After seeing Star Wars (1977), James Cameron quit his job as a truck driver and sought to start his career as a filmmaker. For a while, he was successful as a special effects artist and matte painter on various Roger Corman productions and even worked on Escape From New York (1981). He was a rising talent and wrote many scripts throughout the 1980s.

Cameron got his big break when he landed the directing position for Piranha II: The Spawning (1981) but was thoroughly undermined during production. It was do or die and he didn’t want a turd with his name slapped on it to end his career prematurely. He began writing and storyboarding a sci-fi horror action movie that would redefine cinema and thrust an Austrian body-builder to being a Hollywood A-list titan.

Some of Cameron’s 4K releases have had egregious remasters that rely on AI, resulting in inaccuracies. Sometimes there’s recoloring of the image. How is the remaster that launched his career as one of the greatest filmmakers of the twentieth century? Forty years later, how does it hold up? Find out in The Terminator (1984) 4K review!

The Terminator (1984)
Production Company: Hemdale, Pacific Western Productions, Euro Film Funding, Cinema ’84
Distributor: Orion Pictures, Studio Canal, Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Director: James Cameron
Release Date: November 19, 2024 (Theatrical release: October 26, 1984)

The Terminator begins ominously with two figures mysteriously appearing from nowhere. One is a towering man who brutally murders a few punks for their clothes and the other is a frantic lean man who robs a homeless guy for his pants and flees the police. There is a stark difference in how both characters go about their goals.

Both men begin stalking a woman and the tone feels like a gritty thriller. Dialogue is sparse and utilitarian, maintaining an atmosphere of intrigue and suspense. The first time I saw this film, I had no idea about the sci-fi elements. It was a brutal actionsploitation with a simmering tension gradually coming to a boil.

All three converge at Technior, a nightclub named after the film’s ethos and central theming of the hybridization of crime thriller and science fiction. This iconic and tense scene erupts into a shoot-out and it’s revealed that not everything is as it seems.

The character played by Arnold Schwarzenegger is a ruthless killer. His goal is to find and assassinate Sara Conner, a lowly waitress. Michael Beihn plays Kyle Reese, a low-ranking infantryman from the future. He explains to Sara that her pursuer is a cyborg who is preventing the birth of her son who will inevitably lead a rebellion to overthrow an AI that brought humanity to near extinction.

This revelation would have blown away anyone who experiences The Terminator for the first time. From that moment on, the only characters in the world that matter are Sara, Kyle, and the Terminator. Everyone else is doomed to die in a nuclear fire unless Kyle succeeds and Sara becomes the mother of the future as she is meant to be.

The scale of the story feels massive because of the incredibly high stakes despite it being a very intimate chase with slasher movie elements and set in a few places in Los Angeles. Kyle exposits the plot to Sara and Beihn’s performance is so intense and earnest, that he sells it without it feeling like tedious exposition.

Michael Beihn has to carry the film with his portrayal as Kyle Reese. He is the heart and humanity of the story and is what was lacking in the sequel.

Beihn is a wonderfully written and acted character, showing earned resourcefulness and even manages to display some characteristics of the enemy he’s fought for years. The minute he lands in 1980s L.A., he wastes no time finding clothes and arming himself in minutes.

Arnold was born to play the Terminator. Beihn may be the best actor in the film, but Arnold as the killing machine steals the show. Aside from the novelty of Arnold playing a slasher villain, his otherworldly imposing frame, menacing strut, and cold stare make him command every scene. When he shoots up everyone at the Technior, it is also the absolute coolest anyone has ever looked on film.

Arnold’s accent and bizarre delivery further enhance his uncanniness as if he is a robot attempting to emulate speech. Beneath the mechanical surface is a hint of emotion. Reese claims these machines don’t feel anything, but the film is steeped with symbolic imagery suggesting that the Terminator is prideful and even feels rage and shock in a few scenes.

As the hunt continues and the bodies pile up from the Terminator’s wake, Sara grapples with the destiny she faces. When she woke up that day, she was just a miserable waitress. Now she finds herself as the mother of the future and the entire fate of the human race depends on her becoming stronger than she can imagine.

Linda Hamilton’s portrayal as Sara is one of the iconic female heroes in cinema. Her reluctance to accept the call looks real and she spends a large chunk of the film in borderline catatonic fear. She is a thoroughly fleshed-out character with a perfectly executed arc that makes her transformation at the end into a fighter convincing.

The Terminator‘s climax is legendary. As the battles go on, the flesh exterior of the killer rots away, making him look zombie-like, further reinforcing the horror atmosphere in the film.

When the Terminator emerges from flames without skin, it is apparent that James Cameron wrote the entire film around that single image. It is a very poignant and powerful shot that still shakes the soul.

The Terminator isn’t about time travel and killer machines. It’s a profound exploration of humanity’s complex relationship with technology and our growing fear of its potential to enslave us. As humanity develops increasingly sophisticated AI and pervasive surveillance systems, the film’s chilling vision grows ever more pertinent.

The symbolism and clever foreshadowing suggest a seasoned filmmaker who has been making movies for decades, but this was James Cameron’s first true project. The pacing is pitch-perfect and the special effects, while quaint by today’s standards, perfectly fit the look and feel of the production.

It’s a film with excellent momentum bolstered by Brad Fiedel’s iconic, low-groaning synth score. Very rarely has a score flawlessly captured the mood that can shift from harrowing terror to exciting action and back to white-knuckle dread.

Every practical effect was used to realize Cameron’s epic vision. Rear projection, forced perspective, models/miniatures, pyrotechnics, stop-motion, animatronics, squibs, optical effects, and matte paintings. Every trick in the book made it into The Terminator, and it all looks great in 4K.

Film grain can significantly enhance the look and feel of a movie, and The Terminator is no exception. Some shots feature intense lighting and deep inky shadows. Sweaty characters have glistening highlights and the smoky scenes are atmospheric as hell.

Older Blu-ray releases often had incorrect color timing and black levels, with heavy shadows obscuring details that were not intended to be hidden.

Fortunately, this new 4K transfer rectifies these issues without crushing the details. Thankfully, James Cameron learned to love the grain and it’s present here unlike in Aliens. It truly enhances the grittiness of the film and matches the atmosphere.

Originally shot in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the image quality is sharp and the colors appear faithful. The skin tones appear natural and lifelike. In extreme close-up shots of phonebooks, the texture of the paper, including the pulp, is clearly visible. The Terminator is a very dark film and shadows are stable with no noise, artifacts, or specks.

The use of HDR makes the image truly pop, adding remarkable depth and richness to every shot. The transfer is flawless, and any potential use of AI enhancement is completely undetectable. This still looks like a raw action movie from the 80s, untouched by revisionist alterations.

When The Terminator was shot, Cameron had to shoot with a single audio track for budgetary reasons, but for later releases, new audio, and foley were recorded for surround sound. Regretfully, the newly recorded sound was woefully inferior, lacking heft and punch in the gunshot sound effects.

The Terminator in 4K has the option to use the original mono track named “theatrical release” in the sound settings. The disc has either option to please everyone, but unfortunately, it lacks anything else of note.

Sadly, this release has no new special features. All supplemental features are content recycled from past releases from about 20 years ago on DVD, presented in sub-HD and with muffled sound. There are no new retrospectives, no commentary, and some old features didn’t get included. James Cameron’s storyboards, art galleries, and trailers did not make the cut.

A cool feature that should have been added would have been a restoration of Xenogenesis, James Cameron’s 12-minute short film. This is a very obscure and rough-looking short that has been neglected for too long and its remarkable for showing all of the themes and concepts that Cameron would be known for later in his career.

The Terminator is a perfect film that gets more relevant with every passing year. It has air-tight pacing and is chock-full of metaphors and profound symbolism.

The Terminator manages to be incredibly deep and still has tremendous entertainment value and rewatchability while anchoring itself with human drama. The extras will disappoint, but it’s hard to complain when the feature presentation looks and sounds incredible.

The Terminator (1984) was reviewed with a 4K Ultra HD Bluray copy purchased by Niche Gamer. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. The Terminator (1984) is now available in 4K.