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Eddie Jones, cover for a 1977 edition of Die phantastischen Planeten, by Hans Kneifel.

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Paul Lehr's 1972 cover art for Isaac Asimov’s The Stars, Like Dust

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Tony Masero's 1977 cover to Web of Everywhere

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Door to another dimension

Animated by Psychedelic Preacher.  My Art | Shared Art

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Tim White has perhaps the best door in retro sci-fi art with his 1979 cover for The Day After Tomorrow, by Robert A. Heinlein

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Moebius, 1978

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Doorway to Reason (art Stanislaw Fernandes)

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Alien: Romulus (2024)

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Star Trek by Steranko

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Alienverse

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Facehuggers for the masses

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Mick McGinty

Mick McGinty

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The Terminator, 1984

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Sorry Arnold, Michael Biehn is the real star of The Terminator.

Biehn initially perceived the script as potentially cheesy and worried it could result in a silly sci-fi movie if handled by a less skilled director. However, he was drawn to the complex character of Kyle Reese and believed he could deliver a strong performance regardless of the film's success.

He told SyFy in 2019: "In the hands of anyone other than Jim Cameron's, it probably would've been a silly movie. This story about a man sent from the future to 1984 to save a woman from a robot also sent from the future.

"The reason I took the role was because I really liked the character of Kyle Reese and I knew I could play that character really well. Even if the movie didn't do well, that was a really good character: a great fighter in love with the woman he was sent to protect. That part made me think, 'Well, I can probably come out of this unscathed.'"

Biehn says his memorable audition for The Terminator saw him initially bring a Southern accent from another role into the reading. It didn't go down too well and he thought he had blown his chances of the part. Yet, despite this hiccup, he impressed Cameron.

Biehn's confidence in the project grew after spending time with Cameron during a delay in production. He was impressed by Cameron’s serious approach and deep understanding of the story, which gave him more assurance about the film's potential.

"[Cameron] could answer any question I had about the story and how he was going to shoot it. When you're around Jim, even for a little while, you're quickly aware of how extremely talented he is. And so I had a little more confidence when we started making the movie than when I first read the script."

Yet, despite the film being iconic today, it didn't make Michael Biehn a star. It did enjoy a solid performance at the box office, making around $40 million on a $6.5 million budget, but The Terminator did not initially rank among the top 20 films of 1984. It received mixed reviews, including criticism from major outlets like the Wall Street Journal.

Biehn recalls, in an interview with Den of Geek: "What happened was that everybody starting getting their VHS recorders, and they started buying the tapes, and the video stores started opening up right around 1984, 85, and that’s where everybody saw the movie, on their cassette players.

"So it was a hit, but it had been a slow build. You know, people talk about it being an iconic movie, with iconic characters and so on – it was never that back then, and you have to remember, too, that Arnold was not a superstar. He was basically a body builder and Mr Universe and, with all respect due to him for being Mr Universe, but all he had done at that time was Conan, and people didn’t take him particularly seriously as an actor. And he only had two lines in the movie!"

Biehn believes the film's popularity grew in popularity as Schwarzenegger's celebrity grew. "It wasn’t like that movie came out and [people thought] “Oh Michael Biehn’s a star! He’s getting offered stuff right and left!” It just didn’t happen that way. It just came out slowly, and so I didn’t realise it was going to be anything until… I don’t even know when!

"Maybe, like, the early 90s, when they made T2, I figured, 'Okay, they’re gonna make T2, that’s Jim… and then they’re gonna make T3.' And then you realise this is a big deal, but it’s very hard to pinpoint the time when I knew it was going to be very good."

One of Biehn's favorite stories from making The Terminator was when he was called by Cameron to watch a rough cut of the Tech-Noir shootout.

"We worked eleven weeks on The Terminator, and they were hard: streets of Los Angeles, night shooting, etc. We finished shooting on a Saturday morning (when the sun was coming up) and I got a call from our producer, Gale Anne Hurd, on Sunday. Jim had a rough cut of the Tech-Noir scene and he wanted me to come to see it. I wanted to stay in bed all day, but I went over to his office.

"When I arrived, he was manically typing something, and he didn't even realize I was standing in his doorway, watching him for about thirty seconds. Before he showed me the rough cut of the Tech-Noir scene, I asked him what he'd been working on. He said, "Well, 20th Century Fox is interested in doing a sequel to Alien, and they've asked me to write a treatment." That's Jim Cameron for you. He doesn't have an extra 10 minutes."

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The 80's were a simpler time, the answer to every situation was Turbo Boost.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/TCFGV9fwuECA885k/

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Far side of the moon, Morten Solgaard Pedersen