There were three main releases commemorating the 40th Anniversary of The Terminator. One was, of course, the 4K release of the film in both Slipcase and Steelbook editions (See HERE). The other two were the new comic series and a Special issue of UK's fantastic Empire magazine. Now, the longtime readers of the blog, or a site, know that I collected mostly vintage stuff. Certainly when it comes to magazines. I just like reading it all from the perspective of the times they were released in. I like 'em as relics from another world. But this particular issue of Empire, dated November 2024 I had to get after being tipped by a fellow fan, Instagram's Terminator1984fan. Without even hearing anything about the written content, the never before seen photos published in the mag were, of course, an instant sell for me. See, there was never such thing as never before seen photos - all the so called "never before seen' and "rare" photos come simply from rediscovered old obscure or foreign magazines, newspapers or promotional material, so it was a shock to see actual behind the scenes photos which were never ever published anywhere. Unfortunately, they are all in a very small size and stylized as a film slide, 34 images crammed into just two pages. Still, let's not complain about the size and celebrate their release! Great photos, and here are just 2 samples
The other great thing about those newly published never before seen pics is that it means that there ARE photos out there that had never seen the light of day yet. Who knows how many there are there. Perhaps we'll finally see some in the rumored upcoming book overseen by James Cameron, on the making of the first film.
As far as the written content, James Cameron interviews are always interesting. Always very insightful and his answers interesting and elaborate. There are some great questions asked but unfortunately some are not directly answered. They talk about the 3 Terminator films that Cameron was involved in, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator: Dark Fate. For new and medium level fans, there's plenty of great info and anecdotes. For ultra diehards like myself, everything said is well known, but there is one exception - Cameron reveals that he actually has a test footage of Billy Idol as the T-1000! He also revealed that Idol didn't get picked because he had a motorcycle accident. There's plenty of great stuff here
Jim says the first film is a product of its time and elaborates on that. He reiterates that both the first and second movie were one story at first which he had to split (See more on it HERE), and says that he was not listened to during the production of Dark Fate, although he blames himself for the movie's box office failure saying that the reason for it was the inclusion of Arnold and Linda which new audiences did not care for. Not sure about that, as far as fan community, there are consistently 3 reasons given from everyone who didn't like the film - killing John, unlikeable new characters and supposed rehash of the earlier films (two of the three I don't agree with). But perhaps Jim Cameron is right and the new audience does not care for legacy sequels. I mean, Michael Keaton's return as Batman did not help Flash, neither did the original cast of Jurassic Park skyrocket Jurassic World: Dominion in the box office. Or perhaps they were just bad movies which the audiences didn't care for that the inclusion of the original characters couldn't help.
The magazine also includes an exclusive writeup from Gale Anne Hurd on choosing Arnold Schwarzenegger for the film, working with him and the film's impact on Arnold's career
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