Corrected entry: The Terminator runs his finger down the phone book to look up the Sarah Connors. Why would a cyber with enhanced vision need to do this?
KeyZOid
27th Aug 2001
The Terminator (1984)
Correction: He probably does not technically "need" to do this, but he also "wants" to get it right the first time (i.e, not make a mistake). The print in phone books are often quite small. So using a finger reinforces what the eyes are seeing. [The running of his finger down the page might be more for the audience to see what he is doing (looking for), but that wouldn't mean a terminator could not do it to facilitate speed and accuracy, too.].
The idea that a highly advanced machine with targeting systems, etc. needs to use its finger to help it read slightly small print which any human with 20/20 vision would have no problem with is a bit of a stretch. There's zero reason why with a futuristic CPU driving its every action it would need to validate what line it's reading with a finger. Hell, Google Lens on a smartphone can read a page of small text and accurately make the printed words machine readable, and it definitely doesn't need a finger's help to do that.
I wrote, "He probably does not technically 'need' to do this..." Need and want are two different things. Terminator 2 was more advanced. Did he need sunglasses?
It is possible that seeing so many Sarah Connors (as opposed to just the one he was looking for) caused a problem. If he was programmed to stop at Sarah Connors, using his finger enabled him to override the first and each successive one until he found the one (s) that looked most likely to be the correct Sarah Connors.
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.
Correction: The Terminators are designed to appear and, more importantly, act, as human as possible. It would look very suspicious if he were to just open the book and pick the names out without using some means of keeping his place on the page.
I think is an overused cop out of the Terminator doing things a machine wouldn't need to do. First off, it would have to be programmed or somehow learn that's how humans look up names in a phonebook. Also, a lot of people can look up names in a phonebook without running their fingers down the page and nothing would be very suspicious if someone just opened it up and started looking for a name using just their eyes. It's done just for the audience.
Bishop73