Trivia / The Terminator

• Acting for Two: Maïk Darah voiced both Sarah's roommate and friend Ginger and Sarah's co-worker Nancy in the French dub.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • It was Michael Biehn's idea that Kyle should go up to the wall and scream into the camera when he's being questioned by Dr. Silberman.
  • Arnold was being interviewed to play Kyle Reese over lunch with James Cameron, but he had so many ideas how the Terminator would act that Cameron decided to give him that part instead. In particular, Arnold felt the Terminator was such a perfect machine it could reload a gun or start a vehicle without looking.
• Based on a Dream: James Cameron originally based the movie on a nightmare he had of a robot skeleton emerging from a fiery explosion and coming after him.
• Billing Displacement: Kyle and Sarah are the main characters in the first film, yet their actors, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton respectively, are billed below Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, who, while still the titular villain, isn't seen as frequently and only has about 35 lines.
• Blooper:
  • During the famous moment where the Terminator leans close to the glass at the police station to promise "I'll be back", you can see both of Arnie's eyes behind his sunglasses, despite the fact that the Terminator had cut out its damaged left eye in the previous scene and was wearing the sunglasses to cover up the exposed glowing red optic lens.
  • A few seconds after, the policeman behind the front desk is alerted to the Terminator about to ram-raid the station in a car by the headlights illuminating him... but when the car comes crashing through the door it clearly has its headlights turned off.
  • Look closely when the Terminator is at the end of the first floor hallway during the police station rampage and is firing into a room with his left hand. His left hand that has the shotgun but makes automatic rifle sounds.
  • Also look closely when the Terminator is pursuing Sarah and Kyle in the police car. When he is searching for them in the parking garage, the motto on the side of the police car reads, "To care and to protect". After the police car is crashed into a wall, the motto reads, "Dedicated to serve".
  • During the Tech Noir shootout, Kyle's Ithaca 37 extended magazine shotgun briefly becomes a standard magazine shotgun.
• Breakthrough Hit: James Cameron became one of the most successful filmmakers of all time after The Terminator was released. While waiting for production on The Terminator to start, Cameron penned a script for a sequel to Alien, and made an agreement with 20th Century Fox: If The Terminator was a success, they'd hire him to direct Aliens. It was, they did, he did, and the rest is history.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Arnold Schwarzenegger was originally considered for the role of Kyle Reese, as Cameron originally envisioned the killing machine as having a more ordinary appearance to blend in with the rest of society, but changed his mind when he met Arnold and felt that he was in the presence of "a living machine". And before changing his mind and hiring Schwarzenegger, Lance Henriksen was Cameron's first choice to play the Terminator. Henriksen was instead cast as Detective Vukovich.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Angel of Death (Sweden)
  • The Exterminator From the Future (Brazil)
  • The Implacable Exterminator (Portugal)
  • The Exterminator (Peru)
  • Electronic Killer (Poland)
• Creator Backlash: Not the movie itself but rather Harlan Ellison's writing credit which he got after a settlement over perceived similarities to his The Outer Limits (1963) episode "Soldier". James Cameron writing years later in The Futurist would note:
  "It was a nuisance suit that could easily have been fought. I expected Hemdale and Orion to fight for my rights, but they abandoned me. The insurance company told me if I didn't agree to the settlement, they would come after me personally for the damages if they lost the suit. Having no money at the time, I had no choice but to agree to the settlement. Of course there was a gag order as well, so I couldn't tell this story but now I frankly don't care. It's the truth. Harlan Ellison is a parasite who can kiss my ass."
• Dawson Casting:
  • 27-going-on-28-year-old Linda Hamilton playing 19-year-old Sarah Connor. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines later retconned her character's age as 23.
  • Also, 27-going-on-28-year-old Michael Biehn playing 21-year-old Kyle Reese.
• Deleted Scene:
  • Sarah's introduction was originally longer with an extra scene of Sarah trying to get herself psyched up for work by rehearsing her waitress greeting in the mirror, and remarking "I'm so wholesome I could puke."
  • The scene where the Terminator kills the first "wrong Sarah" ended with the Terminator walking away after the kill, getting into his car and driving away, while several witnesses immediately flee the scene. Cameron wanted the audience to be surprised at how calm and unworried he was, before the reveal of what was actually going on.
  • Several short deleted scenes show a subplot where Lt. Traxler, realizing that something is off about the entire situation, gradually comes to believe that Reese is telling the truth. In the final scene, now fully convinced after seeing the Terminator's unstoppable rampage at the police station, he survives his bullet wounds long enough to give Reese and Sarah his gun as they leave (which is where Kyle's gun comes from in the next scene).
  • One of Reese, who only knows the world as a ruined wasteland, breaking down over being unable to handle simply standing in some grass once he gets the chance to slow down and notice all the normal things he was never meant to see. This was part of a scene where he and Sarah, who is now trying to be more proactive and forward thinking, got into an argument over trying to destroy Cyberdyne, the company that would create the Terminators, thus completely averting the war (which of course was revisited in Terminator 2), where he refused to go along with her idea because he finds it too dangerous. Sarah angrily tries to run away from Reese, Reese chases her down and she hits him, which causes him to reflexively pull the gun on her; when Sarah points out to him what he's doing, and goes on a rant about how she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life living in fear of the Terminator and the big bad future, Reese completely falls apart and has a No Place for Me There monologue where he quite literally says "I don't belong here" before he laments how painful it is for him to see the world as it once was, which causes Sarah to feel more sympathy for him before he points out that Sarah doesn't understand what it feels like to know that "it's all gone." The scene ends with Sarah reminding Reese that together they have the chance to save the future by changing the past. This changes the crafting of the pipe bombs from a deterrent against the Terminator to a means of destroying Cyberdyne.
  • The scene where Reese shows Sarah how to make homemade bombs was originally longer, with Sarah trying to cheer Reese up by telling him about all the amazing things she would show him once they had survived their ordeal and saved the world, and then the scene gets progressively more dramatic as she laments the situation and how utterly cut off they are from help, as it really is just them and the Terminator.
  • A post-love making scene where Sarah tickled Reese.
  • Adding even more bitterness to the already Bittersweet Ending, as Sarah was taken away by paramedics we would learn that the factory where Sarah and Reese had their final fight with the Terminator was actually Cyberdyne in its earlier, more humble years, with two employees managing to hide the remains of the Terminator to show to their bosses, adding another layer to the predestination paradox. This of course was later revisited in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
• Dueling Dubs: The film has two Latin American Spanish dubs, both made in Mexico. The original dub was recorded at SISSA-ORUGA in 1987, while the redub was made at Auditel in 1999.
• Dueling Movies: Runaway, a film also about robots and starring Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons (and written/directed by Michael Crichton), was projected to be the big sci-fi film of 1984. Who would have thought that it would be overshadowed by a low-budget film, with B-list actors, written and directed by an unknown who got the idea while having a nightmare? Not to mention one actor was mostly a theater actor (Biehn), the other one was a bodybuilder with a thick Austrian accent who had more bad movies than good ones, and Cameron only had one directorial credit to boot before doing The Terminator: the film Piranha Part Two: The Spawning. As it turns out, Terminator spawned a franchise, while Runaway is a Cult Classic at best.
• Executive Meddling:
  • Studio executives tried to push Cameron to give Kyle a cyborg dog as a sidekick. James Cameron nixed that idea completely.
  • A more positive example had the studio push Cameron to expand the romance between Sarah and Kyle. Cameron liked that idea, so he complied.
  • In 2018 Gale Anne Hurd revealed they were also skittish about the film's Bittersweet Ending, and tried to get Cameron to just end the film where the Terminator is apparently destroyed in the truck explosion. Since much of the crew were working on their first major film they came close to caving despite what an obviously terrible idea it was, but luckily a few execs were on their side and got the true ending pushed through.
  • In 2023, Hurd also revealed the crucial scene setting up the Stable Time Loop at the end was meant to be in the final movie. However, Cameron was forced by the film's financiers to cast non-actors as part of a scheme involving royalties. In Hurd's words, Cameron deleted it because of their bad acting, as he didn't settle for "just okay".
• Money, Dear Boy: Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't think much of the initial screenplay and was only going to do it for the money and because he felt a contemporary film would be beneficial to his career.
• No Budget: To the extent that some scenes had to be shot without permits.
• On-Set Injury: Linda Hamilton injured her ankle filming a chase scene. She wrapped it in tin foil.
• Playing Against Type: Arnold Schwarzenegger as the ruthless, terrifying villain of the title. Both before and after this film, even in the later Terminator films, his roles have primarily been action heroes.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends:
  • Contrary to popular belief, Lance Henriksen was never going to be the Terminator. However, James Cameron did base some of his early sketches of the Terminator on Henriksen's likeness, and Henriksen also helped Cameron pitching the film's idea to the producers in a rather unique way. He prepared himself for the meeting by dressing up in some leathers, adding a cut on his head and putting gold foil on his teeth. Fifteen minutes before the meeting, he kicked the door to the office in. He then just silently sat there while staring at the producers, making them gradually uncomfortable. When Cameron arrived, Henriksen left the room. He later overheard that one of the producers even said, "I don't care who you use for the Terminator, not him."
  • Likewise, O. J. Simpson was never seriously considered for the Terminator, although again there's a grain of truth to this claim. After Cameron's original choices (Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone) turned down the role, Orion Pictures executive Mike Medavoy mentioned Simpson in a chat with Cameron. Cameron dismissed the idea as "the stupidest thing (I'd) ever heard"; Medavoy then suggested Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was already being considered for Reese.^note If Medavoy was serious, it's probably because Simpson's career was stalled at the time and the studio could hire him for relatively cheap. This story became embellished over the years, with Arnold himself claiming at one point that Simpson was actually cast as Terminator but backed out at the last minute; of course, the retroactive irony of Simpson being deemed unsuitable to play a ruthless killer ensures that people repeat this story.
• Screwed By The Studio: To a small extent. While the film was a hit, James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger were both convinced that Orion Pictures did not believe enough in the film to give it a strong advertising campaign. Both Cameron and Schwarzenegger vowed never to work for the studio again.
• Sleeper Hit: No one involved had much faith in the movie. Orion buried it with Invisible Advertising, Arnold Schwarzenegger thought the script was schlock and only signed on for the money, and James Cameron's only previous director credit was for the infamously terrible Piranha Part Two: The Spawning. Furthermore, the entire production was on a shoestring budget and a rushed schedule. It would ultimately end up being one of the most important sci-fi films of the 80s.
• Star-Making Role: For Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ironically, he thought the movie would flop, but it became his most iconic role.
• Throw It In!: Originally, the time signature of the main theme was meant to be in 7/8. However, due to mistake, it turned out to be in 13/16. Composer decided to keep it in.
• Troubled Production:
  • The action scenes were shot at a tight schedule given the nighttime setting, Linda Hamilton sprained her ankle at the beginning of the shoot and spent the rest of the movie in pain, and the Terminator endoskeleton was heavy and hard for Stan Winston's team to carry (as they found out that building a prop robot out of metal is realistic, but not practical). Also, James Cameron's Mean Boss tendencies started to show, leading to the first T-shirts written "You can't scare me, I work for James Cameron" among the crew.
  • Some scenes were shot without permits, necessitating rapidly setting up and shooting a scene, then the crew scrambling before the police arrived. Apparently, one of these scenes was the closing shot of Sarah driving off into the distance, and they actually were caught by authorities, leading to Cameron lying his way out of a fine.
  • During post-production, John Daly, the producer, tried to shorten the film by insisting it end when the truck the Terminator is driving blows up, eliminating the whole scene with the now-skeletal Terminator chasing Sarah and Reese through the factory. Cameron physically threw him out of the editing suite.
• Voice-Only Cameo: James Cameron's voice is heard three times in the movie: as Sarah Connor's date on the answering machine and twice as a manager of Tiki motel, who is heard (but not seen) speaking to Sarah and then again answers the phone when The Terminator calls.
• Wag the Director:
  • Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to have the iconic line "I'll be back" changed because he felt with his accent "I'll" just felt weaker and the robotic character would not speak in contractions and be more declarative. James Cameron refused to change the line to "I will be back", so Schwarzenegger worked to say the line as written the best he could. He found that his earliest fans would ask him to repeat THAT line, and it would become his career-defining line showing up in other films.
  • Arnie allegedly delayed the start of filming by two days by claiming that the custom made leather jacket wasn't manly enough.
• What Could Have Been: See the franchise's page.
• Written-In Infirmity: Linda Hamilton injured her foot early on during production, and so every scene that involved Sarah Connor running (such as the alley chase behind Tech Noir and the tanker chase) was saved until the very end of filming so that Linda's foot could heal as much as possible. During the aforementioned alley chase, you can actually spot Linda slightly struggling to keep up with Kyle.

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