The original Terminator carved it's own niche in film history and made Arnold our favorite quotable character. Unknown to the general viewer and, I suspect many of my readers, is the fact that Terminator did not arrive on our movie screens without help. The progenitors of Kyle Reese and his nemesis came mainly from the pen of the amazing Harlan Ellison and his contributions to The Outer Limits and specifically season 2. The stories most cited as main influences are 'Soldier' and 'Demon with a Glass Hand'. If you watch these now, you can easily see the beginnings of the Terminator timeline. There is an urban myth that Harlan tried to sue James Cameron for plagiarism, but it's not so and James made sure that Harlan's name was on the credits of Terminator. For those who are interested, I can recommend much or Mr. Ellison's work to you. His rather strange book and subsequent film of 'A Boy and his Dog' will certainly send shivers down your spine and the reading of his later graphic novel will round the story out well. He was also involved in much of the background of Babylon 5 and the series does bear re-watching. I wonder how I, Robot would have looked if they had let Harlan continue with his involvement - we'll never know - pity.
Harlan Ellison is one of my favourite authors and Babylon 5 is one of my favourite TV series. I'm watching the DVDs now.
Posted by: Christy | January 13, 2009 at 03:36 PM