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Kyle Reese: Come with me if you want to live.

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After Reese blows the Terminator in half in the factory near the end, we see Sarah in a heap on the ground and chunks of endoskeleton (what looks like part of a leg) laying between her and the camera. The shot changes as she looks around. When the shot changes back to her (as she tries to move and discovers her leg injury) most of the endoskeleton chunks are gone - particularly the large one that was between her and the camera. See more...

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Michael Biehn gets bitten by Sarah Connor in Terminator, by the child in Aliens, and again in the Abyss. All three films were written and directed by James Cameron. See more...

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The Terminator (1984) - 66 corrections

Directed by James Cameron, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lance Henriksen, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn (add more)

Genres: Action, Sci-fi, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.

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Entry James Cameron's dedication to his craft serves as an example for us all to be deadly serious about what we really want to do. Filming was halted for a year while Arnold went to do a Conan film, during which time James did not get another job but kept working on the script. [Filming hadn't started, it was postponed for 9 months because of Schwarzenegger's contract to do Conan The Destroyer. Cameron also didn't keep working on the script for The Terminator, and DID get another job, namely the writing the script for Aliens.]
Corrected by GalahadFairlight
Entry Sarah Connor's time card at the restaurant gives her last name as Sarah ConnEr, with an E. [And my work has my name spelled wrong too after 18 months. It happens.]
Corrected by shortdanzr
Entry At the end of the film, how does Sarah know which button (she skips the first two, by feel no less) will crush the terminator? She works at a restaurant, not the automated factory. Not to mention knowing that the controls for the machine are located behind her. [We have no idea what Sarah's background is. She could have worked with similar machinery at any point in her life before we see her in the film. She is quite tech-savy in the sequel, thus her having a background in technology isn't a stretch.]
Entry In the beginning of the movie after Kyle hot wires the car, when he follows Sarah out of the car park, he starts the car up again. There is no easy way to stop the engine after hot wiring. If he did stop the engine, he would have had to re-hot wire the car when he follows her. [Absolutely not correct. All Kyle had to do was split apart the wires he'd just joined and the car would stop, similarly if he hadn't twisted them together properly, they'd quite easily unravel themselves.]
Corrected by GalahadFairlight
Entry Pay close attention to the scene at the TechNoir club. Right as Reese sees what is about to go down when the Terminator approaches Sara with his gun, Reese pulls his shotgun. At this exact moment, Reese turns and cocks his shotgun and a club patron (movie extra with a pink-ish shirt) walks right in front of Reese and looks at him nonchalantly as Reese cocks the gun, as if nothing is out of the ordinary, and continues on walking. This seems odd, most people would have been shocked or jumpy if they suddenly saw somebody pull out, then cock, a shotgun. [Not if that person was drunk and/or on drugs.]
Entry In the first flashback scene, Reese is walking through the tunnels, it shows a mother and daughter watching TV made of a fire. But the housing is plastic and shows no signs of melting. [Well, since what you see on screen is a real TV casing with a real fire in, this is obviously possible. As for a more precise explanation, we do not know how long the fire has been burning. If they just lit it, the plastic would not yet have reached its melting point.]
Corrected by Twotall
Entry When the Terminator is flipping through Sarah's address book he has two flies on his face. When the janitor asks him the question and he moves his head they're still there. When he moves back after responding, after jerking his head to look back at the book they're still there. In reality they would have flown away. [Not necessarily. I've seen flies stay put when I would have thought they'd have flown away.]
Corrected by Phixius
Entry As the Terminator Breaks into the little room where he fixes his arm and eye, he sits down and cuts a piece of his arm off. After he does so, he moves his finger back and forth. You can see that it is made of rubber and that his arm is in his jacket. You can even hear it bend like rubber the same time it makes the mechanical sound. [Duplicate entry.]
Corrected by Brad
Entry As the Terminator breaks into the little room where he fixes his arm and eye, he sits down and cuts a piece of his arm off. After he does so, he moves his finger back and forth. You can see that it is made of rubber and that his arm is in his jacket. You can even hear it bend like rubber the same time it makes the mechanical sound. [Already listed.]
Corrected by Duff
Entry When the Terminator comes through at the start of the film, it has longish hair, but when it is removing its eye, its hair is shorter and spiked. When would it have gone for a haircut? [The Terminator's hair was singed off when it jumped through the fire onto the hood of the car.]
Corrected by MovieGuy
Entry When Traxler locks Sarah Connor in the office, there are 2 door. He locks both. Reese comes to look for Sarah, and breaks the glass on one door, he does NOT do the same on the other door, however he is able to simply open it, despite Traxler locking it previously. [Many doors are constructed so that the doorknob, once locked, may be turned from one side but not the other.]
Entry When the Terminator is shot with pistols in the Police Station, his body reacts to the shots, but when Traxler and his buddy are shooting him in the back with M16's, he doesn't react. [He wouldn't necessarily react to a round from an M16 or 9mm, but a round from a 44 magnum or even .45 would knock him slightly.]
Corrected by MovieGuy
Entry Arnold Schwarzenegger originally was offered the part of Reese, something Cameron thought an extremely bad idea. He went to meet with Arnold "to pick a fight with him" to see if he could somehow get him out of the film, but discovered during the meeting that he thought Arnold would be an excellent Terminator. He was therefore delighted when Arnold's agent called him later and said that Arnold really REALLY wanted to play the part of Terminator instead. [Not entirely the case. Arnold was the one who suggested he play The Terminator after reading the script and relating more with it. It was he who suggested it, just as Cameron was about to tell Arnold he doesn't want him as Reese, which Cameron responded by saying "That's actually a good idea".]
Entry When the Terminator starts shooting up the Police station, Traxler goes into the room where Sarah Connor is and locks both doors, yet when Kyle Reese comes in later, he is able to open the other door in the room without a key. [He breaks the glass and unlocks the door from inside.]
Corrected by Duff
Entry It is mentioned in the extra commentary that a production error caused the Endoskeleton to be made of STEEL - extremely heavy - causing Special effects shots to require multiple puppeteers. This is partly the reason why the Endoskeleton moves so slowly while the T800+organic skin moves so quickly. [Movie mistakes are about on-screen errors, not foul-ups in prop fabrication. While this did happen, hence the citation in the commentary, it cannot be said to count as a movie mistake. Even the disparity in movement speed between the flesh-covered cyborg and the exposed endoskeleton is adequately explained within the film as being due to damage sustained, so that cannot really be considered error-worthy either. I suggest that you resubmit as trivia.]
Corrected by Tailkinker
Entry There is a shot from the Terminator's POV, before he rams the blue car with the semi truck, in which you can see that the car is already damaged. No slow-mo is required to see this, but it is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot. [You most certainly do need slow motion to see this "mistake" - it is on screen for just six frames.]
Entry During the motel love scene, it constantly shows clips of Sarah and Kyle holding hands, yet in all the other shots you can see that they aren't. [This is a composite of clips, also known as a montage, where only bits and pieces are shown to mark the passing of time. No continuity mistakes are made because they are shown at different times of their entire love-making session. Each clip represents more time that has passed, as they obviously made love for more than 30 seconds, and showing the whole event is something not done in movies.]
Corrected by Jazetopher
Entry When Kyle and Sarah have changed cars and the Terminator is chasing them, before they exit the car park their headlights are off, then when they exit the car park they are on again, and then in the next shot the are off. [Already posted and corrected.]
Entry The photograph taken by the boy at the end of the film doesn't match what Sarah Conner was doing. When the boy took the photograph, she was caught unawares and wasn't looking directly at the camera, yet the picture shows her staring toward where the camera would have been. [False. She begins to glance at him as he raises the camera towards her, but he does not actually take the picture until she is looking directly at him.]
Corrected by Jazetopher
Entry At the end when Sarah Conner is talking into the microphone, recording something for her future son, the boy takes a photograph of her a split second after her last word, yet the microphone isn't pictured in the photograph. [He takes the picture as she is lowering the recording device away from her face. Since the photo is of her from the upper waist and up, the microphone should not, and does not, appear in the picture.]
Corrected by Jazetopher

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