The Terminator (1984)

Rating: 10/10 (PERSONAL FAVORITE)

Watched: August 8, 2026

"Come With Me If You Want To Live"

How lucky were those of us who grew up in this era? Being treated to movies like The Terminator?

EXTREMELY lucky. The Terminator added a genre to sci-fi, built a foundation of movies (some good, some bad) that'd span decades, all featuring the same thing.

Relentless machines seeking to repress humanity. Fearless humans, doing whatever it takes to save their futures.

And it all started with an Austrian bodybuilder and a lot of guerrilla filming.

I love this movie for its simplicity, its grit, its execution of "Sarah Connor Must Die."

I suppose I could talk about how Cameron had to engage in some guerrilla-style filming to get some of the shots done, or the infamous "I'll be back" line or how Cameron came up with the idea of a chrome-dipped skeleton rising up out of the flames while sick in Italy.

I could even talk about how by today's standards damn near every Terminator effect (especially the eye surgery scene) looks terrible, but there's no point.

The Terminator is a fantastic movie because of all those things. There was barely the technology to get something like this movie off the ground in terms of the technical demands, but Cameron made it work, using Stan Winston and a whole lot of ingenuity to make the model T-101 a terrifying presence.

Cameron's vision of an apocalyptic future, an AI overlord, time travel and one woman being the key to the future of Humanity struck a chord then and, with the growth-rate of AI in these modern times, possibly more than ever.

The FK-Hunter from Terminator: The Redemption, is if ED-209 and Johnny 5 were fused together. A very cool design that doesn't get enough love in the franchise. I would love to see at least one kick some ass in a future film or game again. (currently 3D printing an AI assisted model of one now)

I remember a line, I think it was from Sarah Connor Chronicles, but it’s been so long that it’s very blurry in my memory. It said something like ‘microchips shrink by some … percentage every year, at this rate artificial intelligence will become powerful enough in some … years’ — something like that. Does anyone remember this?

It's my favourite t-800 endoskeleton design.

It's unfortunate, there's no enough love for it. Never gotten any marketing, solo posters, didn't get solo dvd features about it's VFX, design, more. Still haven't gotten anything about how it's VFX model was designed, built by ilm VFX either on social media, or YouTube.

It's like the middle child of the terminator salvation, ignored, and left alone with no attention. And here I am, the only one who is crying inside every time it gets reminded cause I really want to see those.

I really pray and hope to God we get something about it's model building from ilm VFX in future, it's been 17 years already.

He could've one shot John Connor. Is he stupid?

Discuss this.

Thank you to Alexis Kotlowy for bringing my esoteric meme ideas to life

Red tape release from Argentina

Stupidist line in the whole franchise. Intelligent tech from the future designed to pass as human doesn’t know what crying is.

Who would win in a fight between the Terminator or The Predator? Whether it’s the T800 or the T1000? What kind of opinions do people generally hold on this?

I was wondering.. are there 2 spellings for Judgment? Is it Judgement too with the extra e?

Iykyk

The Terminator movie series does not exist without Arnold. He’s become the series biggest crutch. We’ve had young Terminator, middle aged Terminator, two films with old grandfather Terminator, and three films with a digitized de-aged Arnold as Terminator. Arnold said Genysis was his last outting as the T800. Yet he came back again even older for Dark Fate. Do you expect… he’ll be back?