The Terminator - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[sophie]

Actress Lisa Langlois said she was offered the role of Sarah Connor but had to turn it down. "What happened there was, I went in and I read for the part. I had another audition right after and I feel like I was more focused on that because it had much more dialogue. Anyway, I got called back and went to writer Gayle Anne Hurd's house to read with Michael Biehn for James Cameron. My agent at the time told me that Linda Hamilton had gotten the part but that Gayle Anne Hurd thought I had more charisma. I didn't think anything of it because in the meantime, I got cast in The Slugger's Wife with Hal Ashby, a director with whom I had always wanted to work...I started working on The Slugger's Wife when my agent got a call saying that Linda Hamilton had sprained her ankle badly and they wanted to offer the part to me. But I was already shooting in Atlanta, Georgia. They said they were shooting in Florida and could I possibly do the two films? It was determined that there was no way I could do both pictures and that was the end of that. My agent said to me, 'It's okay, YOU got the better picture. That's just a small movie with an unknown director and Arnold Schwarzenegger.' And I replied 'No, The Terminator had the better script and a better story.' Years later, I saw James Cameron when he was being honored at the Canadian Consulate. I didn't know whether he would remember me or not, but I went up to him and said, 'I've always wanted to tell you it was a disappointment to me that I couldn't do your film because I had told my agent it was the better script.' He turned to me and said, 'Lisa, you haven't aged at all. It's okay that you didn't do the film because otherwise, I would never have met Linda.' He ended up marrying her and I thought that was so wonderful."

[marc]

Filmed in 1983.

[ethel]

(at around 23 mins) 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.

[wesley]

The idea of blowing up Cyberdyne, and thereby preventing the war, was originally conceived in the first movie. However, due to time constraints, this scene was cut, and becomes a major factor in the sequel. When Kyle is explaining to Sarah that such a move is not part of his mission, and tactically dangerous, the two happen to be in the countryside, in which Kyle realizes he comes from a time where such beauty has been destroyed and no longer exists, this causes him to have an emotional breakdown as he explains he wasn't meant to see this, and how "it's all gone." This notion is repeated by Sarah, in a video in the sequel, during her sanity evaluation when she and Dr. Silberman are watching a video of past behavior and she tells him, "Him, you, this whole place is gone."

[liam]

(at around 13 mins) The line that Sarah Connor's co-worker tells her, "in 100 years, who's going to care?". In Joy Ride (2001) a character tells another, "in 100 years, I'll be dead". That film also had Robert Winley who played the cigar-smoking biker from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). It was his final film before his death 16 days later.

[scarlett]

Arnold Schwarzenegger's first horror film. Schwarzenegger's other horror films were Predator (1987), End of Days (1999) and Maggie (2015).

[ronnie]

The "screaming" sound at the end of the movie is Brad Fiedel and friends screaming in a microphone and Fiedel playing synth over it.

[bernard]

Carrow's restaurant (as Big Jeff's restaurant) where Sarah Connor worked was filmed only 0.6 miles (1Km) from Pee Wee's house in Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985).

[willard]

Arnold Schwarzenegger said James Cameron did an extraordinary job creating that character (The Terminator) and whole phenomenon. "I never thought we would do a sequel, catchphrases like "I'll be back" or "Hasta la vista, baby" would catch on and be repeated or think that 30yrs later I would be asked to come back to a franchise like this playing The Terminator, unlike Batman or James Bond."

[bernard]

(at around 36 mins) Michael Biehn and Arnold Schwarzenegger are in the same frame together only once. 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.

[chris]

(at around 19 mins) In the future scene when Reese throws a grenade under the wheel tread of one of Skynet's machines, it took 26 attempts to get right.

[sandra]

The whole Cyberdyne plot from the sequel was meant to be in this film, but was cut due to budget reasons.

[bessie]

The novelization of Terminator Salvation (2009) says a Terminator could fit in better if it didn't look like a bodybuilder; an obvious in-joke to Arnold Schwarzenegger compared with the casting of Robert Patrick and Sam Worthington.

[janice]

The camera that takes the instant photo near the end of the movie is a Kodak Kodamatic 940. Although often referred to as a "Polaroid" photo, it would have been taken on Kodak instant film. Polaroid later sued Kodak for copyright infringement on their instant photo patents and won leading to Kodak instant cameras and film being pulled from the market after a 15-year legal battle.

[mathew]

The laser sight on the .45 Longslide was specially built by Laser Products Corporation (now Sure-Fire). This was in the early days of laser-aimed weapons and 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 Arnold Schwarzenegger's sleeve.

[tammy]

James Cameron: [feet] the Terminator often steps on objects, crushing them. In the future, there is a close-up of tank treads rolling over human skulls.