I’m diving into my Bill Paxton Project by attempting to rewatch and review all of his film performances. For an overview of his work and what it meant to me, read this.
The Terminator (1984) was the first James Cameron film I saw (I didn’t get around to Piranha II: The Spawning until much later). It’s a tight little sci-fi flick about a woman who is being chased by a humanoid killing machine from the future.
Linda Hamilton stars as Sarah Connor, a quiet LA waitress who suddenly finds herself the target of two individuals from a dystopian future: a human-like murder robot (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) who is hunting her, and a soldier (played by Michael Biehn) who is trying to protect her. The reason for both is the same. In the future, she will give birth to a son who grows up to lead a revolution against the AI that takes over the Earth. Simple, right?
This is a minor but memorable role for Bill Paxton. When the Terminator first appears in “our time”, he is butt naked. This is because the time portal apparently cannot transmit anything that isn’t organic (we’ll forget about his robot body for now). He stumbles upon a trio of punks. One of the punks gets no lines and is allowed to live. The other two are played by Bill Paxton and Brian Thompson. Each gets fun quips at the Terminator’s expense before being murdered for their clothes.
This is the second of five films featuring both Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton, preceded by The Lords of Discipline (1981) and followed by Aliens (1986), Navy SEALs (1990) and finally Tombstone (1994). Bill Paxton and Brian Thompson reunited once more in Pass The Ammo (1990). Lance Henriksen also appears as a cop in this film, and reunites with Bill Paxton for Aliens (1986) and Near Dark (1987).
I don’t know if this film is currently available for streaming anywhere, but there are plenty of Blu-Ray and DVD releases. I still turn to my trusty VHS copy for this one.
