The Terminator, James Cameron’s sci-fi thriller of 1984, will be available on a new streaming service soon. The film will be added to Prime Video starting November 1, just in time for its 40th anniversary. Cameron’s “official” debut in Hollywood is, without question, one of his best films, and he’s extremely proud of it. Definitely more proud than he is of the 1982 horror movie Piranha II: The Spawning. The director claims he got the idea for The Terminator while on a press tour for the Piranha sequel, an experience he’s always labeled as traumatic. Cameron got sick and, during a fever dream, he saw an image that would be imprinted on his mind until he was able to make The Terminator.
The movie follows Sarah Connor, a waitress in Los Angeles who gets hunted by a mysterious stranger with super strength. This stranger is an android sent back in time from the future to hunt Connor down and “terminate” her. At some point in the future, she gives birth to John Connor, the leader of the human resistance in the future, and the machines of the future want to stop this event from happening. Skynet, the sentient computer that rises in the future and begins a war against humans, sends the relentless T-800 to kill Connor.
The Terminator was an instant hit. People were enamored of Cameron’s approach to sci-fi, using a riveting villain in the hands of a then-unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger, and special effects that were groundbreaking back in the day. It made almost $80 million at the box office from a production budget of $6.4 million. Additionally, it put Cameron in the spotlight as a genre director who could balance things out between compelling characters and science fiction tropes. Cameron co-wrote the film with Gale Anne Hurd, and it stars Schwarzenegger alongside Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton. The Terminator was so important that it actually launched an entire franchise that’s apparently still alive.
James Cameron Still Regards It as One of His Best Movies
Even though Cameron has made more celebrated films during his Hollywood run – including the movie’s phenomenal sequel – The Terminator is his highest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes, with a perfect score of 100% on the Tomatometer. The impact on critics is unquestionable, as only a handful of films from the 1980s have this score, much less a sci-fi piece that borders on horror.
One thing that Cameron is aware of is how the movie became the hit it did partly because of the casting of its lead star. However, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s place in the franchise – and cinema history – was never a certain thing. Cameron recently recalled:
“I think a lot of filmmakers, especially first-time filmmakers, get very, very stuck in a vision, because of insecurity. I’m proud of the fact that we weren’t stuck enough to not be able to see how it could work with Arnold because it wasn’t our vision. Sometimes, when you look back from the vantage point — at this point 40 years — we could have made a great little film from a production-value standpoint, and
it would have been nothing if we hadn’t made that one decision that captured the imagination of people
.”
- Release Date
- October 26, 1984