At the beginning of the film, the Terminator runs over a toy truck. At the end of the film, a truck of the same model runs over the Terminator.
The name of the nightclub where the Terminator first targets Sarah Connor is Tech Noir. James Cameron, stating that the film is not merely a horror or slasher film, used the term 'Tech Noir' to define this genre. Tech Noir works such as Blade Runner (1982) and this film combine the old-school toughness of noir films with the futuristic elements of science fiction thriller. Cameron had the club built specifically for the film and had to turn away local regulars who thought Tech Noir was a real nightclub. The building is still standing, but it is now a jewelry shop.
Although the Terminator in this film is generally known as the T-800, this term is used neither in this film nor in its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991); it is only identified as a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 (this number means it has Arnold Schwarzenegger's body). Kyle Reese also briefly mentions the 600 series while describing the Terminator as a new [type]. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), on the other hand, refers only to an upgraded version called the T-850. The term 'T-800' officially comes from the bonus materials on the T2 DVD and from the Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) arcade game, and refers to a series of Terminators covered in living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. The term 'T-800' was first explicitly used in one of the films in Terminator Salvation (2009).
In the shots from the Terminator's visor, a dump of the ROM assembler code of the Apple II operating system is visible. If you have an Apple II, type 'call -151 * p' at the basic command prompt. This will give you the Terminator image. The other code that appears is written in COBOL.
The handgun Kyle Reese carries after the police station massacre and gives to Sarah Connor at the motel is Lieutenant Traxler's weapon. In a deleted scene, Reese and Sarah encounter the wounded Traxler as they try to escape the police station. Traxler now believes their story and gives Reese his gun to protect Sarah. Other scenes showing Traxler increasingly believing that Reese is telling the truth were also cut from the film.
The Terminator is the only character to appear on the American Film Institute's 100 Heroes and Villains list as both a villain (for this film) and a hero (for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)). Al Pacino and Arnold Schwarzenegger are the two actors who appear on the list in both villain and hero roles, but Pacino played two different characters. The other 13 actors appear two or more times, but either entirely as heroes or entirely as villains.
Sarah Connor is 18 years old in the film. This is retroactively established in the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991); Dr. Silberman says Sarah is 29 years old; when the T-1000 checks John Connor's profile, it states that he is 10 years old and was born when Sarah was 19.
Before the Terminator attacks Sarah Connor at the police station, Lieutenant Traxler says there are 'thirty police officers' at the station. If you count the police officers the Terminator kills on screen and the muzzle flashes as he fires at off-screen targets, you reach that number of thirty. However, the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) reveals that it ultimately confirms that 17 officers died.
Although it is now regarded as a science fiction classic, this film was actually conceived and written as a horror film. If you remove the robots and the time travel element, it closely resembles a slasher film and borrows many tropes of the genre; most notably from Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981). The Terminator is the 'Unstoppable Killer' who silently stalks an innocent woman, kills everyone she loves, and is finally killed in a creative way. Sarah Connor is the 'Final Girl,' the only survivor strong enough to overcome the killer. The film's ending also uses many techniques and scare tactics of the slasher genre: a final confrontation in a closed and isolated place where no one can help, crawling through narrow, cramped and dangerous spaces to escape, and the killer coming back several times for a 'final scare' (even Halloween II ends with the killer dying by exploding). Also, according to tradition, a character who says he will return (the Terminator) ultimately dies, and the killer, despite ultimately dying, returns in one or more sequels. However, contrary to these slasher film tropes, the heroes actually have access to the weapons they use against the Killer (though they are of little use); the Terminator becomes one of the few 'Unstoppable Killers' of the genre to use firearms as a primary weapon; Kyle Reese is one of the few 'boyfriends' who dies trying to protect the 'Final Girl,' but not directly by the Killer's hand, rather through his own intervention; and Sarah Connor is one of the few 'Final Girls' who has sex in the film and survives.
James Cameron cited The Road Warrior (1981) as an inspiration for the TERMINATOR film. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), John Connor's dog is named Max. However, the T2 guardian T800 model 101 tricks the T1000 by using the wrong name 'Wolfie'; this is the name of James Cameron's dog that appeared in the first Terminator film.
The film's line 'I'll be back' was chosen by the American Film Institute as the #37 film quote and ranked 95th on Premiere magazine's 2007 list of the '100 Best Movie Lines.'
SERIES TRADEMARK: While saving Sarah Connor during the nightclub shootout, Kyle Reese says, 'Come with me if you want to live.' This is also Michael Biehn's favorite line.
Most of Cameron's films (Piranha II: The Spawning (1982), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Titanic (1997)) champion women who are strong both mentally and physically.
Russian art-film director Andrei Tarkovsky, while criticizing mainstream cinema, praised THE TERMINATOR and stated that its 'vision of the future and its relationship to humanity's fate advanced cinema as an art form.' However, he criticized its 'brutality and poor acting skills.'
The film's novelization offers an explanation for why the Terminator's skin decays. In the T-800's chest cavity is an organic heart, the only true organ in its entire body, and this heart exists to pump blood to the skin. The novel explains that when Kyle Reese fires most of his shotgun shells directly into the center of the T-800's chest, the heart bursts, so blood is no longer pumped to the skin. Although later films probably forgot this, it is possible that the T-800 and T-850 in T2 and T3 never decayed because they never got the chance to decay before sacrificing themselves.
Although the Gargoyles sunglasses seen in the film are mistakenly associated with the first Terminator film (known in the eyewear world as 'Terminator sunglasses' or 'Gargoyles 85'), they had previously been seen on Clint Eastwood in Sudden Impact (1983) and were later used in The Dead Pool (1988). Gargoyles continued producing the sunglasses as the Gargoyles Classic until the company ceased operations at the end of 2022.
Lightstorm Entertainment, the company James Cameron later founded and would produce Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and True Lies (1994) through, took its name from the lightning effects accompanying the time-travel process in this film.
SERIES TRADEMARK: In the first three Terminator films, the evil Terminator's death is somehow met with the word 'terminated.' As Sarah Connor crushes the Terminator in a hydraulic press, she boldly says, 'You're terminated, fucker!'; in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), when John Connor asks 'Is it dead?', the Terminator replies 'terminated'; in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), the Terminator, holding the T-X, says, 'You are terminated!'
The Terminator kills at least 27 people: the punk, the gun shop owner, the first two Sarah Connors, Matt and Ginger, three Tech Noir patrons, 17 police officers (established exactly in the sequel), Sarah's mother. The other two punks are assumed to have survived; the first was merely thrown to the ground. The truck driver may have only been knocked unconscious, but if not, he would have been the 28th. Kyle Reese does not count: although the Terminator wounds and roughs him up, Reese ultimately dies when his own bomb explodes.
The novelization clarifies several facts not explicitly stated in the film: Kyle Reese deliberately shoots the Terminator's arm after its laser sight is aimed at Sarah; had he hit anywhere else, the Terminator could still have killed Sarah. This wounds the Terminator's arm (not the later car crash), and this is in fact what happens in the film: the shotgun shell knocks the Terminator's arm upward just as it fires, but Kyle's incredible shot is so brief that it can only be seen by freezing the frame. Additionally, the series of the Terminator targeting Sarah Connor is never stated in the film — only its manufacturer and model (Cyberdyne Systems Model 101). In the novel, Kyle wonders whether the machine is a 700 or 800 series and hopes it is the former. To his horror, he realizes it is the latter and that it is harder to identify. The novel also states the reason the Terminator flees after the parking garage chase: thanks to Reese shooting it in the eye, the Terminator is dazed and blinded, and it crashes the police car at high speed; the impact was so powerful that it left the T-800 unresponsive for several seconds until its systems reset. By the time it was operational again, the police were approaching, and because of its eye and arm injuries (both caused by a police-type shotgun), the Terminator chose to flee and repair itself first rather than risk a fight it might not win. Deleted scenes show that the pipe bombs Sarah and Kyle use in the final chase scene were not actually taken to kill the Terminator: in a subplot, Sarah realizes that even if they destroy the T-800, Skynet will send another one after her and will keep going until she is dead. This marks a significant change in her character; from frantically running and trusting Kyle, she shifts to forcing him to help her destroy Skynet forever: she plans to use the pipe bombs to blow up the Cyberdyne Systems facility that will create Skynet. This also explains that their fall into the Cyberdyne robot factory at the climax was not an accident, but that they deliberately planned to turn the place into hell. This story would later be addressed as an important subplot of the sequel.
According to her student ID card, Sarah can be understood to attend Western University in Pomona, California. (In the film's novelization, Sarah goes to class while the first two Sarah Connors are killed, then rides her scooter to work at Big Jeff's.)
In the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon 'Robot Rabbit' (1953), Bugs Bunny destroys a robot chasing him by luring it into a crushing machine, in the same way Sarah Connor destroys the Terminator.
A missing person poster is visible on the wall. This is a real missing person poster for 10-year-old Kevin Collins, who disappeared before the film was made.
The novelization of Terminator Salvation (2009) says that a Terminator would blend in better if it didn't look like a bodybuilder; this is an obvious inside joke aimed at the casting of Arnold Schwarzenegger versus Robert Patrick and Sam Worthington.
While Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese are in the underpass, Sarah tells Reese, 'Tell me about my son.' The first thing Reese says is 'He's my height.' This is a subtle hint that Reese is the father of John Connor.
Estimated death toll: 39. One of the three punks (Brian Thompson) dies after being punched in the stomach; the punk leader (Bill Paxton) is assumed to have only been knocked out, and the third (Brad Rearden) to have only lost his clothes. The gun shop clerk and the first two Sarah Connors follow. In Reese's first flashback, two soldiers die in combat (a female soldier is shot with a laser and a male soldier behind a pickup truck). Sarah's friend Ginger and her boyfriend Matt are killed by the Terminator. In the Tech Noir shootout, three people die (two are seen being shot, while the third can be seen lying next to Sarah as she falls). The police officer whose car is stolen by the Terminator presumably survives. Lieutenant Traxler tells Sarah there are thirty police officers at the station, but taking into account information from the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), seventeen people died in the police station shootout. In Reese's second flashback, eight people can be seen being shot. Also assumed dead are Sarah's mother and the truck driver (who may have only been knocked out), and finally Kyle Reese. If the two German Shepherd dogs in Reese's second flashback are counted, the death toll reaches forty-two.
The phrase 'Fuck you, asshole!' is said twice: once by the punk leader (Bill Paxton) to the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) when he demands his clothes, and once by the Terminator to the janitor in the apartment when asked whether there is a dead cat in his room; this raises the possibility that the Terminator may have learned the phrase from the punk leader. This line became a classic for Schwarzenegger, like 'I'll be back': in Commando (1985) it is said to his character, and he replies, 'Fuck YOU, asshole!'; in Total Recall (1990) it is again said to his character by the woman trying to take his suitcase.
Immediately after the first scene at the Tech Noir nightclub, a police radio is heard reporting a 'two-eleven robbery in progress at Bob's Liquor, Third and Cameron'; this is a nod to director James Cameron and to this film being the third feature he directed.
A promotional photo of Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese was used as the box cover of Metal Gear (1987), the first game in the long-running video game series; presumably without James Cameron's permission or knowledge. Although Hideo Kojima was heavily influenced by American action films when creating Metal Gear, he had no role in designing the game's packaging, as he was new at Konami at the time.
The Big Jeff restaurant chain where Sarah Connor works may be based on the Frisch's/Big Boy restaurant chain. Both have a human mascot holding a burger.
Kyle Reese experiences a literal 'Save the Dog' background event while Sarah Connor arranges a hotel room for them. The same dog later saves their lives.
As Kyle Reese later states in the film, Skynet knew very little about Sarah Connor because most records had been lost in the war between humanity and the machines. This fact is already emphasized in the gun shop scene; the Terminator asks for a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range, but gets a puzzled reaction from the shop owner; apparently, its detailed files on firearms did not include the fact that the plasma rifle had not yet been invented in 1984. The script also refers to the assault rifle as an AR-18 and shows it as such in the film, but it is quite clear that a California gun shop in 1984 would not sell a fully automatic rifle over the counter. The Terminator novel excuses this by stating that the Terminator instead takes a civilian AR-180 semi-automatic rifle and converts it to full auto using tools stolen from a hardware store earlier that day.
As Kyle Reese leaves the clothing store, he passes a sign reading 'Save on quality women's shoes'; under the streetlights the words 'save women' are visible, implying that he is the one tasked with saving Sarah Connor.
Kyle Reese tells Sarah Connor that he will die for John Connor. In Terminator Genisys (2015) he does the opposite, telling John that he will die for Sarah.
The Terminator often crushes objects by stepping on them. In the future, there is a close-up of tank treads rolling over human skulls.
At one point Sarah wears a (bootleg) The Jetsons (1962) T-shirt. The Jetsons was an animated series set in the distant future, just as many events in the film take place in the distant future.
When the T-800 (Schwarzenegger) buys weapons from a gun shop, he asks for a 'phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range.' In fact, he is asking for the rifle used by the endoskeletons in the 'Future War' sequence of the sequel T2. This appears to be a mistake, since it had not yet been invented in the 1980s, but in fact he is simply methodically scanning his weapons database and flagging the assets he can acquire (just as a machine would).
The $4.50 cover charge for Tech-Noir, adjusted for inflation, comes to $13.20 in 2024.
The gun shop's building number is '14329'; this is also the house number of the first victim, Sarah Anne Connor.
Christian symbolism: John Connor shares the initials of Jesus Christ, and both are said to be the savior of humanity, humanity's only hope. Both are born to a mother who conceived under mysterious circumstances; one was impregnated by God while still a virgin, the other by a man sent from the future. Also, when Kyle appears, he has scars on his back where angel wings would be, suggesting he was 'sent from heaven.'
Famous NASA scientist Carl Sagan was asked on a television talk show what he thought of the film. He said the most unrealistic aspect was that humanity could win a war against conscious machines.
The Italian Terminator-exploitation film Hands of Steel (1986), although it bears more resemblance to Universal Soldier (1992) than to The Terminator, copies shot for shot the scene in which the Terminator cuts off his arm and checks whether the mechanism is working properly. Additionally, one of the cyborgs in the film has a red glint in his eyes like the Terminators.
In the later film Timebomb (1991), Michael Biehn (Kyle Reese) repeats two lines he said to Sarah Connor: 'Do exactly what I say!' and 'Watch out!'
In the scene immediately after the police station massacre, a radio station with the call sign KFLB announces the massacre and says a manhunt has been launched for the killer (the Terminator). KFLB is a radio station broadcasting at 88.1FM in Odessa, Texas.
As the Terminator loads the shotgun, the pawnshop employee says 'You can't do that.' Later, while Matt is in Ginger's apartment, Ginger is listening to a song called 'You Can't Do That' on her Walkman.
At the beginning of the film, in the scene where the Terminator searches the phone book for all addresses under the name Sarah Connor, when the close-up switches to a wide shot, it can be seen for a moment that his left hand's finger is under the names CONNER John B, Conner John H and Conner John L, not CONNOR.
In the film Timebomb (1991), Michael Biehn repeats two lines he said to Sarah Connor: And in both films he talks to his passenger while driving: 'Do exactly what I say!' and 'watch out!'
The Terminator drives over a truck with the same type of cab as the truck in 'Terminator 2'.