2 ms·

As an audience member, you’re expected to maintain some suspension of disbelief. At a musical no one would say, “no one would actual sing what they could just s

As an audience member, you’re expected to maintain some suspension of disbelief. At a musical no one would say, “no one would actual sing what they could just say!”, or reading a book “those letters could have been scrawled by any kindergartener!” At that point of the movie the thing the protagonists thought they killed is resurrected in an even more frightening form and dread is elevated. Obviously the viewer is not at risk, so how that is implemented has little bearing on the impact of the scene. On the other hand, if you are interested in the technical details of how this creature appears next to actors, knowing Cameron’s history in the model department on low budget movies and Ray Harryhausen’s similar technique used in Jason and the argonauts would allow you to appreciate how it was made. I don’t buy that the late reveal was due to effects limitations. It’s really to take an audience that may have allowed themselves to relax to be immediate brought back to an even higher anxiety level than the proceeding chase.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
I think GP's point is less about breaking or sustaining suspension of disbelief, or technical limitations themselves, and more about costs. Once the Terminator loses its human skin, the (then) relatively cheap actor is replaced by a prop that's (then) stupidly expensive to animate. Deciding to do it earlier would likely force the movie to look entirely different at least from that point on. Such considerations were a major driver of how sci-fi in general was done up until early 2000s. With TV shows, a lot of the tropes and patterns of sci-fi, particularly around how the aliens look and behave, boil down to the fact that about the only way to make non-grotesque aliens without breaking bank was to glue prosthetics to the actors and apply tons of makeup. The writing was thus constrained by what the makeup department could handle.
- porknubbins 4y ago
  If they made the scene today I imagine it would be a smoothly walking CGI metal skeleton with less of that awkward jerkiness that made it so scary. Yet another benefit of practical effects.

TeMPOraL 4y ago

I think GP's point is less about breaking or sustaining suspension of disbelief, or technical limitations themselves, and more about costs. Once the Terminator loses its human skin, the (then) relatively cheap actor is replaced by a prop that's (then) stupidly expensive to animate. Deciding to do it earlier would likely force the movie to look entirely different at least from that point on. Such considerations were a major driver of how sci-fi in general was done up until early 2000s. With TV shows, a lot of the tropes and patterns of sci-fi, particularly around how the aliens look and behave, boil down to the fact that about the only way to make non-grotesque aliens without breaking bank was to glue prosthetics to the actors and apply tons of makeup. The writing was thus constrained by what the makeup department could handle.

porknubbins 4y ago
If they made the scene today I imagine it would be a smoothly walking CGI metal skeleton with less of that awkward jerkiness that made it so scary. Yet another benefit of practical effects.