- The Terminator
- T2: Judgment Day
- T2:3D B.A.T
- T:SCC
- T3: Rise of the Machines
- T4: Salvation
- T5: Genesis
- T6: ?!
Movie mistakes
Main info
Especially for all those nitpickers (or other fans interested in some 'miss'-facts of the Terminator movie) ...we posted a list of movie mistakes ;). The Terminator might be concidered the best amongst the entire Terminator Saga, but it too has errors. Here is a small list with interesting mistakes from the movie.
Arrival
Both the Terminator and Kyle Reese arrive from the future. Each of them searches for methods to blend in and the means to contact their target.
- Kyle Reese steals the police officer's gun and asks him what the date is. The officer replies '12th, May, Thursday'. The movie is set in 1984. May 12th, 1984 was a Saturday :)
- Kyle Reese cuts the wooden handle of the shotgun with a saw, but then later on when they are in the car park you can clearly see that the handle is back to its original size.
- Kyle Reese loads a shell into his shotgun then falls asleep and dreams of his past in the future. When he wakes up he pumps the shotgun, so the first shell should come out, but it doesn't.
- The Terminator looks on the left page of the phone book to find Sarah Connor's name. But when Sarah Connor herself looks for her name she finds it on the right page.
- The Terminator looks up every Sarah Connor address in the telephone book. They are as follows (note
that not all of the addresses are shown):
1) Sarah Connor 1823 Doncaster
2) Sarah Ann Connor 2816 East
3) Sarah J Connor 309 Calder C
The first house we see the Terminator go to has the house number of 14239. That's not in the phone book. Also, when the 'true' Sarah Connor comes out of her apartment, the number on it is 225. Again, not in the phone book?!
Gunshop
The Terminator goes for some 'last minute' shopping.
- The Terminator has state of the art visual tracking. This is obvious for many reasons including when we get glimpses of how it sees things by heat analysis or infrared. Most notably; it even has a little cross-hairs targeting system. Why then does he need to get a gun with a laser sighting?
Tech-Noir
The disco where the three main movie characters meet for the first time.
- Prior to going out on the town, Sarah and Ginger are dressing up for the night. Ginger mentions that it's friday night. The scene clearly takes place under 24 hours after the police officer told Kyle that it's Thursday. This makes sense if both Kyle and the Terminator arrived back from the future after midnight (or early into the next day). The officer is probably still working his nightshift and refers to the day before, which is a Thursday. (We wouldn't think clearly either when some crazy is pointing a gun at us :).
- The telephone message left by Sarah's roommate changes the two times we hear it. The second time, there is no delay between 'Hi there' and 'ha ha ha fooled you'. The first time has a delay of over a second.
- Sarah Connor unnecessarily puts change into a payphone before dialling 911, typically a free call.
- Each time Kyle Reese shoots his shotgun, shells should come flying out. But they don't.
- When the Terminator gets shot in the club... after he gets up again there are no bullet holes in his chest or blood on his shirt.
- When the Terminator stands up in the street outside Tech-Noir, one of the lighting rigs can be seen in the upper right hand corner.
Police-car chase
Kyle and Sarah are being chased by the Terminator in an 'acquired' police-car.
- After Kyle Reese saves Sarah Connor from Tech-Noir and has her in the car she tries to get out. Kyle stops her by grabbing her. In one scene he's holding her by the back of her hair, and when it cuts back to him his hand is across her chest. It goes back and forth like that.
- After leaving the car park, the lightbar on the police vehicle changes from having two steady burning lights (on the ends of the bar) to four steady lights.
- When The Terminator's stolen police car is shown up close in the parking structure, the motto on the left side of it reads 'To care and to protect'. After the car crashes, you can see the motto on the left side again, but this time it reads 'Dedicated to serve'.
- After the car chase in which Sarah and Kyle Reese are being chased by the Terminator, the stolen police-car crashes into the highway wall. When the trailing police haul Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese away, the Terminator is missing from the police-car he just crashed.
- Kyle Reese has clearly stated that the Terminator will absolutely not stop until Sarah Connor is dead. Why would he flee the scene from a few cops -given his resilience- when he could have kept after Sarah Connor and killing her right there? Maybe because he calculated a less then 50% chance at success, being injured and having no more bullits... or knowing he could re-acquire them after the police has taken them into custody.
- Afterwards, the Terminator returns to his hotelroom and operates on himself. The x-acto knife he uses -to remove his eye- has no blade in it as he brings it up to his face.
Police station
The Terminator enters the Police station in search of its target.
- When bending over to say 'I'll be back', you can clearly see both the Terminator eyes through his shades, despite cutting one out in an earlier scene.
- When the Terminator says 'I'll be back' he walks out of the police station. The cop inside the building looks out the window, looks very surprised, and you can see the headlights from the car shining on the cop's face. But when the car comes crashing through the building the headlights aren't on.
- When the Terminator leaves the police station he throws both the doors open as he leaves. One of them falls back into place but the other one stays open. Later (when he drives his car through the window) both doors are closed.
- The cop that is crushed by the car looks very pale. It's easy to see this is a dummy.
- When the Terminator enters the police station, he has an auto-shotgun in his left hand and a machine gun in his right. Before he kills the power in the building, he comes to the end of a hall, points his shotgun through a doorway, and shoots. A machine gun sound is used for the blast, instead of a shotgun sound.
- Early in the scene, when the Terminator is shooting some cops, he fires he gun repeatedly. Look closely. He makes a policeman jump who is lying dead on the floor.
- The Terminator is blasting everyone in the office of the police station. If you look at the shirt under his jacket, it changes from blue to black as he swings around.
Future war
Kyle and Sarah's dream sequence of the possible future.
- In the second 'future war flashback' you see Kyle Reese battle the huge ground HK tank. He tries to disable it by throwing a grenade at it. We see the grenade go under the HK's right wheel tread yet strangely in the next shot the left wheel tread explodes before the right one does.
Motel
The only time the stars get any 'rest'.
- Was it known to Kyle Reese that the Terminator could mimic voices? Earlier he explained in detail what a Terminator is like, so it would only seem reasonable he would know of the voice mimicking. At the motel, Sarah is told not to tell anyone where they're at. She however calls to moms cabin to inform her mother (after the Terminators persistance). Thus the voice mimicking was not told. Not a real error, we know, but interesting anyway ;).
- Sarah tells her 'mom' the number to the hotel is 408-555-1439. Yet when the Terminator is shown dialing the number, he dials 555-1639.
Tanker chase
The Terminator found some 'heavy material' to chase its target.
- Before the tanker truck explodes you can clearly see the tow rope pulling the tanker forward.
- The truck that actually runs down the T-800 is an International Transtar II cab-over-engine model. The Truck that blows up is an obvious scale-model of a Transtar II, but the actual burning wreck that the stunt double / T-800 falls out from is a Peterbilt truck. You can tell by looking at the shape of the cab (International & Peterbilt made cabs have TOTALLY different lines and contours), and the headlight pods, as well as the fact that the burning wreck truck is just a tractor unit with no debris that would indicate it had ever been attached to a trailer at the time.
- The Terminator jumps out of the burning tanker on it's left side. But when Sarah comes to help Kyle... the Terminator rises from the ashes on the other side of the tanker.
- When the burning T800 is lying on the road, the cable used to turn him over is visible.
- When the Terminator rises from the ashes of the tanker truck, you can see a stagehand in the background reach up and pull down a hydraulic lever that makes the robot stand up.
Factory
The final chapter of the movie. The Terminator in its full glory!
- When Kyle Reese makes the pipe bombs, after the first one is made he says, 'Just 6 more like that and I'll get started on the fuses'. In the scene where they are getting chased by the Terminator in the tunnel, he had already thrown 6 out the window at the motorcycle. The 7th was put on the back of the tanker truck. A mysterious 8th pipe bomb pops out in the factory when he puts it in the Terminator to blow it apart.
- Earlier in the movie the Terminator cut open its arm to repair the finger cables. But when it is reduced to a skeleton, there are no cables. Just sliding poles.
- As Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese run into the factory, the Terminator has to break through the armour plated door. As the Terminator comes through you can clearly see the two operator guys crouching behind the model.
