The Terminator

Yeah, I remember watching a documentary about The Terminator and where Jim Cameron said that several of the big "money men" in the business, seemed to think of the film as just another low budget b-movie that was gonna get taken down after a couple of weeks and then just disappear, and where they had their small hopes up that it would do better in the VHS video rental market. I guess that his background in the Roger Corman school of cinema along with a certain b-movie turkey named: Piranha II: The Spawning, might have made some of the people in the business a bit "scared" of what to expect as a final result, but probably they were even more concerned about getting some doughs out of it.

I also remember Gale Anne Hurd telling about that they had to fight many times over, with all kind of little things, were they had huge difficulties trying to sell the film as a sci-fi/action movie, as Gale and Cameron approached certain money men with the story of "a seemingly unstoppable cyborg sent to the past/present day, with only one mission, to kill mankinds last hope for survival", and in return they were asked if the film was gonna be like the Star Wars series, with huge spaceship battles, funny robots and laser swords, "because that was what sci-fi was for these people" and I guess it must have gotten really rough in a lot those meetings, because both Gale Anne Hurd and Jim Camron where ready to go all out in order to get what they wanted, but instead they often met people who only had the dollar signs in their eyes, and cared little or nothing about if the film was going to be good or bad.

Another thing that I have noticed is that a lot critics or people who seem badmouth Arnolds acting as just some dumb Frankensteins monster number, where he just went in and did his "usual" stuff and that was it, "CUT!".
The best compliment that I have heard spoken about Arnie, is from Jim Cameron, who called him "The most professional guy that he had ever worked with!" and I am very sure that I have either read this or seen a clip were Jim said that the two of them had both agreed (even before ever meeting each other face to face) that Arnold was not gonna play the heroic part (which at first he was gonna do), but that he was made to play the Terminator.

And in order to prepare for that task, Arnold and Jim was discussing things like: "How would a machine act?". Would it feel fear or would it smell/sweat, would it hesitate or be clumsy". Another thing is that Arnold was watching a lot of animal documentaries in his spare time about predators, and there was a certain animal that really caught on to his attention, which turned out to be the great white shark.
The way it always was one the move, but also using as little energy or time as possible in order to save it for the lethal blow to its potential and unlucky prey, and the way it was always on the look out and searching forward and back with his head and lifeless looking, evil eyes, scanning every little corner and side of the bottom of the ocean sea in search of food.

This behaviour fascinated Arnold and Jim so much that Cameron decided to make great use of it, several times during the film were The Terminator is on the hunt for Sara Connor and Kyle Reese in a stolen cop car, and we see Arnold using some of the same hunting approach as the great white shark, when on the look out for food/prey, while moving his head to one side or the other, very slow, then followed by moving his eyes in the same direction but again very slow, always on the look out and scanning every street corner for a way or oppurtinity to save time and finnish his task as effectively as possible.

When it comes to the special effects, I do hope that Jim Cameron never ends up going the same route as Lucas and Spielberg, by messing around with horrible fake looking CGI in order the "repair" something that never was broken.