Terminator (franchise)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Terminator

  • Author Phobia: Cameron originally based the movie on a nightmare he had of a robot skeleton emerging from a fiery explosion and coming after him.
  • Billing Displacement: Kyle and Sarah are the main characters in the first film - The Terminator isn't seen that often, making it more effective.
  • Breakthrough Hit: James Cameron became one of the most successful filmmakers of all time after The Terminator was released.
  • Completely Different Title:
    • Angel of Death (Sweden)
    • The Exterminator (Peru)
    • Electronic Killer (Poland)
  • Dawson Casting:
    • 27-going-on-28-year-old Linda Hamilton playing 19-year-old Sarah Connor. Terminator 3 later retconned her character's age as 23.
    • Also, 27-going-on-28-year-old Michael Biehn playing 21-year-old Kyle Reese.
  • Deleted Scene:
    • Sarah's introduction was originally longer with an extra scene of Sarah trying to get herself psyched up for work by rehearsing her waitress greeting in the mirror, and remarking "I'm so wholesome I could puke."
    • The scene where the Terminator kills the first "wrong Sarah" ended with the Terminator walking away after the kill, getting into his car and driving away. Cameron wanted the audience to be surprised at how calm and unworried he was, before the reveal of what was actually going on.
    • One of Reese, who only knows the world as a ruined wasteland, breaking down over being unable to handle simply standing in some grass once he gets the chance to slow down and notice all the normal things he was never meant to see. This was part of a scene where he and Sarah, who is now trying to be more proactive and forward thinking, got into an argument over trying to destroy Cyberdyne, the company that would create the Terminators, thus completely averting the war (which of course was revisited in Terminator 2), where he refused to go along with her idea simply because, in his words, "That's not my mission." Sarah angrily tries to run away from Reese, Reese chases her down and she hits him, which causes him to reflexively pull the gun on her; when Sarah points out to him what he's doing - and goes on a rant about how she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life living in fear of the Terminator and the big bad future - Reese completely falls apart and has a No Place for Me There monologue where he quite literally says "I don't belong here" before he laments how painful it is for him to see the world as it once was, which causes Sarah to feel more sympathy for him before he points out that Sarah doesn't understand what it feels like to know that "it's all gone." The scene ends with Sarah reminding Reese that together they have the chance to save the future by changing the past.
    • Several short deleted scenes show a subplot where Lt. Traxler, realizing that something is off about the entire situation, gradually comes to believe that Reese is telling the truth. In the final scene, now fully convinced after seeing the Terminator's unstoppable rampage at the police station, he survives his bullet wounds long enough to give Reese and Sarah his gun as they leave.
    • The scene where Reese shows Sarah how to make home made bombs was originally longer, with Sarah trying to cheer Reese up by telling him about all the amazing things she would show him once they had survived their ordeal and saved the world, and then the scene gets progressively more dramatic as she laments the situation and how utterly cut off they are from help, as it really is just them and the Terminator.
    • A post-love making scene where Sarah tickled Reese.
    • Adding even more bitterness to the already Bittersweet Ending, as Sarah was taken away by paramedics we would learn that the factory where Sarah and Reese had their final fight with the Terminator was actually Cyberdyne in its earlier, more humble years, with two employees managing to hide the remains of the Terminator to show to their bosses, adding another layer to the pre-destination paradox. This of course was later revisited in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
  • Dueling Movies: Runaway, a film also about robots and starring Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons (and written/directed by Michael Crichton), was projected to be the big sci-fi film of 1984. Who would have thought that it would be overshadowed by a low-budget film, with B-list actors, written and directed by an unknown who got the idea while having a fever? Not to mention one actor was mostly a theater actor (Biehn), the other one was a body builder with a thick accent who had more bad movies than good ones by that point (Arnold), and Cameron only had one directorial credit to boot before doing The Terminator: Piranha Part Two: The Spawning.
  • Executive Meddling:
    • Studio executives tried to push Cameron to give Kyle a cyborg dog as a sidekick. James Cameron nixed that idea completely.
    • A more positive example had the studio push Kyle to expand the romance between Sarah and Kyle. Cameron liked that idea, so he complied.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Private Hudson and the Alien Bounty Hunter are two of the punks the Terminator kills in the film's opening.
  • Money, Dear Boy: Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't think much of the initial screenplay and was only going to do it for the money and because he felt a contemporary film would be beneficial to his career.
  • No Budget: To the extent that some scenes had to be shot without permits.
  • Playing Against Type: Arnold Schwarzenegger as the ruthless, terrifying villain of the title.
  • Reality Subtext: Linda Hamilton injured her foot early on during production, and so every scene that involved Sarah Connor running (such as the alley chase behind Tech Noir and the tanker chase) was saved until the very end of filming so that Linda's foot could heal as much as possible. During the aforementioned alley chase, you can actually spot Linda slightly struggling to keep up with Kyle. This made the scene that much more tense and believable because even with a Killer Robot closing in on her, there's no way an ordinary young woman can keep that up for long.
  • Troubled Production: The action scenes were shot at a tight schedule given the nighttime setting, Linda Hamilton spraining her ankle at the beginning of the shoot and spending the rest of the movie in pain, and the Terminator endoskeleton being heavy and hard by Stan Winston's team to carry (as they found out that building a prop robot out of metal is realistic, but not practical). Also, James Cameron's Bad Boss tendencies started to show, leading to the first T-shirts written "You can't scare me, I work for James Cameron" among the crew.
    • During post-production, John Daly, the producer, tried to shorten the film by insisting it end when the truck the Terminator is driving blows up, eliminating the whole scene with the now-skeletal Terminator chasing Sarah and Reese through the factory. Cameron physically threw him out of the editing suite.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: The entire sequence at Tech Noir, a nightclub that could not be more '80s if it tried. Most of the movie, actually. The Honda scooter. Oh, the technology, including the old answering machine and gigantic video tape recorder in the police station...Plus, of course, the hairstyles and clothes on all of the actors.
  • Wag the Director: Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to have the iconic line "I'll be back" changed as he had difficulty pronouncing the word "I'll". He also felt that his robotic character would not speak in contractions and that the Terminator would be more declarative. James Cameron refused to change the line to "I will be back", so Schwarzenegger worked to say the line as written the best he could. He would later say the line in numerous films throughout his career.
    • Arnie allegedly delayed the start of filming by two days by claiming that the custom made leather jacket wasn't manly enough.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • OJ Simpson was originally considered for the role of the Terminator. The studio did not go with this casting choice because they could not see a nice guy like OJ playing a killer. Uh, yeah....
    • German actor Jürgen Prochnow, known for his role as the Captain in Das Boot, was also considered for the part. Hilarious in Hindsight, as he ended up playing Arnold in See Arnold Run (a film about Arnold's run for governor of California).

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

  • Actor Allusion: The T-800 hefting a minigun. "That's DEFINITELY you."
  • Billing Displacement: Sarah and John are the main characters in the second film, though not to the same extent as the first - The Terminator gets only a bit less screentime, but nowhere near as much dialogue.
  • Dyeing for Your Art: Linda Hamilton is a much more physical presence in this movie than in the previous film.
  • Enforced Method Acting: When Sarah is bludgeoning the nurse who assaulted her with a broomstick, that's Linda Hamilton really whacking the actor. Apparently, he was pretty hesitant to hit Hamilton with a nightstick in a prior scene, which caused a lot of takes of a physically demanding sequence for Hamilton (one that didn't even make the theatrical cut), and she took out some frustration in return.
  • Hey, It's That Girl!: Lt. Van Buren! aka Reba the Mail Lady!
    • Budnick/Montana Max is John Connor's friend in the beginning.
    • Big Mike is a lot less big, but he's one of the guards at the mental hospital.
    • Miles Dyson is Henry.
  • Making Use of the Twin: Linda Hamilton's real-life twin sister Leslie Hamilton Gearren. Leslie is seen as both the fake Sarah inside the steel mill and as the waitress Sarah in the nuclear nightmare scene. She is also seen inside the garage operating on the fake Arnold's head (the "reflection" is Linda and the actual Arnold on the other side of the mirror frame) in the Special Edition.
  • Schedule Slip: The film's DVD debut was originally scheduled for August 26, 1997 (read: Judgment Day) but for some reason (perhaps relating to technical limitations with the then-fledgling DVD format; it was, after all, the first dual-layer disc on the market) got delayed to October 21.
  • Throw It In: The T-800 inexplicably saying "I need a vacation...", but James Cameron found it so funny he left it in.
    • In addition, Sarah Connor knocking out the orderly with a broom, as well as the resulting injury, was indeed real. She, or rather, the actress, did it out of revenge because in an earlier scene the orderly went a bit too easy on her during the acting. They kept it in for the final cut (no pun intended).
  • Unintentional Period Piece: Unfortunately for the filmmakers, fashion and music changed radically in a very short time in the early nineties. The grunge and gangsta rap scene replaced the colorful fashions and upbeat music of the early '90s (think hairbands, MC Hammer, and Vanilla Ice) almost overnight. Through most of the film this isn't evident. But Guns n' Roses had a hard fall by the mid-nineties and the two guys who attempt to help John (and nearly get killed for it) are wearing painfully early-nineties fashions.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • When Cameron first told Arnold about a sequel in 1985, he said it would feature two T-800s, one of which would become a metal skeleton. When he actually begun working on the second one in 1990, he decided to turn the evil Terminator into the T-1000 instead.
    • WASP singer Blackie Lawless was considered for the role of T-1000.
    • Shaquille O'Neal reportedly asked for a role as a black Terminator.
    • Michael Biehn was originally supposed to be the T-1000, but the studio thought this would be too confusing.
    • Earlier drafts of the script included many scenes that was ultimately left out in the final script:
      • Alternate beginning has an extended battle sequence of the future war, with John Connor as the narrator, who mentions Judgement Day happened in 1999. It also describes many different war machines besides the flying and tank H/Ks. It shows the machines shut down, since Skynet has been defeated. It shows the soldiers breaking into the Skynet complex and sending Kyle Reese into the past. The sequence ends with John Connor looking at a storage area holding the Terminators with human skin, he finds a row with identical appearances (the Arnold model), and looks at an empty case (of the Terminator from the first movie) and the Terminator next to it. Then we flashback to Janelle trying to call John in the garage.
      • A scene which Sarah was forced into shock therapy. She flashback to when she crushed the Terminator in the first film. Then we cut to the scene of the second Terminator's arrival.
      • Sarah's alternate dream after she was forced into taking the pills. After chasing after Reese, she was ambushed by the orderlies, then the Terminator came and grabbed her, and took her outside, to the playground. The nuclear explosion struck and it ends with the shockwave blasting the skin out of Sarah and the Terminator.
      • The Gant Camp sequence. A more extended and alternate version of the Salceda Ranch sequence. Travis Gant was the "ex-Beret guy" John mentioned in the film. Here Gant is married to Yolanda while Salceda is instead one of Gant's men. They all find out that Sarah was telling the truth about the Terminators. After John and the Terminator chase after Sarah, the T-1000 came and killed everyone at the ranch. There's also a scene where the T-1000 was listening to a recorded message from Sarah telling John to go to Gant Ranch; right before he heads there, a couple of cops came to arrest him when they discover he's driving a stolen police car, then we cut to the T-1000 in the motorcycle.
      • Similarly, there's a scene which the T-1000 arrives at Salceda Camp and kills him, but lets his family live after he kindly asked them where John is.
      • Sarah's second dream sequence instead has nuclear missiles coming from beneath the playground, and the blast from the ignition incinerated the people and Sarah.
  • Written-In Infirmity: The T-1000's damage from the liquid nitrogen (hinted in the theatrical cut but made clear in the special edition) was due to Robert Patrick having injured his leg.

Terminator 2 3-D: Battle Across Time

Terminator Salvation

  • Fake American: All three leads.
    • Let's see, Welsh, Marcus Wright's Aussie right? And Russian...yeah.
      • Though it's worth mentioning that Russian-born Anton Yelchin has lived in the United States since he was six months old.
    • General Ashdown is played by Michael Ironside who's Canadian.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Batman (who is married to Gwen Stacy) is trying to save Chekhov from an army of machines led by Bellatrix Lestrange who are using Macbeth as an unknowing pawn in their grand scheme. And let's not forget the Resistance is being led by Revok! Daryl Revok! See you at the party, Ashdown.
  • What Could Have Been: Another portion of the fanbase would have prefered the original ending, with John Connor dying, and Marcus taking over his place, over the implausibility of the one that ended up being filmed.
    • Definitely more plausible though than John's skin being successfully grafted onto Marcus without looking weird, considering how Marcus' skeleton is shaped COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than John's. Think of the alien Big Bad's disguise in the first MIB movie.
      • Not to mention that John Connor was supposed to "trick" Kyle Reese into falling for Sarah Connor and fathering him. He told him stories about her. How is Marcus supposed to fulfill that role?
    • Also, the original cut of the film includes a topless scene when Blair and Marcus are warming themselves by the fire. Director McG said that it was meant as a Shout-Out to Kelly [=Mc Gillis]' topless scene in Witness, but that it ultimately felt exploitative and would have flouted a PG-13 rating. The scene is reinstated in the director's cut Blu-ray.

The film series in general

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