movie : This is a really minor scene from the opening but sets up nicely Sarah's character.
[scrippet]
As Sarah Connor cleans up the spill, a kid at the next booth reaches over and dumps a scoop of ice cream into the top pouch of Sarah's apron.
She stares down at the mess melting over her hard-earned tips and sags with defeat. NANCY, a plump, gum-chewing waitress, stops beside her to whisper.
NANCY
Look at it this way: in a hundred years, who's gonna care?
[/scrippet]
This line also functions to set up a point made later in the story: in one hundred years, everyone will care about Sarah Connor, as her life is essential for the survival of humanity.
Another:
[scrippet]
REESE
There was a war. A few years from now. Nuclear war. The whole thing. All this--
His gesture includes the car, the city, the world.
REESE
(continuing)
--everything...is gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here. There. Nobody knew who started it. It was the machines.
SARAH
I don't understand...
REESE
Defense network computer. 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.
Reese pauses, and when he continues it's less like a military briefing, quieter.
REESE
(continuing)
Didn't see the war. I was born after, in the ruins. Grew up there. Starving. Hiding from the H-K's.
SARAH
The what?
REESE
Hunter Killers. Patrol machines. Built in automated factories. Most of us were rounded up, put in camps... for orderly disposal.
He pushes up the sleeve of his jacket and shows her a ten-digit number etched on the skin of his forearm.
Beneath the numbers is a pattern of lines like the automatic-pricing marks on product packages.
REESE
(continuing)
Burned in by laser scan.
(pause)
Some of us were kept alive...to work. Loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day. We were that close to going out forever...
Reese is holding onto Sarah's shoulders tightly.
REESE
(continuing)
...but there was one man...who taught us to fight. To storm the wire of the camps. To smash those metal mother-fuckers into junk. He turned it around...he brought us back from the brink. (pause) His name is Connor. John Connor ... your son, Sarah. Your unborn son.
[/scrippet]
Key Things You Should Look For When Watching This Movie:
The facts revealed in action or dialog: the time-displacement machine (in which only "organic material" can time-travel), the self-aware artificial intelligence system Skynet, the HKs (Hunter-Killer patroling combat robots), the Terminator model T-800 (also called a model 101) which functions on behalf of Skynet as part of its self-defense mechanism, the Resistence movement to destroy Skynet before it destroys humanity. Skynet is described as being an AI system built by Cyberdyne Systems for SAC-NORAD.
This lead to a fascinating fictional story universe in which the sequels are told in.
More info at the
* Terminator wiki
* GITS "script to screen" post on "The Terminator",
* thescriptlab's 5 plot point breakdown.
