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One of the most striking images from
The Terminator
was the weapon he carried and used in his first attempt on Sarah Connor's life: the .45 Longslide, with laser sighting. Who can forget the scene in the gun shop? The gun was likewise such a striking presence on screen it was used on the film's poster. There are
T-shirts dedicated to the gun
.
Terminator
was released in 1984, and while laser sights on weapons are common now, when the film was first shown the red laser was able to communicate something subtle and powerful to the audience: this is a machine, deadly accurate and futuristic. It made the Terminator seem other-worldly and terrifying. At a party during CES, Deputy Editor Jon Stokes and I bumped into some representatives from
SureFire
, a company that specializes in tactical flashlights. We talked about some of our favorite moments with technology in cinema, and
The Terminator
came up.
"We created that laser!" I was told. They told me the gentleman who built the prop was named Ed Reynolds, and he was still with the company. More than a little jazzed about bumping into a fun part of film history, we knew we had to get the full story behind the Terminator's gun.
What you can get for a T-Shirt
"I'm vice president of the Operations Group. We keep the place running," Reynolds said when we spoke on the phone. How did he get involved with the Terminator?
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"I got a call from one of the prop houses, and they told me what they wanted to do. They came down and met with me, and told me they wanted something to go on the weapon." What weapon? "AMT Longslide, Hardballer."
This wasn't the first time Reynolds had put a laser on a gun. As early as 1978 he designed a laser sight for the Colt Trooper .357 Magnum. "It was a viable product out in the marketplace, primarily law enforcement. They were also very expensive, and we highly modified the weapon. We had to machine the frame and mounts; the sights were taken off the weapon to mount the laser on top. We designed a power supply that was smaller than a small candy bar and had to fit inside the grip, fed by a rechargeable 12 volt battery."
This was the early days of lasers for commercial use. "At that time we were dealing with helium neon laser. All the newer lasers are solid state, about the size of an aspirin or smaller." HeNe lasers are much larger than that, he explained, and required about 10,000 volts to get started. Once ignited, they take 1,000 volts to keep them running. That makes the power supply a tricky thing to design.
Reynolds had made a small power supply for the Colt, and also designed power supplies for lasers placed on a shotgun and the Ruger Mini-14. A laser-sighted M-16 was also created. Each of these weapons required a new design, but the prop house asking about the weapon wasn't willing to... well,
pay
for anything.
The weapon with the cable shown, leading to the power supply.
"We spent quite a bit of money creating a power supply to fit in the Colt Trooper. These people came to us, and they wanted this for free," Reynolds explained. "I ended up getting a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a baseball cap, and a poster. That's all the company got, outside of a small credit at the end of the movie."
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There were two props made for the movie: one shell that looked good but was non-functional, and a working model with a laser that actually fired. Since there was no money for a custom power supply, there was a line running from the laser to a cable that connected to an external power supply. To fire the laser, Arnold Schwarzenegger had to reach into his coat pocket with his other hand and flip a switch.
The complete assembly.
After the creation of the gun
The finished gun became a large part of the film, figuring in multiple key scenes and becoming a large element in the poster. "I've seen postcards in Europe with the same picture on it," Reynolds told Ars. "The company doesn't get a lot of things off it. I got to benefit because I could say, 'Hey, I did that!' I don't know how many people sit in the movie before the date shows and the screen goes blank, and that's how long you'd have to be there until you know where the laser comes from." He says it was worth it to look back as an accomplishment, and recently Schwarzenegger sent a signed poster.
"I only watched it one time in the theater, and I wasn't there trying to gauge response. I was just in awe thinking, this is a weapon I made, up on screen. It was a pretty exciting movie, there were plenty of heart-pounding scenes," Reynolds said.
Free t-shirts aren't much in the way of payment for creating an iconic weapon in science fiction history, but the scene speaks for itself. Ed Reynolds was a fascinating man to speak with, and we'd like to thank him for his time.
