The very first Terminator movie (The Terminator) is notorious for being the darkest and most adult themed of the series with its horror and b-movie slasher undertones but it could have been even more violent if James Cameron’s original vision had come to pass…
The Terminator (1984) is a violent/dark movie but never reaches that extreme ultra-violence level seen in the original RoboCop movie nor is it as violent as some of the b-movie slasher movies eg. Halloween, Friday the 13th etc.
James Cameron recalls a conversation with Mike Medevoy (the then Executive of Orion Pictures):
“Mike Medevoy at Orion called me up one night and said: ‘I just went to this party and I got the movie cast!’ Now, of course, every film-maker loves to hear that some douche executive has cast your movie for you,”
James Cameron continues:
Mike Medevoy said: ‘OK, OJ Simpson for the Terminator.’ I was like: ‘Hey Mike! Bad idea! You’re going to have this black athlete chasing this white girl around LA with a fricking knife and a gun? We’re not doing that.’ Which was fortunate, but also unfortunate in that life ended up imitating art there.”
We know that a knife appeared in early concept art by James Cameron…
We can clearly see from this concept art that it is the finale of the movie and in this artistic glimpse of the movie ahead; the Endoskeleton is holding said knife and is using it to pull its torso along the ground (see the indentations on the ground/surface).
From the sound of it,- what ended up becoming Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator character should have had what looks like a big ass kitchen knife for the majority of the movie, it’s likely it would have been obtained via one of The Terminator’s early Terminations.
Armed with a knife and a gun; the first Terminator movie could have seen much more blood/gore and a lot more melee overkill Terminations.
We have merged two pieces of James Cameron’s concepts together to give a glimpse of what could have been…
It makes us quite sad where the franchise has come from, from the first movie, each movie just got more tent-pole summer action movie-er and our opinion is that is what has destroyed the franchise later down the line. The Terminator (1984) and Terminator Genisys (2015) for example are such polar opposites that anyone who bought into the franchise for being the hardcore cool out of bounds horror movie will simply be left wondering what the fuck happened to The Terminator?
Do you think The Terminator (1984) should or could have gone further with horror and ultra-violence or do you think it struck the right note tonally and visually? Would you have liked to have seen the T-800 use a big kitchen knife during the movie?
Let us know in the comments below.
Source: The Guardian