Phil C.

21st Oct 2003

The Terminator (1984)

Trivia: 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.

Phil C.

21st Oct 2003

The Terminator (1984)

Trivia: 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.

Phil C.

21st Oct 2003

The Terminator (1984)

Trivia: 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.

Phil C.

21st Oct 2003

The Terminator (1984)

Trivia: 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."

Phil C.

21st Oct 2003

The Terminator (1984)

Trivia: The name of the nightclub, "Tech Noir", was a deliberate allusion to "film noir" - director James Cameron hoped that critics might be interested in the kind of filmmaking they were doing with this film, the references to the dark side of technology.

Phil C.

21st Oct 2003

The Terminator (1984)

Trivia: The production of the film was dealt a severe blow when Linda Hamilton broke her ankle and tore several ligaments just before shooting began. The production schedule was rearranged to shift most of the running scenes toward the end of shooting, and even so Hamilton had to do all of those scenes on an ankle which wasn't even close to healed and had to be taped up every day.

Phil C.

21st Oct 2003

The Terminator (1984)

Trivia: 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.

Phil C.

21st Oct 2003

The Terminator (1984)

Trivia: 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."

Phil C.

Audio problem: After the Keymaker has been shot, Morpheus and Neo rush to him and turn him over. The Keymaker's gasping for air is very audible, but the first reflection of him that we see in Morpheus's sunglasses shows that his mouth is tightly closed. This is only visible in that one reflection shot. (01:49:00)

Phil C.

Continuity mistake: In the breakroom scene where Horrigan is thought to have had a heart attack, the EMTs burst in and attempt to "revive" him and he shoves them away to both sides. The camera then shifts to an over-the-shoulder view, where one EMT says "I got a call there was a cardiac case." Both EMTs are present at the left and right edges of the screen. Seconds later, Frank says "Oh, I get it. Who's the wise guy?" and stands up. In that brief interval, the EMTs have vanished completely; when everyone else files out of the breakroom, laughing, they are nowhere to be seen. (00:21:15)

Phil C.

22nd Sep 2003

Band of Brothers (2001)

10th Sep 2003

Heat (1995)

Visible crew/equipment: When Vincent Hanna decides Neil is already gone, he heads to his hotel room. He enters the room and walks out onto the balcony. The shot of him approaching the balcony and opening the sliding door is shown from outside, on the balcony itself, and the cameraman (wearing a white shirt) and camera are visible reflected on the left side of the sliding glass door. It is more evident as the shot progresses, because the cameraman shifts position and the reflection moves further to the left, becoming larger. (02:21:54)

Phil C.

10th Sep 2003

Dante's Peak (1997)

Revealing mistake: After Dante's Peak explodes for the final time, the pyroclastic cloud rolls down the mountain toward the town. Harry shouts "Don't look back, kids, don't look back." and then we are shown a wide shot of the truck zooming down the ash-choked streets. Unfortunately, it's painfully obvious that this is either a miniature or CGI shot, because the truck isn't leaving any tracks behind it or trailing any clouds of ash despite its high speed. (01:28:19)

Phil C.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines mistake picture

Character mistake: When the Terminator scans the doorman at the bar, a display comes up categorizing each piece of the doorman's clothing. The word "briefs" is misspelled "breifs". (00:13:40)

Phil C.

Trivia: The battle rifles carried by the endoskeletons in the Future War segment were created by fitting a fully-automatic Calico 950 handgun, with a 100-round helical-feed magazine, into a fiberglass shell.

Phil C.

Trivia: In the shot where the SWAT van skids across the floor of the Cyberdyne main lobby and ends up with its back end against the elevator lobby, the tile floor was so slick that an industrial adhesive was sprayed all over the floor to allow for greater control.

Phil C.

Trivia: The look of the T-1000 after its freezing in liquid nitrogen was created by covering actor Robert Patrick's face and head with finely chopped reflective cellophane Christmas garlands and then spraying over with canned flocking.

Phil C.

Trivia: The character of Sarah was originally to have a knife scar on her upper lip to make her look harder and more feral than she did in the first film. However, since this would have meant a detailed makeup job every day, the concept was dropped after the first day or two of shooting. In some of the desert scenes, you can still see the scar if you look closely.

Phil C.

Trivia: Makeup artist Jeff Dawn has said that in order to give the Terminator (Arnold Schwarznegger) a look that set him apart from the other "human" actors, the makeup artists "mixed in a little bit of K-Y Jelly into the straight make-up, to give him that 'I'm different-looking but you don't know why' look...It's a sort of plastic-man appearance."

Phil C.

Trivia: The police computer which the T-1000 uses to locate John Connor's juvenile delinquent record was a functional mobile data terminal on loan from ElectroCom Automation. The prop was the subject of many crew members' inquiries of "Hey, can you look up my record for any outstanding warrants?" They were disappointed when they found out it was not hooked into any actual police databases, but had been programmed to simply display John's record.

Phil C.

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.