Corrected 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.
Phil C.Corrected 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.
Correction: He breaks the glass and unlocks the door from inside.
Ssiscool
Corrected 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.
Correction: 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.
Tailkinker Corrected 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.
Correction: 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.
JazetopherCorrected 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.
Correction: Already posted and corrected.
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.
Correction: 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.
JazetopherCorrected 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.
Correction: 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.
JazetopherCorrected entry: When Kyle and Sarah have changed cars and the Terminator is chasing them, they exit the car park with their headlights on, but in the next shot and the rest of the chase they are off.
Correction: Since headlights have an "off" switch, and they remain OFF for the remainder of the scene, there is no continuity mistake made. Only if they were alternating between OFF and ON between the scenes would this be counted as a mistake. He quite simply turned them off.
JazetopherCorrected entry: When the Terminator first sees Kyle in the Blue Cadillac, he fires some shots at the car, one making a neat hole in the bootlid. This wouldn't be possible with the shotgun he was using as he simply wasn't close enough to create a hole that small and neat, it would more likely pepper the rear of the car as the shot spread.
Correction: It depends on the ammunition in the shotgun, if it was a solid bore round it would only make one hole, not all shot gun rounds are spread shots.
Corrected entry: When the Terminator is chasing Sarah Conner in the semi truck, the Terminator rams a blue AMC Gremlin car. If you slow the shots down, you can see that the car is already badly damaged from the view the Terminator has before the truck hits it. Yet in the actual shot of the collision, the car is fine. Obviously there were some extra shots needed, but the car had already been hit for the shots that were supposed to precede its damage. (01:25:05)
Correction: If you need to slow the shot down, it doesn't count as a mistake.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Arnie is blasting everyone in the office of the police station, if you look at the shirt under his jacket, it changes from blue to black as he swings around
Correction: Not true. The office is very dark as the lights are out, especially at a couple of angles. His shirt is still blue, it just looks black.
DazCorrected entry: Reese's face is shaven/unshaven many times throughout the film. Compare his face where he falls asleep in the car to when Sarah is bandaging his wound. You'll see a BIG difference.
Correction: I see absolutely NO difference at all in the scenes you described, and I looked very closely. In both scenes he has roughly the same amount of noticeable growth all around his face.
DazCorrected entry: During the first night when the Terminator chases Sarah her shoes are yellow with green laces. The next morning her socks are yellow but the shoes are now white with green laces.
Correction: White shoes can appear yellow under street lighting.
Corrected entry: At the end of the movie when the Terminator is being squished, you can see that its metal body is still shiny and clean, despite surviving 2 explosions and burning in the wreckage of a truck.
Correction: He's a machine from the future, made by other machines. Who knows what he could be made of, or what kind of coating his metal parts may have?
Deadman63Corrected entry: After Traxler is shot by the Terminator, Vukovich finds him wounded, says "Ed," then jumps into the hallway and opens up on the Terminator, calling out "Hey." Lance Henriksen is just shaking the weapon in his hands; there is no muzzle flash and no spent shells eject. (00:59:55)
rbryant73Correction: In fact, the gun Lance Henrikson fires does have a muzzle flash, and does eject spent cartridges. The lighting and angle of the shot just makes it difficult to see.
Corrected entry: When Sarah is driving off into the storm at the end of the film, the scene is obviously shot on a blue-screen. Some of the storm appears to be real because you can see several clouds moving, but the rest of the clouds never move at all. Also, the mountains look incredibly fake. (01:43:25)
Correction: The scene was not shot on blue screen. The production did not use any CGI throughout the entire film, as the budget was severely limited. The image of the mountain was a matte painting.
Corrected entry: Arnold looks on the left page of the phone book to find Sarah Connor's name but when Sarah herself looks for her name she finds it on the right page.
Correction: 1/1/84 marked the end of AT&T (Ma Bell), and the start of the Baby Bells. Pacific Bell (now SBC) was the Baby Bell for LA. It's not uncommon for large cities to have more than one phonebook, one produced by PacBell (in this case) and another independently-produced book. One likely candidate is Verizon's Superpages (launched in '84), which is produced even in markets where Verizon Communications (the land line company) has no presence. Also, the phonebook in booths is usually (in my experience) produced by the administrator of the phone (not always the incumbent RBOC) or by someone contracted by them. Thus, given the possibility and plausibility of 2 phonebooks made by different companies, it's not unlikely that this "discrepancy" would take place.
Corrected entry: When the Terminator is approaching the tanker's cab, he is limping (why?) on his right leg. But when he loses his skin, he limps on his left leg.
Correction: I just looked at this bit of the movie and when Terminator approaches tanker's cab, it's limping left leg and later it still limps left leg.
Corrected entry: When the Terminator is chasing Kyle and Sarah through the alley after the club shooting, you get his view of the chase. If you pause the movie during this scene when the screen is red and there is information being displayed to the Terminator, you'll see that it in fact "Apple Computer" programming language.
Correction: It is not Apple Programming Language - it is part of the ROM Listing of an Apple II Computer - an old dog even at the time Terminator was released.
Corrected entry: In the second "future flash back" scene where Kyle battles the huge ground HK tank he tries to disable it by throwing a grenade at it. We see the grenade go under the HK's right wheel tread yet strangely in the next shot the left wheel tread explodes before the right one does.
Correction: Kyle's grenade falls under the right tread, which is also the side that explodes first (left side of the screen as we look at it.).
Correction: 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".