The Terminator: a Musical Analysis

At the heart of the film industry is a man who has revolutionized movies for generations to come. Since the release of The Terminator in 1984, James Cameron has been one of only a handful of writers and directors who is consistently certain to bring profit and success to Hollywood. According to Stephen McVeigh and Matthew Wilhelm Kapell, James Cameron “shares the rarefied heights of such A-list directors as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, directors who work in similar generic and commercial landscapes of the action-fantasy blockbuster.” Although of a later generation than Spielberg and Lucas, his movies reveal many similar aspects of cinema and he has, in countless ways, taken many of these facets to a new level (McVeigh and Kapell, 2011). James Cameron is undoubtedly a cinematic genius when it comes to writing and directing smash hit movies, but the overall production of those films is part of a much larger picture that Cameron cannot possibly achieve on his own. Amongst the extensive team of specialized professionals is someone who is absolutely crucial to the assembly of a motion picture: the music composer. Sound and music are key components of cinema that cannot be overlooked in any type of major analysis. When it comes to the dissection of the music score of any one of James Cameron’s films, there is really no better place to start than the production of The Terminator in 1984, which was in many ways looked at as the start of his career and his first revolutionary blockbuster. Rebecca Keegan claims that, “The Terminator introduces many of the themes and motifs that would come to define Cameron’s career: a bleak future setting, an exploration of humanity’s relationship to technology, a love story with a potent heroine and a stoic hero, and, oh yes, lots of cool explosions.” However, The Terminator would be just another overly- ambitious, washed up picture that would have been out of theaters in a few weeks without the music composer (Keegan,