The Terminator: 26 October 1984

I would like to say that it doesn't seem like it was all that long ago, but it's almost like I was living in a different country 40 years ago. It was certainly a different entertainment landscape.

Here is a collection of movie posters from that year. Some are classics like Ghostbusters, or Beverly Hills Cop. The Killing Fields was a chilling tale about how humans treat one another. While I didn't care that much for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, there is no denying it was successful, and better than the 2 movies that came after. Amadeus is great movie. Even the small, cheap films, like Karate Kid were good. And then there are the cult classics, like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. I should probably watch some of these again.

Today we are lucky if there are 2 movies in a year that are not trying to lecture us for the way we live our lives, or tell us who is oppressing people. And if we do get a fun movie, it will be filled with garbage CGI, shot entirely in front of green screens, and based on the (mistaken) idea that spectacular fight scenes can substitute for plot and character development.

I'm not sure you can call The Terminator a masterpiece. Certainly James Cameron made better movies, and movies that made more money. It did make Arnold Schwarzenegger's career, and probably Linda Hamilton's as well. But it was a solid version of "The Thing that would not die" genre of action/thriller, with enough science fiction thrown in for good measure.

This is the official trailer for The Terminator.

"The thing that would not die" is usually associated with horror, like the 1958 version of The Fly, or Alien. James Cameron did a nice job of making it solidly Sci-Fi.