The Terminator (1984)

Film Type:

Feature

Language:

English

Colour Info:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby, DTS, Mono

Frame Rate:

24 fps

Aspect Ratio:

1.85:1 (Flat)

Stereoscopy:

No

Taglines:

The thing that won't die, in the nightmare that won't end.
Your future is in his hands.

Movie Connection(s):

Reference: Knight and Day (English)
Reference: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (English)
Referenced in: Himmatwala (Hindi)
Referenced in: Go Goa Gone (Hindi)
Dubbed into: The Terminator (Hungarian)

Filming Locations:

Goofs:

Audio/Video Mismatch
Just before the Terminator kills the power to the police station, he comes to a door at the end of a hallway. He fires his shotgun, but we hear the sound of the machine gun instead.

Audio/Video Mismatch
When Sarah is walking from her apartment you can hear the heels of her shoes hitting the pavement. Later when she's walking into the disco she's wearing tennis shoes.

Audio/Video Mismatch
Near the beginning of the police station shoot-out, the Terminator fires his shotgun a few times, but the sound effect of his assault rifle is heard.

Audio/Video Mismatch
Sound synchronisation wrong when Kyle and Sarah are getting up to escape from the Terminator robot, arising from the flames Sarah's screams are not matching her mouth actions

Character Error
When the Terminator tosses the bearded man away from the phone booth and begins searching the phone book for Sarah Conner, he uses his finger sliding down the page to assist separating the lines of type, the way human beings do when they read. Yet the Terminators have specially enhanced telescopic vision that allows them to zoom in/out, etc., on anything, even in the dark. It therefore makes no sense that this Terminator would have to use his finger to assist with his reading, he should be able to merely glance at the book and zoom in on the entire page, or on the smallest part of the page and process this information in seconds.

Character Error
Before the TechNoir scene, Reese pumps his shotgun at least twice, which would load a shell into the chamber and make it ready to fire. But when he identifies the Terminator at the nightclub, he has to pump the gun again before firing.

Character Error
During the scene where the psychologist is talking to Reese, the attending police officer in the interrogation room has his sidearm on his hip. Police officers don't wear their sidearms when in an interrogation room with a suspect.

Continuity
Just before the car crashes into the police station, the officer at the desk is alerted to the car by the headlights flashing in his face, yet when we cut to the car, the lights are off.

Continuity
As Kyle and Sarah are sneaking toward another car in the parking garage, a police car with the serial number 1874 drives by. The number 1874 is also visible on the Terminator's police car. The first car that drove by couldn't have been the Terminator's because a second cop is visible in the passenger seat.

Continuity
When the Terminator is stalking Kyle and Sarah in his police car, the sticker on the driver's door reads "To care and protect". When the car is later wrecked in a tunnel, the sticker has changed to "Dedicated to serve".

Trivia:

Arnold Schwarzenegger worked with guns everyday for a month to prepare for the role; the first two weeks of filming he practiced weapons stripping and reassembly blindfolded until the motions were automatic, like a machine. He spent hours at the shooting range, practicing with different weapons without blinking or looking at them when reloading or cocking; he also had to be ambidextrous. He practiced different moves up to 50 times.

One afternoon during a break in filming, Arnold Schwarzenegger went into a restaurant in downtown L.A. to get some lunch and realized all too late that he was still in Terminator makeup - with a missing eye, exposed jawbone and burned flesh.

Arnold Schwarzenegger originally wanted to play Kyle Reese. But James Cameron had a different idea and saw Schwarzenegger in the title role of The Terminator and Cameron said to Schwarzenegger "This movie is not about the hero. It's about The Terminator".

The beginning of production was postponed for nine months, due to Arnold Schwarzenegger's commitment to Conan the Destroyer (1984). During this time, James Cameron wanted to be working but didn't have the time to do a whole other film so he took on a writing assignment; this turned out to be Aliens (1986).

Near the beginning of the movie, when Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) receives a message on her answering machine breaking her date, the voice on the machine is James Cameron's. Years later, Hamilton and Cameron got married and subsequently divorced.

O.J. Simpson was considered for the Terminator, but the producers feared he was "too nice" to be taken seriously as a cold-blooded killer. In 1990 (before Simpson's first trial) Dark Horse Comics printed issues using his likeness.

Sarah Connor is 19 years old in the movie. This is proved in the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) where Dr. Silberman says Sarah is 29 years old and T-1000 checks Sarah son's, John Connor's, profile which states he's 10 years old.

The initial draft for the movie was sold to James Cameron's wife, Gale Anne Hurd for the price of $1 only.

Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to avoid Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn as much as possible since the Terminator was trying to kill them, not form connections.

The revolver Reese carries after the police station massacre and gives to Sarah at the motel is Lt. Traxler's. In a deleted scene, Reese and Sarah are trying to escape the police station when they come across the wounded Traxler. He now believes their story and gives Reese his sidearm, telling him to protect Sarah.

In James Cameron's original treatment, Sarah Connor has an old figure skating injury that was fixed with a couple of surgical pins and the terminator would cut the legs open of the first two Sarah Connors to find this identifying mark.

The scene where the Terminator breaks into a station wagon was the very last thing shot and it was added a few weeks before the film's release. The scene was filmed in 2 hours by James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger alone. Due to insufficient funds, Cameron had to pay for the scene himself, but could not afford a police permit. As such, another set of Arnold's clothes was placed behind the wagon trunk and Cameron told him to change the moment the scene was deemed finished.

The Terminator's motorcycle was later displayed in Arnold Schwarzenegger's restaurant Planet Hollywood.

The TechNoir set was actually a downtown L.A. restaurant, redressed to look like a nightclub.

Geena Davis auditioned for the role of Sarah Connor.

The teaser trailer for this film was narrated by Peter Cullen, best known to fans as the voice of the robotic hero Optimus Prime from Transformers.

The original treatment by James Cameron included the detail that the Terminator needed to eat periodically in order for his human flesh to survive. A scene is included where the Terminator eats a candy bar, wrapper and all. This detail was incorporated into the script for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), with the Terminator selecting Arnold Schwarzenegger's favorite Austrian chocolate wafer. When fans learned that a scene had been shot where the Terminator ate chocolate, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative and the scene was omitted.