Unreleased TERMINATOR trailer (1984), from a parallel universe

Rare glimpse into a parallel universe, where famous movies turned out slightly differently to the ones from our dimension.

I created this retro Terminator trailer was without using ANY footage from the actual movie. Not a single shot. Featuring Tommy Lee Jones instead of Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese! Sacrilege!! Plus a little easter egg at the end:

Terminator: Hunter Killer (Future War short film)

I'm only 2 and a half years late...

Here's my 'Terminator: Hunter Killer' short film, created as a love letter to the original 2 films, and trying to capture the bleak, hopeless and terrifying future we glimpse in those first 2 movies:

And here's a few glimpses into the making of my short film, including scene breakdowns and early test renders:

'The Terminator' (1984) - Modern Trailer (30th Anniversary)

What if the 'The Terminator' was to be released today - would it be advertised like this?

A little experimental trailer that I recently concocted, exploring my take on a modern interpretation of the original movie. Rule no.1: don't spoil the movie by showing the endoskeleton (oh the irony!).

And here's a shorter, less spoilery teaser:

We're now ready for your closeup

To cut a long story short, my Nikon camera broke soon after I took the last photo (from the previous post). It's been in the shop getting repaired for about 2 months (!!) but is now back with me in a functional state.

In the interim I finished off the endo skull with some detail work in the recesses (using a fine black pen), some black watercolour paint in the larger crevices, and some brown watercolour paint on the teeth to give them a more realistic stained appearance. After mounting it on the base from the original build (from 10 years ago), I wanted to take a selection of photos to finally enable me to draw a thick line under this project, and mark it as 'done'.

So here are a selection of the resulting photos of the finished thing for you to peruse. Click the images to view the hi-res versions.

Incidentally, if anything in this blog has been of interest to you, feel free to leave a comment in one of the posts. Also, if I've missed anything during the step-by-step process, or you have an questions, feel free to let me know.

QUICK TEST PHOTO

I thought I'd take a quick test photo of the skull, even though I'm only halfway through the process of affixing it to the base. Here's the result:

CONSTRUCTION - PART I

I wanted to emulate the screw that attaches the jaw to the skull from T1, but despite wanting to achieve a screen-accurate look, I didn't like the Phillips-Screw head of the one used in the movie, and so used a Hex/Allen Screw instead (requiring me to drill holes through the jaw and into the skull for mounting).

I wanted to replicate the T800's jaw screw, but opted for a slightly different Hex/Allen screw head

After this I began to assemble some of the smaller parts, namely inserting the eyes (and mounting the LEDs in position within them), the eye ball struts & ball-bearings, and the jaw pistons.

NECK PISTONS & HOSES

Despite all of the commercially available reproductions of the T800 skull featuring a braided hose topped with a curved (90-degree) elbow joint, my research pointed towards the original T800 skeleton featuring a hose that attached vertically to the underside of the skull, without an elbow fixing.

The original T800's steel tendon was vertically connected to the base of the skull, without an 'elbow joint' at the top

After some research, I came to the conclusion that the best options to replicate the T800's tendon was a Steel-Braided Flexible Monobloc Tap Connector. Another option would have been a Steel-Braided Motorbike Brake Cable, but the ease of obtaining the tap connector over the bike hose led me to purchase the former (although I believe that the bike hose would more closely match the diameter of the T800's hose/tendon).

Steel-Braided Flexible Monobloc Tap Connector

Steel-Braided Motorbike Brake Cable

Compression Reducing Set

For the rear piston, I raided the supplies at the same DIY store that I obtained the pair of Steel-Braided Hoses from, and ended up buying a plastic pipe and a wooden rod that snugly fit inside the pipe. In addition to them I also bought a couple of packs of 'Compression Reducers' to act as a cap to the piston. Finally, I glued in position a marble at the top of each piston to act as a simulation of the ball joint. Although not 100% screen-accurate, I felt that the pistons were a close enough reproduction to do the job.

The piston parts after being coated with primer

And a coat of the same Gloss Black Enamel Paint as used on the other skull parts