The Terminator
The Terminator mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene in the apartment, where the Terminator cuts the flesh away from his damaged eye, he picks up a hobby knife that has a blade attached. In the next shot, as he lifts the knife up toward his eye, the blade has disappeared. Then in the front-on shot the blade is back again. (00:52:35)

The Terminator mistake picture

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)

The Terminator mistake picture

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)

The Terminator mistake picture

Revealing mistake: After the Terminator (in his police car) discovers Reese and Sarah in the car park, Reese hot-wires the car and starts to speed away. After that, there are several shots of Reese driving the car. It is easy to see that it's not Michael Biehn, but a stunt double who doesn't resemble Biehn at all, and who is seen in several other shots during the movie. (00:48:10)

The Terminator mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the Terminator punches through the car window, there's broken glass all around the window frame. When he closes the door, there's only a little glass around the top of the frame. (00:12:55)

Deadman63

The Terminator mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Schwarzenegger rises to his feet after getting blasted out the Tech Noir window, a stage light can be seen behind him in the top right corner. (00:36:50)

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Suggested correction: No production vehicle is visible and that definitely is not a stage light.

There is a stage light top right corner of the screen behind a black square light blocker.

I just watched Tampa Jay's filming locations video on this film. It's just a funny-looking street post across the street from the Tech Noir. Not a piece of filming equipment.

The Terminator mistake picture

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)

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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.

Bishop73

The Terminator mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Sarah and Kyle are escaping in the car they found in the alley after leaving the nightclub, Tech Noir, we see Arnie jump onto the hood of their car in flames. While he is in mid-air during the jump, he is on fire but as soon a he lands (the next shot) the flames are gone. (00:37:35)

The Terminator mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When the Terminator takes out his "fake" human eye, he looks into the mirror. It is very obvious it's a dummy: 1) He has unnatural movements. 2) His skin is a lot paler, and not shiny. 3) His hair style has changed. It's easier to tell in the following shot, as he looks closer to the mirror that he's changed back to "real." (00:59:55)

The Terminator mistake picture

Other mistake: As the Terminator is approaching Sarah in the Tech Noir nightclub, several other patrons can be seen behind her sitting in booths. These same people are in front of Kyle (he pushes them out of the way to get to Sarah before the Terminator does), yet he's on the other side of the club by the bar. (00:35:10)

The Terminator mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Just before Kyle exits the car park, he rams the police car driven by the Terminator into a parked car, and you can see the front left corner of the police car is damaged. In the next shot when you see the police car exit the car park, the damage has gone. (00:48:30)

The Terminator mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Early in the movie, prior to heading out to the bar where she first sees the Terminator, Sarah Connor is holding her iguana at her apartment while talking to her roommate. In the first shot, she is holding it with her left hand under the lizard's chest. The film cuts to a different angle, and now the lizard is resting against her shoulder, with Sarah's left hand on its upper back. It cuts back to the original angle and again her hand is supporting the chest. (00:23:25)

The Terminator mistake picture

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)

The Terminator mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the Terminator is washing his face in the motel room after he was wounded during the chase, the tap's valve is showed in different positions between two shots.

More mistakes in The Terminator

Kyle Reese: Listen! And understand. That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with, can't be reasoned with! It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear, and it absolutely will not stop. EVER! Until you are dead!

More quotes from The Terminator
More trivia for The Terminator

Question: I know it's not important because the movie would be very short and boring, but there's something I've always wondered. What would have happened to the Terminator had he actually managed to kill Sarah Conner?

The_Iceman

Chosen answer: Since terminators cannot self-terminate, only one very likely possibility comes to mind: it would have hidden itself away somewhere known to have remained undisturbed in the years between the termination of Sarah Connor and the start of the war, at which point it would rejoin the war effort.

Phixius

Answer: Skynet knew nothing about Sarah Connor besides what city she was in in 1984 and that she had a pre war leg injury which they could use as a form of identification. However this injury only occurred in the factory at the end of the movie which would mean the terminator would have no way of identifying the real sarah connor before that time. The terminator therefore could've never completed its mission with 100% certainty because it had no idea what she actually looked like, therefore it may have just carried on hunting out Sarah Connors to increase the chances of getting the right one if it was still in good enough condition to move around unnoticed.

Answer: According to the official novelization, the Terminator looked for a specific injury that the Sarah Connor in question had, in order to insure that she was indeed the Sarah Connor that would give birth to John Connor. If any of the Sarah Connors that he killed didn't have that injury, then he knew that none of them were the Sarah Connor that he was looking for, and would move on to the next one. At the end of the novelization, it is revealed that Sarah Connor got the injury during her final battle with the Terminator, meaning that previous time travel loops had already happened that we didn't see or read about (alternatively the events in the first Terminator film are a causal loop that always happened). Since the Terminator wasn't aware that Sarah didn't have the injury at this point in time, this would mean that he would continue to search the world for other Sarah Connors after killing her. It's a piece of horror that unfortunately was cut from the film.

More questions & answers from The Terminator

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