The Terminator (Special Edition) [Import]

Don't be deceived by the new cover. This "new release" with a new cover is THE SAME terrible blu-ray disc previously released by MGM. The video quality is awful. Shame on those who practice the art of deception and get away with it. Now you have been warned.

This is one disc that i cannot see any reason to own.The transfer is not even widescreen ,the sound may not even be stereo,the graininess of the film just accentuates the feeling of poor quality..The feeling is that this film was a low budget effort ,which was part of the grittiness of the director's vision,but became one of the true science fiction film noirs...If you have a DVD or even a VHS of this film,don't bother to upgrade to Blu-ray,any quality improvement is only relegated to new menus .....

There have been so many iterations and "editions" of this and the second movie, it's actually hard to keep track. . of which edition has what OR the amount of money left in your pocket after you buy every single edition known to man. What I can say about this particular installment is; if you don't own this first movie on blu-ray yet, this version is definitely worth it. I'm a big fan of the "plus book" edition's. The quality of the information inside can vary from awesome-for-just-a-movie-keepsake, to yeah-I-knew-that-already if you're already a fan of the movie. I would have to say this one here lacks any real trivia or lesser-known facts about the movie, but does include a nice, short essay about sci-fi movies and where the Terminator ranks and how it "changed Hollywood forever".
I won't bother reviewing the movie. If you haven't seen, why in the hell would you be reading this when you could be watching a classic movie you've never seen before?!?
But I will touch on the transfer of this movie. I only own one version of this movie on DVD (as opposed to the four I have of the sequel) that came out years upon years ago when DVD was a relatively new thing, and MGM still a big company and had the rights of movies to sell them. It was better than the used VHS copy i had, but not by much. The 5.1 surround was "awesome" for the time, but listening to it now is almost painful.
This blu-ray is absolutely fantastic! The movie does not look as old as it is, but does not suffer from any real edge enhancement that is so popular today for some reason. The soundtrack is now uncompressed 5.1, and although some of the special effects might sound just a tad "dated", there's depth and feel to the music/speech/effects that were not there in the DVD from over a decade ago. I don't know, and can only assume, that any other high-def release of this movie would be the same transfer here, but if you do not own this movie yet on blu-ray, this is the one you want. It's a good "coffee table" piece for when your buddies come over and see yet another issue of movie they've seen, but in a collector's book they have never seen.