TAKE ONE Presents... - Pod With Us If You Want To Live 1: THE TERMINATOR (1984)

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

TAKE ONE Presents... is back for a new series covering the Terminator franchise. In this first episode, Simon and Jim discuss James Cameron's THE TERMINATOR. We talk about how the film came about through Cameron's dogged and occasionally dickish persistence, "tech-noir" as a genre, the film's situatedness in the 1980s and how that lends the film an interesting sense of temporality, how this film is a great example of good pacing and immediacy, sexual politics and the representation of feminism through action heroines, and nuclear anxiety against AGI anxiety.Content warnings: murder and violent death; nuclear war and apocalyptic destruction; body horror and removal of skin and eye stuff; the Holocaust; abortion; pessimism about the future.Our theme song is Terminator Theme Song (32Stitches Remix) by 32Stitches available on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/32stitches/terminator-32stitches-remixFull references for this episode available in Zotero at https://www.zotero.org/groups/5642177/take_one/collections/KFB8CEB2/collection

Hello and welcome back to Take One Presents. We are starting a new series for a new year. So welcome to Pod with Us if you want to live. A podcast where we're watching all the Terminator franchise films in order, contextualizing them and critiquing them. I'm Simon Bowie and I'm joined as always on this series by my co-host Jim Ross. Hello Jim. Hello. Happy New Year. Yeah, happy new year. It's 2026 and we're going to spend what the first half of you. of this year. Is there six films? One, two, three, four. Yep. Dark Fees. We're going to spend the first half of this year talking about the Terminator franchise. What's your experience with the Terminator franchise? You seen them off? Yeah, very up and down. Very up and down. I think the first thing, like, when we start talking about the first one, I think, I saw both of the first two films when I was a kid.

and I actually saw Terminator 2 before the original Terminator and then after that I think I've pretty much seen them all in the cinema I don't think Terminator 3 maybe I'm not quite sure how I saw that one but after that like because they're all reasonably

kind of into my young adulthood and grown adulthood after that I saw them in the cinema but yeah the first two I saw on TV as a kid and we'll talk about that a bit more once we get into this one but yeah I saw the first two out of order

yeah I think I've only seen the first three so I've only seen up to Terminator three the latest ones I simply haven't seen partly because of the reviews partly because I just didn't feel any need to go to them

but I think we're looking at this franchise because like our previous franchises we've covered on this series it's an interesting up and down of the franchise, right? It starts very strong with the Cameron films and then it goes into something of a, well, we use the word identity crisis, goes into an identity crisis, I suppose, where it flails around for a bit

and gets into all kinds of different continuities and timelines and whatnot. Yeah, I think what's interesting about the identity crisis of this one, right? Because we've spoken about this one or one, and I think it was probably strongest with the alien series. You know, and it's obviously showed up to a lesser extent with the other series we've done on Mission Possible and the Jurassic Park films.

I think what's interesting with this one is that identity crisis is expressed in a completely different way because of all the time travel mummo, mummo, drum, more. Yeah, right? And we're only going to talk about the theatrical films here. but I think when we probably at the appropriate point in time talk about some of the other things

that have happened with this franchise you'll see it goes even beyond the films like there are many different strands and ways that they've tried to kind of keep growing this franchise some better than others many not very good

but that's what's quite interesting about this identity crisis in this franchise is expressed in a way that is very particular to this particular franchise. Yeah, I think, you know, we'll get into that when we get into some of the later ones and what gets declared as canon and whatnot. But for now, we're going to start with the original, The Terminator, 1984,

directed by our old friend James Camperman. So when did you see The Terminator for the first time? I'm not actually 100% sure. What I know is I definitely saw it. those two things. I definitely saw it way too young, right? I'll definitely tell that much, right? Because I, you know,

and we'll talk about Terminator 2 more on the next episode, obviously, but I saw that one first, and I saw that way too young on terrestrial TV in the UK, and it scared the shit out of me. I can see on the poster that I've got in front of me, it's rated R. So I don't know it's rated in the UK.

I don't know Let's just say I was no near the age to be watching an R-rated film It's currently rated 15 Yeah I don't know if that's different I definitely wasn't anywhere near that age either But so I'm pretty certain Now this tells you how long ago and how young I was

That I'm not terribly certain about this I'm pretty certain I saw Terminator 2 first However, I did see this one on TV and it scared the crap out of me I have an absolutely seared in memory of in particular

we'll talk about more when we get to it the skeleton kind of you know the metal endo skeleton chase at the end I was fucking terrified that kept me up

as a kid for like days afterwards so yeah it was a fair it made quite an impression It made quite an impression. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I distinctly remember when I was in college, 15 over 15, I went to the HMV in the spindles in Oldham,

where they used to have quite really good deals, and got a box set of Terminator and Terminator 2, purely because I hadn't seen them, and then I went home and watched Terminator on DVD. It didn't quite have the horrifying impression on me that had on you. Yeah, yeah. But it's a good film.

I remember enjoying it and enjoying Terminator 2 more. But we'll talk about that when we get to it. So it's interesting that you mention the robotic skeleton crawling at the end as the image that has said into your brain, because that is

the image that James Cameron started with when he when he originally came up with the premise. He was working on Piranha II this morning. Most of these details are from the futurist by Rebecca Keegan, the Life and Films of James Cameron, which I found a copy of, and I've read the chapter on the creation of the Terminator.

So I have lots of anecdotes about what a dick James Cameron is in fitting with previous form on this podcast. To be fair, he has. There's an ample source of those. Yeah. As discussed previously on take 1%. Yeah, I don't want to spend too much time on this, but on Piranha 2 this morning,

this was an Italian film. He went to the offices in Rome, and he got a screening of the film, and they'd cut it so that it was very exploitative, so it was very, you know, topless women bouncing on yachts and whatnot. So he broke into the editing room with a credit card one night

and just re-edict. the film himself one night from end to end, so it would be crap, but it would still be his crap. Anyway, he was working on Piranha II and he was in Italy, and he got ill, and he had this fever dream of a chrome torso emerging phoenix-like from an explosion and dragging itself across the floor with kitchen knives. So that was the image he had, and he immediately started turning that into a script, which eventually becomes the Terminator. So he wrote this script. His agent hated it.

He told Cameron it was a lousy idea, so Cameron immediately fired his agent and found someone who would share his passion for the project. And this person was Gail Ann Hurd, who was Roger Corman's former assistant. So she had a background in kind of sci-fi and schlocky horror films. And he sold the rights to her for a dollar on the condition that she would let him direct it.

She would produce it, but he would always be the director. He said he's never regretted that decision since he gave him a career, but it was incredibly costly financially. He's never made any money off the Terminator franchise because he sold the rights in toto. Yeah, so in terms of casting, there's an interesting story. He wanted Lance Hendrickson to play the Terminator. He had that in his mind from the start.

Lance Henriksen, of course, played Bishop in aliens. So in typical Cameron fashion, you remember the story about him walking into the executive office and just drawing a dollar sign at the end of Alien? In typical Cameron fashion, when he was pitching this, he had Henriksen turn up as the Terminator, like wearing like a ripped t-shirt and leather boots and stuff and kicking in the door while he was in the pitch meeting.

He went through various casting ideas for The Terminator himself. He didn't necessarily want a big burly man like Schwarzenegger because it was supposed to be like an infiltration unit, The Terminator. The studio suggested at one point O.J. Simpson And this biography that I read says in 1983, Camond didn't see O.J. as a believable killing machine. Oh God. I can say anything.

The joke's right in themselves there. So they didn't get OJ. Simpson. And as a courtesy to the studio, Cameron agreed to have a lunch meeting with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had just come off Conan the Barbarian and was making a name for himself. In Cameron fashion, his idea was that at lunch he would pick a fight

with Arnold Schwarzenegger, then head back to the studio and declare Arnold Schwarzenegger an asshole. But the meal didn't go as planned because Schwarzenegger was really entertaining and charming and excited about the script, so Cameron immediately forgot his hostile agenda. And, in fact, Schwarzenegger's people had sent him for the role of Kyle Reese, because he was making a name for himself as a hero. But Schwarzenegger kept talking about The Terminator. He was more interested in The Terminator. They also had a long casting process for Carl Rees. At one point they thought about Sting

to play the role. Ultimately, it goes to Michael Byne. What film roles as Sting even hard? I can't really think of him in anything apart from... David Lynch is June, yeah. I wouldn't think of him as an actor. Yeah, Cameron was very hands-on during the filming of the movie. He was holding the camera, editing the footage, mixing the sound. This is a kind of controlling way he makes it. he makes films and has persisted all the way to like the Avatar films.

And one other thing I'll mention about production is that Harlan Ellison went to see the film, walked out of the movie theatre and called his lawyer because he alleges that The Terminator was based on two episodes of the TV show Outer Limits that he had written. Soldier and Demon with a Glass Hand. Now Soldier is about two mysterious warriors from the future who materialise in the present and that's about

the extent of it like I haven't seen the episode so I can't really speak to it it doesn't particularly sound yeah I haven't either this does all sound a little bit duck tails was ripped off by inception to me

like okay sure but you know I haven't heard that yeah I'll look off the after Yeah, there's, like, there's, no, but I mean, actually, actually the most famous one of kind of like,

very clearly this mustn't be the case, but there's definitely utterance there is actually if you look at, so you know the black and white silent, and I use silent in quotation marks, silent film, The Artist, that won a bunch of Oscars about, oh yeah, it must be about 15 years ago or something. If you look at it, it's plot, even down to the little dog, is basically the same as Anchorman.

Seriously, go and look at, like, watch it, or I would suggest read about it because I don't like the artist, I think it's a terrible film. Rant for a different day, but yeah, but basically it's identical to Anchorman. You know, you see these echoes everywhere, and I think to swiftly veer back to the point of this podcast, I think that that's what you have here. There's echoes of things here, but, you know. Yeah. Time travelling what it is. is a common theme.

Certainly now, I can't speak to the 80s or whenever. No, but, you know, I mean, it's not, like, the Terminator didn't invent time travel plots. Well, exactly. You know. Cameron's not happy about this.

But rather than have a lawsuit, Orion, the production company, just gave Ellison an undisclosed sum and added a credit at the end of the film. So this was at the end of the film I watched it. He's got a credit for Harlan Ellison. And Cameron's very open about this. He says, it was a nonsense suit that could have easily been fought.

The insurance company told me if I didn't agree to the settlement, they would come after me personally for any damages if they lost the suit. And having no money, he had no choice but to agree to the settlement. Of course, there was a gag order as well, so I couldn't tell this story. But now I frankly don't care. It's the truth. Harlan Ellison is a parasite who can kiss my ass. And just one more Cameron's story, I think.

During the making of this film, Cameron and Heard, their relationship turned into a romantic one, and they eventually got married. The two adrenaline junkies would race each other to meetings. He and the Corvette he had bought with his Terminator fee, she and a Porsche. They talked on their car phones as they topped 120 miles per hour on LA freeways. I looked it up, the speed limit on LA freeways is about 65.

Maybe going up to 70 on some stretches. Their dates consisted of firing AK-47s and M16s at shooting ranges in the desert, riding horses together and scuba diving, once they crash-landed air balloon outside Palm Springs. Cameron's loving trusts, like his screen heroines, have tended to be highly capable women, and quite different from the arm-piece wives favoured by many powerful men in Hollywood. Sorry, you were describing the activities. It sounded like who we need to finish it off with. They watch sea beams glitter in the dark. It's an ice or gay. You know, it's just that sort of.

I just have that feeling to it. I don't know, man. He just sounds like a dick. Honestly, like, he's one of these guys where... He's made so many films. I have to respect the talent, but, like, I never want to be in a... I never want it. Like, it's the old thing, right?

you know, if there was... You know, if you were in a locked room for eternity with James Cameron, there was a gun with, like, you know, one bullet in it. Yeah, you know. Anyway. Yeah. I'm not watching this day, age.

I'm going to get picked up and hoisted off in an unmarked van for saying shit like this, but anyway. No, I hear you. Yeah. Not a fan. You sound like a dick. But the film eventually comes out in 1984, despite the lawsuits and whatnot. Comes out in 1984.

In 1984, the highest-grossing films of that year were number one, Beverly Hills Cop. Exactly. A franchise that is still going? Was there one recently? I think there was a Netflix one. Or was there a reboot? I don't know. I haven't seen any of them.

No, and to the keyboards, I think I need to detect it, because I'm pretty sure, because you're right, there was something in recently. Yeah. There was a sequel just last year. Ha. Okay. Pass by fairly unnoticed by me. So Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters at number two. Another start of a franchise that persists to this day.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Gremlins. I heard they're making a Gremlin's Free, so apparently that persists to this day. The Crattie Kid, Police Academy, Police Academy sadly dead. It would seem as a franchise. It had a pretty good run, police. It had a good run in terms of longevity.

Footloose, Romancing the Stone, Star Trek Free, The Search for Spock, and Splash at number 10. So there's a lot of franchise fare on that list. a lot for the time it wouldn't have been franchise stuff but now they have all started franchises a lot of them have started franchises I think what's also quite

interesting about actually just looking at that list is there are quite a lot of things there which either continue or got a pseudo reboot or something I think partially out of this weird 80s nostalgia that is like that took grip particularly in the 2010

right you know kind of like when we were kind of like peak stranger things type thing yeah yeah like bevery hills cop like i mean it went ages with it and then it's had that one last year ghostbusters frankly if you want a hot take right i'm not 100% of it's been the genuinely good ghostbusters film since ghostbusters right but it continues to kind of like you know limp on into the present day uh you know ditto indiana jones gremlins cratty kedley i mean it's still got series going on that you know what was like a cobra guy TV series

still coming out you know Footloose got a weird sort of reboot sometime around 2010 I think or a remake probably more traditional remake I think you know

so a lot of these things persist in that sort of in that sort of vein basically it's interesting look at it because you're right hardly like these are basically all original releases in that top 10

with the exception of Star Trek 3 and Temple Doom. Yeah. No, it's interesting. And I think I have stuff to say about kind of 80s nostalgia later on, but we can get onto that. But yeah, that's the context in which this comes out. So let's start running through the film and see where we get to. So the film opens in Los Angeles, 29.

Three years from now. The question is, which one would you rather inhabit? Yeah. Our reality or the nuclear post-apocalypse. I've watched the Running Man recently. And I think that's set in like 2017, the one with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It just, yeah, it seems wild. Wild to, yeah. And I think I had an idea for, a podcast that looks at films that were set in the future when they came out, but are now in the past. Yeah. One day. But yeah, this is saying in 2029, you know, we see a ruined landscape,

robots rolling over roads of human skulls, only ever skulls, no other burns. And a text tells us that machines rose up out of the ashes of nuclear fire and began a war against mankind. No, I like this. This is efficient storytelling. This gets straight to the point. Yeah. And throws us into it. We get the iconic, um, synth-heavy, bassy theme for Terminator in a very 80 style. This was composed on synth by Brad Fidel, and I didn't know it appeared in this film. I had in my head it only appears in Terminator 2, you know, from there. But it's here from the start. We then cut to LA 1984

where a driver of a rubbish truck sees some lightning and then suddenly a naked beefy man is appearing right in the road this is former Republican governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger and for any of our American

viewers rubbish truck meaning garbage truck rather than a truck that is rubbish yeah it probably is quite a rubbish truck as well but yeah So Arnold gets up and heads towards a bunch of punks, including Bill Pullman, who will later work with James Cameron in Aliens and Titanic. They're playing with a telescope, they make fun of Arnie, and Arnie demands their clothes. Arnie beats them up and takes their clothes.

In another alleyway, we have an unhoused person who sees more lightning and he sees a naked man fall from the sky. This one's suffering a lot more than Arnie, and he's Michael Bain. he's confronted by the police and he runs away I looked down for a moment to my notes and when he looked up he had trousers on so at some point he steals some trousers he seems he gets him off the unhoused guy doesn't yeah probably yeah

I love this intro right because at the most at this stage kind of like you're still feeling your way into it but that contrast between the introductions is just it's great storytelling in my view it really is yeah it's part of certainly over the introduction

the film is really trying to parallel Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Bain by showing them performing the same actions they appear in this flash of lightning they both acquire clothes they both hotwire cars it's really paralleling these two soldiers displaced in time they're both soldiers they're both travelling

with the intent of using Sarah Connor for their war in different different ways. And it works really well. You also don't know. As a contemporary viewer, you know who these characters are, but at the time you wouldn't have known like who is the threat and who is not. They would just appear as, you know, parallel beefy men heading towards this woman. Yeah, so speaking of which, Michael Bain heads for a phone book and he rips out a page containing multiple Sarah Connors. Then we get cut to Linda Hamilton. playing Sarah Connor.

She is heading into Big Jeffs, which is a fast food restaurant where she works. She's shown as not being very good at being a waitress. Her colleague says, In 100 years, who's going to care? Kind of foreshadowing the... Yeah. I mean, she's shown as not being very good at waitress.

What I will also say is 1980s diner clientele in LA is also shown to be just a bunch of assholes. Like they're all... horrendous. The thing that that prompts kind of like her colleague to say is that like, oh no

you know, nobody will remember this in a hundred years is like a kid just takes some ice cream a whole thing of ice cream and just dumped it in her apron. Like what is this? It's a waste of ice cream. It's an asshole move and the parents don't chastise the day. Like what is this place?

This is like, you know, this is absurd. You're not getting another scoop of ice cream now. Like if you drop your ice cream, maybe. If you drop it in someone's pocket, no. Gross. Yeah. So no, she's not very good, but frankly,

she's not got much incentive to be good. Yeah, so Arnie is wandering around. He hot-wire's a car. He looks great in the former punk's clothes, despite being an entirely different build. He goes to 1980s icon, Dick Miller, in the gun store, and buys a concerning amount of guns.

he asked for a pulse rifle and Dick Miller says we don't have that Dunbat an eye Dick Miller tells him that he can't load the gun in the shop and then he just says wrong and shoots him it's terrific yeah it's also it's the first example

and I think you know sorry I also I also rewatched well in my case rewatch the the 1987 running man recently those of anybody listening who's wondering

why if you both watched The Running Man recently at the time we're recording this the Edgar Wright Re-adaptation has recently come out right so I thought I'd catch up with the 87 version and I think the 87 version is the perfect example of and there's plenty of things I like about that film

but it is the perfect example of kind of like the almost self-parody that I think Schwarzenegger reached in terms of kind of quips and one-liners I think probably eventually peaked and burnt out, maybe I would argue, with Batman Robin in 1997, right? Where basically the entire performance was that, really.

Yeah. You see the hints of why it started here, right? Because there is that sort of deadpan delivery, which really kind of like cuts through tension here quite well. This is the first example of it. There's a couple of other examples of it, some of the iconic lines, but I think it does also,

grow from here, right? And I think this is one of the first instances you see of it. It's true. I have the same note that you can see the seeds of it. So by the time of the running man, he's saying like, you know, he talks about a character called subs. There we go. Yeah, we had the same one in mind. You see the seeds of it here, like you say. But it is nice to see him perform so well without those kinds of one-line as a non-sense. Equitas that he would become known for in the 80s and 90s. Here it's a lot more stripped back and it comes across as threatening and robotic.

And it's interesting that people keep doing that despite the fact he's not playing a robot in these other roles. Like he's not a robot in the running man. He's just a human joking about the deaths of other humans. Foreshadowing. He's not even really playing a robot in some of the later Terminator films. I'm sure. I'm sure.

Yeah. So he's great in this because of his stoicism, his lack of expression, and he's frankly unnatural body. Like he's got this big triangle body that is an ideal of masculinity, an ideal of, you know,

bodybuilding that is unattainable and unnatural for most people. And so it works for making him an alien presence, a robotic, of a world. figure. Yeah, it's interesting, and I think the key thing here is the film knows it, right? And I don't think it's better expressed than that shot of, you know, absolutely Starker's naked Arnold Schwarzenegger looking out across the

L.E. skyline, right? And that's, I think, when you get kind of like the clearest example of his body is a form and it is unnatural like it looks like somebody has tried to stuff too much hardware into a skin suit. That's what it looks like, you know? Yeah, but Arnie wanders about he goes to a phone book like Michael

Bain and looks up Sarah Conners he drives somewhere in suburban L.A., breaks open a door and shoots a Sarah Connor in a head in the head. I do think this film must be extremely confusing at this point for anybody from Gen Z or Gen Alpha. Like,

What is this thing sitting in every public place that allows you to just docks anyone you want? It's actually quite bizarre when you take a step back and think about it. This seems like the most natural thing in the world when I viewed it at the time. Looking at it now, it must be deeply, deeply strange. Yeah, no, it's a different world. We get a flashback of Michael Bain at some point running from a number of robot drones and tanks shooting lasers. and this is just to mention that

I think the future sequences look great like they're kind of blue tinged to distinguish from the present sequences but in terms of like practical effects and stunts it feels real like it's all you know actual explosions and actual sets I think it looks fantastic

yeah it has a tangibility to it I think is I think it's lost in a lot in a lot of kind of like modern films but also frankly this film's own sequels really you know and I think a lot of that is based in you know I've seen some breakdowns of kind of like miniature's work

that's been done and you know stuff like that and I think a lot of it's based on that is something that's there's less of it now yes Stan Winston did a lot of the effects on this film as well particularly the effects which will get to around the skeleton and on his face

with kind of robotic features We come to a police station with Lance Henriksen and Paul Winfield and Henriksen is concerned about all these Sarah Connors who are turning up dead But Sarah and her friend are getting ready to go out In the most 1980s fashion possible Like they have huge blowout hair They've got 80s pop in their Walkmans Which are always carrying around

Even in a couple of scenes from now When they're having sex The Walkman's still on The Walkman stay on during sex and I think there is something fun about you know for a film about time travel

it's kind of fun how dated this is because I think it does situate itself in the 80s like every scene places it in the 1980s from the fashions to the hairstyles to the music to how it's shot it looks 80s and I think it's nice that it has that

kind of temporality for a film about time travel you want to feel like it is grounded in moving from one time, the future, 20229, to the past, in this case the 80s, which is now our past, what was the present when the film came out. It's nice. Instead of feeling dated, it feels, I don't know.

Of a time and place. Of a time and place, yeah. So the nostalgia factor of this being embedded in the 80s and coming from 1984 when all these franchise films are getting started, It feels significant. Like, it does feel 80s. And I feel like the franchise will go on to be more influenced, perhaps, by Terminator 2, and some of the choices that that makes.

But it's interesting that there is such a, such a time and place in this film. And you feel it so viscerally in every scene. Yeah, so the police call Sarah's apartment. Sarah's gone out. They call Sarah's apartment, but they can't get through to her friend. because they're having sex while listening to the Walkman. And I have something about this. This is from Film Quarterly.

This is an article by Canron Man called Narrative Entanglements, The Terminator, where she says, at a deeper level, the film presents the implications of technologised sexual relations. And no better symbol for this exists than the killing of Ginger after she makes love while wearing a Walkman to a young man who whispers obscenities over the telephone, who also bears an area if diminished resemblance in physique to the Terminator. So yeah, there's something about technologized sexual relations here

and the kind of purity of sexual relations that is represented by Michael Bain and Linda Hamilton later. Like the mediation of technology here leads to their killing in a kind of puritanical slasher way, which I guess we'll talk about when we talk about, about genre. Sarah sees the news about the Sarah Connor murders and she panics. She realizes that she's been followed by Michael Bain and she ducks into a bar which is literally called tech noir and it has the words tech noir in big light up letters. So this seems as a good as point as any to talk about tech noir. Yeah. A lot of reviews of the time identified this film

as tech noir, a blending of technology with film noir. Richard Corliss in Time magazine said that the film had plenty of techno savvy to keep infidels and action fans satisfied. And there's lots of quotes like this. I picked this one out because the use of the word infidels is really weird. Yeah. Quite frankly. But yeah, this kind of establishes tech noir as a genre.

And I'm kind of saying with inverted quotes. So from the Rebecca Keegan book, The Future, James Cameron's biography, like the film noir crime fillers of the 40s and 50s, the Terminator told a fatalistic tale in a shadowy urban setting. But instead of showing audiences the dark side of humanity, it revealed to them the dark side of technology. There's a book by Paul Mehan about tech noir,

and there was a book by Emily E. Auger called Tech Noir film. And in a review of that book, the Auger book, Pavel Freelich says that the term TEC noir has been used to describe a loose aesthetic at the intersection of cyberpunk-styled near-future sci-fi and film noir visualities and he points to Auger pointing to Westworld

the boys from Brazil, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Robocop until the end of the world, Strange Days, the Matrix and Code 46, among others. Now I agree with some other authors. Paul Friedman and Pavel Freelphrelich among them that tech noir isn't a real film genre. Like, frankly, I don't see what makes this noir, per se.

I mean, there's some bits of it where I can see it. I mean, I think not to... I'm not going to linger on it too much, right, because a lot of people have written about kind of like film genre and genre theory more than, you know, they've written more than I will... Oh, yeah, yeah. read let alone understand, right? Yeah, I mean, in terms of kind of wider discussion of genre fairy, I'll put out my opinion that genre is a marketing term more than anything else.

Genre is only useful for marketing and executives and dividing art up into little categories that's sort of that they're easier to market. Or at least I think it was. I mean, I think like now it's such a well-established concept that it's kind of, you know, it kind of eats itself, right? people will inform how they approach the creation of something based upon maybe a genre they have in their head. What I will say on this one, right, and the tech noir thing in particular, is if you think about what film noir is, right, and all the various films that fit into film noir, right, I think you can probably have the discussion that I'm not even sure

film noir is a genre, right? I don't think it's necessarily a genre, let alone having its own sub-genres, right? And I think it you know, and it's not a criticism because I think tech noir in particular, right, to return to your point so this is a marketing term,

right? Because I think the best science fiction, and I say this is a massive science fiction fan, the best science fiction always has and always will intersect with other so-called

genres, right? Science fiction at its best has usually functioned as an amplifier or an augmentation of other things that you would examine in a piece of art,

when it is just about the technology in and of itself, and it's not trying to say anything about it that intersects with something, other aspect of the human experience, that's when you end up with stuff that can be a little empty, right? And I think when you look at where this film intersects with other things

that you would classify as a genre, that's where this tech noir idea comes from, right? But I don't think that's unique. I don't think it's even unique at this point in film history. I mean, if you look at other, if you look at other older sci-fis, namely what we've even covered on this particular podcast, it's alien, right? Science fiction is always intersected with other genres

in a way that amplifies things, right? And I think, so Technoart, it does feel a bit like a marketing term to me, in particular, this one. You know, it's a way of making, in particular, I think the thing that's probably has the, what makes this term so alluring is the kind of oxymoron at the heart of it, right?

Where you're talking about this style of film, which is thought of as quite, you know, antiquated is not the right word, but old school, right? You know, you say noir, and you're thinking of things in black and white that came out. Like, that's what people hove in their head, and then the tech part of it, science fiction, modern, you know, machine, you know,

and it's meant to kind of indicate it as something new. I think maybe visually, and in terms of the trappings, it is new, and that's why this film has had such an enduring appeal since it came out, the concept of mashing these things up with other aspects of art to look at something in an amplified and augmented way was not unique now, it was not unique at the time, and it was not unique before not. yeah yeah and you know in terms of rebecca kegan's definition saying that film noir looked at the dark side of humanity and tech noir looks at the dark side of technology like that's just science fiction science fiction looks at the dark side of technology like you can go back to the start of science fiction like mary shelley's frankenstein looks at the dark side of technology that's not new or unique to tech noir

um i don't think there's anything unique in these films that have been called tech noir that distinguishes them as a subgenre from science fiction yeah like filming in the dark doesn't make something noir there's something more you know if it did then alien versus prentice or requiem might be tec noir well exactly uh yeah you talk about alien like bringing in other genre conceits um like alien is a haunted house film yeah it's set in space it's It's science fiction, but it has trappings of horror and whatnot. And, yeah, science fiction bringing those elements in does not make it a new genre. Just because it has a damsel in distress.

And, you know, there's men out to protect her. Doesn't make this noir, in my opinion. But James Cameron thinks it does because he's put Sarah Connor in this bar called Tech Noir. And despite being in this incredibly noisy club, she attempts to use the telephone, which is right next to the dance floor yeah Sarah also calls Lieutenant Traxler at the police station

who tells her to stay visible and stay around people but Arnie's already found her and this is a great scene there's lots of slow-mo and kind of slow-building tension until it all suddenly erupts and Bain shoots Arnie

and a firefight breaks out Bain finds Sarah and tells her come with me if you want to live and then they flee. So I think it's important to know that the pace of the film up to this point is fantastic.

Like it's very pacey. It just cracks on. It cracks on with a great pace. And in my opinion, later in his career, Cameron will lose the ability to start a film with this pace and immediately.

Yeah, it's so unbogged down. Yeah. Like the way the film kind of like progresses through story really mirrors the sort of relentlessness of, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator in a very

satisfying way, right? The idea that this film is made by the same guy or actually more than actually, is written by the same guy, let's see, as you know, the one who was behind Titanic

Avatar, Avatar, the way of water, and some of that stuff is kind of remarkable, actually, is kind of remarkable actually. There is an economy here of narrative that is really missing from

maybe any other James Cameron film after this point. I'm going to need to re-watch it. I haven't watched Terminator 2 in a long time of the time of recording. I've not re-watched it for this series, right? So I'll need to see what I make of it when I re-watch that. But certainly beyond that point, I think is missing from every James Cameron film after this point, frankly.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I I think I'm on record on this podcast as saying James Cameron is not a good director. He was, he was a great director, but he's not anymore. He's lost the juice. And yeah, he simply can't keep up this pace as well as this film does.

And yeah, there is a kind of mad Max Fiori Road quality to how simple this film is. Like, wherever Sarah and... Wherever Sarah Connor and Carl Rees go, the Terminator will follow them. Like, that is the premise. He's just relentless and the fight will be relentless until they stop him. That's all there is to it.

And I think it works really well to have this high concept premise, but the actual narrative of the film is really simple. He is out to get them. He is the Terminator. He's going to terminate. That's the entire film. It's simple. And we're about to get a lot of exposition from Michael Bain,

but that exposition is delivered in like 10 sequences, like car chases and hiding from the Terminator. So it doesn't break you out of it. And unlike Titanic, we don't spend an hour at the start of the film explaining how the ship will break apart and blah, blah, blah. So during this chase, we get our first shot from the Terminator's perspective. His vision is all read and overlaid with calculations and computer code.

So for an audience at the time, I guess they're starting to put together that Arnie is a robot. Arnie is, you know, the bad guy. So Michael Bain identifies himself as Kyle Rees and that he's been assigned to protect Sarah Connor. He identifies Arnie as a Terminator, which is a cyborg produced by Cyberdine Systems. They're cyborgs that look entirely human.

Reese doesn't know if he can stop the Terminator with the weapons available to him in the 80s. But there was a nuclear war that was triggered by defense network computers that became intelligent and they decided to exterminate all humans. Reese was kept in a camp and barcoded He has a barcode on his arm In a kind of grim and icky reference to the Holocaust

But there's one man who brought humanity back from the brink John Connor Sarah's as yet unborn son You know this exposition's not bad It sets things up nicely It doesn't go on too long It kind of establishes the premise quite simply Yeah I think

I think part of the reason this works Right is Michael Bynne to be honest. Right. His delivery, a lot of this stuff is really good. And I think that it's kind of really... I found interesting re-watching this is, right? You know, Terminator gets referenced a lot,

particularly in this day and age. Yeah, I was just going to say that. Around AI, right? And kind of like paranoia around that. But it is kind of remarkable how much of it is... Particularly in this segment, I think this is where it comes to the fore. Like, how much of it is actually...

again, to go back to your reference about how this is very much based in time and place in the 80s, is kind of like the nuclear anxiety aspect of it, right? Yeah, and there's one line that jumps out to me, and it's when, you know, it's when he's delivering this exposition, right?

And I think it's when they're hiding in a car in a parking garage on my point, and he says there was a nuclear war, a few years from now, all this, this whole place, everything, it's gone, just gone, right? and it's important that we're in the context of downtown Los Angeles at this point, right? And it's kind of like trying to, it's just this very simple line that gets across kind of like the destructive power of nuclear warfare.

And I think it's interesting that if when you watch this film and think about it came out in 1984 and the setup, right? And I think actually maybe it gets built on the sequel. but we'll talk about that when we come to it but just in that one line a lot more of this is based in paranoia about nuclear nuclear warfare than anything to really

do with AI and machines that's really just kind of a backdrop right but I would say that it's kind of like it's lingered on certainly as much as that right but that's not something that's kind of persisted into the modern day

quite as much I don't think which is interesting. No, I think that's a great point. Like this is, as expressed in the film, in the text, this is nuclear anxiety with a tinge of science fiction, a tinge of AI. And a lot of kind of contemporary concern about AI comes from this film. Like it's lifted from this kind of genealogy

where, you know, figures like Elon Musk are saying we can't make a super intelligence because it all immediately white. out humanity and blah, blah, blah. And you're right, that has become separated from the nuclear concern that is principally visible in this film. And it's just become like, oh yeah, as soon as you make an artificial general intelligence, it'll wipe out humanity. Well, no, like, why?

Let's say we are able to make an artificial machine intelligence. There's nothing to say it would immediately wipe out humanity. that's nonsense from this film. But also you've decoupled it, like you say, from the nuclear threat. Like, if you're concerned about that, why aren't we looking at, you know, getting rid of nuclear weapons? Why aren't we look at unilaterally getting rid of nuclear weapons, which we should be doing anyway because of human threats, not AI threats? But you've decoupled it.

So it's conveniently become decoupled from the military industrial complex. And now it's just this free-floating signifier. of AI as a threat. And I do find it interesting that that's kind of like the takeaway that's persistent to you, because to stick with kind of like Michael Bind's delivery of some of this exposition

and how powerful it is, right? There's two lines in particular of his which stuck out to me. For two reasons. One, I think they're delivered fantastically and they really put the like absolute fear of God into you. But also for what they're kind of referring to and thinking about what the underlying

theme of this film is, right? So I mean, the first one is, and I think it's in the same scene, right? And it's quite a famous one. It's like, you know, that terminator is out there. 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, right?

Very memorable line, right? But I think what I find interesting about that is you could apply that to a nuclear bomb. Yeah, that's the atom bomb. Yeah, right. So we've attached this fear and kind of the persisting thing, and even as this series goes on, to the idea of machine intelligence, artificial intelligence, and, you know, unintended consequences of this sort of thing. But really, I don't think this film, right, the Terminator 1984, I don't think it separates them out in the way that this franchise goes on to, nor we as a society have done. since, right? You know, and the other part of it later, and we haven't got to that bit yet, but, like, you know, he'll find her, that's

what he does, that's all he does, you can't stop him, he'll wade through you, reach down her throat and pull her fucking heart out. Again, if you want to be particularly emotive about it, you could describe a nuclear bomb that way, right? You know, it will not stop. There's nothing you can really do to protect

yourself from it. And that this idea of kind of like, you know, the term is like this sort of like personified avatar of unstoppable, technologically induced

death, right? That has been lost, right? We've kind of like gone on to this kind of AI, you know, and then kind of like, oh, what if the AI thinks we're through it? It's like, well, no, what about the scenario where technology, meaning nuclear technology in this sense,

doesn't care either. Yeah, you know? Like, and it by definition cannot have these things. So I find that interesting, right, just because that line about the nuclear one, they come in such close

succession as part of that exposition. I'm like, yeah, okay, that's interesting, and it also dates the film, as in kind of like stamps it of a time and place in that same way that you were talking about with some of the production design elements, but thematically, I think it was that same stamp as well.

It certainly puts it in the kind of realm of the Cold War, of, you know, fear about the Soviets launching nukes one day and just destroying America, destroying the world. In a way that other, these later films in the series will go away from, I mean, the next film comes out in 1991, you know, seven years from this one. And I don't know to what extent that is influenced by the book. breakup of the USSR of the Soviet Union around that period. We'll get into it and we get to it.

But certainly this one is based in Cold War Pioneer, you know, with future machines as a kind of proxy for the USSR for the Soviet Union. But yeah, so we go from that exposition to Arnie and Reese shooting shotguns at one another from moving cars. Some more great practical stunts in this car chase, and ultimately the police catch up to them and taking. Sarah and Reese and the Terminator is gone. At the station, there is a board therapist, Dr. Silberman, a psychologist, who arrives to determine if Carl Rees is crazy.

Silberman refers to the Terminator's mission as a retrospective abortion, which is interesting concerning some of the reproductive stuff that gets raised later on in the film. And Reese fills us in a little on how humanity breached the machine's defenses. they had won and kind of using the time displacement device for the last ditch attempt for the machines and for humanity who had to follow the terminator through the device. But Silverman is dismissive of this. For some reason he thinks Reese will make his career.

Like he can write up an article on this one madman and make his career. Then I got an ad because despite paying for a streaming service that didn't used to have ads, they've just decided to add ads and we all have to go on paying the same amount for a worse product. Arnie is still alive and he takes some time to poke around in his arm and to fix himself up we see some hydraulics under the skin of his under the surface of his skin he also pokes around in his eye which is pretty icky and we see his cybernetic eye in the mirror in a quite frankly shoddy rubber Arnie puppet like it's not the best effect in the film but he puts on his iconic sunglasses to hide that

so I found some articles talking about this as a horror film, you know, talking about genre, talking about this as a horror film because of scenes like this, where the Terminator is poking around in himself, like a Frankenstein-like figure, like a mechanical monster. So there's this article cut by A.W. McGowan in response, the Journal of Popular in American Culture, called the Mechanical Monster, the Cyber Slasher, where he talks about this as a horror film. A female protagonist, defeating a monstrous male figure, does not necessarily fit the generic American action films mould, yet sells rather nicely within horror films iconography. Although rarely, if ever considered within the genre,

the Terminator may very well exemplify a horror movie just as much as it exemplifies an action or science fiction movie. He talks about the horror of the Terminator as a figure, and how, in terms of structure, this is essentially a slasher, similar to Halloween. You know, there is this relentless force chasing Sarah Connor, chasing the character. this vulnerable young woman, this final girl. I think there's also links there with the kind of puritanism of the kind of technologized sexual relations that I mentioned earlier from the Karen Mann article

linking to the kind of puritanicalness of the slasher in the film kills the teenage girls who have sex kind of thing. Yeah, which on that, on that point, it was actually, it was only when I was re-watching this again and kind of like, you know, kind of like the relentlessness of the Terminator here. it's, you know, in the like this sense that it's always moving towards you, right? And you can't read.

I actually kind of remind me quite strongly. You know, and this is not necessarily a particularly original take, right? Because obviously this film about to mention draws from many, many different sorts before. But actually the David Robert Mitchell film, it follows. Oh, yeah. Yeah, actually, you know, and they kind of like, I think what's interesting is, particularly if you look at Terminator 2, right? and we'll talk about that more, obviously, at the time,

but particularly the shape-shifting nature of the Terminator than that one. It's remarkable how close the vibe of this film and its sequel are to that film, right? And when you layer in the puritanical sort of element there as well that you've just spoken about, it's actually kind of remarkable. But I think the fact that that film is very clearly, you know, 30 years later, is very clearly a horror film, right? So I think it really does get across how much this operates in a horror mode

when a lot of the films that you can think of that evoke the same emotional response you would definitely classify as a horror film. And to return to the genre discussion earlier, right? If genre is anything that's non-marketing, you could probably place it in films that evoke a similar emotional response, let's say, right?

You know, one of, and frankly, this one evokes a similar emotional response to that of horror films, right? And I think that's why that comparison that comparison holds water all these decades later, basically. Yeah. So the police dismiss Sarah and Reese. They tell her

that the Terminator was probably just some dude wearing body armor and on PCP. PCP strikes me of the very 80s kind of drug to mention at this point. Yeah, I think that slipped past me that would be, yeah, absolutely.

He's just on PCP, that's why he can take so many bullets. But Arnie arrives and asks to see Sarah, he's dismissed, he takes a moment to assess the station front desk, and he says,

I'll be back. Arnie struggled with his accent to say, I'll be back, really wanted to change it to I will be back, but Cameron was in insistent, no, like, the line is I'll be back, you need to say I'll be back,

no matter how weird it may sound coming out of your mouth. And obviously that becomes one of the iconic lines of the franchise. An iconic lines for Arnie. The amount he struggled with it actually probably adds to it, as with so many things here, it sounds sort of like weird and realistic.

It sounds, yeah, over-pronounced and, yeah, really considered. And becomes Army a catchphrase for Arnie as well. I'm sure he says it in the running man. He does. And he does come back because he smashes his car into the station and through the front desk. He completely assaults the police station shooting Lance Henrickson and Lieutenant Traxler.

It's really another cracking scene. But Reese and Sarah flee. They take shelter in an underpass and they cuddle up and Reese tells her about his son. There's that scene where the woman fixes up the big burly man and winces. Well, you know, she fix him up. Sarah struggles to accept that she's the woman of the future, who will provide courage and leadership to raise a leader of humanity. But Reese has another flashback.

He's walking through a bunker in this kind of grim human future, and he looks a photograph of Sarah Connor before the bunker's invaded by another model of Terminator. There is a fun shot in here where a kid is watching TV in the future and the reverse shot of the kid reveals that it's just a fun. fire in a TV set. I enjoyed that. That made me laugh. Arnie is back at his apartment. It's actually the bad Arnie puppet again. Someone knocks at his door and he selects from a drop-down dialogue menu. Fuck you, asshole.

Has how to respond. Reese and Sarah checking at a motel, Sarah calls her mum and reveals her location, but her mum's already dead and she's actually talking to the Terminator. Rees teaches her how to make bombs and they connect emotionally and they have sex. The next morning, Risa has a dog. Risa explained that dogs can detect terminators and Arnie arrives and he shoots up the motel room and they flee in a truck. Arnie's on a motorbike. Annie flips their car but he gets run over by a tanker truck. His face is all messed up. But this is makeup and frosthetics I believe over Arnie's actual head so it looks better than the puppet from earlier. Rees blows up the tanker

truck with a homemade bomb from earlier. The Terminator lurches from the truck and his skin is melting off. But it's continuing to move because it's now a robotic skeleton. It's just like this silvery chrome skeleton and it pursues Reese and Sarah into some kind of factory.

I think, just to linger on that, the appearance here, right? I think this is a fantastic kind of like little accumulation of little details that I think culminates here. Something that I didn't remember from the film, at all, really, is the way that Schwarzenegger's appearance changes as the film goes on, right?

Yeah. And obviously, it culminates in this, you know, chrome skeleton, basically. But it even happens quite early on. Like, one thing that I think was kind of lost on me was when they're first fleeing, and I think Kyle Reese kind of, like, sets off an explosion that the Terminator must kind of duck through. At that point, his hair, like, is kind of, like, sinning. and a bit ruffled and he doesn't have any eyebrows. Loses his eyebrows fairly early on, yeah.

Yeah, which is something that I hadn't really kind of like, you know, I didn't, I didn't remember, but it's just like this kind of, it really adds to the sense of relentlessness of the Terminator. It's like, you know, he gets singed and loses his eyebrows, but he's still going. Then he gets his, like, you know, skin ripped off and part of his arm, lose that way, and he's still going. And it's like, you know, it's just, it really wraps up, and particularly at this. bit, and this is why I mentioned at the open why it made such impression on me, it's like, surely,

oh my God, it's still going, you know, it's, it really, but the thing is, I think, I'd kind of forgotten the way, the way it's sowing the seeds of that early on in very small, small bits, right, to just kind of like let your kind of like horror and

disbelief at this grow gradually throughout the film, right? Yeah, and it's interesting does that by playing with Schwarzenegger's physical appearance. Yeah. Like carving away bits of Schwarzenegger's face and ultimately body. In a way, I don't know if we'll get in later films. I wonder how willing, you know, Schwarzenegger and his people

become to strip away the face that is on Schwarzenegger as an actor in later films. Because here he becomes the Terminator kind of fully by the end by stripping away the Schwarzenegger of it and he's just this hulking robot skeleton. Yeah, there's some symbolism as Reese turns on a bunch of robots in the factory to hide their escape from the Terminator. You know, he's allying with the robots to escape the robot.

But he places another bomb right in the Terminator's ribs, which blows it to pieces. But it doesn't, because half of it is still alive. There's still this torso with an arm and a head crawling after Sarah,

crawling beneath a hydraulic press. which he ultimately activates saying you're terminated fucker the telemetter terminator gets crushed to death and the red light goes out in its eyes there's some discussion in the kind of literature around sarah Connor as a heroine as an action heroine and particularly Cameron's use of action heroines because obviously he'll get into Ripley as this kind of heroin figure in aliens but yeah Lillian necker co in a Sini Action article writes that this is a film in which women are allowed power and control and above all are not subordinated by the male not sexually objectified and allowed to transcend gender role expectations

Now Margaret Gossilo in a film criticism article disagrees with that and says that the film is less radical than Nakakov suggests because there are actually multiple qualifications of the woman's role and it's kind of an androcentric film in many ways. I kind of agree with that because ultimately, by the end of the film, Sarah Connor does achieve a degree of kind of badassness,

for lack of a better term, but she is also reduced to the role of a mother. Like, in terms of the structure of the film, both characters are after Sarah Connor because she will mother this man. she is reduced to the role of this mother and I don't know that it's fair to say she's not sexually objectified

when a key scene is her and Reese having sex to produce another man to reproduce I think there is some reduction of the woman to reproduction that is unfortunate and the only other woman in the film has a sex scene and is killed shortly thereafter

I think it's also in like this final The final chase sequence actually is a good place to To bring this up right Because part of like so much is made of kind of you know The legend Sarah Connor who taught her son how to fight Like that's a line there right Well not not here earlier in the film But much of the sort of like the confusion that is experienced by

Sarah Connor is that she doesn't see herself as that figure, right? Yes. In particular in the introductory scenes of her and kind of like how sort of hapless is the wrong word, but sort of like how overwhelmed she is by the situation,

kind of like, it's also the audience's confusion too. And I think there's a little moment in that chase sequence where like Kyle Reese is injured and he's hobbling along and she's trying to get him to move and she kind of, she switches, right? It's like she has this, moment where she realizes how she needs to act and she starts

acting in that moment like a stereotypical militaristic man you know on your feet soldier. Yeah she does this kind of drill sergeant thing to yeah right so to push this soldier back to to combat yeah so I agree with I agree with Margaret Gassillo's

sort of analysis here to an extent because I think even the way that that kind of like that character's growth is embodied is in she takes on what are considered to be, and we can argue the toss about whether they should be, but what are considered more masculine behaviours. Yeah, traditionally masculine soldier-like behaviours. Yeah, exactly. And I think what's interesting about this is in terms of kind of like the approach that James Cameron wants to take here, I think, I think some of it, he corrects some of that, I think, a little bit in how then Ripple is approached in aliens, right?

And it's very important to remember how close together in film history these two films actually are. Right, yeah. Completely. And so in that sense, in terms of kind of like, you know, using feminine motive or traditionally feminine motivations

to undertake action heroics, aliens does that a lot better. Here, I think it leans on taking on gender status. You know, I'm really, a lot into this one little moment, but the reason I'm reading so much into this one little moment is

frankly, that's the only way it really communicates it, right? And I'll be interested to see what I make of what the sequel does in this respect, right? I think that will be an interesting thing to look at, but within this film, I don't think it's the you know, and I say this is a mild

criticism, right? I think this is a superb film. No film is perfect. That's a very clear belief I have, but that's one aspect of it where I think the mythology behind this film has overtaken what is actually in the text of it a little bit.

Yes. You know, so when you look at the way it ends up expressing these ideas, however fleeting they may be. I mean, we can give the final word on this to Cameron himself. So Rebecca Keegan in this biography I read of him

says that Cameron wasn't making a feminist statement by giving a woman the juiciest role in his film, nor was he making a religious one. He was just trying to stand out from the crowd. In writing I like to be fresh and at the time of Terminator, that kind of female character hadn't really been done, Cameron says. So that indicates a kind of marketing thought, a kind of branding thought behind making a woman the main character. That isn't a feminist statement, like Keegan says. So ultimately this goes back to Margaret Garcillo's point, that Cameron and Herod have a kind of pseudo-progressivism of showing people things they've never seen before rather than trying to make some kind of feminist statement. You know, the innovations of this film, Hergesillo says, are safely assimilated into patriarchal ideology and its attendant narrative formula, which I think we just discussed in that last bit. So, yeah, I mean, as badass as Sarah becomes and will become in the next film, well, perhaps we'll talk about this a bit more. Certainly in this film, I think this still fits into a kind of patriarchal formula, you know, using Gassilla's words.

But she does cross the Terminator, and Reese is put into a body bag, and we cut to Sarah traveling through Mexico while recording a message for her unborn son. She's visibly pregnant. And she struggles with the decision to tell her son that Kyle Reese is his father. So she struggles a bit with the kind of bootstrap paradox of all this. and I remember during my undergraduate degree in philosophy, we talked about this film in relations as the kind of metaphysics of time travel because it's got a kind of deterministic view of time travel

where if you go back in time, everything that you do will necessarily lead to what has already been. You can't change the past, this film says. And because Kyle Reese went back because he was told to by John. Connor and that he goes back to become the father of John Connor, there's this kind of bootstrap paradox.

This is traditionally expressed in kind of philosophy with like, if you went back in time with the complete works of Beethoven and showed those works to Beethoven and then he wrote those works based on that, who has written the work, you know? And there's a similar thing here. And I think this view of time travel gets changed in the later films, you know, certainly in the next film, if I recall correctly, they are trying to forestall judgment day in a way that wouldn't be possible based on the time travel we see in this film. But we'll talk about that at the time, I suppose. But yeah, speaking of this, a Mexican boy takes the photo of Sarah

that Reese had in the future. A man tells Sarah that a storm is coming and she ominously says, I know. And then she drives off into a map painting. And then I, on the one I watch, there is an acknowledgement to the works of Halen Ellison. That wasn't there in earlier. Yeah, without Cameron's add-ons to that. Yeah, so that is The Terminator. And you know what? It's a good film. Yeah.

It's a good film. I think this is the first time I'd watched it. When I re-watched it for this, I think this is probably the first time I've actually watched this film in full in about... I want to say it must be about 20 years or so probably. Yeah, I'm not sure... Maybe I would go as far as 20, but certainly it's similar to that for me. Yeah, like I've definitely seen it on DVD at some point, but that's the thing.

I very clearly remember it was DVD. It wasn't even kind of like, you know, Blu-ray or something like that. And I think it really is easy to forget, particularly with how convoluted this franchise has become, right? It's very easy to get how lean and

economical this film actually is. It's very effective, right? It's relentless, it moves quick, it gets in, it gets going critically, delivers a bunch more exposition in sort of like an engaging, but

kind of sparse way. Yeah. And then it like, through to the finish, right? There's not a lot of lingering on, and frankly, this is the thing, with me in time travel films, right? And I know this is a kind of like a point of interest of viewers, like time travel films. I feel like I'm much happier when they go to one extreme or the other, right? I either want them to not linger on the time travel mechanics at all, right, and just get on with it, right? So I'd put this, this in that category, I'd put it, I'd put it, I'd If you wanted a modern example, I'd probably choose something like looper maybe, right,

where kind of like they're quite, you know, quite categorically reject the idea of even going over it. Yeah. Or the nerd in me wants them to go full hog on it, right? I want you to linger on kind of like the mechanics and what happens and why weirdness is going on because of the particular, you know, like I'm much happier when it kind of exists in one of those, one of those two areas. It's when kind of like they go to great lengths to explain it, but they don't linger out. It doesn't really have that much impact or anything that's going on anyway. That's when it annoys me.

So this film in particular, it's at that end of the spectrum that I appreciate it. It's a trapping of it. It doesn't linger on it. And it delivers a very effective film, you know, with that as kind of the instigating, you know, one of the instigating plot mechanics, basically. but it's very easy you forget with how convoluted this use has become quite how

how sparse it is on that front this original film No yeah it's kind of stripped down in its depiction of time travel it's really more of a plot mechanic to get the two characters back like I say there is allusions

to this bootstrap paradox at the end but it's not focused on it you know it's not like we have to have sex or the future will be changed It's just a byproduct of it. And that's more interesting to me than perhaps a stronger focus on it would have been.

I think it works well here. Like I say, it's very pacey. It nips along at a great pace. A pace that I don't think Cameron is capable of anymore. And it looks great. I think all the effects look really good. I don't think we didn't really linger on the skeleton, which was designed by Stan Winston. But it looks pretty good.

Like, you know, it looks effective. scary. Yeah. No, no, no, I mean, you're terrified the crap out of me. I mean, I think something that I also quite like about it just as a kind of like lover of film is it's really quite cool in my book to have something which is so, I mean, certainly for the 80s, like very modern, I mean, it's dated a little bit now in some respects,

but mainly in the soundtrack, I think, as effective as the soundtrack is. But to see something kind of like this, modern and sci-fi influence and kind of metallic for want of a better descriptor have such a clear kind of lineage of being influenced by kind of like Ray Harryhausen you know like I mean oh yeah yeah really you know like really you can put some of the secret some of like the stop motion parts of that skeleton sequence against you know like Jason the Argonauts and it's very clear you know it's very clear kind of like

where the where the overlap is there in terms of effects and making things work on camera, right? And there is a, you know, I think we're probably getting into an era of film history now where kind of computer generated imagery is so advanced that if you have the time to implement it properly, it is photorealistic and has that effect. But there's a tangibility to it, which is really quite incredible. And I think that's part of why that's so terrifying, right? You know, there's not, it doesn't look fake. It might move in a slightly strange way, right, because of the stop motion aspect of it, but it doesn't look fake. It looks real, you know? Yeah, it even works. There's not that, there's not that

sense that you're looking at something that doesn't exist. Yeah, I mean, it works, it moves quite jerkily, because it makes it look unnatural and robotic, which it is supposed to be. You know, it's not a smooth and fluid. I think, speaking of fluid, we'll get to a literal fluid robot in the next film. But yeah, it works really well.

Yeah, I don't know. And I think that contrasted the second one, which we'll talk about, you know, next show, it is quite something. But I think also in that final set, just in terms of like making things tangible,

another thing that didn't stick with me in the same way as kind of like the image and the fear of this, you know, chrome skeleton pursuing you. But something that really stuck with me on this watch here is, so at this point, the terminator, both when it's still Arnold and when it's then the skeletons, it has a limp, right?

Obviously it's suffered some damage to a leg or something. So it just, like, when it's going down in the corridor, there's this clack, you know, there's this clack when its metal foot hits the ground. And for some reason it's just absolutely terrifying because it really does kind of like just get a cross-out, this thing is not human and it's mechanical and relentless. It's just, it's really superbly done, right? Both visually, but also in the sound as well.

That's a small detail that really adds to it as well. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just looking at kind of reviews from the time, most of which were very positive, like it did unexpectedly well, given how little faith Orion pictures had in it. They only did one press screening. and they kind of released it in the dead period between summer blockbusters and Christmas hits in October.

And so most of them were great. Most of the reviews really liked it. I'm just looking at Scottish author Gilbert Adair, who called the film, Repellant to the Last Degree. He said it was charged with insidious Nazification and had an appeal rooted in an unhally compound fascism, fashion and fascination, which are hard for me to say. Yeah. Hard for me to say with my speech impediment the way it is.

But yeah, I don't get any of that. No, I don't, to be honest. Sure. I mean, I'm sure you can make the case around kind of ultraviolence and, you know, clockwork orange style ultraviolence and the glorification of violence, but I wouldn't. No, I don't know. I don't really get them. Yeah. I'm not. I'm not jiving with that. analysis, I don't think. Because I mean, because I think the thing is, like, even the violence. I'd actually argue actually, the violence is

sparing but brutal, is the way I would put it. I mean, like, I think the thing that stands out to me in the violence front is actually when it's actually Schwarzenegger's introduction, right? That's pretty brutal stuff that, right? When he's sort of like, you know, you see

him, you know, clasp his fists and it's drenched in blood, right? That's kind of like the, you know, there's some violent imagery there, but even then it's kind of, I don't know, I struggle say it's glorifying it, you know, but this is my struggle with whenever people say this sort of thing. I think there's a lot of people out there who will write, you know, depiction is glorification. I don't think that's true, and I don't think it's particularly true here, to be honest, so. Yeah. Yeah, so I think that's the Terminator. Do you have any more to say around this film? I don't think so, not particularly. And I think that reflects the film itself, right? It's

compared to what comes after it, pretty stripped back, very effective. Yeah. Lacking in flab, you know, like Annie himself. Daint's but brief exposition, you know. It's kind of where it goes from here is interesting. And it's actually, you alluded to it earlier. I think that an interesting one to talk about will be the next one, right? Because you have this similar situation with the aliens franchise where I think the first two films are clearly regarded as the best ones. And it's interesting the way different sequels try to chase the highs of either of them. And that balance

changes over time, basically. So yeah, I also haven't seen Terminator 2 in 20 years or whatever, like this film. And I said at the start, Terminator 2 was my favourite when I was younger, so I'm interested to see how my opinions have changed, if at all. Because when we did the Xenapod, I was very in the camp of Alien is the superior film because it's stripped back and it's more effective and it's leaner than aliens, which is a bit more muddled and leads it down this militaristic path that I didn't particularly appreciate. so I'm interested when we come to Terminator 2 to see

to see how I'll view it now with these old eyes with the eyes of a middle-aged man Yeah It will be interesting Right because I think I've ever firmly been in one camp Or the other right You know Terminator's back in Terminator 2

But it is another one of these films Where it's generally regarded You know when people are kind of like Oh sequels that were better than the original Or at least back in the movie We didn't have a million sequels to every single film. It was always held up as an example of something that was better than the original. And I've always had a bit of a healthy skepticism for that in the case of these two films.

But we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. So Terminator 2 Judgment Day is the next film. We'll be watching that next month. This will, you know, the podcast comes out on the fourth Wednesday of every month. So if you want to watch along, make sure to watch it before the fourth Wednesday in February. but yeah thank you for listening

thank you for joining us on this new season in 2026 if I can remember the name pod with us if you want to live is the other downside of us breaking our naming format from here

it's going to be a lot harder remember the exact title yeah and hopefully it'll fit into the forms that I have to fill in to publish this podcast hopefully there's not naming limits

this is our wonderful foresight again decided to just choose something that also is extremely hard to fit into the character accounts of social media promotion posts. Yeah, you know. But hopefully the SEO is great. That's all we care about.

Big old SEO. But yeah, thank you for joining us and do join us again next time. This is a podcast from take one cinema.net where we do film reviews of independent and art house cinema and festival cinema. So please look at that for

the latest reviews. Go back and listen to our previous podcast series in the Take 1 Presents feed. We've done the xenopod on the alien films, the dinapod on the Jurassic Park films, and the Impossopod on the Mission Impossible films, and continue to subscribe for new episodes of Pod with us if you want to live. I'm on blue sky and stuff at SimonXX.com. Jim, where are you? Jim G.R.

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