Trivia for
The Terminator (1984) More at IMDbPro »

• O.J. Simpson was considered for the role of the Terminator, but the producers feared he was "too nice" to be taken seriously as a cold-blooded killer. In 1990, (years, ironically, before Simpson's first trial) Dark Horse Comics printed issues using his likeness.
  
  
• Michael Biehn's character gets bitten on the hand by another character. This happens to him in every James Cameron movie he's in - see Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1989).
  
  
• Actor Trademark: [Arnold Schwarzenegger] "I'll be back!" (first)
  
  
• Jürgen Prochnow was also considered to play the title role.
  
  
• Just after the first scene in the nightclub TechNoir, we hear a police radio report a "two-eleven in progress at Bob's Liquor, corner of Third and Cameron," a possible reference to director James Cameron.
  
  
• Shots through the Terminator's vision shows a dump of the ROM assembler code for the Apple II operation system. If you own an Apple II, enter at the basic prompt: ] call -151 * p This will give you the terminator view. Other code visible is written in COBOL.
  
  
• Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice is used in exactly 16 lines, with 17 sentences spoken. The terminator has two other lines on-screen, one with the voice of a police officer overdubbed, and one with the voice of Sarah's mother overdubbed. There are also many lines with the voice of Sarah's mother, and we learn that the terminator is actually saying them, but we don't see it.
  
  
• Science fiction author Harlan Ellison sued James Cameron, claiming that the film was plagiarized from the two "The Outer Limits" (1963) episodes that Ellison wrote, namely "The Outer Limits: Soldier (#2.1)" (1964) and "The Outer Limits: Demon with a Glass Hand (#2.5)" (1964). The concept of "Skynet" could also have been borrowed from an Ellison short story called "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream." The suit was settled out of court and newer prints of the film acknowledge Ellison.
  
  
• The initial draft for the movie was sold to James Cameron's wife, Gale Anne Hurd for the price of $1 only.
  
  
• James Cameron got the idea for The Terminator (1984) while shooting another film in Europe. His vision was of a metal endoskeleton emerging from flames and most of the script was written backwards from there. The endoskeleton would have to be futuristic, and Cameron couldn't afford to set the film in the future. The solution was to bring the future to the present, hence the 'time travel' aspect of the script was written in.
  
  
• William Wisher Jr., who co-wrote the movie with James Cameron, is featured in a small role as the police officer who attempts to assist the Terminator who was left burned on the curb by Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, but gets knocked unconscious for his effort.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [James Cameron] [feet] when the Terminator approaches the house of the first Sarah Connor, he crushes a small toy truck with his car before getting out.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [James Cameron] [feet] after the Terminator kills Ginger, he steps on her walkman headphones.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [James Cameron] [nice cut] Sarah's burning photo fades into Sarah sleeping in Kyle's arms.
  
  
• The original treatment by James Cameron included the detail that the Terminator needed to eat periodically in order for his human flesh to survive. A scene is included where the Terminator eats a candy bar, wrapper and all. This detail was incorporated into the script for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), with the Terminator selecting Arnold Schwarzenegger's favorite Austrian chocolate wafer. When fans learned that a scene had shot where the Terminator ate chocolate, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative and the scene was omitted.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [James Cameron] [feet] in the future sequence, there is a close-up of tank treads rolling over human skulls.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [James Cameron] [nuke]
  
  
• According to an article from Hot Dog #10, April 2001, studio executives threatened to shut down the project if Cameron filmed additional future war scenes beyond the script.
  
  
• When Reese saves Sarah at the nightclub shootout, he says, "Come with me if you want to live." The Terminator says the same thing when he saves Sarah in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Reese again makes the statement to Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation (2009). Furthermore, Cameron said the same thing to John Connor in the pilot to "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (2008).
  
  
• Wolfie, James Cameron's German Shepherd dog, can be seen at the Tiki Motel.
  
  
• The beginning of production was postponed for nine months, due to Arnold Schwarzenegger's commitment to Conan the Destroyer (1984). During this time, James Cameron wanted to be working but didn't have the time to do a whole other film so he took on a writing assignment; this turned out to be Aliens (1986).
  
  
• Near the beginning of the movie, when Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) receives a message on her answering machine breaking her date, the voice on the machine is James Cameron's. Years later, Hamilton and Cameron got married and subsequently divorced.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [James Cameron] [Slow-motion interrupted by gunshot] At the TechNoir club
  
  
• Michael Biehn almost didn't get the role of Kyle Reese because in his first audition he spoke in a Southern accent as a result of working on a part for a stage production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (he didn't get the role), and the producers didn't want Reese to seem regionalized. After a talk with Biehn's agent, the producers called Biehn back for another audition and he got the part.
  
  
• There is only one time that Michael Biehn and Arnold Schwarzenegger are in the same frame together. It is when Kyle blasts The Terminator the second time at Tech Noir. When they finally meet in the factory, it is not Schwarzenegger, just a metallic puppet.
  
  
• Joe Farago, who plays a news anchorman reporting on the Sarah Connor murders, plays a similar role in another James Cameron film, The Abyss (1989).
  
  
• Linda Hamilton broke her ankle prior to production, and had to have her leg wrapped every day so she could do her chase scenes. Those scenes were also moved towards the end of the shooting schedule.
  
  
• Arnold Schwarzenegger's famous debut line 'I'll be back' was originally scripted as 'I'll come back'.
  
  
• One afternoon during a break in filming, Arnold Schwarzenegger went into a restaurant in downtown L.A. to get some lunch and realized all too late that he was still in Terminator makeup - with a missing eye, exposed jawbone and burned flesh.
  
  
• The TechNoir set was actually a downtown L.A. restaurant, redressed to look like a nightclub.
  
  
• Most of the car chase scenes were shot at normal speed and sped up slightly. To add more of a sense of speed, other cars rode along with them out of frame with revolving lights attached to them that made it seem like the car was passing other light sources faster.
  
  
• Arnold Schwarzenegger was trained for weeks on weapons handling before he started the film, and wound up garnering a compliment in "Soldier of Fortune" magazine for his realistic handling of the guns on camera (whereas the magazine usually lampoons movies for their inaccurate depictions of weapons use).
  
  
• The future terminator who infiltrates the human camp in the dream sequence is played by Franco Columbu, who is a multiple Mr. Olympia title winner like Arnold Schwarzenegger and is a close friend of his.
  
  
• The classic "clank" was made by Brad Fiedel by hitting a microphone with a cast iron skillet.
  
  
• The "screaming" sound at the end of the movie is Brad Fiedel and friends screaming in a microphone and Fiedel playing synth over it.
  
  
• Edward James Olmos was originally considered for the role of Lt. Traxler.
  
  
• Louis Gossett Jr. was considered for the role of Lt.Traxler.
  
  
• The earlier drafts of the script have a scene where Sarah obtains Cyberdyne System's address, and she and Kyle travel to Sunnyvale, California to blow up Cyberdyne. This scene was omitted, and the only relic of this scene in the movie is the fact that Sarah reveals the area code for the Tiki Motel to be 408.
  
  
• According to the original treatment (accessible on the DVD version), there were originally two protectors sent back to save Sarah Connor. However, this partner of Reese's would have received very little screen time, as when he traveled through time, he rematerialized right into a fire escape. It is interesting to note that this contradicts what the sequels show about the Temporal Displacement Field (matter in an orb-shaped space is replaced by its counterpart from the future).
  
  
• The Terminator uses the following weapons throughout the movie: - An AMT 1911 .45 Long Slide with Laser Pointer (pretty much everywhere) - An S&W classic type 2.5-inch barrel revolver, caliber .357Mag (during the tunnel chase) - An Uzi .9mm Submachine Gun (in the Tech Noir nightclub and the Tiki motel) - An SPAS-12 Automatic Shotgun (during the police station shootout) - An AR-18 Assault Rifle (during the police station shootout and the tunnel chase)
  
  
• The movie's line "I'll be back." was voted as the #37 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
  
  
• The movie's line "I'll be back." was voted as the #95 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
  
  
• Reese never turns on the headlights of any of the cars he drives. Possibly deliberate, as Reese probably would have been accustomed to driving without lights to avoid HK's in the future. The front wheel drive car that Reese drove out of the parking garage had it's headlights on, though they seem to have become turned off just before the end of the chase.
  
  
• The "fog" in the scene after Sarah and Reese leave the bridge where they spent the night is actually bug spray, due to the big "fly scare" in the filming location at that time. The crew was going to wait until the spray dissipated, but decided to use it as fog for the effect instead. This is revealed in a DVD easter egg, which can be found by pressing the right arrow in the languages section until the square on the right is lit up.
  
  
• In James Cameron's original treatment, Sarah Connor has an old figure skating injury that was fixed with a couple of surgical pins and the terminator would cut the legs open of the first two Sarah Connors to find this identifying mark.
  
  
• Mel Gibson turned down the role of the Terminator.
  
  
• The Los Angeles police cars have different mottoes: "To Protect and Serve" and "To Care and Protect."
  
  
• In the beginning of the movie, The Terminator drives over a toy semi truck..towards the end of the movie, The Terminator is run over by the same model of semi truck.
  
  
• Lance Henriksen was originally considered for the role of The Terminator. Writer/director James Cameron even made early sketches showing The Terminator looking like Henriksen. The original concept was for the character to be able to blend into a crowd. Cameron approached Arnold Schwarzenegger and wanted him to play the role of Kyle Reese, but after their meeting, Schwarzenegger and Cameron both wanted Schwarzenegger to play the title role, so Henriksen was cast in the role of Det. Vukovich. Curiously, Henriksen later got to play the part of a humanoid cyborg when he played Bishop in Aliens (1986), also directed by Cameron.
  
  
• Although stereophonic sound existed in 1984, The Terminator (1984) was filmed in monophonic. This was because during the production, the budget was too low to allow the filmmakers to get all the effects they wanted and still allow for the film to be shot in stereo. Although a stereo remix was produced later for the Hemdale VHS release, it was not until MGM acquired the rights to the film that a fully recognizable 5.1 stereo soundtrack was created, for the 2001 Special Edition DVD.
  
  
• The sunglasses worn by the Terminator were Gargoyles.
  
  
• Tony Banks, keyboardist for Genesis, was considered to compose the soundtrack and was sent the script, but he was busy doing the score to Starship (1985) (aka Redwing.)
  
  
• There was minimal interference from the film's financial backer, Orion, partly due to the budget offered. However, they suggested two things; the first one being a cyborg canine that accompanies Reese - an idea turned down by James Cameron; the other one is in improving the relationship between Kyle and Sarah, which was incorporated into the final film.
  
  
• The role of Sarah Connor was originally written by James Cameron for Bridget Fonda, who passed out from the project. He later replaced Bridget Fonda with Tatum O'Neal. However, it was decision of James Cameron to make the character of Sarah Connor older. He suggested Kate Capshaw for the role of Sarah, but Capshaw was filming Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). He later suggested Kathleen Turner for the part, but Turner was filming Romancing the Stone (1984).
  
  
• Arnold Schwarzenegger started work two weeks later than the rest of the cast. His first day of work was on the car garage scene where he was looking for Sarah on a police car that the Terminator hijacked.
  
  
• The relationship between James Cameron and executive producer / Hemdale head John Daly deteriorated during post-production before the film. According to Cameron, Daly and Orion executive Mike Medavoy (who recommended Arnold Schwarzenegger to Cameron) wanted the film to end right after tanker explosion, eliminating the final reel which involves the climax at the robot factory. Quoting from Cameron, "Daly said 'The film has to end right after the tanker explosion'. I told him straight, 'F**k you! The film isn't over yet.'" Daly would ultimately back down, a decision that led to the sudden success of the film. Three weeks after the film was released, Medavoy turned down Cameron's request to beef up the ad-campaign for the film. Cameron would describe on that, "They told me, when you have dirty-down action thriller, the film can last in the box-office for about three weeks plus or so. They are treating the film like dog-s**t!"
  
  
• According to a 2008 interview with Lance Henriksen, James Cameron had no agent and was living in his car when he wrote the script for the film.
  
  
• They used a Hydraulic fist to punch through the windshield when the Terminator jumped on the hood of the car during the Tech-Noir alley getaway scene. This was rehearsed several times and since Arnold Schwarzenegger's face was in the shot too,it all had to be choreographed perfectly since replacing a windshield was too costly and time consuming.
  
  
• The scene where the Terminator breaks into a station wagon was the very last scene shot and it was added a few weeks before the film's release due to insufficient funds. The scene was completed in 2 hours and filmed with just both James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger minus the crew (Cameron self-funded the scene). However, it was shot without a police permit. Fearing of possible police arrest, another set of Arnold's clothes was placed behind the wagon trunk and Cameron told him to change the moment the scene was deemed finished.
  
  
• The movie was released in the late 1980s in Poland under the title "The Electronic Murderer". The title was changed because there is a Polish word 'terminator', meaning roughly 'an apprentice', and so the title was changed to something more catchy and interesting to audience. By the time the sequel was released, the original movie was widely available on pirate copies under its original title, and because of it in the early 90s in Poland the word 'terminator' was widely recognized as the character played by Arnold Schwarzenegger instead of its original meaning, so all the sequels had their titles unaltered.
  
  
• The Terminator is the only character to be listed in the American Film Institute's 100 Heroes and Villains as both a villain (for The Terminator) and a hero (for Terminator 2: Judgment Day). Al Pacino and Arnold Schwarzenegger are the only two actors to be on the list as playing a villain and a hero but Pacino played two different characters. 13 other actors and actresses appear twice or more but either all as heroes or all as villains.
  
  
• The laser aimed handgun was specially built by Laser Products Corporation (now Sure-Fire). This was in the early days of laser aimed weapons and the what was seen was actually not a complete assembly. Only the laser was mounted but the required battery pack was hidden from view. In those days the battery packs were very large, about the size of a TV remote control. A wire was hidden underneath his sleeve.
  
  
• Debra Winger successfully auditioned and won the role of Sarah Connor. However, she later changed her mind and turned the role down.
  
  
• Gilda Radner, Susan Sarandon, Glenn Close, Rhea Perlman, Sigourney Weaver, Cybill Shepherd, Jane Seymour, Anjelica Huston, Lori Loughlin, Kim Basinger, Jodie Foster, Melanie Griffith, Christie Brinkley, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ally Sheedy, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek, Kay Lenz, Liza Minnelli, Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, Miranda Richardson, Rosanna Arquette, Meg Ryan, Heather Locklear, Amy Irving, Teri Garr, Margot Kidder and Tatum O'Neal were all considered for the role of Sarah Connor before it was offered to Debra Winger. However, Winger declined before filming began.
  
  
• Daryl Hannah auditioned for the role of Sarah Connor, but turned it down in order to play Madison in Splash (1984).
  
  
• Sylvester Stallone was offered the lead role, but turned it down.
  
  
• Randy Quaid was considered for the lead role.
  
  
• Jennifer Jason Leigh was considered for the role of Sarah Connor, but director James Cameron feared she was too young for the part. She was later recast as Ginger but she was replaced at the last minute with Bess Motta.
  
  
• Julia Louis-Dreyfus was rumored to be cast as Sarah Connor but was forced to turn the role down due to her commitment as a regular player on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" (1975).
  
  
• Tom Selleck was rumored to be cast as The Terminator, but was forced to turn the role down due to his commitment to the TV series "Magnum, P.I." (1980). Kevin Kline and Michael Douglas were considered to play The Terminator.
  
  
• Debra Winger was James Cameron's preferred choice after he watched her in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). Michelle Pfeiffer, Diane Lane and Carrie Fisher were all considered to play the part, and both Sharon Stone and Kelly McGillis auditioned for the role.
  
  
• James Cameron revealed that Glenn Close was originally chosen to play Sarah Connor, but Close wasn't available prior to the project began.
  
  
• James Cameron wrote the part of Sarah Connor as a teenage girl. It was rewritten as a twenty-something woman.
  
  
• Kyle Reese smiles only once during the entire movie, when Sarah makes to playfully throw the bag of dynamite at him after their night of intimacy.
  
  
• The Pacific, local time is given. Set in California, it is one of the last mainland time zones, before the ocean "terminator" separates day from night on the world hemispheres.
  
  
• In the original script the Terminator was supposed to steal a car at the beginning of the film. The scene involved the Terminator observing an elderly woman getting into a car and as she saw the Terminator she panicked and put it into reverse hitting a trash can then correcting herself put it into drive and sped off. The Terminator then enters the car, puts it into reverse then into drive mimicking the woman's actions. This was cut from a later script.
  
  
• The building number for the gun store is '14329' this is also the house number of Sarah Anne Connor, the first victim.
  
  

• SPOILER: A scene in which a person picked up the CPU of the terminator after it was crushed, was filmed but not included in the movie. Another reference to the time paradox whereby the events in the film directly lead to the creation of Skynet was also cut: in the scene where Sarah is driven away in the ambulance following the destruction of the terminator in the hydraulic press, after the cut seen in the theatrical release, the camera pans up to reveal that this took place inside Cyberdyne's production facility.
  
  
• SPOILER: (Please note -– also a spoiler for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)) Two deleted scenes gave Skynet and the Future War some more background. The first was a scene where Sarah discovers that a company called Cyberdyne will be responsible for building Skynet and the Terminators. She tries to convince Reese that they should destroy this company, in order to prevent the dark future from ever happening. Reese tells her that his mission is conserving the future, not changing it. The second scene shows that Cyberdyne owns the factory where Sarah battled the Terminator, and one of their employees finding the Terminator's microchip (this event actually causes Skynet to exist in the first place). Both these ideas became major plot points for the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Director James Cameron cut the scenes because he wanted to leave some questions yet unanswered, which he never regretted as he could make an entire sequel out of the unused ideas.
  
  
• SPOILER: In each Terminator film the villainous character's death is greeted with the word "Terminated" in some way: - In The Terminator (1984) Sarah Connor says "You're terminated fucker" as she crushes the Terminator in the hydraulic press - In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) John Connor asks "Is it dead?" (of the melted T1000) to which the Terminator replies "Terminated" - In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) the Terminator says "You are Terminated!" as it destroys the TX.
  
  
• SPOILER: The Body count in this movie is 28 people. There were 30 cops in the police station, but in the 1991 sequel, we find that the Terminator was only wanted for killing 17. Also killed were Kyle Reese, one of the three punks (the second (Brian Thompson) who was punched through the stomach - the punk leader (Bill Paxton) got knocked out and of course the third (Brad Rearden) lost his clothes), the first two Sarah Connors, a man and a woman in Tech Noir, the gun store clerk, Sarah's mother, Sarah's friend Ginger and her boyfriend, and of course, the Terminator himself.
  
  
• SPOILER: The body bag Reese is put in at the end of the film is actually a suit bag owned by director James Cameron.
  
  
• SPOILER: The smoke that is flowing out of The Terminator when it is crushed in the hydraulic press at the end of the film, is actually cigarette blown by one of the crew, out of camera view on the right.
  
  
• SPOILER: Filming of the final shot of the movie, of Sarah Connor driving off into the distance, was interrupted by a policeman questioning if the crew had permission to shoot (which they didn't). Special effects supervisor Gene Warren Jr. lied, telling him that the production was his son's student film. Also, the actress playing Sarah Connor in the final shot isn't Linda Hamilton, but a double.
  
  

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