It’s not a stretch to say that James Cameron’s The Terminator might be one of the most influential movies of all time. Produced on a shoestring budget, The Terminator introduced the world to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 and Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor, mother of the human resistance. In this original classic, Arnie’s T-800 is a terrifying figure, much different from the heroic character we’d come to love in the sequels. Here, he’s sent back to kill Sarah Connor before she can give birth to her son John Connor, only to be protected by a heroic soldier from the future, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn). With its iconic, menacing score by Brad Fiedel and novel FX via Stan Winston, The Terminator is considered by many to be one of the best sci-fi action hybrids ever. Still, the road to the big screen was not easy for James Cameron’s epic.
On the one hand, Arnold Schwarzenegger was not the first choice to play the T-800. Best known for his Conan the Barbarian movies at this point, O.J. Simpson was originally one of the frontrunners for the part. In the end, the folks involved couldn’t see O.J as a killer (go figure). Schwarzenegger might have played Reese had things worked out a little differently, in which case film history as we know it would have been radically different! We’ll dive right in on this week’s WTF Happened to this Movie, written and narrated by Dave Davis and edited by Juan Jimenez.
What’s the best Terminator movie? Let us know in the comments!