History Headscratchers / TheTerminator

*** Miles says in the sequel that it smashed and didn't work, but just the design of it led them in new directions. The architecture of the chip would be more than enough to keep them occupied for years, and would put them on track to develop processors that could handle quantum computing and all allow for AI to develop.

** It was crushed, yes, but not, like, sheet-thin flat. It makes sense that the CPU would be its most protected part, so its case held even as everything around it was smushed. Even then, it ended up only partially intact.

* How was the Terminator's cpu ''not'' destroyed by the crusher thing? His arm was reaching out to grab Sarah, so it makes sense it survived. However, the rest of him was crushed flat, and if the crusher was powerful enough to crush the thing's titanium-alloy body, it's hard to believe a mere comptuer chip ''wouldn't'' get crushed.

** I always assumed that Kyle hit the guy in the solar plexus or diaphragm, just below the ribcage. If you punch someone there hard enough, it can cause the diaphragm to spasm, which makes breathing difficult. Even if the man was still conscious, he really wouldn't be moving anytime soon.

* Why was Kyle Reese arrested? He was mistaken for a homeless nudist that stole another bum's pants and the Cop's gun, fair. Yhey suspected him of being the "Phone Book killer" the cops were after, also fair. However Sarah gave a description of the real killer and most of what Kyle did, although illegal, was to save another. Even if the story was not believed, a DrJerk like Silberman would believe that his actions were under extreme duress. So why keep him in cuffs?

* During the police station shoot-out scene Kyle escapes custody by knocking a man out and getting the handcuff keys to free himself. The strange part is that he does this just by kneeing the guy in the stomach. I understand that would hurt but would that really knock a man completely unconscious? It didn't even look like a particularly hard hit either.

** It might have simply killed them as fast as it could find them. And considering they were in Los Angles, traffic snarls could have made it take a while. Obviously if it could knock all three off within a couple hours, it would have. Additionally, it was not at all a guarantee all three would be at their homes at night.

** In addition to taking out the Sarah Connors listed in the phone book, the Terminator may have also been programmed with possible secondary targets listed that become Sarah Connor through marriage. In one of the Dark Horse Comics, ''Terminator: One-Shot'', a T-800 using a female exterior, is sent after a fourth Sarah Connor (formerly Sarah Lang) in San Francisco (which Sarah and her husband Michael from Los Angeles are visiting for their honeymoon). And seeing that Skynet only knew the name Sarah Connor, it probably compiled a list of all Sarah Connors as far back as possible (which probably ended in 1984 (back when information was going from hardcopy paper to the first data entry period), making it the earliest it could find anything with that name. So, that means it not only had the information of a Sarah Connor existing in Los Angeles, Skynet took into account the possibility of women whose first name is Sarah getting married to men with the last name Connor after the earliest notation they could find on Sarah Connor (Reese himself said that the Terminator "just knew the city", which makes sense considering all the maps made of the city for local government over the years due to expansion and changes). So, that means that if the T-800 had killed all three Sarahs in the time it arrived in 1984, it would have gone onto it's secondary mission of keeping an eye out for other [[FridgeHorror Sarah Connors that turned up after it arrived in hopes that one of them might have been the Sarah Connor Skynet was looking for, up until Judgment Day]].

** The phone book is probably only the initial method the Terminator would use, as it was the easiest and most readily available. It gets destroyed before it finishes killing all of the S Connors in the phone book, so who knows what it would have tried next?

* The Terminator searches for Sarah by looking in the phone book and sets out to kill all the Sarah Connors that he finds. But suppose that the Sarah he was trying to kill had an unlisted number? He would have killed the other two Sarahs and assumed that his mission was completed. The phone book method seemed like a very unreliable way of ensuring the job was done.

** It probably didn't. Skynet may be a sentient AI, but it still analyses the situation like a machine would. Skynet determines that John Connor is the main reason humans were able to win - remember that Kyle mentions there ''was'' resistance before John came along, but they never made any substantial progress against the machines until he became the leader. As far as Skynet was concerned, it was only logical that if not for John Connor, humans would have remained in slave camps or fighting it in pointless and futile skirmishes at best.

* Did [=SkyNet=] know for sure TimeTravel in the ''Terminator'' universe operated on ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' mechanics AKA [[TemporalMutability Overwriting a Timeline]]? Otherwise, why go through the trouble of sending {{Killer Robot}}s into the past if it virtually won't make any difference? If an A.I. as smart as [=SkyNet=] is able to develop hyper-advanced nanotech liquid-metal terminators or even ''time travel itself'', then surely it would have an understanding of how it functions. Alternatively, it could've known it goes the way of ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' (not overwriting a timeline, but just creating another) so that they have chance to win even if its not in their reality.

* Say, hypothetically, the machines succeeded in assassinating Sarah or John Connor in the past. What made [=SkyNet=] think another {{Determinator}} human wouldn't establish LaResistance? Just keep sending back terminators?

* Did [=SkyNet=] think TimeTravel in the ''Terminator'' universe operated on ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' mechanics AKA [[TemporalMutability Overwriting a Timeline]]? Otherwise, why go through the trouble of sending {{Killer Robot}}s into the past if it virtually won't make any difference? If an A.I. as smart as [=SkyNet=] is able to develop hyper-advanced nanotech liquid-metal terminators or even [[Film/TerminatorGenisys holographic models]], ''as well as time travel itself'', then surely it would have an understanding of how it functions. Alternatively, it could've known it goes the way of ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' (not overwriting a timeline, but just creating another) so that they have chance to win even if its not in their reality.

* Did [=SkyNet=] think TimeTravel in the ''Terminator'' universe operated on ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' mechanics AKA [[TemporalMutability Overwriting a Timeline]]? Otherwise, why go through the trouble of sending {{Killer Robot}}s into the past if it virtually won't make any difference? If an A.I. as smart as [=SkyNet=] is able to develop hyper-advanced nanotech liquid-metal terminators or even [[Film/TerminatorGenisys holographic models]], ''as well as time travel itself'', then surely it would have an understanding of how it functions. Alternatively, it could've known it goes the way of ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' (not overwriting a timeline, but just creating another) so that they have chance to win even if its not in their reality. Was it maybe an experiment to determine what happens by altering the past?

* Say, hypothetically, the machines succeeded in assassinating Sarah or John Connor in the past. What made [=SkyNet=] think another {{Determinator}} human wouldn't establish LaResistance? Just keep sending terminators back?

** The Terminator seems to suffer from tunnel vision and a lack of contingency planning. It arrrived; its mission was to kill Sarah Connor and thus it does so, and only when a wrench is thrown in the works does it consider a plan B. But then again, as the police station scene shows it can handle pretty much anything you throw at it, so it really doesn't need much of said planning - 'go to target, take out anyone in your way' would work just fine in all situations unless it found itself up against the army or something.

* The Terminator knows how to use a phone book and (as we see in ''Terminator II'' mimic police procedure, which are skills that would be worthless in the post-apocalyptic wasteland he was created in. SkyNet obviously provided him with "detailed files" on the era he was traveling to. So how could he not know that plasma rifles hadn't been invented yet in the 80s?

** He probably stole it from somewhere. Either from the cash registers in the same shop where he stole his outfitt or the trucker that just gave them a lift.

** In other spin-offs (such as comics), it is often sound that sets dogs off. For example, in the fourth issue in the four-issue series ''ComicBook/RoboCopVersusTheTerminator'', [=RoboCop=], constructed from Terminator parts in the future, is seen petting a dog. Flo notes that dogs typically react to the sounds of the servo mechanisms emitted from the Terminators and that for Robo, it's unusual because the dog he was petting wasn't reacting to hearing them come from him (and his face was likewise made from cloned flesh too). For the second film, the reason why the dog doesn't react to Uncle Bob might be because the dog was deaf. Max likewise might have found the T-1000 smelled and/or sounded off that we humans aren't privy to.

** Not if there aren't any Zara, Sarai, etc. Connors in the phone book. We see the page, and it only has three "Connor" listings at all. Plus, the T-101 was destroyed while it was still trying to kill the third and last "Connor, Sarah" listed, so we don't see what it would have done afterward had it not been destroyed.
** In the original treatment, Sarah had surgical pins in her leg (ironically inserted ''after'' the Terminator injured her leg) that would have conclusively identified her to the T-101, and it cut open the legs of its previous two kills to check. Presumably that would have assured the T-101 that its mission was complete.

* Wy didn't Kyle just show Dr. Silbermann his brand from the prison camp to prove his story? He shows it to Sarah earlier in the movie, but Silbermann claims he "doesn't [have] a shred of proof." He might not have believed him still, but it's better than just expecting him to take his word for it.