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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of The Terminator (Brad Fiedel)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on either the 2016 Milan or 1994/1995 Edel albums if you
seek a comprehensive survey of Brad Fiedel's raw, synthetic score or,
conversely, on the original 1991 score and song combination product if
you seek all five major songs heard prominently in the narrative and
cleverly reflecting upon it.
Avoid it... on any album if you are only casually interested in the effective, but now badly dated music for this film, because there still exists no truly satisfying, comprehensive soundtrack album for this film.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Terminator: (Brad Fiedel) Whether writer and
director James Cameron's 1984 story of The Terminator was
original or not, it persists as one of the most compelling science
fiction concepts ever told. After the computers of the world turn
against humanity and nearly eliminate their creators in the late 1990's,
surviving rebels start to successfully fight back against the machines.
In an effort to alter the past to preserve their power in the future,
the mechanized villains send a cyborg killer called a terminator back to
1984 to eliminate the mother of the rebel leader before he is conceived.
The humans send back a lone protector as well, and the chase is on. The
bulk of its running time set in contemporary times, The
Terminator is a suspenseful thriller with protagonists and
antagonists so clearly defined that it was guaranteed to hold audience
interest. Still, the production had to overcome several hurdles, the
most intriguing of which a lawsuit (settled by Cameron) from writer
Harlan Ellison, who claimed that Cameron took significant inspiration
from two of his episodes of "The Outer Limits." Also problematic was a
budget of only $6.5 million and several hiccups in the casting process.
Ultimately, however, with bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger given 16
quickly famous lines and about 30 people to graphically execute on
screen, Cameron's production went on to $38 million in immediate grosses
and $78 million overall worldwide. Along with a project he had been
working on simultaneously (Aliens), this success gave him the
fiscal latitude to shoot a sequel to The Terminator six years
later. The concept would be extended to four films and a television
series within 25 years. So much of the original film became influential
in pop culture (it is indeed saturated with the pop sensibilities of the
early 1980's) that it's sometimes easy to overlook the fact that The
Terminator is, simply put, suspenseful storytelling at its best.
Almost all of the production values of the film were based on visions
beyond their time, and if there was a weakness in any part of the
package, the remaining elements often more than compensated.
One element typically not questioned but still divisive is Brad Fiedel's score for The Terminator, arguably the most beleaguered legacy of the film outside of a fanbase loyal to synthetic scores of the era. The film's sound was never superb in its original version, not mixed into stereo until video releases long after the fact. The score's monotone and raw rendering was therefore simplistic in many ways when it was first heard, but few argue that it didn't succeed in its original context. Fiedel's career in Hollywood was rather sparse and, in its highlights, tied directly to his collaboration with Cameron. A keyboardist for the group Hall and Oates, he initially provided inexpensive electronic music for a variety of trashy films in the 1970's. He eventually tackled the orchestral sound for 1988's The Accused, but even by Cameron's 1994 blockbuster True Lies, Fiedel had not convinced many film score collectors that he possessed any significant ability to handle that level of scoring. He eventually retired from writing music for television and films in the late 1990's, weary of the studio system and its politics. His scores for the first two Terminator films remain his most lasting impact on the industry, the title theme largely defining his career. As to be expected in any low budget production for a man in his early 30's attempting to make a living in the scoring business, the music for The Terminator is distinctly cheap in its tone and depth. Creativity substituted for the modern libraries of sounds associated with similar film scores two decades later. Fiedel not only recorded unconventional sound effects for musical manipulation, including the hitting of a microphone with a cast iron skillet to produce one of the score's most memorable rhythmic tones, but he also used the sounds of his own screams for the choral effects heard most notably at the climax of the film. The keyboarded motifs, electric violin, and early sequencer effects in The Terminator are truly dated in their sound; Fiedel didn't have the resources of Jerry Goldsmith and other mainstream pioneers of electronic film scores during the 80's. But like the many song placements in the film, Fiedel's score represents 1984 as well as every other aspect of the film, and if you accept it in that context, then you understand its merit. Complexity in structure was not really a necessity for The Terminator, for the villains and heroes are so easily distinguishable. The mechanized embodiment of the terror is also a convenient excuse for a sparse electronic score that rarely attempts any meaningful depth in the soundscape. The suspense cues require little more than ambient droning to suggest the inevitable, and Fiedel's quite loops here are thus effective. More grating is his explicit chasing material, which tends to ramble obnoxiously in an extremely constricted series of jabs and blasts. Synthetic orchestra hits were acceptable at the time, but they do acutely cheapen the proceedings. The drum pad hits are a little easier to handle in retrospect, and Fiedel's imitations of wailing sirens and screeching tires basically function in "Garage Chase" and "Tunnel Chase." Several coherent musical identities used consistently by Fiedel cause The Terminator to be more satisfactory in terms of its application than his sequel score in 1991. The title theme speaks for itself, a harmonically romantic piece of pretty simplicity that represents the developing bond between the targeted Sarah Conner and Kyle Reese, her protector. The title sequences use this theme over the score's various rhythmic devices and droning sound effects. Its keyboarding is a bit more raw here than it would be in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the only real comparative asset of the second score. The theme is translated to piano for the actual love scene between Conner and Reese, reprised in somber, deceptively redemptive fashion in "Death by Fire." Long fragments of this theme are bittersweet in their piano performances in "Sarah's Destiny" at the conclusion of the picture. The very basic counterpoint in this theme's love scene performance is slightly irritating in its volume. The terminator itself is represented by a rhythmic series of thumps that differs in its construct throughout this score and the sequel. In the title sequences, the machine's rhythm consists of three sets of pairs on key followed by a short pair of bridge notes; this motif would be shortened by one note for the sequel, interestingly. In the actual underscore of The Terminator, however, Fiedel cuts this motif back to a more simplistic, four linear notes that function like the relentless heartbeat of the machine. Heard first in "The Terminator's Arrival," this four-note heartbeat effect always foreshadows or accompanies the terminator when it is at its calmest, most procedural mode. Interestingly, the motif seems to slightly increase in tempo as the story progresses, noticeably faster in "Arm & Eye Surgery" and determinedly forceful in the harrowing "Terminator Gets Up" as the metal exoskeleton of the machine first reveals itself. Before Connor realizes that she is a target, Fiedel uses the piano to define her normal everyday existence, assisted by acoustic guitar in a light, solitary major-key idea in "Sarah on Her Motorbike." Her realization of trouble in "Sarah in the Bar" takes that piano motif to a quickly fearful incarnation. Reese is given an 8-note ascending loop on raw, synthetic keyboarding that accompanies him in the future (as in the prelude to the main title) and 1984 (as in his initial elusion from authorities heard during "Reese in Alley"). Outside of these explicit structures, Fiedel relies upon his instrumentation to identify the level of menace in a particular scene. The manipulated choral effects for the future scenes is appropriately other-worldly, leading to the dissonant climax with a descending motif that literally mimics the crushing and thrashing of the terminator. On album, many of Fiedel's looped effects are quite effective in their bouncing from one speaker to another, a technique negated in the mono theatrical release of the film. His contribution to The Terminator is almost always sufficient in context, though given its inherent limitations, it's difficult to say if a deeper, more complicated and/or timeless score would have functioned any better. It is, on the whole, a work that remains a cult favorite for those devoted to both the composer and this franchise. For collectors of more commonly embraced orchestral film scores, Fiedel's sound may be simply too dated for repeated album enjoyment. Regardless of where you fall in that spectrum, the title theme for The Terminator has to be recognized as one of the most memorable of its era. Aside from the score, Cameron's employment of contemporary songs also had a significant impact on the narrative of The Terminator, with five notable source usages becoming fan favorites themselves. Embedded in the lyrics of these songs is also a tremendous sense of humor, for most of them precisely match the action about to happen in the story. The two songs in the "Tech Noir" nightclub are most obvious and vital of the vocalized entries in The Terminator, both performed by Tahnee Cain and Tryanglz. They represent California new wave music of the early 80's very distinctly, and demand for them alone caused the original album for this soundtrack to become scarce. Their lyrics cleverly reference the aspects of pursuit and masquerade relevant to the scene. The first, "Photoplay," is heard as Conner walks into the club, but the second, "Burnin' in the Third Degree," is the centerpiece of the scene. Perhaps the most suspenseful moment in the film shows Conner leaning over to pick up a beverage she accidentally knocked to the floor in the club, thus coincidentally obscuring herself from the vision of the ominously passing terminator. Cameron slightly slows the visuals to accentuate this scene, adding an eerie, wet mix to "Burnin' in the Third Degree" in this exact shot (heard in its original mix at 2:10 into the song on album) while still somehow synching the dancers on the screen to the song's regular speed. Cameron seems fond of using slightly slower or faster speeds of photography in The Terminator (the latter used to increase velocities during the car chases), but never is this technique more effective than with the manipulation of the music here. The subsequent merging of this song with the Fiedel cue "Tech Noir" represents the official shattering of Conner's world as she first spots Reese in the club. The same group also performs "You Can't Do That" for the scene earlier in the film as Conner and her roommate are seen preparing for their dates; the lyrics and title of the song, of course, reference a gun shop owner's final words to the terminator before his killing in the forthcoming scene. Outside of the contributions of Tahnee Cain and Tryanglz, Cameron also placed two additional songs into situations involving Conner's ditzy roommate, Ginger. The first, performed by Jay Fergusson and 16mm, is "Pictures of You," which is used by Ginger's boyfriend to drown out the phone message from Conner in an adjoining room. The use of picture identification by the terminator in the following scene is what this song references. Right before she is killed by the terminator (because he mistakenly believes her to be Conner), Ginger is listening to Linn Van Hek's "Intimacy" on her Walkman. The male choral baseline repeatedly says "it's a mistake" in distinctly European tones, producing perhaps the most humorous moment in the film because it underlines or foreshadows so many different fallacies involved with the scene. None of the songs will likely appeal to film score collectors, regardless of whether they appreciate Fiedel's work or not, but the careful application of these songs to the film assists in not only a high number of in-jokes, but also the reinforcement that even the most intimate or popular pop culture situations in the setting aren't immune from the death that follows the singular attention of the terminator. Despite the high profile nature of the film, the music from The Terminator was difficult to find on CD for decades. Its initial release in digital form came in 1991, when Cinemaster (a DCC subsidiary) produced a CD identical to the contents of the Enigma LP release (which had originally placed Fiedel's score on one side and the songs on the other). Only about 14 minutes of Fiedel's music existed on this album, though it did provide a basic survey of the highlights. Missing were the actual title sequence cues, the extended piano performances, and most of the chase music. Because of the songs, though, it went out print and shot up to unrealistic prices. In 1994 and 1995, Edel distributed what it called "The Definitive Edition" with only Fiedel's score (71 minutes of it!), and because this was primarily a European product, it quickly became difficult to find as well. Interestingly, it stated on the back, "The Producers freely acknowledge The Works of Harlen Ellison," which not only speaks to the circumstances swirling about the film's production but also album producer Ford A. Thaxton's erroneous spelling (one pressing used "The Definite Edition" on the front cover, too). Sound quality on both albums is decent, the 1994 Edel CD very clear in even the most yearning, low-volume piano performances in "Conversations by the Window." Still, these products forced fans to shell out more money than they were worth. While the songs remain neglected, the score received a long-overdue remastering by Fiedel himself for a re-issue in 2016. This Milan product, primarily aimed at the vinyl audience but also available at regular commercial prices on CD, shortens the presentation by a few minutes but is a better consolidation of the actual score as heard in the film. Surprisingly, this new mix from original tapes contains an unfortunate number of audible artifacts such as pops and warbles, the worst of the latter existing distractingly in "Love Scene." The product places the score back into affordability, but the questionable sound and lack of songs remain a problem. The best, ever-elusive presentation of music from The Terminator would merge most of the score with the songs, but no such product has ever existed. Given the popularity of the film, such a treatment (complete, hopefully, with standalone quotes) may someday come, but unless you're well aware of the dated and often grating synthetic tone of Fiedel's score, don't pursue this one blindly. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
1991 Cinemaster Album:
Total Time: 34:42
1994/1995 Edel Albums: Total Time: 71:03
2016 Milan Albums: Total Time: 68:31
NOTES & QUOTES:
Only the 1994/1995 and 2016 albums include extra information about the score and film.
Alternate pressings of the 1994/1995 album use "Definitive Edition" and "Definite
Edition" on the front cover.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Terminator are Copyright © 1991, 1994, 1995, 2016, Cinemaster, Edel/Cinerama, Milan Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 10/9/09 and last updated 7/3/17. |
