Terminator: The Resistance Cut

I loved The Terminator as a kid, and after each rewatch I would watch all the deleted scenes too. Since getting into fan edits I wanted to see what was available, just looking for a version with the deleted scenes reintegrated, but skyblue did so much more!

Two versions of the film are offered, one with the classic score, and one with original music replaced with three AC/DC songs. For this review I watched with the original score, but it's easy enough to switch between the two audio tracks for your personal preference.

The deleted scenes are there, upscaled and with a slightly noticeable shift in quality. While some of the deleted scenes might be fluff (still enjoyable!), there are a few which I feel should have always been kept. Detective Traxler helping Kyle and Sarah provides a nice cap on his minor character arc in deciding if Reese is honest or not. Without the scene Traxler listens but then dies, but the scene concludes he did in fact believe Reese, at least by the time a T-800 rampaged through the station. The second scene, Cyberdine employees finding the T-800's processor directly establishes a link to the second movie creating a more thoughtful canon.

What I was pleasantly surprised by was the wonderful new soundscape which accompanied the movie. skyblue added new, beefier (sometimes subtle but impactful) SFX for footsteps, grabbing, cutting flesh, lasers, too many elements to list (seriously just read the changes!) which makes the movie feel more dynamic. My one critique, sometimes I find the audio balancing to be a little off, with the need to raise volume during dialogue and lower during action scenes. skyblue also made sure to make this plainly clear, and I appreciated that. I did notice the AC/DC audio track was in AAC 5.1 while the original score was AAC 2.0, not sure if that's just because the AC/DC music is in surround or something else. Either way, did not impact the enjoyment of the movie!

For me The Resistance Cut is the definitive way to enjoy the original Terminator movie!

Its ten Terminator eyeballs all the way!

What can be said other than mission accomplished. This is the 1 to the 2. Deleted scenes are appreciated. Cheers :)

As of late I've been going thru all available 1984's "The Terminator" edits and having just watched this one, I find it to be special and unique. I have to commend fan editor skyblue for the incredible amount of audio work done to this edit. It's absolutely mind boggling reviewing all the tiny little edits that permeate the edit throughout the entire movie. Reading through the list of things that were modified or added to the audio of this movie gave me a sincere appreciation for the talent and patience skyblue has in performing his magic on this movie. The audio work is absolutely perfect and really brings the movie to life. I highly recommend this edit just for the audio work alone.

The only gripe I have is the inclusion of the deleted scenes. Although they do serve a purpose and expand upon the character development for each of the main cast, I find it to be very distracting. Why? It's solely because of the horrible quality the video and audio. It's jarring watching this fan edit in extremely high audio and video quality and then suddenly low quality footage pops up. I do understand the desire to include the deleted scenes as they are worthwhile and have been included in many other fan edits. However, the drop in visual and audio quality is far more noticeable than any other fan edit I've watched due to the incredible sound work skyblue performed on this outstanding film.

That being said, I highly recommend this fan edit to anyone who loves The Terminator. You won't regret watching it.

I watched the version with the ACDC songs inserted first mainly out of curiosity for where you placed them throughout the edit than watched the version without them as I generally prefer the films OST not that I have anything against ACDC and their music as I listen to some of there songs from time to time though I am glad there’s alternate viewing options for viewers and reviewers such as myself as it not only provides more variety in viewing but also in music taste which like comedy is subjective from person to person and group to group.

I like the way you designed and animated the Resistance Cut text as it’s manner of speed and presentation gels well with the looming and systematic threat of the Terminator itself and also symbolises how the tension will continue to fluctuate and rise throughout the edit.

Sound usage and layering is superb throughout and although I can tell you’ve replaced and mixed the new SFX with that of the films natural noises based on my memory of watching the theatrical cut, said sound effects feel natural to that of the films and the very placement of these sounds shows that you have a good eye for detail in sound design. Speaking of detail the theatrical scenes look smooth and nicely defined however there are some visual inconsistencies between the deleted scenes and the theatrical scenes as some of the deleted scenes are a little on the blurry side.

Not only that but the padding between the deleted and theatrical scenes (the black bars surrounding the footage) are a little inconsistent visually as there proportions don’t quite align with each other otherwise in terms of the deleted scenes narrative value they are very well integrated into the story as they not only improve pacing but give a good estimation as to where everyone is during the whole thing especially during the first car chase scene though my personal favourites have to be the ones between Sarah and Kyle due to there buildup and foreshadowing along with the insight and relationship building between said characters.

Any other potential sound or visual problems have already been pointed out by someone else so rather than parrot what they have said I will say that In conclusion I would consider this a near perfect extended edition of the first Terminator Film.

skyblue did a great job with this edit. I thought that the addition of the new sound effects throughout the movie were great. They made the movie feel more modern. I also like how you can select between two audio streams- one with the ACDC songs, and one without. I watched the version with the ACDC songs, and I think that they fit well. I thought the selected songs were a great choice (especially Highway to Hell), and I like how the film starts right away with a rescore of the intro. The inclusion of the deleted scenes was a nice addition too. I think that these added scenes did a good job of fleshing out some of the story (such as Sarah plotting with Reese, and Traxler's death). Great work!