Terminator

Yesterday I saw Terminator on the TV and because I saw the new one the other day I decided to write a little about my impressions. Also found out about the history of the movie which is pretty cool so I'm gonna write it first.

The first movie was just a low budget action flick (No one knew how big of a hit it would become). It started when James Cameron had a dream about a Robot Skeleton and he became obsessed with it and wanted to make a film where he could use that, so he started to write his first film. By this time he wasn't famous and hardly even had much (Sleeping in his car and things like that). To be honest he basically stole the idea from the series The Outer Limits (Two episodes to be exact, and later had some legal problems because of it).

Anyway he wrote it, and he wanted to be a Director so of course he wanted to be the one for his own movie. Because of this stipulation it was hard to sell his script (No one wanted to risk it with some inexperience noob). In the end, he sold his script to a producer for as little as One dollar, but He got to be the Director.

Later the casting began and originally the Terminator was supposed to be a normal everyday guy that could blend with others, and even O.J Simpson was considered for the role. However when Arnold Schwarzenegger audition for the part of Kyle Reese, they loved his presence and decided to make the Terminator like a huge musclebeach killing machine. By that time Arnold's experience was Conan the Barbarian so it was perfect for the part (Not much speaking and a lot of killing).

It was a low budget film of only 6 million, without much marketing it was in the top 20 grossing movies of the year and earned total over 78 million. Of course by that time it was not a match against the big blockbuster movies like Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, and Beverly Hills Cop, but still was the low-budget hit no one expected.

A couple of years later when Cameron worked in the computer at industrial Light & Magic he decided to revisit his story and work on the sequel. By 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger was no longer just a body builder, and already was a Full-Blown Action hero, starring in hits like Commando, Predator and Total Recall. But he decided to move after more family-friendly roles, starring in the comedy Kindergarten Cop. So playing the killing machine didn't suit him any longer and his demands were simple. If he takes the part he wanted the role to be reworked so it included no killing. So now it came the rewriting and he became the reprogrammed Terminator and of course in the movie John Connor teach him not to kill humans, so everyone was happy (That and a 15million check plus a 14million plane as a bonus for Mr. Governor).

The budget of the second one was like 65 million and ended on over 100. By the first weekend it brought in $52 million and received four Oscars and six nominations. Of course the industry demanded the third installment but Cameron felt that his story was already finished. Without Cameron Arnold wasn't interested in the new movie, but was convinced with a nice $30million check, so the movie was made. This one was even more expensive and with marketing and all that it was almost a break even deal, so it was kind of a miss and a lot of fans had this bad taste in their soul.

The fourth Terminator film was being planned even before the third entered production, but it was until 2007 that the next chapter began to take shape. Lots of people had high hope for this one, and Director McG hoped to step out of the shadow of the trilogy and create a good movie that could stand alone by itself.

Critics and Reviews have been brutal and giving as low as 2-5 stars to the movie. To be honest I liked it and thought it was very entertaining. It would have been better if in the trailer they didn't show that much and went the way T2 did it. Where it was a secret weeks before the release. Anyway apparently the ending was leaked out on the net, and they changed it, and a lot of people felt that the first ending would have been better (I think it would give more wings to next installments, but not sure). I won't spoil the ending, but it wasn't the one leaked.

My recommendation is that if you don't have high hopes for the movie, you will like it. If you are a Terminator Fanboy and have T800 blankets in your room then you probably hate it. And if you haven't seen the trailer you probably will love it.