The Terminator

The Terminator (1984)

83 corrected entries

★★★★☆

(19 votes)

Corrected entry: How can John Conner be born if he has to send the soldier back to protect Sarah, when the soldier then becomes John Connor's father. Its a paradox, an endless loop that can't get started. What came first the chicken or the egg?

Correction: It's entirely possible that someone else was the father in the original timeline, but Kyle became the father and modified the timeline.

MoonMan

Corrected entry: This applies to both films - If only things surrounded by organic tissue can make it through the time machine, why not put some nifty weapons in wads of cheese! That why you'll be prepared. Of course, this only makes me wonder if the computers did that with the T-1000 in the next film. How else did a liquid metal item make its way through the time portal?

Correction: He says "living" tissue, not organic. Of course, that still means if they were desperate enough they could presumably cut open some sort of animal and send it through with a gun inside it before it dies, but that's a bit grim.

This technique is used in one of the Terminator comics published by Dark Horse Comics, and it is indeed grim. A team of Terminators travel back in time with a human prisoner carrying a plasma pistol hidden inside his body by a crude medical procedure. One of the Terminators rips it out of the already suffering man, killing him. A nasty idea that was possibly too gory for the more action oriented movie.

Corrected entry: In the motel when they're making those bombs, he tells Sarah to handle them very carefully, but when he's packing them up in the bag, he angrily throws each one individually into the bag.

Correction: Kyle knows they are stable enough to be manhandled, and knows what he is doing. Sarah has never handled explosives before, so tells her to be careful.

Or otherwise known as "do as I say, not as I do"

Ssiscool ★

Not at all. When he tells her "gently" it's when she's assembling them and the explosive is exposed. A simple spark could set one off. When he's shoving them into the bag they're fully assembled and can only be ignited by lighting the fuse. He was likely as careful during assembly as he asked her to be.

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Mistakes

Revealing mistake: 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.

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Questions

Question: How exactly do both the Terminator and Kyle find addresses? We are led to believe that is the reason for the phone books, but none of the addresses in the phone books match up to the addresses where either the first Sarah is killed, nor the apartment of our Sarah.

Answer: Gonna be totally honest... that might just be nothing more than a simple continuity error. They accidentally made a phonebook prop that didn't match up with the locations where they shot, and assumed most people wouldn't notice or care. (And to be even more honest, I never noticed it until I saw this question today.)

TedStixon

Answer: My two cents: The T-800 Terminator does indeed, rip out the page of a phonebook for the address, but remember, he was looking for any and all Sarah Connors, not a specific address. He did not know which Sarah would give birth to John Connor, so by process of elimination he began terminating any woman with the name Sarah Connor. He did plug the first Sarah Connor (a housewife), then went to kill the other Sarah Connors in the phone book.

Scott215

I already gave that answer, but apparently that's not what the question is asking.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: Kyle, as we are shown, uses a police computer to find the addresses. The T800 just uses the phonebook as you mentioned. He rips the page out and takes it with him.

Ssiscool ★

Except 2 of the addresses in the phone book don't match. So how does the Terminator find them using the phonebook?

Bishop73

The Terminator is just blindly killing everyone in the phone book whose name is Sarah Connor (apparently a common name). Process of elimination. So, the day he arrives, unrelated women named Sarah Connor start dropping like flies, and the police believe it's the work of a serial killer. Our heroine Sarah Connor barely escapes this sweeping extermination by sheer luck and Kyle's intervention.

Charles Austin Miller

You just described the plot. Were you trying to answer the question? Because the question still stands. (As it is, it's either a mistake or plot hole in the film).

Bishop73

Perhaps I'm not getting the question. What is meant by "none of the addresses in the phone books match up"? Match up to what, the murder scene addresses? I wasn't aware that the murder scene addresses were prominently displayed.

Charles Austin Miller

Exactly. The addresses seen don't match. Specifically the first Sarah Connor's house number is "14239", but in the phonebook it is listed as "1823." And the real Sarah Connor lives in an apartment but the phonebook doesn't list an apartment number.

Bishop73

Perhaps though this all doesn't matter because phone books can quickly become outdated, the phone book he found could be over a year old. Someone moves but can still be listed in the phone book with their old address. He could have gone to the addresses but found someone else living there and then asked where the previous owner might be, and he was told (or he forced them). This might be how he found all the Sarah Connors.

lionhead

Are any of the Sarahs listed as living at 1823? I've not got access to the film right now to check.

Ssiscool ★

The first is listed as "1823." The second is "2816." The 3rd is "309." Although after reviewing the scene and thinking about it, for "309" (which is supposedly our Sarah J Connor), the full address isn't actually seen and the apartment number could have been listed.

Bishop73

Reese never uses a police computer; that's the T-1000 in Terminator 2. He rips out the page from the phonebook. The T800 also uses the phonebook but is never shown ripping out a page.

No! Kyle and the T800 both use the phone book. The Terminator even pulls away a guy who was on the phone ("Hey man! You got a serious attitude problem!") Kyle rips out a page, not the T800. It's the T-1000 in T2 that uses a police computer.

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