Forty Years Ago: The Terminator Makes a Killing

Arnold Schwarzenegger was already an iconic figure in October of 1984. He’d won the Mr. Universe bodybuilding contest five times and Mr. Olympia seven. He’d been a focus of the documentaries Pumping Iron and The Comeback. And he’d made five movies, including Conan the Barbarian and its sequel, Conan the Destroyer. For normal humans, that would be a career bio, but for Arnold, it was a prelude. That October, a science fiction film would push both Arnold and a gifted young director into the stratosphere. That film was, of course, The Terminator.

Director James Cameron got his big break like many talents of the time did: working for Roger Corman. The B-movie master launched myriad careers, creating space for the likes of Jack Nicholson, post-Opie Ron Howard, John Sayles, and countless others. By 1977, Cameron had already studied physics and read numerous papers on film technology and special effects. When he saw Star Wars, he quit his day job to try to work in movies. Cameron made a science fiction short, Xenogenesis, in 1978 and got work as a production assistant on The Ramones movie, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School. After that, he went to work in effects for Roger Corman studios, making miniature models for the films.

Battle Beyond the Stars trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Roger Corman [Official YouTube Page])

Cameron was working on models for Battle Beyond the Stars when the art director was fired. Corman was already impressed with Cameron’s work, and the young model maker soon essentially took over the tasks of art director, production designer, and special effects producer. Though the film was a low budget affair, Cameron used every trick in his arsenal to make it look great. Two of Cameron’s recurring future collaborators worked on the film as well: Actor Bill Paxton was employed as an on-set carpenter, and James Horner composed the score. Battle Beyond the Stars was moderately successful, and much of the praise the film received pointed to work done by Cameron.

Corman gave him the director’s chair for Piranha II: The Spawning. However, Cameron alleges that he was in charge for less than three weeks before an Italian producer pushed him out. The resultant film is not something that Cameron likes to claim, though his name is still on the movie as director. For years, he said that he considered his first “real” directing job to be his next movie, The Terminator, but he did admit to it being his debut in a 2010 interview with 60 Minutes.

According to Cameron, he was sick in Italy while work on Piranha II and had a dream about a metallic killer. That inspired his Terminator concept. Cameron’s friend Bill Wisher helped on the screenplay, receiving an Additional Dialogue credit (Wisher would officially co-write the sequel). Producer (and Cameron’s future second wife) Gale Anne Hurd contributed edits and received a co-writing credit. Former Corman co-workers of Cameron and Hurd had gone on to work at Orion Pictures, and Cameron was able to secure distribution if another entity picked up the financial backing. Hemdale Film Corporation chair John Daly agreed to hear Cameron’s pitch. Cameron made a show of it by having his actor friend Lance Henriksen burst into the room first in an early version of the Terminator costume. Henriksen sat silently until Cameron came in and revealed the gag. Daly was excited by Cameron’s work and pitch, and put together a deal involving Hemdale, Orion, HBO, and other production houses to get the movie made.

The Terminator trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers)

When casting began, one of Orion’s co-founders pitched Arnold Schwarzenegger for the part of Kyle Reese, the heroic soldier from the future. Cameron didn’t like the idea because, given Arnold’s rising profile, he’d have to find someone more menacing or of greater star power to be the Terminator. He met Arnold determined not to cast him, and left convinced that Arnold should be The Terminator. It’s funny in retrospect, but even though Arnold signed on, he wasn’t wild about the picture. The Terminator only has 17 lines of dialogue in the entire movie. However, when Arnold started to see the edits come together, he knew Cameron had done something special. The part of Reese went to Michael Biehn, and the role of Sarah Connor went to Linda Hamilton. Cameron’s Corman buddies Paxton and Henrikson were cast in minor roles.

Cameron was already skilled in special effects, but he also recruited an established master to help create the Terminator. Makeup artist Stan Winston, who had already proven his genius on 1982’s The Thing, collaborated with Cameron to sketch out the cyborg design. It took six months for Winston and his team to create and build the puppet apparatus used for the “unskinned” Terminator in the film.

Observers were skeptical about The Terminator’s chances for box office success. Even personnel at Orion had their doubts. However, the movie opened at #1 at the box office in its first week. Audiences flocked to the action-packed film that included elements of science-fiction, horror, and, occasionally, humor. The critics who loved it really loved it, praising the effects, pacing, and performances. Most of the negative criticism focused on the amount of violence, but there was general agreement that Arnold had cemented his place as an action star. He brought physicality and menace to the role, and had one scene that gave him his everlasting catchphrase, “I’ll be back.”

Prolific writer Harlan Ellison also loved the movie, but found it a little too familiar. Ellison threatened to sue over similarities to “Soldier,” an episode of The Outer Limits that he had written about two enemy combatants from the future who do battle in the past. Over Cameron’s objections, Orion settled, and a credit for Ellison was added to later prints of the film and home video releases.

Despite the Ellison hiccup, Cameron and Schwarzenegger had carved out prime spots in Hollywood. While The Terminator was being made, Cameron had already been approached about a sequel to Alien. He would write and direct Aliens in 1986. Starring original cast member Sigourney Weaver alongside Cameron regulars Biehn, Paxton, and Henriksen, it was a massive hit and is widely regarded as one of the finest action films ever made. Arnold went on an insane run of 1980s box office successes, reeling off hits like Commando, Predator, The Running Man, and Twins with seemingly ridiculous ease.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day trailer (Uploaded to YouTube by Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers)

Cameron, Schwarzenegger, and Hamilton reunited in 1991 for an almost inevitable sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (colloquially known as T2). T2 was a bigger hit than both the original Terminator and Aliens, taking the #1 spot at the box office for the year. Like Aliens, it’s seen as one of the best action and science fiction films ever, as well as one of the greatest sequels; the movie flipped the script by having Arnold play a new, heroic Terminator who is sent to the past to protect young John Connor from an advance robotic assassin, the T-1000 (played by Robert Patrick). Cameron shoved the art of moviemaking further into the future with the computer effects used for the morphing T-1000. T2 won four Oscars (Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Makeup), giving it the distinction of being the first sequel to win an Oscar when the original film had received no nominations.

The rest you know. The Terminator has continued as a franchise, running off four more movies, a TV series, a web series, and an anime-style series that premiered in August. Arnold continues to be one of the biggest stars in Hollywood history (as well as having a stint as the governor of California). He currently stars in the Netflix action-comedy series, FUBAR, the second season of which completed filming in August.

Cameron would continue to elevate the art of filmmaking, marrying eye-popping visuals to crowd-pleasing stories. Avatar (#1), Avatar: The Way of Water (#3), and Titanic (#4) are three of the of the four biggest box office moneymakers in history. He also took Oscars for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Film Editing for Titanic. Cameron and his brother Michael also hold a number of patents on film equipment that they developed for underwater shooting, as well as other digital filming innovations, like the head rigs used for performance capture.  He is currently prepping the third Avatar film, Fire and Ash, for 2025 release.

He Mattered. Harlan Ellison Makes His Exit

How do you memorialize genius? When you’re confronted with the indisputable evidence that a creative mind left behind more than 1,700 short stories, screenplays, novellas, television scripts, comic book scripts, essays and articles, where do you begin? Perhaps you take the author’s own advice from the introduction of his short story, “Night Vigil”, which is “DO THE DAMNED JOB. Just do it.” In that case, you simply begin with fact that Harlan Ellison died on Thursday. He was 84.

A staggeringly influential and award-winning writer, Ellison cultivated a legion of fans for his ability to slip effortlessly between genres and formats, his ability to dissect the culture, and his hard-nosed persona. His worked challenged social norms and ills while asking larger questions about existence. He did not shy away from harsh reality, and had no qualms about shocking the reader. Despite his well-earned reputation for being combative, Ellison’s friends frequently noted his generosity, with many writers posting on social media after his passing about various times when Ellison would call to check in on a sick child or to express condolences upon a familial loss.

Born in Cleveland in 1934, Ellison broke into writing with two short stories published in the Cleveland News in 1949, The Gloconda and The Sword of Parmagon. He moved to New York in 1955, pursuing his writing career. In two years, he published more than 100 stories before serving in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1959.

After his service, Ellison leaned fully into the writing and constant motion that would mark his life. It’s frankly impossible to list his work and activities. It’s a challenge to even list the highlights. He participated in the Selma marches led by Martin Luther King, Jr. He worked for Disney for one day but was fired for inappropriate jokes. He wrote for a number of classic television series, including The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Star Trek; his screenplay for the Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” earned a Writer’s Guild of America Award and a Hugo Award after it aired in 1967 (The full episode of “The City on the Edge of Forever” is available for viewing at StarTrek.com).

A number of Ellison’s works have been adapted for other media. The novella A Boy and His Dog was filmed in 1975. Dark Horse Comics ran a series called Harlan Ellison’s Dream Corridor featuring popular comic writers and artists interpreting various works, with collections printed in 1996 and 2007.

It is perhaps his robust collection of short fiction for which he is best known. Though Ellison resisted the easy categorization of being called a “science-fiction writer”, he nevertheless made a major impact on science-fiction, fantasy, horror, crime, and more with his easy transitions and combinations of subject matter. Ellison adapted “Soldier From Tomorrow” into the “Soldier” episode of The Outer Limits, and later successfully sued James Cameron for uncredited similarities to The Terminator; those films now carry a creator credit for Ellison. “Repent, Harlequin! Said The Ticktockman” won a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award, and is acknowledged as one of the most reprinted short stories in the English language.

Other writers frequently point to Ellison as both inspiration and mentor. In his non-fiction treatise on horror, Danse Macabre, Stephen King devoted considerable space to Ellison, mining many quotes from their correspondence and friendship. When King asked Ellison to describe himself and his work, Ellison’s lengthy answer finished with, “From time to time some denigrater or critic with umbrage will say of my work, ‘He only wrote that to shock.’ I smile and nod. Precisely.”

Ellison married his fifth wife, Susan, in 1986, and they remained together until his passing. At her request on Thursday, a statement announcing Ellison’s death was released. The statement included a final quote from Ellison. It read, “For a brief time I was here, and for a brief time, I mattered.”