The Terminator [Blu-ray]

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Product Reviews

(3 stars) - Not as bad as expected, but...
one reviewer already nailed it, but i'll repeat it: the first 10 or so minutes of "The Terminator" blu-ray disc look awful; PQ identical to, if not lower than, what one would expect from an upcoverting standard-def DVD player. That said, the PQ does improve as the movie goes on, but generally any scene shot in darkness looks horrid.

(2 stars) - Awesome film, lousy blu-ray
I should have known that when a blu-ray disc was selling for under $10 that something was wrong. Sure enough, the picture quality is pretty much the same as a regular DVD. The fact that it's selling for such a low price probably means that somebody is wising up and will soon issue a better quality blu-ray version. My advice is to pass up on this offer and instead wait for the definitive treatment.

(5 stars) - Terminator: Modernized vs. Nostalgic
THE MOVIE: 5/5
Terminator (or The Terminator, if you prefer) is and always will be an excellent movie. It expertly combines the two genres of science fiction and action. This movie was in my opinion James Cameron's break-through movie. After this, he made classic movies such as Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2, and of course, Titanic. Terminator truly is a modern classic. It's one of those relatively low budget movies that made it big. You don't need to take my word of it: other reviewers have given it 5 out of 5 stars.

THE DVD RELEASE VS THE BLU-RAY RELEASE
The first DVD release of Terminator was released in the late 1990s. Even though it was widescreen, unfortunately it was non-anamorphic, which can look terrible on a modern widescreen TV (as it only fills the center of the screen and leaves 4 black bars). The audio was the original mono soundtrack, with all its nostalgic 1980s sounding music and dialogue that sounds... somewhat low quality (which was commonplace for a sci-fi B-movie) It's definitely a nostalgic experience in sound.

Recently, I acquired the Blu-Ray of the Terminator. The picture quality was amazing compared to the first DVD. It was anamorphic widescreen and looks nice on a widescreen TV; however, it still isn't quite up to normal HD standards since it was shot on low-quality film. Still, it was a great video improvement. When I first watched it, the audio bugged me, and I didn't quite know why. It turned out that the Blu-Ray had used the 5.1 remix of the sound. It added new sound effects and made the dialogue sound normal. The audio sounded modern, completely different from the nostalgic B-movie sound. Now, call me funny, but I didn't like it. I missed the old, mono quality audio with the cheesy 1980s sound effects that had been replaced with regular, sounding audio and improved sound effects. In my opinion, it took away the warm B-movie feeling that the first DVD had. To top it all off, I found that the Blu-Ray didn't include the original mono soundtrack.

The average viewer might like the Blu-Ray as it looks modern and sounds technically better. Others, like me, might love that warm, 1980s nostalgic experience of the DVD. The choice is yours.

(2 stars) - Blu ray version needs to be remastered
This is a great movie, however blu ray shows a lower then expected resolution and it feels - especially in the opening scene like the studio did not try and remaster the negatives so you see all these old artifacts showing up on the film. Until its remastered for blu ray and cleaned up so its presentable in this format just stick with the DVD version.

(5 stars) - The movie that started it all
Terminator is one of the greatest movies ever made and is among the top favorites for almost anyone I know. This is the film that really made James Cameron and Arnold, stars in their field.
An excellent story, with perfect theme music, made this an instant classic, one you can watch over and over again. A thrilling, sci-fi, action horror classic, with a bit of a love story mixed in. The only negative critique I've ever had about the film is the scene where Arnold removes the eye, and his face clearly looks like a mask.
The deleted scenes on the disk are fun to watch but they are not re-edited into the film as they did in Aliens. I wish they had done that or given you the option too, because I really enjoyed it that way. Most of the scenes were taken out for timing or pacing and otherwise could have been left in. I particularly thought the Cyberdyne ending could have been left in. I find it really enjoyable to watch deleted scenes on older favorites like this.

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