Terminator
This DVD Review of Terminator was compiled by Matt Goldsmith of Kangaroo Point, Brisbane.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, Titanic. Ever noticed how the budget of a James Cameron picture DOUBLES that of his previous effort. Anyways, the film that really put him on the map was The Terminator, a 1984 Sci-Fi flick.
The Terminator(Arnie) is from 2029 and has been sent back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor(Linda Hamilton, whose a hell of lot lessa woman here than she is in T2). Kyle Reese(Michael Biehn) has also been sent back from 2029, by none other than Sarah's son John, to protect her for the terminator. So if Sarah dies, John won't exist which means that Kyle won't get sent back to protect Sarah, which also means that Kyle and Sarah can't fall in love and she won't have a baby to Kyle which prevents John from leading the rebellion against SKYNET.......(Phew)...This Time travelling business is tricky stuff....Most people have probably at the least seen Terminator 2, but to get a better understanding of the whole back story, one MUST watch The Terminator. Many say it is inferior to T2, but what would T2 be like without all it's bells and whistles. The story behind the original is a great one and has plenty of time behind it to flesh it out. While T2 is a full blown sci-fi/action film, The Terminator seems more like your sci-fi/horror film, it is a genuinely creepy movie.
So how does this transfer hold up? I must hand it to IMAGE Entertainment. They have released some great titles on DVD, and while they skimp on the features, they do offer letterboxed, unfortunately not 16:9 Enhanced, movies. It would seems that they are using the same transfer for these as for laserdisc, but this is really not a problem. This DVD includes the movie, the original theatrical trailer, a basic menu and a bit of blurb about the sound, which is recorded in Mono as heard in the theatres. On some scenes the image is a bit grainy, these are mostly dark/night shots so with the low light level the grain comes through stronger, but in other scenes the image is terrific, very clean and sharp and while the colours aren't overly saturated, being something of a dark brooding film, these colours are quite appropriate. For extremely good quality check out chapter 19 "Cleaning Up", to get a full taste of Stan Winston's excellent FX, chapter 30 "Innerself", in particular the closeups of metallic cyborg, as well as chapter 32....verrrry nice....The sound is mono, mostly clean, but on occasions I did notice a bit of distortion, this seems to be in scenes of higher intensity (spell explosions).
The scene in which Arnie shoots the Gun salesman (good 'ol Dick Miller)...at 14:28, distorts heavily, as does the tanker exploding in "Flash Forward". Oh well, I guess you can't expect a $6 million, 15 year old movie to be perfect now can you. Interestingly, the chapter index on the inside cover lists 34 chapters, yet only 33 are accessible. The 34th chapter is actually the Trailer. While It'd be nice for Image and Other studios to drop the price to the Warner Level, $US24.95 really isn't too bad a price for this DVD when you consider that there is bugger all region 4 titles available in Australia and this is yet another region 0 title from IMAGE. Go IMAGE. I'm glad The Terminator is a part of my ever growing addiction..I mean collection, and so it is well worth it..even without DD5.1 I still enjoy watching this Sci-Fi classic.
***Features***
Screen Ratio : Widescreen (1.85:1)
Audio Tracks : English (DD-mono)
Subtitles : None
Region Code : 0
Chapters : 33
Running time : 107 minutes.
PICTURE QUALITY (3.5/5...pretty damn good, some is excellent)
SOUND QUALITY (2.5/5... fine for mono, just a bit of distortion here and there)
Review Equipment: TV: Mitsubishi DIVA 68cm, DVD: Samsung DVD905, Receiver: Marantz SR870, Speakers: B&W 602's (front), Sony (rears), Cinema Chairs (Gilberton Recliners....okay so there not REALLY cinema chairs but they're very comfy..)