Terminators A Look Back at the Terminator Films

A human soldier is sent from 2029 to 1984 to stop an almost indestructible cyborg killing machine, sent from the same year, which has been programmed to execute a young woman whose unborn son is the key to humanity's future salvation. 

 In 1984 Los Angeles, a cyborg assassin known as a Terminator arrives from 2029. Kyle Reese, a human soldier sent back in time from the same year, arrives shortly afterwards. The Terminator begins systematically killing women named Sarah Connor, whose addresses it finds in the telephone directory. It tracks the last Sarah Connor to a nightclub, but Kyle rescues her. The pair steal a car and escape with the Terminator pursuing them in a police car. 

 In Rome, Italy, during the release of Piranha II: The Spawning (1982), director Cameron fell ill and had a dream about a metallic torso holding kitchen knives dragging itself from an explosion. Inspired by director John Carpenter, who had made the slasher film Halloween (1978) on a low budget, Cameron used the dream as a "launching pad" to write a slasher-style film. Cameron's agent disliked the early concept of the horror film and requested that he work on something else. After this, Cameron dismissed his agent.

 Cameron returned to Pomona, California, and stayed at the home of science fiction writer Randall Frakes, where he wrote the draft for The Terminator. Cameron's influences included 1950s science fiction films, the 1960s fantasy television series The Outer Limits, and contemporary films such as The Driver (1978) and Mad Max 2 (1981). To translate the draft into a script, Cameron enlisted his friend Bill Wisher, who had a similar approach to storytelling. Cameron gave Wisher scenes involving Sarah Connor and the police department to write. As Wisher lived far from Cameron, the two communicated ideas by recording tapes of what they wrote by telephone. Frakes and Wisher would later write the US-released novelization of the movie. 

 The initial outline of the script involved two Terminators being sent to the past. The first was similar to the Terminator in the film, while the second was made of liquid metal and could not be destroyed with conventional weaponry. Cameron felt that the technology of the time was unable to create the liquid Terminator, and returned to the idea with the T-1000 character in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).

 Writer Harlan Ellison stated that he "loved the movie, was just blown away by it", but believed that the screenplay was based on a short story and episode of The Outer Limits he had written, titled "Soldier", and threatened to sue for infringement. Orion settled in 1986 and gave Ellison an undisclosed amount of money and an acknowledgment credit in later prints of the film.Some accounts of the settlement state that "Demon with a Glass Hand", another Outer Limits episode written by Ellison, was also claimed to have been plagiarized by the film, but Ellison explicitly stated that The Terminator "was a ripoff" of "Soldier" rather than of "Demon with a Glass Hand".

The film also explores the potential dangers of AI dominance and rebellion. The robots become self-aware in the future, reject human authority and determine that the human race needs to be destroyed. The impact of this theme is so important that "the prevalent visual representation of AI risk has become the terminator robot.

Gale Anne Hurd, who had worked at New World Pictures as Roger Corman's assistant, showed interest in the project.

Cameron sold the rights for The Terminator to Hurd for one dollar with the promise that she would produce it only if Cameron was to direct it. Hurd suggested edits to the script and took a screenwriting credit in the film, though Cameron stated that she "did no actual writing at all".

Cameron and Hurd had friends who worked with Corman previously and who were working at Orion Pictures (now part of MGM). Orion agreed to distribute the film if Cameron could get financial backing elsewhere. 

The script was picked up by John Daly, chairman and president of Hemdale Film Corporation. Daly and his executive vice president and head of production Derek Gibson became executive producers of the project.

Cameron wanted his pitch for Daly to finalize the deal and had his friend Lance Henriksen show up to the meeting early dressed and acting like the Terminator. Henriksen, wearing a leather jacket, fake cuts on his face, and gold foil on his teeth, kicked open the door to the office and then sat in a chair.

Cameron arrived shortly and then relieved the staff from Henriksen's act. Daly was impressed by the screenplay and Cameron's sketches and passion for the film.In late 1982, Daly agreed to back the film with help from HBO and Orion.

The Terminator was originally budgeted at $4 million and later raised to $6.5 million. Aside from Hemdale, Pacific Western Productions, Euro Film Funding and Cinema '84 have been credited as production companies after the film's release.

Schwarzenegger was not as excited by the film; during an interview on the set of Conan the Destroyer, an interviewer asked him about a pair of shoes he had, which belonged to the wardrobe for The Terminator. Schwarzenegger responded, "Oh, some shit movie I'm doing, take a couple weeks."

 He recounted in his memoir, Total Recall, that he was initially hesitant, but thought that playing a robot in a contemporary film would be a challenging change of pace from Conan the Barbarian and that the film was low-profile enough that it would not damage his career if it were unsuccessful. In a later interview with GQ Magazine, he admitted that the he and the studio regarded it as just another B action movie, since "The year before came out Exterminator, now it was the Terminator and what else is gonna be next, type of thing".

 It was only when he saw 20 minutes of the first edit did he realize that "this is really intense, this is wild, I don't think i've ever seen anything like this before" and realized that "this could be bigger than we all think".

 To prepare for the role, Schwarzenegger spent three months training with weapons to be able to use them and feel comfortable around them.

 Schwarzenegger speaks only 17 lines in the film, and fewer than 100 words. Cameron said that "Somehow, even his accent worked ... It had a strange synthesized quality, like they hadn't gotten the voice thing quite worked out."

The film initiated a long-running Terminator franchise starting with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, considered by many to be one of the greatest sequels of all time, released in 1991. The franchise currently consists of six films, including the 2019 release of Terminator: Dark Fate, and several adaptations in other media. Schwarzenegger biographer Laurence Leamer wrote that The Terminator "was an influential film affecting a whole generation of darkly hued science fiction, and it was one of Arnold's best performances." Wiki