Revealing mistake: When Arnie drives through the police station, the cop is just sitting there. Not only that, his skin is a lot paler. It is too easy to see that it is a dummy. (01:00:00)
Audio problem: When the Terminator breaks into the police station, he has a Franchise SPAS 12 semi-automatic (or selectable pump action) shotgun in his left hand, and an Armalite AR 180 machine gun in his right. Before he kills the power in the building, he comes to the end of a hall, points his shotgun through a doorway, and shoots. A machine gun sound is used for the blast, instead of a shotgun sound. (01:00:28)
Revealing mistake: When the Terminator invades the police precinct to kill Sarah, there is a part where he shoots a cop in the butt with his shotgun (right before he short circuits the building's wires). If you pay attention, the cop is smiling and giggling as he takes cover - before he is blasted. (01:00:45)
Suggested correction: He's definitely not giggling and I wouldn't call it a smile. Maybe he's grimacing, but I seen him just wincing at the situation he's in. At best you could say he's a bad actor, but poor acting isn't a valid movie mistake that I know of.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Arnold is turning off the power in the police station he gets shot by a cop and jerks forward. But every other time he is shot he does not even twitch. (01:00:55)
Continuity mistake: When The Terminator is searching through Sarah's address book in his apartment he has flies on him. There is one on his forehead, but when the janitor knocks on the door, the Terminator turns his head towards the door and cusses at him but there is no fly on the forehead. When he turns back and continues reading the fly is again on his forehead at the same exact place on the forehead. (01:14:05)
Continuity mistake: After the Terminator discovers Sarah's mother's address in the little address book of Sarah's, the next shot shows the Terminator leaving his room and going to Sarah's mother's. In that track shot down the hall look at the Terminator's shoes. He's wearing white trainers instead of the black boots he wears for the whole other time in the film. (01:14:40)
Continuity mistake: When Arnold exits his motel room to kill Sarah's mom at the cabin he has on what looks like a pair of Sperry boat shoes. After he kills and impersonates the mother and heads for the Tiki Motel on his bike he has the black motorcycle boots back on. (01:14:40 - 01:17:40)
Continuity mistake: The Terminator loses the flesh around his left eye early on, but at mom's cabin you can see his backlit left eyelash blinking. (01:16:50)
Continuity mistake: When Kyle and Sarah leave the motel in the pickup, they ram the Terminator before they go, and you can see the bull bars on the front are damaged. When the camera shows the front of the pickup during the tunnel chase sequence, the bull bars are undamaged. (01:20:25 - 01:22:00)
Continuity mistake: In the tunnel scene we see Sarah drive past the 2 lorries. They then meet, making it impossible for the Terminator to get past. Angle changes and the lorries still haven't met yet. (01:21:00)
Visible crew/equipment: When Kyle and Sarah escape in the pickup truck, the Terminator chases after them on a red motorcycle. The camera does lots of shots of what's behind Kyle and Sarah and what's ahead of them. When they overtake a truck, you can see headlights following and shining on the back of their pickup. These are the camera crew's lights, as the Terminator's motorcycle is too far away, and previous shots have shown there are no other vehicles around them. (01:21:40)
Revealing mistake: When Arnie is being pulled under the semi-truck, his foot is caught and the green-colored dummy leg is revealed. It can't be a special effect sock since green screening was not in practice in the early 80s. (01:23:05)
Revealing mistake: In the scene were Kyle and Sarah are speeding away from Arnold in the truck, Arnold starts shooting the truck with Kyle driving. When Sarah and Kyle decide to switch (passenger, driver), the camera shows them switching but there is a stuntman in place of Kyle. If not he has gained some weight in the cheeks and grown a big mustache during the course of 2 seconds. (01:24:30)
Suggested correction: This scene don't have cuts. In this moment, a shadow covers the face of Reese, causing confusion, but still be Michael.
No, it isn't. It is too obvious that he is a stunt double.
This is a continuous shot. Where and how would they have made the switch?
After Biehn says "trade places", there's a cut. The mistake seems to be saying from that moment it's Biehn's double. And before the two switch seats, there's another cut of the Terminator shooting at them. But I don't think it's a stunt double because typically scenes filmed from the perspective of the hood are done with the camera rigged to the vehicle and the vehicle is being towed, so the actors aren't actually driving, so there would be no need for a stuntman to do the seat switching.
Revealing mistake: During the final chase scene, Sarah loses control of the pickup and it rolls over, as it rolls you can plainly see that it has no engine. (01:26:05)
Continuity mistake: When the tanker explodes near the end, the Terminator gets out of the truck, then falls to the ground face-first, in an open area. Then he rolls over onto his back, lying prone, and stops moving. When the endoskeleton rises a minute or so later, however, it gets up as if it had been hunched over, face down - and several pieces of the truck's wreckage fall off of it as it rises, as if it had been covered by falling metal. (01:28:45 - 01:31:00)
Continuity mistake: Every shot of the semi truck shows it has single round headlights, but after it's been blown up and the Terminator falls out of the cab, you can see that the truck has now got twin round headlights. (01:28:45)
Continuity mistake: When the tanker explodes near the end, the Terminator gets out of the truck on the left-hand side of the cab, and falls to the ground. When the endoskeleton arises minutes later, however, it is on the opposite side of the cab (Sarah approaches Reese from the right side, and the endoskeleton arises in the background). (01:29:25)
Revealing mistake: When the Terminator's flesh is burning off in the burning tanker wreckage, you can see the wire moving the Terminator puppet around. (01:29:45)
Audio problem: Towards the end of the movie, after the tanker is blown up with the terminator inside, Sarah and Kyle are relieved that he is finally 'dead'. When the terminator gets up from the huge fire in his metal form, Sarah screams twice, however when she screams the second time, her mouth doesn't actually move. (01:30:10)
Visible crew/equipment: When the Terminator is blown up inside the gas truck and you think it is destroyed, Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn begin to hug. In the shot where the Terminator begins to rise from the destroyed truck, look just a little to the right of Linda's head and you'll see a mans head pop up and his hands pull down on a lever that makes the Terminator rise up. (01:30:50)
