Last Saturday, we saw that Sarah and Kyle were running away from a killer robot. During a car chase and while hiding out in a parking garage, Kyle explains to Sarah why the Terminator wants to kill women named Sarah Connor.

It turns out that, in the future, her son John Connor leads a revolution against the robots who enslave humanity. John manages to defeat the humans’ mechanical foes — but in a last-minute act of desperation, the machines have sent a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah. However, they didn’t know which Sarah Connor was John’s mother. They just knew the city she lived in and were methodically killing everyone with that name. This begs the question of how Kyle himself knew which woman was the correct “Sarah Connor” but that will be answered later in the film.

Sarah is highly skeptical, but Kyle shows her a barcode that has been tattooed onto his skin. This mark and the fact that she just saw the robot take several blows from a shotgun and still get up is enough to convince her to stay with Kyle.

Unbeknownst to them, the Terminator has been listening to a police scanner inside a squad car he’s stolen. He eventually learns that the chase led the police to a parking garage and continues his search for Sarah there. He soon finds his prey, and another car chase begins. Eventually, both vehicles crash into a wall, and the cops arrive.

Sarah and Kyle are taken to the police station, but the Terminator escapes and tends to his wounds.

Is Kyle crazy?

At the station, Sarah learns that, back at her apartment, Ginger and Matt were killed. Sarah then asks if Kyle is crazy. The police bring in a criminal psychologist to answer the question.

This is really the only scene that annoys me throughout the entire movie. Kyle tries to tell the truth. Now, an honest man would obviously make this choice. But when Kyle sees the truth isn’t working, he should’ve switched tactics by arguing with the cops based on what they already knew. He should’ve brought up the fact that there is a maniac running around town who has shot up a nightclub and stolen a police car. Kyle could’ve said that the Terminator was really tough and heavily armed. He could’ve recommended that the cops wear body armor and keep a constant eye on Sarah until the Terminator is killed. Crazy or not, from the cops’ perspective, Kyle has saved Sarah’s life, and he knows something about a man who’s already caused a great deal of trouble. It would cost them nothing but time to take extra precautions, and Kyle could’ve pointed this out as well.

Instead, Kyle begins screaming and demanding to see Sarah. So the cops assume he’s insane, start making jokes, and don’t take Sarah’s protection seriously. It’s not like the scene is bad, but I do find it aggravating when the story doesn’t allow a main character to try different tactics to achieve a goal. It makes the character seem desperate and dumb rather than competent.

Anyway, it doesn’t take the Terminator long to reach the station. He’s prevented from entering the station by an officer behind a desk, and this is where he utters the famous line, “I’ll be back.” True to his word, the Terminator returns in a squad car, which he rams into the desk clerk before beginning his killing spree.

The robot starts shooting the police, who don’t last very long. During the chaos, Kyle escapes and grabs Sarah. The two steal another car, then drive away from the carnage. The Terminator is right behind them, and begins firing at the vehicle. But he runs out of ammo and gives up.

To be honest, this was a plot hole

Really, the Terminator would more likely have grabbed another squad car and taken off after them. But the movie needed to some action before the climax, and frankly, I couldn’t complain. I really enjoy the action scenes in this film, but too many chases and shootouts running back-to-back can either overwhelm the audience or make the movie feel stale.

However, I wish they’d come up with a better way to separate the robot from our heroes. It wouldn’t have been hard to do. The cops are not exactly intelligent in this film, but there are a couple of likable side characters who could’ve stalled the robot by making a grand last stand. This would justify the cops’ subplot, which is otherwise a waste of time because our side characters are either wounded or killed off-screen.

I don’t really understand why the screenwriters have the audience follow the officers investigating the Sarah Connor murders because, in the end, they don’t really do anything. But either way, giving the audience a break in the action was a good choice.

Kyle and Sarah drive until the car runs out of gas. They push the car off the road and spend the night under a bridge. While they are preparing to sleep, Sarah realizes that Kyle is wounded and tends to his injuries. Kyle compliments her field dressing, and this is meant to imply that Sarah really does have the makings of a military leader.

Sarah as a hero in waiting

This is another important point to bring up. There are a couple moments in the film where Sarah’s potential is revealed. They are significant because of their contrast with who she is at present. Those who have watched the other movies will know that Sarah does eventually become the formidable military leader she was meant to be, but this transformation is only significant because of who she was in the beginning. However, the later films forget this and have destroyed the franchise since then because they assumed that making a hero is easy. I mean, you just have to give the character a gun, right?

Wrong. The hero’s journey is, at its core, an underdog story. Aragorn lives in exile. Rambo is a traumatized veteran. Luke Skywalker is just a farm boy. Each hero must grow into a role he isn’t ready for at the beginning. Aragorn must lead an army before he can grab the Palantír and declare himself to Sauron.

This fact actually makes female action stars ideal. They have challenges that position them as underdogs, smaller stature, social expectations, and so on. Seeing Sarah Connor as a sweet, well-meaning waitress makes her transformation impressive.

But the later movies do everything in their power to force the viewer to forget about their introduction to Sarah Connor. One film even has her save Kyle instead of the other way around. However, seeing Sarah as strong in these later movies means nothing because the writers do everything they can to make the first film irrelevant. They don’t want Sarah to appear weak. But in the beginning, a hero must be weak in some way; otherwise, there’s no room to grow.

This first Terminator film understands this rule. John might save the world, but Sarah is the hero. The plot demonstrates that, not by giving her a big gun but by showing her tending to someone else’s wound.

We’ll cover the conclusion of The Terminator next Saturday.     

Here’s the first part of my review of Terminator (1984):

Terminator: The sci-fi classic forty years on The best thing about this first movie is that it adheres to the classic view of futuristic robots, cold, callous machines that are bent on one objective. The film doesn’t explain the backstory all in one dump but breaks it up between two scenes and multiple action sequences.