The Terminator (1984). He might be back, Again

#terminator #theterminator #80s #80smovies
Stam Fine takes a second look at James Cameron's 1984 science fiction classic, The Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn. A robot with too much time on his hands travels back in time to kill a waitress. Hijinks ensue. A franchise is born.
This is a revisit to The Terminator after our original review in 2020. The new review is much more expansive (and longer). So enjoy. We'll also be taking a second look at Terminator 2 in the future.

[@drewhardin3992]

This was a movie I was able to show my son when he became a teenager, even though it came out when I was 9. Even though most of the kids at the time hadn't even been allowed to see the movie we all wanted to play the Terminator in our backyard games. This movie is simply timeless.

[@mikegwillis]

Although it is a sci-fi action film at it's heart it is a love story ... "I came across time for you Sarah" ... and the photo at the end when she is thinking about Kyle while holding her belly is just beautiful... makes me cry everytime! ❤

[@benderbendingrodriguez420]

I do like the love story, but if you think about it past surface level it's pretty creepy lol😂

[@mikegwillis]

@@benderbendingrodriguez420 think it's only really creepy from John's point of view, he knows that Kyle is his father but that he must send him back in time to bang his mum ...

[@benderbendingrodriguez420]

@@mikegwillis ya Sarah's part overall is innocent... Reese just seems like a creep to me haha, doesn't affect any love for the movie, its just an aspect I can't look past

[@drakenfist]

@@benderbendingrodriguez420 I never saw it in a creepy way like that. He was surviving for years, saw all his friends, everyone important to him being ripped to shreds, in a world of no hope. The only thing he had was her photo. His mission to eventually go back and protect her. It's only natural that her picture becomes his only hope in the darkness. Of course I don't think he admitted it to even himself until after he met her.

[@bensneb360]

Apparently James Cameron originally wanted OJ Simpson to play the Terminator, but decided against it because he didn’t think anyone would buy him as a killer… whoops lol

[@drakenfist]

He definitely wasn't right for the role...the glove didn't fit.

[@ActivePuck]

Maybe it’s the budget, I don’t know, but I absolutely LOVE how gritty this film looks. Between this and Aliens there’s something I love about Cameron’s films from that era. Thank you for another great review/retrospective!

[@TheUballe]

Absolutely! I love Cameron's anesthetic from this era. The blue hues have always been a signature of his, in my book.

[@braxxian]

Indeed. They show a world that is gritty, real and live in. Star Wars did the same thing with A New Hope.

[@tomsenior7405]

A review of something amazing? Bloody-lovely. Such a shame that Cameron stopped making good stuff and started making Blue Movies.

[@Tolstoy111]

The Avatar films are truly at the bottom of his output. Maybe tied with True Lies.

[@mhoppy6639]

God thank goodness someone else thinks this. Those avatar movies are absolute toilet.

[@billr3053]

All we ever wanted was Blu-ray releases of True Lies and the Abyss but Cameron won’t give them to us because he’s busying himself with fluff vanity projects nobody asked for.

[@Tolstoy111]

Apparently the Abyss is ready to go but got delayed because of the pandemic. And now that Disney owns Fox...@@billr3053

[@braxxian]

Indeed. Terminator 1 & 2 and Aliens are as good as it’s gets for sci-fi action films. Pity he is wasting his peak years with all these silly Avatar films.

[@FatNorthernBigot]

"Hasta La Vista, Ba..." Oh, that was the next one. The catchphrase in "Terminator Dark Fate" was "Ow, my back!".

[@michaelpytel3280]

"Ow, my back!" that's Spider-man 2 .

[@ricardocantoral7672]

Legendary filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky enjoyed Terminator. Not too surprising since he was always concerned about high technology possibly destroying mankind.

[@jamesstewart7736]

The Edison joke made me chuckle.

[@thedanielstraight]

Auntie Beryl is an AI now.... Fascinating. 🤖

[@raybearoz]

I dread to see what happens to the poor home printer when he reviews "Office Space"

[@xx3868]

One good thing about the original is that a lot of it was made outside and gives a very earthy feel to the film instead of just static sets. Low budget but very exciting story and scenes and no waste or "silly talk", just gets on fast but with a couple of small slow parts to explain a bit and the sequel takes it to another level of money and amazing film.

[@braxxian]

Correct. When you compare it to the disposable junk they make now days that are 98% CGI and look like giant computer games. I’ll take the 80’s any day thanks.

[@mrmeerkat1096]

The sequels after the first two are a waste of time. Even though the ending of T2 was perfect, wrapping everything up with destroying the research for skynet and Sarah making her piece with the T800. I still think they could make another decent Terminator movie that would add to the first two, but they just can't seem to do it. I think its mainly down to Cameron not being the director. I know hes been one of the producers on one or two of them, but its not the same.

[@harshlands]

Such a wicked time to be a teenager the mid to late 80's. Every single week could walk into the video store and be sure to find something cool to watch for literal pocket money, like our main store had $4 new releases and 3 for $5 older stuff that you might've missed the previous year(s). I'd often pool money with a friend or two and rent a whole stack of like 5-8 tapes and multiple 2 litre bottles of pop and couple bags of chips (thats crisps for you brits) and have it all for twenty bucks (15 quid, again) Can't imagine what that would cost now. Last time I bought a bag of chips it was damn near half the size of the old ones and cost 3 times as much. Great now I'm depressed, damn.

[@jimjam51075]

Thank you for doing these videos. I love the humor.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Even if movies failed at depicting the machine war future, at least the game Terminator Resistance nailed it.

[@GrandAdmThrawn]

I would also love to see more future scenes but only in T1 and T2.

[@zeroman614]

Cameron had a fever dream after reading some Harlan Ellison stories and watching The Outer Limits.

[@jeffnettleton3858]

Yup; then got his ass sued off and immediately copped a settlement, since he was dumb enough to admit the rip-off to a journalist from Cinefantastique (I think it was that magazine), who had it on tape and alerted Ellison. Cameron had the gall to claim it was a money grab, on the commentary. He's lucky that Ellison wasn't in the room, for that one.

[@ahhamartin]

loved how Cameron used weaknesses to his advantage. The choppy stop-motion modeling, which normally looked so ridiculous, was brilliantly used when portraying the exposed terminator with all his shock absorbing burnt out from prolonged fire exposure..

[@TheBeird]

The best Terminator film. 2 has the spectacle and grander scope but I love the lean and mean, grind house nature of this one. One of the best movies ever

[@calisthenicsmachine9725]

T2 is just action and effects its story and ideas are shit. The original is far superior.

[@drakenfist]

@@calisthenicsmachine9725 I don't agree with that. I think both films work together beautifully as one incredible narrative.

[@calisthenicsmachine9725]

@drakenfist I've heard that before, and i don't agree or see it that way at all. T2 completely goes against and ruins T1 T2 is terrible.

[@drakenfist]

@@calisthenicsmachine9725 That's a terrible take. T1 is my favorite, but T2 is a great film in it's own right and connects to the first really well in terms of themes. What many miss about T2 is it's about motherhood and fear of the future. More importantly it's everything Sarah experienced and was scared of in the first one but magnified.

[@calisthenicsmachine9725]

@drakenfist No, it's not T2 retcons T1 and goes against what was established that isn't an opinion either that is a fact. T2 is great as an action film and a cgi spectacle, but as a sequel to the original It's not good. You can like it, that's fine, but to say it doesn't contradict and break the rules that were established in the original would be folly.

[@markeastwood74]

I miss the days when movies were usually good. I think we got the dystopian future. 😥

[@readhistory2023]

Cyborg 2087 (1966) with Michael Renee. "Earth's civilization of the future sends a cyborg back to the 1960s to change the future. It's a better match for Terminator than Soldier is.

[@Nato2303]

Shout out to Retro Crowd ! Amazing title music once again !! Exclamation points !!!

[@TheUballe]

A god damn classic that's informed popular culture since then.

[@CTCTraining1]

Although it is a great film the only AI I’m thankful for is the KZbin algorithm which recommended your channel. Awesome work 😀👍

[@brotherkellymatthewbarnes8882]

The Dick Miller seal of quality entertainment 🎉

[@iLikeTheUDK]

I've been waiting for this video for a while!! Here's hoping for a UHD remaster soon enough. 35mm is pretty and I wish it to be better replicated at home

[@404TVfr]

Well, there is an open matte 35mm film source that already has a 720p test scan. But once the guy gets enough funds, he wants to re-scan it to full 4k.

[@johnlinford3791]

I had trouble telling Ahhnold apart from the puppets back in the day . Still do .

[@blackedd623]

The original and still by far the best film in the franchise, the camera doesn't shy away or even flinch when the terminator is mechanically and emotionlessly decimating anyone who gets in his way. Shame about every sequel since being a huge disappointment.

[@calisthenicsmachine9725]

I mainly agree I do like T3 quite a bit but none of the sequels are objectively good follow ups to the first. Especially the massively overrated T2 which changed the franchise completely.

[@blackedd623]

Yeah T2 was overrated and over hyped, I was very disappointed when I saw it for the first time. The rest of the franchise never got the budget or creative freedom they deserved to be truly great and that a real shame as you could tell lots of different stories in universe.

[@calisthenicsmachine9725]

@@blackedd623 The budget was certainly there and I don’t believe that there are lots of different stories to tell in universe. T1 was extremely self contained it never needed a sequel because the story was finished. Then T2 came along and really convoluted it thankfully T3 rectified the errors and closed the loop. I believe a proper sequel to the original that wouldn’t have been a massive contradiction like T2 was would have been set showcasing the future war. T2 changed so many things in the franchise though to where it could never truly recover. T3 picked up the messed up pieces from T2 pretty well and corrected course. Salvation definitely had the right idea but it was executed very poorly genisys was a trash reboot that never should have been made and dark fate was just a failed pathetic attempt to be the real T3 that was made to appease T2 fanboys. T1 and T3 are the 2 films I genuinely love in the franchise and the rest are crap to varying degrees.

[@foxdavani4091]

The terminator, puppet face stands up to me now, just as it did, when I was seven years old, and saw the original determinator. That is because, it creates a fourth wall, or maybe even a fifth wall break. We know that determinator is not real, but when we see that puppet face, it is hammered into us even more that it is not real and yet we feel like it is real because of where technology is going. It creates many layers of thought when you stop and think about seeing a puppet in the middle of a movie where you’re supposed to be seeing , something that isn’t real but you think it’s real.

[@kaitlyn__L]

That’s exactly why the jerkiness in the stop motion works for me as well. It’s meant to be uncanny, after all. Robots with big pistons do move kind of jerky.

[@TheNightBadger]

This movie lead to Trancers. Trancers was the peak of moviemaking. It's been downhill ever since... _"Jack Deth is back... and he's never been here before."_ I still remember arguing with friends when T2 came out that I preferred T1. They could never understand why, but I loved it's straight-forward b-movie sci-fi gutsiness. It did exactly what a low-budget sci-fi thriller should do. Trancers, Terminator, Vindicator - those were good times! You never knew when renting a movie whether it was going to be good or bad, sometimes only having a deceptively good box cover or a half-remembered trailer from months earlier to go on - but it was always fun finding out! On another note - how many other people have tried the 'You're the mother of the saviour of the human race and I've come from the future to protect you, but we he have to bone because I'm the saviours dad' line before? I'm shocked how often it works...

[@michaell8722]

You forgot to mention that Cameron lifted the plot of the Terminator from Harlan Ellison’s short stories “Demon with a Glass Hand” and “Soldier”.

[@lorentoy1994]

@StamFine I was hoping you would have mentioned the plagiarism challenge Harlan Ellison brought against Orion Pictures, which was eventually settled out of court. Also noteworthy, the similarities between Terminator and the 2 'Outer Limits' episodes written by Ellison: 'Soldier' & 'Demon with a Glass Hand'.

[@StamFine]

to catalogue Ellison's various beefs would require a very, very, long video.

[@AvengerII]

@@StamFine To catalogue Ellison's ego would require a feature-length documentary! Oh wait -- they did that!

[@jeffnettleton3858]

@@StamFineHardly a beef, since he had taped evidence of Cameron admitting to stealing the plot ideas from those stories, while being interviewed by a journalist, who contacted Ellison for comment.

[@jeffnettleton3858]

@@AvengerII So, t's egotistical to defend your copyright? Hunh; you learn something new every day. It's not ego when you have the talent and awards to back it up.

[@AvengerII]

@@jeffnettleton3858you don't know the history of Harlan Ellison, DO YOU? Moron...

[@mhoppy6639]

Stam Fine still with only 47k subs. It’s a crime.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Gaining almost 10k in less than half a year is promising though!

[@mhoppy6639]

@@kaitlyn__L yes! This is some of the finest review content on yt so it’s well deserved

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@mhoppy6639 the tight writing, and excellent music and foley jokes, really elevate it above many other vague recap-and-opinion channels. It’s like the way we remember review columns from magazines rather than how they actually were, because this time there’s no stuffy editor to satisfy.

[@ThisFinalHandle]

When a modern movie invariably lets me down, like...I dunno? Lets pick one at random, Terminator Dark Fate. This is one of two of my go to films.

[@801guitar3]

Thanks for making these videos.

[@ashroskell]

Oh, how I love this channel. I will be back. ✌️

[@jayward8237]

Awesome sauce review!

[@seanhunt138]

Hicks never got to shine. Always getting killed off, as did bishop.

[@dmichael1172]

Well Bishop never died in this franchise

[@jamesabernethy7896]

I probably wasn't subscribed to your channel the first time around. I've been watching a lot of your videos lately and really loving them. Always full of comedy but this one felt like it had a little more reverence than usual.

[@RichieW90210]

I just watched this tonight

[@brotherkellymatthewbarnes8882]

Now I want to hear the disco 🪩 remix of Out Of Africa.

[@yewtoob2007]

Whenever telemarketers call I say, "Give me yooah address der."

[@foxdavani4091]

Well, they do play connect four. They connect with their mouth, they’re two hands, and the other part. So it is connected for.

[@_SladeCraven_]

The problem with T:Salvation is that it didn't capture the tone of nightmares/flashbacks Kyle Reese had. The robots also didn't feel dangerous, throwing people around instead of, you know, terminating them... and making transformers noises... Despite the time travel, T1 feels believable as an idea. Salvation doesn't, but has annoying dialogue and characters instead haha There are better stories in the missions of Terminator Future Shock. At least that captures the right tone despite being a pixelated 90s PC game.

[@megansavage7152]

Arnold sweaty knickers

[@michaeln7305]

Watching this review & was just interupted by an advert for the Optus Living Network....😶

[@StamFine]

at least it wasn't an ad for printers

[@dmichael1172]

This is still listed as horror in many movie datsbases like Alien

[@martinhavelock5106]

It's Lance Henrikson, not Hendrikson.

[@FrostedSeagull]

Speaking of Lance Henrikson, Millennium is still one of my favourite ever series.

[@martinhavelock5106]

@@FrostedSeagull Very underrated series, it should have gone on for much longer.

[@paulohagan3309]

I heard somewhere that for a while he was originally considered for the part of the Terminator. Would have made more sense for an infiltration unit but cinematically [although he's a very good actor] wouldn't have compared with Arnold.

[@40somethingmanchild]

We have the same printer. I treat mine like sh*t though....

[@michaelstaunton1632]

👍👍👍🎥

[@404TVfr]

God I forgot how shit the colour grading is on the Terminator blu ray.

[@briandain8432]

Taking out the silly stuff from 3, it's still a good trilogy actually starting off the enviable war... Really One is so different from 2, it makes sense for 3 to be different style Still.

[@calisthenicsmachine9725]

The silly stuff in T3 is very prevlant in T2 as well. T2 is the most happy wave colorful kids movie out of the first 3.

[@briandain8432]

@@calisthenicsmachine9725 Arnold's Rise in Fame & Ego... T1, basically unknown B-list actor playing a modern monster. T2... Now he's only Ever going to be a Hero (until the woke era)... T3... Now he's a Grandfather and No One can tell him the Pink Glasses Gag should have just been a blooper. T4 is just a CGI Replica. And 5&6 woke & woker.

[@dosomething3]

Best robot ever. Too bad it has human tissue growing on it.

[@torchwood00]

sliders will be back, Again

[@StamFine]

well, they invented an atom bomb to shoot at an asteroid.

[@torchwood00]

@@StamFine no it was professor arturo

[@wrockage]

'disco remix of out of africa!' aw gee, man!! for those uninitiated, out of africa is an excellent film with a beautiful score, but it's no terminator. stam, you crazy.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

Swallowing a bomb 😂

[@braxxian]

Thank god for the 80’s. That’s all I can say.

[@stephentucker7717]

Terminator isn't really a "fun" movie or an "action" movie. That's Commando. Better describe it as an "intense horror" movie

[@Halbared]

Joe Swann.

[@hanniffydinn6019]

Avatar 1 & 2 may have good effects, but the story is boring paint by numbers seen before nonsense. Will never watch them again! But I’ve seen T1/T2 many many times! So sad Cameron is just doing boring avatar movies! I’ve watched single 24 min anime episodes with more depth, character & action that was truly entertaining than entire avatar movies! 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

[@kaydog2450]

Had anyone wondered if sarah was already pregnant when she met kyle?

[@paulohagan3309]

Lol. But I think she was portrayed as being single when Reece appeared. No hint of another man in the picture.

[@kaydog2450]

@@paulohagan3309 one night stand prior to the first film

[@paulohagan3309]

@@kaydog2450 If so, luckiest one night stand ever in the world of the movie.

[@hanniffydinn6019]

5:50 “one possible future”….Jesus T3 etc… could have explored parallel multi verses…what a wasted franchise after T2! 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️😩😩😩😩🥹🥹🥹🥹

[@Halbared]

Come with me if you want to live.