Five sequels, a couple TV spinoffs, and innumerable viewings later, The Terminator is no longer the same movie it was forty years ago. What started as a scrappy, low-budget thriller made by a relatively unknown young director desperate to prove himself, has transformed into the first cog in a popular and long-running franchise, as well as a valuable piece of Intellectual Property. Watching the film again now, weighed down by all the baggage of its legacy, is a very different experience today than it was for audiences who encountered it for the first time in 1984.
Of course, familiarity can dull one’s appreciation for just about anything that once felt fresh and exciting. Moreover, even on a nuts-and-bolts filmmaking level, creator James Cameron has made significant changes to both the visual design and aural soundscape of The Terminator over the years. The latest 4K remaster is, quite fundamentally, a different-looking and -sounding movie than the one released four decades ago. Much like the title character, it’s a simulacrum posing in the guise of something we recognize, but those familiar with it can tell it’s not the same thing.
| Title: | The Terminator |
| Year of Release: | 1984 |
| Director: | James Cameron |
| Watched On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray |
| Available On: | Blu-ray Amazon Prime Video AMC+ Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
As just his second feature film sitting in the director’s chair, following the schlocky for-hire assignment Piranha II: The Spawning, The Terminator was the true launching point for James Cameron’s career as an A-List filmmaker who would go on to conquer the worldwide box office on numerous occasions. Its success also solidified Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose own star had just started to rise with Conan the Barbarian a couple years earlier, as a genuine cinematic icon. One of the greatest tricks Cameron pulled off within his modest budget and resources was to tailor the script around Schwarzenegger’s limited range as an actor. Playing a robotic killing machine, the famed bodybuilder has few lines of dialogue, and his cold and emotionless delivery of them is actually an asset rather than a liability.
Unlike the mega-budget sequels that would greatly expand the story, the first movie essentially boils down to a fairly simple stalk-and-chase thriller in which a merciless killer (Schwarzenegger) hunts down a seemingly innocent target (Linda Hamilton) who has no idea why he’s after her. The majority of exposition is delivered by Michael Biehn as a man who claims to be a soldier from a post-apocalyptic future sent back in time to protect her. His story sounds crazy, but the movie leaves her with little time to doubt him as writer-director Cameron packs the tight 107-minute runtime with action and suspense. As the clueless but well-meaning L.A. cops ultimately powerless to help, Lance Henriksen and Paul Winfield provide supporting color. Also turning up in one of his early roles before breaking out as a star in his own right is Cameron’s pal Bill Paxton, playing a dipshit street punk.
Despite looking back at it from the lens of the franchise-starter it would become, The Terminator remains a stylish, smartly-written, and remarkably tense thriller that delivers way more action and excitement than a movie of its age and budget might be expected to accomplish. That’s entirely a measure of James Cameron’s ingenuity and determination. Even when its miniatures and stop-motion effects look their most dated, the film keeps up a relentless momentum that prevents you from noticing or caring too much. Just as Biehn’s hero says about the Terminator as a character: “It absolutely will not stop, ever.” Neither will the movie itself.
The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Back in June of 2006, The Terminator was an opening week launch title for the brand-new Blu-ray format. Unfortunately, that first disc featured a lackluster video transfer barely any improvement over DVD. Six years later, James Cameron remastered the film for a Blu-ray reissue. The 2012 disc looked decidedly sharper and more detailed, with a lot less dirt on the film elements, but suffered from a revisionist color grade that shifted all of Cameron’s signature steely blue into a sickly coating of teal and orange. Both discs also jettisoned the movie’s original monaural soundtrack for a wildly unpopular 5.1 remix that replaced some of the sound effects with weird and inappropriate substitutes that didn’t fit the visuals on screen.
Another dozen years later, and apparently oblivious to the deep irony of handing his filmography over to Skynet, Cameron brings The Terminator to 4K Ultra HD using the same controversial A.I. remastering process that he inflicted onto True Lies, Aliens, and The Abyss a few months ago to much derision. Like those titles, The Terminator has not been granted a new film scan. Instead, the last Blu-ray master from 2012 (created in 2K resolution at that time) has been run through A.I. processing to reduce film grain, upscale the resolution to 4K, and artificially enhance detail. While technically encoded in HDR format, no new changes to the color grade or contrast are visible to the eye. The disc effectively looks like an incrementally sharper version of the 2012 Blu-ray. As someone who has always found the teal-and-orange color fad gaudy and obnoxious, that comes as a big disappointment to me.
Remarkably, in at least one other respect, James Cameron appears to have taken some of the criticisms of his last batch of remasters to heart. Specifically, he has dialed back the grain removal for this one. The 4K version of The Terminator actually has some grain texture visible in its 1.85:1 image, albeit very faint (and probably artificial). As far as that goes, the result is easily the best and most filmic-looking of Cameron’s recent remasters. On the other hand, it also has the least noticeable distinction from or improvement over the decade-old Blu-ray it’s meant to replace.
Meanwhile, the soundtrack has been upgraded to Dolby Atmos format. During the movie’s brief theatrical reissue over the summer, some viewers reported that the Atmos track had corrected the strange sound effects from the prior 5.1 remix. Regrettably, that does not seem to be true. From what I can tell, if anything at all about them has changed, the gunshots may have been boosted slightly in volume and had some bass added so they don’t sound quite as wimpy, but they’re still fundamentally the same effects that originated with the Special Edition DVD release in 2001. When the Terminator kills the first Sarah Connor at time code 16:30, his pistol still has a weird twang and lacks the resonant booming of the original mono track. And when Kyle Reese wakes up from his nightmare at 20:15, the action of pumping his shotgun is almost completely silent.
The Atmos is definitely built off the prior 5.1 mix, and largely retains the same character, only now with some occasional sound effects (such as helicopters and future aircraft) directed overheard whenever the mixers could justify doing so.
Hoping to head off some complaints on that front, the 4K disc also includes a copy of the movie’s original mono soundtrack, authored in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 format. However, the mono audio is extremely thin and weak, and not particularly satisfying either. From what I recall, the old THX Laserdisc released back in 1995 sounded better than this.
Physical media copies of The Terminator 4K Ultra HD are sold in either a regular keepcase or a SteelBook edition. Since I already have an older SteelBook for this movie with artwork I prefer, I decided to stick with the less expensive standard edition this time. Both packages include the movie on 4K disc and a Digital Code, but come with no regular Blu-ray copy.
Bonus features are limited to about ten minutes of deleted scenes with optional commentary by James Cameron, plus three shallow featurettes that date back to the 2001 Special Edition DVD.
Related
- Terminator franchise
- James Cameron (director)
- Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Michael Biehn
- Time Travel theme
Note: All screenshots on this page were taken from the 2012 Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.
The Video File Blog 
I went and saw the 40th anniversary rerelease in theaters back in September. I gotta admit it was an awesome and surreal experience to watch a movie that I’ve seen probably hundreds of times at home since I was a kid on the big screen. The miniatures looked more fake on a larger screen. The only promising fix on the audio for that was during the title sequence there is the sound of scraping metal, kind of like rubbing kitchen knives together that they put back in. After that, it sounded like the same altered remix. Surround and panning was pretty impressive though.
I was pretty happy with what I saw theatrically and the new UHD is exactly what I saw two months ago in theaters. Of course I would love a new OCN 4k scan without Cameron’s involvement but that isn’t happening. I was expecting way worse and my low expectations were at least exceeded. I love the mono track, it’s what I grew up with and I love the old shot gun blasts and Dirty Harry type revolver shots. Of all the Cameron 4k releases, I like this one the most. Even if T2 were to get this treatment, it would be a huge leap in quality. The Atmos track on its own is pretty impressive, if I didn’t love the mono so much, I’d say I like how the subwoofers kick in for the Atmos track. I bought both the steel and the standard slip for this release. I believe some of the import steelbooks come with both the 2012 Blu-ray and UHD disc.
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I think there might be some sort of theatrical print version circulating around the web. I’m not sure if it’s a bootleg disc to buy or a download. Apparently it has a different look than the 2012 disc and the previous home releases. I would love to have a look at that.
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