Review Detail

An all-time great edit! I've always been a bit lukewarm on the original Terminator; I appreciated its unflinchingly gritty tone (even the excellent T2 gets a little too jokey for its own good at times), but always felt like the storytelling was a little too straightforward. This edit fixes that, by obscuring the T-800 and making Reese seem much more threatening in his initial scenes. It adds an entire new dimension to the first act, and it's a much better film for it. (One almost gets the sense that this might have been Cameron's preference, given how the ambiguous first act of T2 plays out, but with Schwarzenegger's star power, hiding him from view was never going to be an option.)

I do have a couple of nitpicks, both to do with the editing of Arnie. When we see him appear for the first time in the club, the cut to a medium shot already taking a bead on Sarah Connor doesn't seem like the best way to introduce an entirely new element/character. Either a long shot in the crowded club or a partial close-up (hand, boot, etc) would seem like a better way to gradually hint that a new player has entered the scene. Also, the iconic first visit to the police station "I'll be back" has been removed, seemingly for no reason other than to completely strip out Schwarzenegger's dialogue, which seems a tad excessive given what powerful foreshadowing that scene is.

Aside from those quibbles, this is an enormously effective edit with a terrific concept that "I'll be back" to watch over and over.