Arnold only has 16 lines.

At the beginning of the film, Sarah listens to an answering machine recording of her boyfriend breaking up a date. The voice heard on the answering machine belongs to James Cameron.

The final image of the Terminator in the film - where its red eye winks out after it had been crushed in the press - was actually one of the cheapest and simplest shots to create. It was done after principal photography had wrapped, when Cameron decided they needed the final shot. The press was made of foam core spray-painted silver, the eye was taken from one of the endoskeleton models and fitted with a small LED that was dialed down, the ring of metal that falls off was made of tinfoil, and the smoke wafting across was cigarette smoke blown on-camera by somebody out of the camera's field of view. Simple - but one of the most powerful images in the film.

The classic line, "I'll be back." was originally scripted as "I'll come back."

The body bag that Reese is zipped up into at the end of the film is actually a suit bag that belonged to director James Cameron. They needed a pickup shot and Cameron happened to have the bag in his car, so he pulled it out and presto, instant body bag.

A "steel fist" machine rig was used to punch through the windshield of the car in the alleyway scene. The rig was so heavy that the car couldn't be moved, so instead they moved the brick wall behind the car to give the appearance that the vehicle was in motion.

The start of shooting was delayed for two days because The Terminator's custom leather jacket didn't fit him correctly.

New comer Bill Paxton makes a cameo appearance at the beginning. He is the one with the blue hair.

The Tiki Motel is at 7301 Santa Fe Ave. in Huntington Park, CA. This is where Sarah & Reese make pipe bombs.

Lance Henriksen was originally considered for the role of the Terminator but was dropped in favour of Arnold and instead cast as Vukovich. Henkriksen would however later go on to be cast as the android Bishop in 'Aliens'.

Before the Terminator drives up to the house of the first Sarah Connor, there is a shot of the house from the street. In this shot, you can see a small toy truck which looks exactly like the one the Terminator uses at the end of the film. In the next scene, you can see how the truck is run over and crushed by the car that pulls up. A small hint of what might happen in the future of the film. That model truck is one of those what the filmmakers made for filming the truck-blows-up scene.

The skulls seen in the future segments were actually used as part of a technique to make the model set (and all the HKs on it) look bigger than it actually was. Fantasy II littered the set with little skulls that were about 3/4 of a inch in size and then placed a normal sized skull in the foreground for some shots. This created an illusion known as 'forced depth perception' which makes you continually think the scale of the picture you're seeing is larger than reality. An inexpensive but very effective trick.

The department of Water & Power was used as the parking garage located at 111 N. Hope St. in downtown Los Angeles.

Michael Biehn gave a very impressive reading for the part of Reese, but Cameron didn't like the fact that he had such a prominent Southern accent. He called Biehn's agent and said that they loved the reading, but didn't want Reese to have a pronounced accent like that. The agent was confused: "What accent? He doesn't have an accent." It then transpired that Biehn had in fact just come from an audition for "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" that morning, and hadn't shaken off the accent yet. So they had him come in for another reading, verified the lack of accent, and offered him the part.

James Cameron originally wanted Lance Henriksen as the Terminator, and Henriksen really got into the idea of playing the character. Cameron scheduled a meeting with executive producer John Daly to show how great Henriksen would be as the Terminator. Unfortunately Henriksen showed up early - in full makeup, with bits of metal exposed and utterly in character - and frightened the hell out of everyone in the building before Cameron arrived and was able to reassure everyone.

The original concept for the Terminator films came to Cameron in a fevered dream he had in Rome - a persistent mental image of a mechanical figure standing in flames. Cameron has since admitted that he gets frequent inspiration from nightmares and that "pleasant, happy dreams are sort of a waste of time."

Reese arrives in a Alley on 7th & Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. This is also the same block they filmed the Tech Noir nightclub.

The Alamo Gun Shop is located at 14329 Victory Blvd. Van Nuys, CA. It is now a used Car lot. Across the street is also where the Terminator throws the Biker from the phone booth.

Because the production was so short on time, the "Future War" segments with the Ground H-Ks were filmed from the ground up. Fantasy II built the treads section, and then they filmed those shots. Then they added the torso section on top of the treads, and filmed those bits. Finally they added the head to the body and shot the full-on views of the H-K.

The "Tech Noir" shooting was done in a building in LA that used to be a restaurant. The set was so realistic that the night after shooting wrapped, people were trying to pay to get into the "club". Producer Gale Anne Hurd recalls that "we were so desperate for cash at that point that we almost took their money, but better sense got hold of us and we declined the paying patrons."