Terminator

Nach all den Jahren habe ich mich darauf eingestellt, vorsichtshalber die Augenbrauen hochzuziehen, um mich später nicht einmal mehr daran zu erinnern. Nur Brad Fiedels Synthesizer-Soundtrack ist brutal veraltet, ansonsten macht sich Camerons Cyborg immer noch gut. Obwohl die Effekte eher zum Lachen anregen, stechen Camerons einzigartiges Gespür für Spannung und fesselnde Charaktere hervor wie ein Metallskelett über einem Haufen menschlicher Schädel. Perfekte Kameraführung, toller Schnitt und sehr gute Schauspieler, allen voran Arnie, der aussieht wie ein frecher Nazi auf einem Ausflug. Das Drehbuch verzichtet auf große Tricks, doch die Geschichte um die Rettung der Zukunft ist äußerst fesselnd, und die Einblicke in ein apokalyptisches Zeitalter haben auch Jahre später noch eine Dringlichkeit und eine richtig dekadente Stimmung. Ich finde nichts zu kritisieren, Terminator verkörpert in jeder Hinsicht die Poesie der 80er Jahre und sollte auch heute noch den Hitmachern als konkurrenzloses Lehrbuch für dramatische Action dienen. Ein klarer Goldfundus, filmische Extraklasse ohne Kompromisse. (07.04.2005)

The beginnings of all the action weekend evenings on television in my childhood and one of the first films with Arnold Schwarzenegger I’ve ever seen. I remember being quite afraid of him. That’s why I prefer the second part. Nevertheless, the first instalment has a firm place in my heart as well. Just so you know, so you don’t think I am some action flick hater :). (30.11.2014)

Suffocating and adrenaline-fueled sci-fi that time's tooth can't seem to gnaw away. Arnold probably will never inspire as much respect and fear again. Moreover, without this series, temporal paradoxes and the entire science fiction genre would be completely different today. Ideas like the one about a robot that has to change the past in order to alter the future occasionally come up, but fitting them into the right screenplay is already a form of cinematic art. (02.04.2006)

After his debut in Piranha 2, where he was more of a puppet in the hands of an Italian producer, John Cameron found himself in Terminator and despite the low budget delivered a technically proficient action flick that is a perfect image of 1980s tastes, with the hard-bodies cult of the period, typical synthesizer sound and violence that is you no longer see in today's impotent times. (18.09.2015)

Before The Terminator, James Cameron was an unknown aspiring director who did not offer any guarantees of box office success. He had just finished filming the routine B-movie Piranha Part Two: The Spawning, which did terribly at the box office, and he also worked as an assistant director on several projects, the most significant of which was Carpenter's Escape from New York, where he helped create the special effects. However, Cameron dreamed of a grand, uncompromising, and gritty sci-fi film. His script caught the attention of Orion Studios, and he was able to start filming. The result was a dark action sci-fi film with the successful casting of the rising action star Arnold Schwarzenegger as the cyborg. Originally, the studio suggested Schwarzenegger to Cameron for the role of the soldier later played by Michael Biehn, but Cameron understood the advantage of Schwarzenegger's dog-like, emotionless face, which perfectly suited the character of a nerveless cyborg. Additionally, the film featured dynamic editing by Mark Goldblatt, a clever camera that captured some shots from the cyborg's point of view, and atmospheric music by Brad Fiedel. The character of the cyborg was created by Stan Winston. Cameron decided not to spare the audience and filled the story with corpses. All these ingredients together meant huge box office success and the birth of a hit that launched Cameron's stellar career and confirmed Arnold Schwarzenegger's status as an action star, for whom The Terminator became a defining role. The script included, among other things, an elaborate time loop and a few interesting scenes from the dark future. Overall impression: 75%. (18.01.2008)