History YMMV / TheTerminator

* DracoInLeatherPants: The T-800 is a classic example of this trope, gathering so many fans at his debut that it becomes a heroic character in the sequel, as well as giving Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger a rise to stardom. He may be a merciless mass-murdering monster, but something about his massacre at the police station clicked with the anti-authoritarian youth culture of Reagan Era 1980s America. Not to mention that he's actually wearing leather pants for most of the series.

* FirstInstallmentWins: ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' may have been the big box office smash and the one which deeply ingrained itself in pop culture, and a lot of people still consider it ''the'' EvenBetterSequel and the peak of the franchise. However there are also many people who consider the first film superior due to its greater focus on horror, darker tone, and the EvilIsCool (and in hindsight, novelty) factor of Schwarzenegger playing the villain. Last but certainly not least is its self-consistent timeline, as opposed to the more action-oriented sequels which involve changing the timeline in one way or another, opening up questions of paradoxes and bringing about an extremely confusing and flimsy canon and parts of the franchise mutually incompatible with each other. However, the most notable difference is that because Kyle and Sarah are mere humans without any Terminator allies, their situation and that of humanity at large feels much more desperate in a way that is virtually impossible for any of the later installments to match; they're so badly outmatched that it's arguably the only time that the Terminator, the character the entire franchise is named after, really feels like a truly unstoppable killing machine despite being a common T-800, even more so than the supposedly more advanced [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay T-1000]] and [[Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines T-X]] do. Tellingly, it also has the highest critical score on Website/RottenTomatoes, the only film in the franchise to have a 100% score.

** At TheReveal of Reese's dead body, the musical cue is identical to Creator/DannyElfman's iconic ''Film/Batman1989'' theme. Fittingly, when they were scouting locations for ''Batman'', they discovered the Hive set from Cameron's [[Film/{{Aliens}} next film]] were pretty much intact and built the sets for Axis Chemicals atop it.

** Ditto the Sega Genesis version, which was another highly competent run-n-gun game, albeit nowhere near as hard or polished as the Sega CD version, as it had two driving levels cut out due to its rushed development. [[note]] The songs from the cut levels survived and are on the game via the options menu, but are unused in the game irself. [[/note]] It follows the story quite closely thanks to text and stills from the film used in-between levels to tie the narrative. Its great soundtrack by Matt Furniss follows Brad Fiedel's score the most out of all the versions due to the fact both are actually just industrial synth scores. However, it is also criminally short, with a full playtrough taking about 20 minues from beginning to end.

* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: ZigZagged. Creator/LindaHamilton nearly backed out of the project on hearing that Kyle Reese was going to be played by Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger, convinced he wasn't up to the acting challenge of delivering pages and pages of expository dialogue, but was perfectly fine with him playing the killer cyborg. Even Creator/JamesCameron wasn't sure about hiring Schwarzengger for Reese, but fortunately both Cameron and Schwarzengger agreed he was perfect for The Terminator. That said, playing the emotionless robotic assassin is an acting challenge some true thespians would balk at: crafting a character with minimal dialogue, being believably a machine that merely ''looks'' human without falling into DullSurprise, having the precise level of restraint to invoke UncannyValley without veering into too wooden or too over-the-top. It took many, many more years for this trope to fully apply to Ahnold, but in hindsight the fact that not only is he the Terminator, but he is ''The'' Terminator is an early sign that he's far more than just a bodybuilder-turned-movie-star.

** [[StableTimeLoop Reese is the father of John Connor]]. Also, [[TheHeroDies he dies at the end]].

* FirstInstallmentWins: ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' may have been the big box office smash and the one which deeply ingrained itself in pop culture, and a lot of people still consider it ''the'' EvenBetterSequel and the peak of the franchise. However there are also many people who consider the first film superior due to its greater focus on horror, darker tone, and the EvilIsCool (and in hindsight, novelty) factor of Schwarzenegger playing the villain. Last but certainly not least is its self-consistent timeline, as opposed to the more action-oriented sequels which involve changing the timeline in one way or another, opening up questions of paradoxes and bringing about an extremely confusing and flimsy canon and parts of the franchise mutually incompatible with each other. However, the most notable difference is that because Kyle and Sarah are mere humans without any Terminator allies, their situation and that of humanity at large feels much more desperate in a way that is virtually impossible for the sequels or spinoffs to match; they're so badly outmatched that it's arguably the only time that the Terminator, the character the entire franchise is named after, really feels like a truly unstoppable killing machine despite being a common T-800, even more so than the supposedly more advanced [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay T-1000]] and [[Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines T-X]] do. Tellingly, it also has the highest critical score on Website/RottenTomatoes, the only film in the franchise to have a 100% score.

* StrangledByTheRedString: Reese claims to have been in love with Sarah ever since seeing her picture. Sarah is suspicious of him at first, but comes to trust him. Then, thanks to the fast pacing of the movie, [[CoitusEnsues they suddenly have sex]], followed by them being too busy fighting the Terminator to develop their relationship for the rest of the movie. At the end, Sarah says in a recording she's making for her son that she and Reese "loved a lifetime's worth".

* RealismInducedHorror: Unlike the incredibly unlikely idea of a masked, supernatural knife-wielding stalker chasing a bunch of idiot kids around a small suburban neighborhood or isolated forest, the titular killer is deceptively [[TheyLookJustLikeEverybodyElse "normal"-looking]], is chasing his prey through one of the most populous cities in the world, will use any weapon or means available to do so, can and ''will'' track you down by collecting every bit of personal information that you've previously left out in the open, is capable of [[ItCanThink outsmarting or outwitting]] anyone trying to stop it, and last... but not least... is built upon [[AIIsACrapshoot a highly plausible]] fear about [[RobotWar artificial intelligence]].

* RealismInducedHorror: Unlike the incredibly unlikely idea of a masked, supernatural knife-wielding stalker chasing a bunch of idiot kids around a small suburban neighborhood or isolated forest, the titular killer is deceptively [[RidiculouslyHumanRobot "normal"-looking]], is chasing his prey through one of the most populous cities in the world, will use any weapon or means available to do so, can and ''will'' track you down by collecting every bit of personal information that you've previously left out in the open, is capable of [[ItCanThink outsmarting or outwitting]] anyone trying to stop it, and last... but not least... is built upon [[AIIsACrapshoot a highly plausible]] fear about [[RobotWar artificial intelligence]].

* SugarWiki/DevelopmentHeaven: Creator/JamesCameron actually called weapons manufacturers to ask about how to make a "Phased Plasma Rifle, in the 40 watt range". Understandably, they were confused.

** The same goes for Ginger's boyfriend, Matt, if only because he's just a stereotypical stupid boyfriend character like in many horror movies who's only there for a SexScene with a female character and to get killed in a gruesome manner. Like Ginger, Sarah seems upset at his death as well, and their interaction at the front door suggests that they got along quite well.

** For much of the film, what the Terminator even ''is'' gets played for mystery: up until the club shootout, the only things that are clear are that he's rather cold and stiff in personality, abnormally strong and tough, and willing to kill people. These days, the first thing anyone knows about the Terminator is that he's a robot.

** A robot disguising itself by hiding it's true machine form under organic living tissue had also been done ten years earlier in the 1974 kaiju film Film/GodzillaVsMechagodzilla, though Mechagodzilla sheds his disguise pretty early on.

* UnfortunateImplications: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8xL7w1POZ0&t=620s This video]] shows that while Kyle Reese is trying to save Sarah Connor, his actions also fall into the "abduction as romance" trope.
-->"The storytelling here is trying to set up an elaborate scenario in which a woman's perfectly reasonable and rational resistance to male violence seems like a naïve mistake. And that framing is not accidental. It's a specific kind of male fantasy where a man taking away a woman's freedom and fundamental rights is presented as something done for her own good, which results in situations where she becomes dependent on her abductor for survival."

** The deleted scene of Reese breaking down crying at the beauty of 1984 Los Angeles compared to the nightmarish future he comes from really should have been left in, as it really fleshed out his character.

* HarsherInHindsight: Creator/OrionPictures wanted ''Creator/OJSimpson'' to play the Terminator, but Creator/JamesCameron felt that nobody would buy O.J. as a cold-blooded killer. ''Yeah, about that''...

* OlderThanTheyThink: Skynet was not the first fictional example of an ArtificialIntelligence to be given complete control over the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons only to have its creators attempt to wrestle control away from it when it got too smart for their liking, causing it to retaliate by actually using said weapons against its creators. That honor goes to the title character of ''Film/ColossusTheForbinProject'' from 1970, though Colossus is slightly more benevolent then Skynet, only using its missiles when its threats are not taken seriously.

** The concept of a humanoid robot relentlessly pursuing a human target to kill it previously served as the third act of the 1973 film ''Film/{{Westworld}}'' where the Gunslinger[[note]] a robot cowboy played by Creator/YulBrynner[[/note]] chases down a guest that had killed it twice before after every robot in the park malfunctions and begin killing the guests. There's even shots from the robot's perspective!

* OlderThanTheyThink: Skynet was not the first fictional example of an ArtificialIntelligence to be given complete control over the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons only to have it's creators attempt to wrestle control away from it when it got too smart for their liking, causing it to retaliate by actually using said weapons against it's creators. That honor goes to the title character of ''Film/ColossusTheForbinProject'' from 1970, though Colossus is slightly more benevolent then Skynet, only using it's missiles when it's threats are not taken seriously.

* OlderThanTheyThink: Skynet was not the first fictional example of an ArtificialIntelligence to be given complete control over the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons only to have it's creators attempt to wrestle control away from it when it got too smart for their liking, causing it to retaliate by actually using said weapons against it's creators. That honor goes to the titular character in Film/ColossusTheForbinProject from 1970, though Colossus is slightly more benevolent then Skynet, only using it's missiles when it's threats are not taken seriously.

* OlderThanTheyThink: Skynet was not the first fictional example of an ArtificialIntelligence to be given complete control over the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons only to have it's creators attempt to wrestle control away from it when it got too smart for their liking, causing it to retaliate by actually using said weapons against it's creators. That honor goes to the titular character in [[Film/ColossusTheForbinProject ]] from 1970, though Colossus is slightly more benevolent then Skynet, only using it's missiles when it's threats are not taken seriously.

** The Terminator shooting up the Tech Noir club during his first attempt to kill Sarah which results in numerous innocent people being gunned down can be a tad difficult to waych without thinking of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting.

* FirstInstallmentWins: ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' may have been the big box office smash and the one which deeply ingrained itself in pop culture, and a lot of people still consider it ''the'' EvenBetterSequel and the peak of the franchise. However there are also many people who consider the first film superior due to its greater focus on horror, darker tone, and the EvilIsCool (and in hindsight, novelty) factor of Schwarzenegger playing the villain. Last but certainly not least is its self-consistent timeline, as opposed to the more action-oriented sequels which involve changing the timeline in one way or another, opening up questions of paradoxes and bringing about an extremely confusing and flimsy canon and parts of the franchise mutually incompatible with each other. However, the most notable difference is that because Kyle and Sarah are mere humans without any Terminator allies, their situation and that of humanity at large feels much more desperate in a way that is virtually impossible for the sequels or spinoffs to match; they're so badly oputmatched that the Terminator, the character the entire franchise is named after, really feels like a truly unstoppable killing machine. Tellingly, it also has the highest critical score on Website/RottenTomatoes, the only film in the franchise to have a 100% score.

* FirstInstallmentWins: ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' may have been the big box office smash and the one which deeply ingrained itself in pop culture, and a lot of people still consider it ''the'' EvenBetterSequel and the peak of the franchise. However there are also many people who consider the first film superior due to its greater focus on horror, darker tone, and the EvilIsCool (and in hindsight, novelty) factor of Schwarzenegger playing the villain. Last but certainly not least is its self-consistent timeline, as opposed to the more action-oriented sequels which involve changing the timeline in one way or another, opening up questions of paradoxes and bringing about an extremely confusing and flimsy canon and parts of the franchise mutually incompatible with each other. However, the most notable difference is that because Kyle and Sarah are mere humans without any Terminator allies, their situation and that of humanity at large feels much more desperate in a way that is virtually impossible for the sequels or spinoffs to match. Tellingly, it also has the highest critical score on Website/RottenTomatoes, the only film in the franchise to have a 100% score.

** When Creator/JamesCameron pitched his idea to his agent, which was inspired by a nightmare he had, he was told to not pursue it. He fired his agent and did it anyway.

** The puppetry used for the T-800 when it doesn't have its sunglasses on after its EyeScream and the stop motion effects used for it after it's reduced to its endoskeleton sometimes fall into UncannyValley, but the effects also work at making it come off as a creepy, inhuman monster and adds to the T-800's scare factor.