There are some movies that somehow imprinted on me when I was young; movies I watched over and over again, more than anyone would consider normal. There are several of these for me, but the most notable, the one I’ve watched more than any other single movie (we’re talking triple digits here), is The Terminator. There are probably many reasons for this, and while I’d like to think that 7-year-old me was a discerning aesthete and I still honestly believe the movie is phenomenal, there are several non-obvious reasons why I watched this movie hundreds of times.
For example, The Terminator was only the second movie we taped off of cable back in the mid-80s when my family first acquired a VHS player (the first was The Last Starfighter, a movie that got considerably less play over the years – it was basically a proof of concept – but while I didn’t watch that movie often, I must admit a certain nostalgia for it, even today). It might seem quaint in this day of on-demand digital streaming, but the notion that you could record something and watch it repeatedly was something of a novelty back then. Near as I can tell, kids today tend to imprint on Disney/Pixar fare, maybe superheroes. For me, it was The Terminator.
It wasn’t exactly high quality. A pan-and-scan 4:3 picture on an analog VHS that’d been watched hundreds of times (and thus experienced some degree of degradation), there were some aspects of the film that were nevertheless unforgettable. I sprung for the DVD upgrade when it came out, and remember being quite pleased with the visual quality of the picture, the crispness of the sound, the special features (Deleted scenes! A one-hour long featurette!), and so on. It was around this time that they started mucking with the sound.
Sound isn’t something I tend to obsess over when it comes to movies, but The Terminator is the one exception to that rule. The original release utilized Mono sound, which I’m guessing was something of a cost-savings issue for the relatively low budget film. As home video releases progressed, they invested some money in creating new stereo version of the sound. This was all well and good, and for the most part, the newer mixes sound good… except for the gunshots. The original sound had these sorta extra-crunchy, loud gunshots. The remixes made the guns sound like they were using silencers or something. The shotguns sound ok, but it’s the .45 ACP that was most noticeable. To this day, it remains bizarre that the newer sound mixes have such awful gunshot effects.
Is it a little weird that I care so much about the sound of a particular gunshot so much? Absolutely! But that’s the sort of thing that happens when a movie imprints on you at a young age and then you watch it hundreds of times. Even subtle differences can be jarring (and that .45 is not a subtle difference) and take you out of the experience. One of the frustrating things about the Blu-Ray releases was that the original Mono audio was unavailable.
Enter the long awaited 4K release. Like the other recent James Cameron 4K releases, this one is not without a little controversy. I won’t relitigate the whole thing here, but suffice it to say that Cameron and team leaned on AI noise reduction techniques to clean up the picture. That said, The Terminator is probably the best looking of all the Cameron 4K releases. There’s a little grain evident (there’s some speculation that it was added in after the fact, but whatever the case, the movie looks natural and filmic) and even some minor imperfections (particularly in the optical effects shots) that were left in. It looks great. None of the overscrubbed, waxy faces that you see in, for example, the True Lies 4K. More importantly, the Mono audio track is back! It’s not the default, but it’s there if you want it.
All that, and I haven’t even really talked about the movie itself very much. Suffice it to say, it holds up remarkably well. Conventional wisdom is that T2 is the better film, but I will always prefer this original, and not just because of the nostalgic reasons. The plot in the first film is just so tight and compact, and the action so kinetic. Even the bald exposition scenes work better than you might expect (credit to Michael Biehn for nailing those monologues). Tons of weird details and grace notes too. I dunno, I probably can’t be objective here, but it’s an amazing film that still captivates me, even after 40 years and countless rewatches. The new 4K is worth the upgrade if you’re in the market.
I’ve often felt the odd man out preferring the first to the second. Last year I watched them on back-to-back evenings and while T2 is an excellent film, the first still takes the crown for me.
I’ve not watched it enough over the years to distinguish the audio like you describe, but with this as a basis and room in my physical collection for the 4K, I’ll have to pick this up and compare.
Same here – I’ve always preferred the first, and while I enjoy T2, I don’t like it anywhere near as much. The whole plot kinda goes against what’s clever about the first movie (which is that the very notion of sending a terminator back in time to assassinate John Connor is the catalyst that creates John Connor in the first place).
The biggest difference is the .45 ACP with the laser sight. The funny thing is that the Mono soundtrack also doesn’t really sound like a .45 either, but it’s just a much better gun sound than the weird thing in the default soundtrack. If you switch back and forth during the first Sarah Connor death scene (or the Ginger death scene) you’ll see what I mean. I also linked to a Youtube that has both sounds up in the post if that helps.
This is well timed, I’ve been meaning to view both with my son — will be his first viewing of both.
While T2 wins in spectacle, scope, impact, and of course soundtrack (Guns n Roses original song!), the first is a tighter story for sure.
Fair warning, the T2 4K is notoriously awful. I don’t have it because it’s universally considered terrible (something about the transfer being the one used for 3D, which messed up the colors and brightness, etc…), but I’m sure there’s a Blu or HD stream you can use…
As mentioned above, T2 sorta tries to undo what’s clever about the first movie. Agree about the spectacle and soundtrack and the overall action packedness of it, but honestly I think the action in the first movie is just as good. I dunno, I should rewatch it soon too, but Edward Furlong also kinda annoys me as well.
Regardless, you’re son is in for a good time!