The Terminator: Blu-ray Review
The Movie itself:
The Terminator was James Cameron’s big break. The film was shot on a shoe string six million dollar budget and came to earn way over four times more than that. The film also gained a place in the pop culture of the world. The line “I’ll be back” is known world wide as is the character of the Terminator. But the original is much more than a popcorn film. It’s also a statement about the ideals of society in the 1980’s and a grim look at technology in our future.
The Terminator takes place in 1984 and follows Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) and Kyle Reese (Michael Behin) as they attempt to outsmart and defeat a mechanical warrior from the future (Arnold Schwarznegger). Sarah Conner will one day harbor a child, named John, who will lead the resistance in the war against the machines. Kyle Reese was sent back in time to protect Sarah form the T-800.
The film is a personal favorite of mine. It has great performances and directing, along with a fantastic story. It goes to show what a low budget can do with one of the most creative action directors of all time at the helm.
5/5
Video Quality:
The movie has somewhat of a mixed bag for video quality. Being filmed on such poor quality film, it will never look amazing, but it could certainly look better than how it does here. There are scratches, dirt and many other things on the film print that could easily be cleaned up with a new restoration. But it also has some scenes that have such good quality my jaw dropped. It’s really an average transfer so that’s what the score will be.
3/5
The Audio Quality:
Presented in PCM uncompressed 5.1 audio, The Terminator is a revelation. It has never sounded so robust before. The speakers really come alive and the bass rumbles with low tones. Audio is clear and directionality is great. My only wish is that it had the original Mono track on the disk.
4/5
The goods- digging into the special features:
The Blu-ray features a retrospective documentary, an average EPK feature and deleted scenes.
All the features are presented in 480i video and are all worth a watch, but the BD is missing tons of features from the previously released DVD.
2/5
Overall:
The film is a classic and belongs on any movie collectors shelf. The disk is notable with sub par video and good Audio. The features leave me to assume a double dip will release, but not any time soon. Pick it up.
4/5
