Dir. James Cameron
James Cameron seems to be great at either writing in, or having objects in his films that become iconic. I'll definitely be writing in the future about the motion-tracker and the pulse rifle of Aliens, the Unobtanium of Avatar, maybe even the lever-shotgun of Terminator 2. But today, it's the pipe bombs from the original, and if it wasn't for one of the greatest sequels of all time, the best film of the Terminator franchise. My own favouratism fluctuates between this film, and it's terrific action-sequel. Like Alien, The Terminator is a darker, moodier, and grittier original film than it's sequel Terminator 2, and Aliens like it. It's like comparing a damn good apple to an equally good orange, as each film is a different, excellently-constructed beast. What's even more impressive is that Cameron did this to his own concept. It was he who came up with the idea of the robotic-assassin from the future (well, Harlan Ellison would disagree but that's another matter), and it was he who wrote and directed the film, during a period of extreme poverty. Thankfully, this film was a hit, but most importantly, not just financially. It's an excellent film, one I recommend you visit, or re-visit, if you've only seen T2 or any of the other, less superior films.
It's details like the pipe bombs that add to a greater whole. The Terminator is taut, lean, and overwhelmingly one long chase, either for Reese (Michael Biehn) to reach Sarah (Linda Hamilton) before the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) can find and kill her, or afterwards as the Terminator hunts the two down. I was surprised to find that the film is 107 minutes long, it feels far shorter, although certain scenes do come to find, mainly in the police station that probably extend the runtime. Being taut, nearly every detail in the film serves the plot, the characters, and the themes.
The pipe bombs in their 'introduction' inform us about Kyle Reese as a character. In the latter half of the film, Kyle and Sarah reach a motel. Kyle says that he's going to go shopping. He returns, and naturally, Sarah, who's been on the run from the murderous T-800 for a long few hours, searches fro some food. She finds nothing but mothballs, rags, wiring and the like. Reese, a 'veteran' of the future-war against the machines, a desolate nuclear-wasteland of a war-field filled with the skulls of the innocent, crushed under machine rule. His first thought in a moment of relief isn't sustenance, but an offensive defense, by creating pipe bombs.
It also tells us a lot about the environment Kyle has grown and fought in. Now I understand we do actually see this environment in the flash-backs (or would those be flash-forwards?) of Kyle, and so I could be talking out of my arse. I don't think so however. In fact, I think the effect would be even better. If we hadn't seen these flash-backs, the pipe bombs would tell us a few things: i) Kyle is resourceful, he knows what to get from the shop to create the bomb; ii) Kyle has experience cobbling together weapons in the future, and a pipe-bomb is a great symbol of this resource-filled environment. Finding pipes in a nuclear wasteland isn't going to be that hard, and the other items not very difficult either.; and iii) Fairly simply, Kyle is experienced at fighting Terminators with bare supplies. It tells us that the future doesn't have many man-made weapons, as otherwise they wouldn't need to rely on pipe-bombs.
They also act to create a nice bonding moment between Kyle and Sarah, as he instructs her how to construct the bombs. Even little details like him going 'Slowly!' to make sure she doesn't end up blowing them both up tells us that he has experience with making them, admittedly, this was pretty clear already. It's a moment that's fairly cliche in films these-days, likely due to the influence of this scene, and others like it.
They are, of-course, also used practically, as weapons against the Terminator. They are thrown at him during the motorcycle chase, the timing of the fuse leading to some great, literal actions-beats as the timing is just wrong enough as to not directly hit the Terminator. Later, it's a pipe bomb placed in the exhaust pipe of the fuel-truck that causes the massive explosion ridding the Terminator of his skin, leaving the cold, deadly machine underneath to stalk the two. And it deals the penultimate killing blow as Kyle sacrifices himself to directly place a pipe bomb into the abdomen area of the Terminator, exploding it into junk, except of course for the torso, because that's the thing with Terminators, they never stop.
It's for these last few reasons that the objects are particularity iconic and associated with this film, but as I've discussed, I think they've a deeper purpose in the entire feel of the film. It's not as deep as objects from other films, especially the big open-to-interpretation objects such as the blue box in Mulholland Drive and other films of the like, but nonetheless, I think they deserve a place on the blog!
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