49 Fun Facts About The Terminator (1984)

Who directed The Terminator?

James Cameron was an untested director, and the studios that liked his script wanted it without him; he refused to sell unless he stayed in the chair.

Who plays Sarah Connor in The Terminator?

Linda Hamilton was a relative unknown; the bigger names floated for the lead roles all fell through, leaving her to star opposite the far more famous Schwarzenegger.

Who plays Kyle Reese, the soldier sent back to protect Sarah Connor in The Terminator?

Michael Biehn prepared by reading about the fighters who held out in the rubble of wartime Warsaw, a model for the film's hunted human resistance.

Why does the Terminator hunt Sarah Connor?

Her future son will lead the human resistance to the edge of victory, so the machines send a killer into the past to stop him ever being born.

What is the hostile artificial intelligence in The Terminator called?

Skynet is a defense network that becomes self-aware, sets off a nuclear war and then hunts the survivors with machines.

What is Sarah Connor's job when The Terminator begins?

Diner waitress Sarah Connor shares her name with two other women in the phone book, and the cyborg simply starts killing its way down the listings.

Who produced The Terminator and shares its writing credit?

Gale Anne Hurd was Roger Corman's assistant when she was shown the first sketches; she backed the idea and pitched it with the director to every studio in town.

What finally destroys the cyborg in The Terminator?

A hydraulic press finishes it: the cyborg has already survived a tanker explosion and been blown in half by a pipe bomb when Sarah Connor lures its crawling torso into the machine.

Which earlier film had taken The Terminator's director abroad when a fever dream gave him the idea?

Piranha II was a troubled low-budget horror sequel made with an Italian crew; sick, broke and far from home, its director dreamed the image that became his next film.

Which fever-dream image inspired The Terminator?

A flaming metal skeleton came to the director in a fevered sleep in Rome; he sketched it on waking, and by his account those drawings became the film's finale almost exactly.

Which low-budget slasher hit did The Terminator's director say he hoped to emulate with his own script?

Halloween had been made for next to nothing, and a stylish horror film like it was every young director's break-in dream; the cyborg began life as a slasher-film image.

Which football star did a studio executive suggest to play the Terminator?

O. J. Simpson was then a much-loved sports star and pitchman, and that was the problem: the filmmakers thought him far too likeable to pass for a killer.

The first outline for The Terminator had a second cyborg made of what?

Liquid metal was beyond the effects of 1984, so the shape-shifting killer was shelved and came back seven years later as the T-1000 of Terminator 2.

For how much did The Terminator's director sell the script rights to his producer?

One dollar bought the script on a single condition: he would direct it. He has since called the bargain price one of his biggest regrets.

What did The Terminator's financier want cut during editing?

The last chase, through the factory, would have gone: he wanted the film to end with the tanker explosion. The director flatly refused and kept it.

Which actor burst into The Terminator's financing pitch dressed and acting like the cyborg?

Lance Henriksen kicked the door in wearing leathers, a fake cut and gold foil on his teeth, then sat staring at the money men; he was rewarded with a part as a detective.

What did The Terminator's distributor expect of it?

A quick fade from cinemas, within weeks, was all Orion foresaw; instead the film topped the box office for two weeks and earned about $78 million worldwide.

Which action star turned down the role of the Terminator?

Sylvester Stallone passed, and the part went to a man sent to discuss playing the hero: Schwarzenegger talked so keenly about how the machine should behave that the director switched him.

Which rock star was approached to play Kyle Reese in The Terminator?

Sting was one of several big names chased for the hero before the makers gave up on stars and cast a little-known actor instead.

Why did Schwarzenegger first resist playing the Terminator?

A villain's part with few lines was no job for a would-be leading man, by his account, until the director promised a machine so cool that some viewers would cheer.

Why does the Terminator start wearing sunglasses partway through The Terminator?

To hide its ruined eye: after the nightclub chase the cyborg cuts out the damaged human-looking eye, which leaves the machine lens underneath on show.

What does Sarah Connor buy from a boy at a Mexican filling station as The Terminator ends?

Her own photograph: the boy's instant snapshot is the very picture her son will one day hand to Kyle Reese, the one Reese carries through the future war.

Which effects artist built the cyborg for The Terminator after the veteran Dick Smith turned the job down?

Stan Winston came recommended by Smith himself when he turned the job down; Winston and the director went on working together for the rest of Winston's life.

In The Terminator, what does Sarah Connor come to realize about her protector Kyle Reese?

He will father her son: John Connor sends back the very man who becomes his own father, so the future leader exists only because of the mission meant to save him.

Schwarzenegger's commitment to which film delayed the start of The Terminator's shoot?

Conan the Destroyer came first under his contract with producer Dino De Laurentiis, so a shoot planned for 1983 slipped into early 1984.

While The Terminator's shoot was on hold, its director was hired to write which sequel?

Rambo: First Blood Part II was a job for hire to fill the idle months; its star rewrote much of the draft before it reached cinemas in 1985.

What companion did studio executives want to give Kyle Reese in The Terminator, only for the director to refuse?

A robot dog was one of two studio notes; the other, to build up the romance between Sarah and Reese, he liked and took.

In The Terminator, which company built the defense computer that turns on humanity?

Cyberdyne Systems also owns the factory where the chase ends, a deleted scene shows; in the sequel its engineers are building the computer from the wrecked cyborg's chip and arm.

What does the Terminator do instead of paying at the gun shop?

Shoots the clerk, then walks out with the guns. The long pistol's red beam was a real laser, which the actor lit with a switch hidden in his coat.

In which city was most of The Terminator shot, largely at night?

Los Angeles was the fallback: the shoot was first planned for Toronto, then moved, and most of it was done on the city's streets at night.

What injury did The Terminator's lead actress carry through most of the shoot?

A sprained ankle meant her running scenes were pushed as late as the schedule allowed, and she played much of the chase in pain.

Which line in The Terminator did Schwarzenegger ask to reword because he struggled to pronounce it?

"I'll be back" tripped him on the contraction, so he asked to say 'I will be back'; the director refused, and the line became his lifelong catchphrase.

Who composed The Terminator's synthesizer score?

Brad Fiedel described his clanking electronic theme as a mechanical man and his heartbeat.

Why does The Terminator's theme lurch?

A mistimed loop: the composer set it by hand a fraction short, liked the falling-forward beat and kept it, which left the theme in 13/16.

In The Terminator, whose voice does the cyborg imitate on the phone to learn where Sarah Connor is hiding?

Her mother's voice comes down the line from a cabin the cyborg has already reached, and Sarah gives away the motel where she is staying.

What did The Terminator's director and its producer do the year after the film came out?

Married each other: the pair who had pitched the script around town together wed in 1985, and the marriage lasted four years.

In The Terminator, whom does the cyborg kill at Sarah Connor's apartment, mistaking her for its target?

Her roommate, Ginger, dies along with her boyfriend while Sarah is out; a panicked message Sarah leaves on the answering machine then tells the killer where to look.

Which writer claimed The Terminator borrowed from his television scripts and won a settlement from its distributor?

Harlan Ellison saw two of his 1960s television episodes in the story; the companies settled out of court, and later prints carry an acknowledgment of his works.

Which 1960s science-fiction series did The Terminator's director acknowledge as an influence?

The Outer Limits was an influence he has admitted to, and two of its episodes resemble the film closely enough to have led to a legal claim.

Which institution chose The Terminator for preservation in 2008?

Library of Congress picks join its National Film Registry for cultural, historical or aesthetic weight; in 1984 the New York Times had filed this one as a "B-movie", if one with flair.

Which awards named The Terminator best science fiction film?

Saturn voters named it best science fiction film, while the Oscars overlooked it entirely; its sequel, seven years on, won four of them.

What sets the Terminator apart in AFI's heroes and villains ranking?

The only character on both lists: the killer of the 1984 film ranks 22nd among the villains, and the reprogrammed guardian of the 1991 sequel 48th among the heroes.

Why do The Terminator's time travelers arrive in 1984 without clothes or weapons?

Only living tissue survives the trip, which is why both arrive with nothing; the cyborg gets through because its metal frame is wrapped in real flesh.

Bill Paxton appears briefly in The Terminator as what?

A punk: he leads the trio who mock the newly arrived cyborg and lose their clothes to it. He went on to bigger roles for the same director in True Lies and Titanic.

What is Dr. Silberman's profession in The Terminator?

Criminal psychologist Silberman writes Reese off as delusional, then walks out moments before the cyborg arrives to prove him wrong.

Which refuge does the Terminator storm, hunting Sarah Connor?

A police station full of armed officers barely slows it: the cyborg drives a car through the front desk and works through the building while Sarah and Reese slip away.

Which genre label, taken from the name of the nightclub in The Terminator, is the film credited with starting?

Tech-noir is the name of the club where the first shootout happens; the director coined it, and two later books on the genre trace the label to this film.

Which Terminator sequel did Schwarzenegger not act in, appearing only as a digital likeness?

Terminator Salvation was made while he was Governor of California, so the makers added his younger face digitally, with his consent.

Which sequel did The Terminator's success win its director?

Aliens: he had drafted it while The Terminator's shoot was on hold, and the hit gave him the clout to direct it, with his producer beside him.