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Like Cinematical’s own Jessica Barnes, I’ve long had a thing for Michael Biehn. (Read her take on Biehn as Hicks in Aliens here.) My association was more of the *Terminator *variety, however, owing to Biehn’s turn as Kyle Reese, the scrappy, handsome resistance fighter from the future. Sent to 1984 Los Angeles from the year 2029 to save a timid waitress from assassination at the hands of the future governor of California, Reese was guided not only by his sense of duty to humanity but by his long-gestating love for Sarah Connor. And if traveling across the space-time continuum to save a woman who you fell in love with through a photograph isn’t romantic, what is?
Since I was a toddler when *The Terminator *premiered in 1984, I first watched it years later on home video at an age when much of the romance was lost on me. The Terminator’s sci-fi trappings and terrifying action made a much bigger initial impression on me then, and it was only in my teens that the impact of the love between Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor presented itself.
Like Sarah Connor, I was drawn to the sensitive, wounded soul hidden beneath Kyle Reese’s battle-toughened exterior. A child of the post-apocalyptic future borne of SkyNet’s 21st century genocide, his emotional scars ran as ugly and deep as the physical burn marks on his flesh. Though initially gruff and focused only on his mission, Reese warmed up to Sarah Connor as they grew close, on the lam from the evil killer robot hell-bent on exterminating her and, by extension, the future of humanity itself.
Continued…
Continue reading My Movie Crush: Michael Biehn in ‘The Terminator’