If you have not seen the first Terminator movie, what the fuck is going on in your life? For any movie series from the eighties that has lived well into the 2010s you need to be familiar with the origin of that story. It doesn't take much. Be a fuckin' man, do your fuckin' research. And based on the simple fact that you haven't seen the first Terminator movie I already question your manhood. If you're not a man then this part doesn't pertain to you.
The movie Terminator takes place in a 1984 LA as the backdrop. The story is essentially about a cyborg killer that has been sent back through time to terminate a woman named Sarah Connor who will one day give birth to the man, John Connor, who will, in the future, lead the resistance in the rebellion against the machines. A lone soldier, Kyle Reese (Michae Biehn), is sent back through time by the resistance to save Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and stop The Terminator's (Arnold Schwarzenegger) bloody rampage.
Will Kyle save Sarah?
Will Kyle save Sarah?
Nothing Clean. Right.
The movie starts off be showing the two time travelers arrive in 1984 LA. 1984 itself has played some pretty major roles in stories. But, as we watch The Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, arrive in 1984, his trip is very smooth and he is on one knee as he appears in a bubble and just merely rises up. When Reese arrives he pretty much get dropped from the sky. Probably about 10ft. Not of these guys are naked but only one of them is human. And his arrival looked like it sucked. And he mentions, later in the movie, the fact his trip, is one way and he can't go back. What if the guys who sent him back dropped him from the sky to be assholes? You never know.
Well, anyway-- Smack! Right on the pavement. "There's Reese." And like any good video game you need to acquire your shit. These dudes need clothes. This is very simple. Reese is going to have some problems. Maybe have a run in with the police. The Terminator is going to terminate a motherfucker for some clothes and he wish a motherfuckin' cop would get involved so he can do some more terminating and get them uninvolved. And like I mentioned, about the characters, even the ones who aren't in the movie long have an impact and that means something to me. Even when The Terminator ended up killing some thugs for clothes you remember the guys. Bill Paxton is one of them and he's done many small parts in Arnold movies. His character also feeds Arnold's character the "fuck you, asshole" line that Arnold kicks so eloquently later on in the movie.
Now at this time somewhere on another side of town, Sarah Connor is chillin' with her friends and doing her regular shit getting ready for work. She has no idea that some huge man-looking machine is looking for her so that it can put both of it's hand-like prosthetics on her head and squish her fuckin' brains out-- she has no clue!
She goes to work and starts having a real shitty day. She's a waitress, so, already, people are treating her like shit. She's got little kids putting fat globs of ice-cream into her apron pocket. She should've slapped the shit out of that child. But, then it gets worse when her dumbass co-worker pulls her aside and starts rushing her into another room in front of a TV. She's acting like it's great news and as Sarah sits down she hears about a woman named Sarah Commor who was just brutally murdered in her home.
What our Sarah Connor doesn't know, is that The Terminator machine looked up the Sarah Connors in in the phone book and he's taking them out in order. I guess that was necessary in the 80s since there was no internet. It's like sending someone back to find an ancient Egyptian. Where the fuck do we start, with the writing on the walls? I guess so. But as for this other Sarah Connor chick-- Aww, man-- she did not have this shit coming at all. The whole scene was fucked up.
Arnold walks up to the woman's door and knocks like the Goddamn police. *BlamBlamBlam*! She opens the door all nice but she still has the chain on. Arnold simply asks "Sarah Connor?" She said, "Yes." This fuckin' terminator slaps the door open like there's nothing to it and walks in this woman's house, pulls out a big ass gun and shoots her six times. What the fuck!! I mean, they didn't show her being shot, but I'm sure the first shot was in the head since that's where The Terminator was aiming when we last saw the lady standing in her living room in terror probably wondering why the fuck Arnold Schwarzenegger was looking for her in the first place and now breaking and entering that sort of looks like may just lead to becoming a full blown homicide. And she was right. That's why from now on when people you don't know come looking for you you need to say you don't know where you are.
"That's What He Does! That's All He Does!"
So this shit happens again with another Sarah Connor only a few hours later. When our Sarah Connor finds out, she's really freaked. Wouldn't you be? Oh my God! Two people with your exact name, and in your town, have been murdered only hours apart. What would you do? Hell yeah-- she called the police. So, while doing as they said she decides to stay in a public place. And it's a good thing that she did. While she was out The Terminator came to her house and it was not good at all. Her poor roommate and her boyfriend were slaughtered. I don't want even tell you what happened. If you've seen the movie you know what I'm talking about. It was scary and sad. Her poor friends. We just saw them hanging out earlier.
She calls right after the incident and the answering machine takes her call while The Terminator is still in the house. This where she gives away where she is. A dance club.
The Terminator enters the club. This scene is kind of funny because as Arnold walks in the girl at the front yells to the bouncer "Hey, that guy didn't pay!" The bouncer puts his hand on Arnold's shoulder and Arnold grabs his hand and squeezes it. The guy just goes "Hhhhuuuuuggghhhh!" fell to the ground and that was it. Pretty rough stuff. But then Reese was already sitting in the club watching over Sarah and I was like 'Wait. How the fuck did he get in?" However, later in the movie he does pull out a stack of cash so I suppose he has his methods. Nevertheless, what happened next made forget silly little questions like that. The Terminator made his move on Sarah Connor.
This is when Kyle Reese sprang into action! Pushing people aside from the gunfire to come, he takes out a sawed-off shotgun and starts plugging The Terminator. Kyle soon delivers the recurring line in the series-- "Come with me if you want to live." Awesome stuff. Many of the moments in this film just pull you right in to where you're living the action. Since the plot really thickens at this point you also start getting more from your actors.
Reese pulls Sarah out of the club through the back door where he and she are booking through the alley as fast as their legs will carry them. Arnold comes busting through the door chasing after them and closing in. They show us him chasing them in his night vision and when I was a kid watching this movie I was fucked up and terrified but I was so fascinated I couldn't look away. I loved these things about the movie. I had never seen the world through the eyes of a cyborg before this.
Reese turns and shoots a gas tank on a car in the alley and it explodes. Sarah and Reese jump into a car and Reese starts up when The Terminator comes flying through an explosion and smashes its hand through the windshield trying to grab Sarah. From this point on, after jumping through that explosion, The Terminator no longer has any eyebrows. And that's a vicious look for anyone. Reese spins the car around sending The Terminator rolling off the top of the car. Reese takes off and starts tearing through the streets of LA.
Sarah and Reese park somewhere and Reese starts explaining her situation to her. It's quite an amazing story for anyone to have to hear. The fact that a nuclear war takes place in her near future and her son is responsible for leading people to fight back against machines that have taken over the world? That's pretty heavy shit. And such conviction he does everything he can to believe her new reality which for anyone would be too unreal. The fact that there is a terminator out there and its primary mission is to kill you. And so far no one has been able to even slow this thing down.
"I'll Be Back"
Reese and Sarah end up being caught by the cops. They question Reese and after everything Sarah is still having trouble believing him. And that's understandable. This is huge. Not very many people would be able to handle her situation so well. Reese is questioned by a man named Dr.Silberman and he tells the police everything he told Sarah. The truth. But did they listen? Oh, no. They already know everything.
Yeah-- they didn't know shit. Arnold showed up at the police station just as Dr.Silberman was walking out the door. Lucky him. The Terminator politely walks up to the front desk and explains that he is Sarah Connor's friend, he heard she was there and he wanted to see her. The fuckin' dude just blew Arnold off like he wasn't there. Told him to come back some other time or some shit and that's when it happened. Arnold looked around as if to inspect the structure of the building, looked back at the cop and said, for the first time, what would become his trademark line--2 "I'll be back."
This was the first time Arnold Schwarzenegger used this line and I guess someone thought it sounded so great that Arnold needed to repeat the line in every 400 Arnold movies that came out after that. But in this movie, he really meant that shit. He came right back ... with a car!
After he told the policeman, who blew him off like he didn't matter, he'd be back, he walked outside and got into his car and then drove that bitch straight up into the lobby crushing the hell out of the guy behind the desk and anything keeping him from going into the police station as he had planned. Now he's walking around shooting anything moving. At this part it looks like things might start to go a little bit bad. And every now and then we get to see people dying through Terminator vision. I already told you how cool Terminator vision is. Or did I? Well, it's pretty fuckin' cool.
Mowing down one police officer after the other, Arnold walks through the police station with ease. Reese and Sarah hear the gunfire and commotion and even while being in separate rooms at the time, they both know Arnold is killing motherfuckers like it's in style and their ass is on the list. That's right when Kyle takes it upon himself to rush the oblivious guard cop who's supposed to be watching him and take him down with ease. Reese frees himself from his cuffs and goes to find Sarah so they can get the fuck out of, what was up until five minutes ago, the police station.
They bail the fuck out of there (no pun intended). Before we completely leave the police station I want to point out two officers portrayed by two kickass actors. As I said, the characters and meaningful and memorable in this movie. Playing Lt. Ed Traxler is the late Paul Winfield and Lance Henriksen as Hal Vukovich. Both of these guys look like believable longtime police partners. They've heard it all, they've seen it all. That is, except for what's to come. These two guys are there for each other through thick and thin. And that makes watching them deal with The Terminator a lot harder since there is an element of brotherly love between these two guy. No spoilers here.
Sarah and Reese do as much running that the car they stole will allow them to do. This is when it is decided that the best thing to do is find a hotel. Although we never here them assert that, it is what they end up doing. And we all know what goes down in the hotels men and women check into together. Oh yeah!
Reese opens up to Sarah about how he volunteered to be sent back to save Sarah and was given a picture of her by John and that upon seeing that picture instantly fell in love with her at that moment. After his heartfelt confession Sarah sees no reason not to take off her panties for this man. But it isn't like they will have much time to kick back and rest. After all, there is a deranged cyborg stalking the streets looking for them. And what Reese doesn't know is that while he briefly stepped out for supplies (bombs and shit) Sarah was on the phone with her "mother" telling her where she was. That is the very reason their hotel room door is kicked in early in the AM by a buff lunatic looking robo man. Alerted by the dog in front of the hotel Sarah and Reese are barley able to escape being mowed down.
Jumping into the truck of one of the hotel customers as he is pulling into the lot, Sarah and Reese gun it toward safety. But not so safe as The Terminator is right behind them on a motorcycle taking shots at the truck they're in. Reese is tossing bombs at The Terminator when he ends up greeting shot. Since Sarah is behind the wheel she takes the initiative of slamming it in The Terminator's motorcycle as it pulls alongside the truck. Unfortunately she flips the truck in the process. Thankfully a semi comes along and smashes the shit out of The Terminator. Or, at least, that's what it looked like.
The truck driver jumps out and runs behind the truck to make sure he didn't kill anyone. This is when suddenly from Sarah's eye view, The Terminator bitch slaps the truck driver and hops into the driver seat. There's a partner trucker in the passenger seat. The Terminator just looks at him and says "Get out." There is no debate. Now, Reese is shot, Sarah is struggling, and The Terminator has a fully functional 18-wheeler.
Sarah uses every ounce of strength to get Reese up and moving. As soon as he is revived just a little she and he are up and running Indiana Jones and Mariam when the plane was gonna explode.
Now, this truck is on their heels. Reese stumbles and falls and tells Sarah to keep running. "Run!" Sarah is barely managing to dodge and out maneuver this truck barreling down on her. Then and there, Reese lights one of his homemade bombs, tosses it onto the back of the truck and jumps into a nearby dumpster. The truck then goes up in a massive explosion leaving nothing but piles of scrap metal lying around everywhere.
"You're Terminated, Fucker."
It's finally over. After everything Sarah and Reese have gone through they certainly deserve a rest. They work their way back to one another and collapse to their knees while embracing. But what happened next fucked up the entire mood.
This is the bullshit that comes crawling out of that mess. A completely skinless, hairless, fleshless robot. The actual Terminator now void any human decoration. Only the humanoid skeleton of a machine designed to stop at nothing until it has completed its mission. This one's mission: Kill Sarah Connor. Thankfully, at least they managed to mess up The Terminator's leg. So... I don't know. It's really not nearly enough.
Sarah and Reese run into a nearby factory. It looked like it might have been fuckin' Skynet. There were all kinds of assembly machines and steel compactors that it could actually be the place they needed to blow up.
As they run through the factory Reese starts to turn on all the machines to throw off The Terminator off of their trail. It works for a moment but before they know it they are face-to-face with their fate. There isn't much a man can do against a machine but Reese was definitely willing to take his chances in order to save Sarah. You have to admire the conviction of this man as well as the machine he has sworn to protect Sarah from. They are both all about fulfilling their mission. In fact, I'm starting to think this movie (or the entire series) should've been called "Kyle Reese."
Kyle tells Sarah to run and though she hesitates, he doesn't hesitate to light the fuse on his homemade dynamite stick. When Sarah saw that she got the fuck outta dodge. Reese attempts to roll out of the way of the blast radius but it was not enough. When the bomb went off The Terminator went to pieces and Reese caught a bit of shrapnel that happen to be fatal. Sarah also caught a piece of shrapnel in her leg, but she's still alive. At least The Terminator is done for. It's finally over.
Sarah crawls over to Reese and sees that he is dead. Sarah is torn by this. As she's looking at him lying out, lifeless, a fucking metal hand reaches out for Sarah! What the fuck!!? Again!!? Somebody, please, kill this fuckin' thing!
Sarah, obviously terrified for her life starts crawling and dragging herself away from The Terminator as fast as she can. The Terminator is doing the same thing, for now it is no more than a torso, a head and a right arm. And it is doing everything it can to make sure it kills Sarah Connor.
Sarah crawls her way through this factory through all types of machinery and starts to crawl through a steel compactor. The Terminator is on her heels, literally. With every reach and slide as it drags itself across the floor of the steel compactor it is only inches from Sarah's foot. Sarah is using all her strength to get to the other side of this compactor and she finally does and she turns around and slams the gate close trapping The Terminator inside. The Terminator reaches its hand through the bars grabbing at Sarah. Sarah recalls accidentally operating this machine when she first came into the factory because she bumped into the button. The same button that is right beside her. She reaches her hand over to reach the button on her left side trying not to let The Terminator grab her. As soon as she feels her hand on the button she looks right at The Terminator and delivers one of the coolest lines in the movie. "You're terminated, fucker."
No Fate
She kicked ass with that line and the steel compactor did the rest. Flatten The Terminator's fuckin' ass. But as flat as it was and even after watch the life light burnout, I still think it wasn't flat enough. Have seem this thing get back up one too many times. No disassemble Johnny 5 but please disassemble the fuckin' Terminator. This thing has been running a rampage all over downtown LA for about 2 days! The fact that there's more than one of these movies would indicate that they didn't disassemble The Terminator. Apparently, they reassembled it. Fuckin' dummies.
Anyway-- skipping ahead maybe a month or so we get to see Sarah. She's pregnant now. That's right. Kyle Reese is John Connor's father. What! PAUSE... !! The guy from the future is the baby-daddy of the guy from the future who sent the other guy back through time in the first place!!? What the fuck does all that mean? How is this possible? Somehow, probably out of the love of such an entertaining movie we can simply roll over and accept that bullshit. If he had to get sent back I. Time in the first place in order to make the motherfucker, how is the John already alive and in charge and able to send his dad back in the first place? This goes on and on in The Terminator.
Now, our once bubbly, playful Sarah Connor doesn't see too much of a future for her or her son and she seems to lose all hope for, really, anything. I thought this was very heavy just to show how Sarah went all the way from being what seem liked this average sweet soft girl and then completely changing and shutting herself off from the world. It is understandable when you see first hand what that machine put her, and every she loved, through. A distraught Sarah rides off into gloomy horizon. At the time the movie first came out no one knew it was the set up for one of the biggest and one of the best follow up stories... ever.
I hope you've all enjoyed my Terminator rundown. Today is my birthday and I have been receiving a lot of love all day long. So, I hope by sharing this with all of you I can send a bit of all this love back your way. Thank you very much for reading my madness. Be good.
-Didodi
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