‘The Terminator’ 40th anniversary: Remembering James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s sci-fi classic

What do you get when a novice filmmaker, a heavily accented aspiring movie star, a modest budget and low expectations come together? In the case of “The Terminator,” you get a top box-office draw and a film that has spawned an entire franchise and has left a legacy as one of the most influential sci-fi films of all time. The first collaboration between James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger debuted four decades ago on October 26, 1984. Read on for more about “The Terminator” 40th anniversary.

Cameron was a young aspiring filmmaker working on his first major film, “Piranha II: The Spawning” (1982), when he had a nightmare about a seemingly indestructible mechanical man from the future. Further inspired by John Carpenter’s success with his low-budget slasher film “Halloween” (1978), Cameron began the script for what would become “The Terminator.” He sold the rights of the screenplay to Gale Anne Hurd for one dollar, with the caveat that she would produce if Cameron could direct. Once they secured financial backing, Cameron began looking for his menacing cyborg, as well as his hero and heroine.

Already established action stars Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson were approached for the role of the Terminator, but turned it down. Cameron imagined his “Piranha II: The Spawning” star Lance Henriksen as the mechanical menace, but he ended up with a smaller role as a police detective. Studio executives liked Schwarzenegger for the role of Kyle, as his star was rising with the success of his “Conan” films, but Cameron wasn’t crazy about the idea, and planned to find an excuse not to cast him. However, the two men hit it off, with Cameron realizing he found not his Kyle, but his Terminator.

Several young actresses were considered of the role of Sarah Connor, a young, struggling waitress who is the target of “termination” as the future mother of a prominent resistance leader. Linda Hamilton had finished making the horror film “Children of the Corn” when she was chosen for the female lead, while Michael Biehn had had a couple of small roles in a few films when he was cast as hero Kyle Reese, a soldier from the future who comes back in time to save the mother of his leader John Connor.

I have seen “The Terminator” a few times over the past few decades, sometimes just catching random bits of it just because it’s airing on TV. My husband and I recently rewatched it in its entirety, and although it’s purely 1980s, from its now-iconic synthesizer-based soundtrack to its punked-out thugs (including a young Bill Paxton) to its futuristic cyber concept, it holds up. It is essentially a sci-fi film (not my favorite genre), but it’s also a basic good versus evil suspense film, a thrilling ride with a little dash of bittersweet romance thrown in. The robotic Schwarzenegger is a nonstop killing machine intent on taking out as many Sarah Connors as necessary to complete his mission, systematically killing anyone in his way, and is a frightening presence – despite his limited dialogue.

Schwarzenegger’s T-800 cyborg has only 17 lines, composed of 58 words, in the entire film. His limited English at the time played in his favor, giving his robot character a more stilted style of speech, which works perfectly. The actor had trouble saying his most iconic line, and asked to say “I will be back” instead of “I’ll be back,” which he says to a policeman who has denied him entry to the police station in his latest effort to get to Sarah. In the now-famous scene, he makes good on his promise when he “comes back” and gains entry by ramming a car through the front door before annihilating most of the police force to get Sarah. Cameron remained firm on the wording of the line, and the rest is history. Schwarzenegger was one of the doubters about the potential success of the movie, thinking he was making a little B picture that would soon be forgotten. Instead, it established him as one of the biggest action stars of his time, and proved that the Cameron was a young filmmaker who could bring in big money.

“The Terminator” surprised many by landing at the top of the box office its first two weeks, and going on to perform well above its modest $6.5 million budget. Schwarzenegger did as his character promised, and came back to appear in the even more successful “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” in 1991, this time as a heroic self-sacrificing cyborg, as well as “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” in 2003, and allowed for his likeness to be used in “Terminator Salvation” in 2009.

This modest little film from an unknown writer and director starring a former bodybuilder with an odd accent didn’t appear on any major awards ballots. But it proves a great film can be made on a low budget, and the amount of awards it wins has little to do with its legacy. It is often cited as one of the best and most influential of its genre, and the Library of Congress recognized its importance by preserving it in the National Film Registry in 2008. “The Terminator” is just as thrilling today as it was 40 years ago, and is sure to attract new generations of fans in the years to come.

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