Sci-fi more than any other genre, dates badly. What makes The Terminator an endlessly re-watchable classic is that, conversely, it feels more relevant with each passing year and with every new-fangled gadget that comes along promising to do all of your thinking for you. It's not just a slick, exciting action-thriller, it's also a shrewd cautionary tale for our tech-obsessed times and three decades on, the story continues to unspool with a fourth sequel Terminator Genisys opening in July.

Skynet, a self-governing computer network, is bent on destroying humankind in 2029, but director James Cameron co-penned the script with his future-wife Gale Anne Hurd in the early '80s, well before the rise of the internet. That was the first genius stroke, and then there was the casting of one Arnold Schwarzenegger.


He was a bodybuilder who had just made a significant dent at the box office in 1982's Conan the Barbarian with exactly the kind of imposing square-jawed, stone-cold presence that was perfect for the title role, a cyborg - T-800 Model 101 - sent back to 1984 to execute Sarah Connor, the mother of a leading resistance fighter.

Linda Hamilton (also destined to be Mrs Cameron, Model III) cuts a striking figure herself as said target who through the franchise evolves from befuddled waitress to muscled-up warrior princess. She's the sort of kickass heroine often found in Cameron's movies, providing a beating heart as well as feisty 'tude (consider Aliens, the forthcoming Battle Angel and even, Titanic).

Ostensibly, Michael Biehn is her protector as Kyle Reese, a resistance fighter from the future whose assignment is to keep the Terminator from doing his. But, as he famously warns his charge, "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."


Schwarzenegger, with a fixed expression, occasionally glowing red eyes and general incongruity in a roomful of regular-sized human beings inspires real terror. He coolly mugs a biker for a leather jacket, a pair of boots and a motorcycle, still he doesn't blend in. He cuts a swathe through people and the sense of fast-impending doom is thick as he marches dead-straight towards Sarah, shotgun cocked. Hints of emotion change the feel in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), with credible effect. However, the black humour of T3: Rise the Machines (2003) dampens the tension and Arnie, (approaching 60), appears a little rusty, too.

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It's worth noting that Cameron has had little to do with the franchise after Judgment Day and the third sequel Salvation (2009) moved farther away from the core of the story – pitting Christian Bale and Sam Worthington in a serviceable but uninspired macho face/off, with Schwarzenegger absent (governing California). To paraphrase the Austrian Oak's immortal words, 'he'll be back' in Genisys, but without Cameron's direction and the star now looking down the barrel of the big 7-0, the cogs of that movie will need plenty of greasing.

The 1984 original remains a tough act to follow. It's lean and mean in terms of concept, plot mechanics and special effects, yet spilling over with invention and a truly hair-raising finale where the T-800 is stripped back to a metal skeleton, still coming at Sarah, bringing to mind a kind of hi-tech Ray Harryhausen monster – except chilling instead of camp.

The intense cat-and-mouse game ends on a much-debated time-travel paradox regarding the conception of Sarah's feted son, creating a loop of causality that becomes even more knotty with every sequel. So far, this is the film that stands up best - like the cyborg itself, a stalwart of sci-fi.