Terminator (1984) - supposed to be gritty or is it just my tape?

S

Stripes and Dots

New member
For the first time I am watching Terminator. I have seen T2 many times - but not the first one.

Well, it really is very gritty and grungy - all grainy and faded.

It is not the tapes fault - the recording is that way. Just wondering if it is bad duplication or just the way it was supposed to look (I suspect the latter).

Cheers for your input.
 
It is grimy looking. I don't know if there is a Blu-Ray version which has been cleaned up and sharpened, but my DVD copy is grained and "B-movie" ish. It was probably filmed in 1982, 83, a long time ago.
 
I haven't seen a DVD of it but having seen it on TV I think it is just naturally gritty due to how it was filmed and when it was filmed to be honest.
 
Thanks - and yes, it certainly has a grimy and dark mood. I like it!

I am also detecting some dirt on the print - that would be better ir it was cleaned up but the urban scenes are all the better for the dark and dirty look.
 
the DVD is good quality - its not CGI stuff, like T2 (except for the robot stuff a\t the end possibly)

I have never thought it grainy.


But the movie itself is seminal. Did you know Lance Henrikson (the thin white police guy) was originally set to play the Terminator. One of the interesting extras on the DVD
 
Come on Soundbox. Tapes ?

The Terminator was a low budget affair and the gritty appearance is apparent on the dvd and Bluray .

Its massive success was how Cameron was able to spend about 50 times (if not more) of that budget on T2 and make it a very glossy spectacle
 
Yes I know I was in for a ribbing about the tape but I was given it for nothing plus I am quite good at knowing what tape 'looks like' for a known good recording (low grain, clear boundries, chroma noise in solid colour and some dot crawl) and Terminator did have visible grain.
 
Because VHS is such low quality the masters used to create them are nothing compared to the quality control we have today .
The improved clarity of dvd and hd means that current versions are light years ahead of anything released on vhs.

Less care was taken because it didn't matter.
Of course restoration technology has moved on a lot since the days of vhs and the work done today would have been wasted on vhs
 
Back in the days of VHS I must have taken the original Terminator movie back to the shop at least four times, because the quality was so dire. I forget the name of the label, but they were notorious for poor quality VHS films. As I remember it, it wasn't so much the picture quality that annoyed me, but the sound, which was always so hissy and crap no matter which machine I played it in.

Thanks God for DVD then. It's a brilliant release.

EDIT: I'm sure it was Guild Home Video and/or VVL (Vision Video Limited). Naff.
 
That's it! That's them! The gits!

I hated that label. I had a few from them too, all the same. Crap video, worse audio. Even for VHS. Yes I think you're right it's a budget label. Get the DVD toot-sweet. :) You'll be so glad you did.
 
Awesome film!!

My local cinema recently reopened as a community run cinema and they showed this as a late night screening. Even looked grimy on the big screen (possibly older cinema equipment causing this too)

Was great to see on the big screen however, and there was a couple of guys who seemed to enjoy the classic lines a bit too much with the "oohing and ahing" going on lol

Incidentally, the famous line "I'll be back!" was fluffed.
The script originallt read "I'll come back!"
The rest, as they say, is history!!
 
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