Preamble, T1 and T2

I am a hardcore Terminator fan and this rant has been a long time coming.

The original was one of the very first movies I ever saw as a kid of about 6, complete with all the violence and swearing and even the sex scene – none of which made any sense to my child mind, of course. Along with the Conan films which my parents also enjoyed, I suppose it’s fair to say that I was born into being a Schwarzenegger fan, although only in hindsight do I realise that I was actually born into being a James Cameron fan. I was terrified by the dark vision of the future in the film, by how hard it was to destroy just that one Terminator, and how when 1991 came round all the kids raved on about how awesome the sequel was and how the T-1000 in particular was one of the scariest film villains ever, even surpassing the Arnie T-800. T2 lost a lot of its dark edge and replaced it with a more hopeful tale of the value of humanity achieving victory through their inner strength, and it was also the cementing of Schwarzenegger as a true Hollywood icon. But the real star was Cameron, the creator, writer, and director. He had raised his credibility with Aliens (as well as the tremendously underrated The Abyss) in between the two Terminator films, with a vision of exactly what he wanted his story to say. And he chose to end it with just T1 and 2, even shooting an alternate ending to T2 with an old Sarah Connor sitting in a park post-August 29th 1997 but opted instead for a black highway ending which was, looking back, a huge mistake.

Originally posted here

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Born on 31 July 1956 and best known as Kyle Reese from the original Terminator film, Michael Biehn has since forged a career out of playing military-type roles with his distinct level of charisma and good looks. I caught up with Michael during the shooting of his next film, ‘Fire Bay’, to find out what the man himself thinks of his prominent career, his influence on gaming, and how he should have been in Call of Duty 4.

Michael Biehn : Thanks Willooi. The pleasure is all mine. But please, from now on call me The Biehn

WillOoi : Umm okay. So what are you up to these days Micha..The Biehn?

Michael Biehn : I’ve just finished shooting a couple more feature films where I play tough, handsome, good-looking, sexy, and charismatic macho characters with guns.

WillOoi : You seem to have made a career out of that type of role.

Michael Biehn : Indeed. Ever since I fell out of the sky, naked, in Terminator 1, I think there’s been a helluva lot of demand for that type of character. I mean, it was me naked versus Arnie naked, and the people made their choice.

I am, not for the first time in my life, currently going through a phase of perpetual Arnie hypnosis after that last blog on The Running Man and the hilarity of Youtube (click for Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 – “trust me”), so here is an entry on the other movie-games he was in! Isn’t it funny how, as a politician, he is now trying to get similar games banned when he himself used to be the master of the gory death/witty one liner…let off some steam Governor.

The Terminator

There are, incredibly, over 20 games based on The Terminator, T2 and T3 (not counting crappy mobile phone games but including the pinball machines for each instalment of the movie series). Over twenty! Not every… Read More