# I watched The Terminator last night **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 23, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486 "2010-05-23T18:28:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/61 "2010-05-24T19:05:43Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > I re-watched _The Terminator_ recently, and it’s held up remarkably well, i think. > > A young Bill Paxton plays the leader of the punks near the beginning of the film. > > Paxton has the distinction of being the only actor to be killed by a Terminator, an Alien, and a Predator. I knew he was in Alien and Terminator, but who did he play in Predator? BTW, he also bears the distinction of being in another kick-ass Ah-Nuld movie of the '80s, Commando. However, he does not get killed in it (he has a bit part as a Coast Guard communications officer). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/62 "2010-05-24T19:16:44Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > I knew he was in Alien and Terminator, but who did he play in Predator? In _Predator 2_, he’s the gung-ho cop that gets wasted in the subway car. And he was in _Aliens_, not _Alien_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/63 "2010-05-24T19:40:30Z")
> [@](#): > > That may be the case, but I still think that they were able to use that new sfx technology in a way that added to the plot. The new Terminator uses his shapeshifting abilities in some very innovative and creative ways. The “morph” effect isn’t just a gimmick, it’s integrated very tightly into the plot. > > Contrast with The Matrix. The whole, “pause, rotate, unpause” thing that first showed up there looked really cool, but it didn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t add anything to the story, reveal anything about the characters, or advance the plot. It’s pure gimmick, and could be removed from the movie entirely without changing it in any fundamental way. Take out the morphing sfx from Terminator 2, and you have to completely rewrite the movie. My point exactly, actually. You could take away the special effects in _The Matrix_, and still have the movie. The same is true, for that matter, of the original _Terminator_. But in _T2_, if you take away the effects, there’s nothing left. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/64 "2010-05-24T19:47:13Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > My point exactly, actually. It is? Let’s say _Terminator 2_ was made in 1970, where “morphing” effects consist of claymation and/or simple camera effects. The story wouldn’t be any different. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/65 "2010-05-24T19:54:15Z")
Yeah, but it wouldn’t have aged well. The only people who would enjoy it today are the ones who like the nostalgia factor of “old” movies. Terminator 2’s graphics are going to be convincing ten years from now. I can’t anyone would argue that the morphing terminator is a gimmick. It was well done, doesn’t seem out of place and doesn’t steal all the attention in the movie. Iron Man’s CGI suit in the new movies? It’s a gimmick. They could have used stop motion models and the story wouldn’t be any different. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/66 "2010-05-24T21:27:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > My point exactly, actually. You could take away the special effects in _The Matrix_, and still have the movie. The same is true, for that matter, of the original _Terminator_. But in _T2_, if you take away the effects, there’s nothing left. But only because, without the fx, there’s no way to potray the ideas in the movie. And the idea in the movie strikes me as pretty solid: a nanotech robot that’s able to alter it’s physical form at will. The movie does an excellent job of exploring just what such a thing would be able to do. The morph effect was a gimmick, but it was a well used gimmick. It was used to advance the story in believable and interesting ways. It wasn’t just thrown in because it looked neat, without any thought given to the implications it would have on the story. ---
**Author:** ![Satchmo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/satchmo/32/4223_2.png) [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/67 "2010-05-24T21:46:01Z")
I think Lance Henriksen has also been ‘killed’ by all three, a Terminator, a Predator and an Alien. I also think it could have been neat to have the T-1000 in Terminator 2 get gradually smaller as it lost bits and pieces of itself. If they’d ‘kept’ the chunk that got shot off and disposed of it where the robot wouldn’t find it, (I always thought about them dropping it off a high bridge) but they wanted to show how it could be re-absorbed. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/68 "2010-05-24T21:56:29Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > But only because, without the fx, there’s no way to potray the ideas in the movie. And the idea in the movie strikes me as pretty solid: a nanotech robot that’s able to alter it’s physical form at will. The movie does an excellent job of exploring just what such a thing would be able to do. The morph effect was a gimmick, but it was a well used gimmick. It was used to advance the story in believable and interesting ways. It wasn’t just thrown in because it looked neat, without any thought given to the implications it would have on the story. Exactly - in the first movie, you have a scary unstoppable (almost) killing machine. So in the second movie, you have to have something that’s really scarier - not just have the movie _tell_ you it’s scarier, but have you the viewer understand how terrifying and unstoppable this thing really is. So let’s have it not be limited in structure at all? Let’s have it be uncrushable, un-blow-uppable, un-blockadeable? Okay, but how do you _convince_ me that it is? The effects are essential, but that doesn’t mean it’s a “look at the effects” movie. It’s a movie with a big idea that’s portrayed well through the effects, but not one where the effects eat the movie. The perfect melding of story and movie magic, IMHO. (Except that annoying teenager. He can go. The rest of the movie is classic.) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/69 "2010-05-24T22:54:24Z")
> [@Satchmo](#): > > I think Lance Henriksen has also been ‘killed’ by all three, a Terminator, a Predator and an Alien. By an alien only indirectly, though. Ripley revives what’s left of the Bishop android after the crash, then shuts him down at his request. > [@](#): > > I also think it could have been neat to have the T-1000 in Terminator 2 get gradually smaller as it lost bits and pieces of itself. I remember a “X vs. Y” website that analyzed potential battles between characters of different fictional universes. In the fight between the T-1000 and Odo from _Deep Space 9_, the authors concluded the winner would be the one who could shatter the other and then create “cells” out of his own body to keep the opponent from reforming. Well, that and the T-1000 lives in a fictional universe far more violent than Odo’s, so comparison was difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Satchmo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/satchmo/32/4223_2.png) [@Satchmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satchmo)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2010, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/70 "2010-05-24T23:08:09Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > By an alien only indirectly, though. Ripley revives what’s left of the Bishop android after the crash, then shuts him down at his request. Yah, well he didn’t get killed by a Predator until the Alien vs. Predator movie, which many of my friends insist never happened. 😉 I think they did it just so Bill Paxton wouldn’t be the only one. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/71 "2010-05-25T00:07:29Z")
I thought the way that two movies (The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day) ended was interesting, although I’ll spoiler-box this. The first one ended with the Terminator being destroyed in a high-tech automated factory, while the second ends with the Terminator and the T-1000 being destroyed in a vat of molten steel in a steel mill. Did James Cameron deliberately intend to refer to both the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (the steel mill) and the end (the automated factory)? And then there was the ending of The Terminator, in which the Mexican boy says to Sarah Connor, “There’s a storm coming,” and she says “Yes, I know.” ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/72 "2010-05-25T00:25:24Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > They might replace Arnold’s gun with a walkie talkie. Don’t forget all the Jawas falling off some giant lizard thingy in the background you could add! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/73 "2010-05-25T00:56:31Z")
I’m with **Chronos** in thinking that T2 was huuuugely disappointing, and maybe even just bad. (Don’t know if I agree with him that they should have just skipped to T3, because I haven’t seen it…T2 was bad enough that I didn’t bother watching the third.) Unfortunately, it’s been enough years since I saw it that I can’t completely remember all the reasons I disliked it so much. What I do remember is that I _loved_ the first one, and was pumped to see the second. I think my main objection was that… they made the Terminator a good guy. It just didn’t make sense. Part of what made T1 great was that the Terminator was so coldly, relentlessly evil - he was like something out of a nightmare that Just. Won’t. Give. Up. Come the sequel and they’re giving him cutesy scenes with an obnoxious kid, wiping tears off the kid’s cheeks and talking about his emotions. Really? And what an annoying kid! Plus, I was not a fan of the hard-edged Sarah Connor. In the first film she was a believable 20-something, thrust into unbelievable, terrifying circumstances. While it makes sense in the sequel that she’d toughen up, it just wasn’t as effective. So, a definite thumbs down from me. My advice to the OP is not to sully the memories of the original, and stop where you are. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/74 "2010-05-25T02:39:08Z")
I agree that T2 would’ve been better with arnold not being so cuddly. One of the only things I like about T3 is that Arnold is back to being a badass robot, even though his programming is to protect rather than kill. I have no problem with the concept of Arnie being the good guy - it shows that the terminators are just machines that will do whatever their programmers tell them to do, rather than indepedent actors with some sort of reasoned motivation behind their actions. T2 is definitely not lacking in the plot department. Usually big blockbuster special effects movies are stupid - but obviously that’s not always the case. The effects supported a good story. Robert Patrick’s T-1000 may be the most menacing movie bad guy of all time, IMO. T3, on the other hand, has a really stupid plot and should only be watched as a special effects demonstration. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/75 "2010-05-25T02:40:44Z")
My first experience with the Terminator series was watching Terminator 2 in a movie theater BEFORE seeing the first Terminator. I walked out of there totally confused, but still thought it was a great movie. The moral of the story: Don’t watch them out of order! ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/76 "2010-05-25T02:43:36Z")
I saw T2 before I saw the original and I wasn’t confused at all. Yes, sneak bragging. But still, I have friends who haven’t even seen the original but they understand T2 easily enough. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/77 "2010-05-25T02:53:29Z")
I watched T2 tonight. I think T1 is much better. I didn’t like the T-1000. He is not scary. Arnold is scary. Arnold works better as the bad cold killer than the good guy in T2. overall I just like T1 more. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/78 "2010-05-25T03:58:10Z")
There is no getting around that Arnold was BORN for the role of an emotionless robotic kller. And Sarah Connor was totally smokin’ in T2. And to think that Linda Hamilton has an identical twin sister… I’ll be in my bunk. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/79 "2010-05-25T15:52:19Z")
> [@Satchmo](#): > > Yah, well he didn’t get killed by a Predator until the Alien vs. Predator movie, which many of my friends insist never happened. > 😉 > > I think they did it just so Bill Paxton wouldn’t be the only one. Although Paxton wasn’t really directly killed directly by an Alien either- was probably just cocooned until the explosion went off at the end of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![JCorre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3da27b/32.png) [@JCorre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JCorre)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486/80 "2010-05-25T16:12:35Z")
> [@Duke\_of\_Rat](#): > > I was surprised that the same actress played Vasquez in Aliens and also John’s stepmom in T2. This blew my mind. I’m usually good at spotting bit actors that I’ve seen in other films but I’ve seen T2 dozens of times and I never caught this and I don’t think I ever would. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-watched-the-terminator-last-night/540486.md?page=5)