Arnold Schwarzenegger is back in the new Terminator movie titled ‘Terminator Genisys’. The Terminator series has enjoyed a roller-coaster ride amongst fans like us over the last three decades. Before we watch the action movie this Friday, here are 10 facts from the series that will help us all appreciate the series a little more.
1. The first Terminator movie released 30 years ago in 1984 when James Cameron was still struggling to find a foothold in Hollywood. In fact, according to some reports, James Cameron had no agent during the time and spent his days living in his car while writing ‘The Terminator’.
2. The idea for the series came to Cameron when he was in Rome during the release of his film ‘Piranha II: The Spawning’. James Cameron fell ill and had a fever-dream in his hotel room about “this metal death figure coming out of a fire … the implication was that it had been stripped of its skin by the fire and exposed for what it really was.” This later formed the basis of the Terminator series.
3. Cameron had more than nine months before work began on ‘The Terminator’ movie as Arnold was busy with ‘Conan The Destroyer’. Since he didn’t have time to do a full movie, Cameron wrote the screenplay that later developed into the movie ‘Aliens’ .
4. Upon the release of ‘The Terminator’, sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison claimed that the film was based on an episode of ‘The Outer Limits’ he had written that was titled Soldier. No details of any settlements are available but the series credited Ellison in all the other movies in the series.
5. Surprisingly for a James Cameron film, ‘The Terminator’ had hardly any special effects. Most effects were created and shot in-camera while some other sequences used miniatures sets. In fact, the skulls being crushed in the opening sequence were about the size of marbles. The famous tanker truck explosion was composed of 42 separate explosions in an eight feet long model truck that was only a foot and a half high.
6. Cameron also shot most of the scenes of ‘The Terminator’ at night with streets that had mercury-vapour lamps that helped to keep the filming costs low. This later gave the film its neo-noir look.
7. Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron violently disagreed on the former’s iconic catchphrase, “I’ll be back.” Arnold wanted to say “I will be back” because he thought it sounded more machine-like while “I’ll” sounded too feminine. All Cameron had to say to that was “I don’t tell you how to act, so don’t tell me how to write.”
8. Linda Hamilton suffered permanent hearing loss in the elevator shoot out scene in ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ because she forgot to replace her ear plugs in between takes.
9. ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ was the first film that cost more than $100 million to make. It was an investment well worth it. This movie also set a precedent for winning an Oscar award when its prequel was not even nominated.
10. By the time ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’ released a decade later in 2003, Arnold went to great pains to make sure his weight and muscle measurements were as close as possible to what they were during the filming of ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’.
Photo: © Paramount pictures (Main Image)
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