FAQ for
The Terminator (1984) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for The Terminator can be found here.

No. The film screenplay was written by director James Cameron, although Cameron admitted that his inspiration for The Terminator were two episodes from the 1960s television science fiction series The Outer Limits: The Outer Limits: Soldier (#2.1) and The Outer Limits: Demon with a Glass Hand (#2.5).

A Terminator is a cyborg or "cybernetic organism" composed of a hyper-alloy combat chasis covered in living tissue. Terminators (in their endoskeleton form) were originally designed by Skynet during the early days of the war with humanity for the purpose of carrying out the ground war against the remaining human forces. Being of roughly equal size to human targets and with similar mobility, terminators were able to follow humans where the larger HK (hunter-killer) tanks and hovercraft could not. Eventually, as the humans developed more and more elaborate methods of hiding, terminators were covered with a flimsy rubber covering, meant to mimic human skin. After this proved to be very unsuccessful, Skynet developed a way to grow human skin over the endoskeleton of the terminator chasis. This allowed the terminators to more successfully infiltrate human resistance settlements and proved devastating to their efforts. In the film, Kyle Reese describes the terminator: The Terminator's an infiltration unit, part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyper-alloy combat chassis - micro processor-controlled, fully armored. Very tough. But outside, it's living human tissue - flesh, skin, hair, blood, grown for the cyborgs...The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy. But these [the 800 series] are new, they look human. Sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot.

Skynet, despite being largely unseen, is the primary antagonist of the Terminator series. It is an artificially intelligent computer network. Reese explains that Skynet was built for NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), which was America's primary defense during the Cold War. It is stated that it was built by Cyberdyne Systems.

While this conundrum is widely believed to be a plot hole in the story, it is actually indicative of the paradoxical nature of time travel itself. The "Connor Paradox" is best explained via the Novikov self-consistency principle of time travel.

This was most likely an error or omission in Skynet's programming of the Terminator - directed energy weapons had not yet been invented in 1984.

As stated by the character Kyle Reese, the Terminator is covered in living tissue, allowing it to go back in time as a living organism. (For more info, see the answer to the earlier question, "Who, or what, is the Terminator?")

This was actually part of the original shooting script. A scene was filmed in which Sarah traced the creation of Skynet back to a company called Cyberdyne; she suggests to Kyle that they go there and stop Skynet from being made. This would also eliminate the Terminator from existence. But Reese refuses, saying his mission is to protect her, not alter the future, which leads to a confrontation between the two that ultimately results in Reese suffering the emotional breakdown of being a man out of time. Another scene was set right after Sarah crushes the Terminator in the factory. Employees find a chip fragment that came from the Terminator's head, and suggest sending it to the company's Research and Development department. It is then revealed that the factory belonged to the Cyberdyne company. So the Terminator's mission to protect Skynet actually ensured its creation. This plot element, together with Sarah's intention to prevent Skynet from existing, was revisited in the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The obvious answer is that's how Arnold Schwarzenegger talks. A movie answer is that the Terminators capture humans, replicate their flesh/likenesses and voices in order to be better at infiltrating. So however the captive they replicated spoke would be their default voice pattern.

In a deleted scene from Terminator 3, Arnold's character is shown to be modeled on a military man, Sgt. William Candy, and having a high voice and southern accent. An official says "I don't know about the voice," and another official looks up with Arnold's voice and says "We can fix it," giving the T-800 Model 101 Arnold's face and an official's voice. Bear in mind, however, that this is a later rationalization created by an author other than James Cameron, and not a reason actually considered at the time that this film was being created. (Not to mention the fact that this scene was omitted from the third film altogether, thus not counting as part of the continuity.)

Sergeant Techcom, BN38416, 132nd under Perry.

In the film, it's on located on Pico Blvd in LA. However, it is not a real club. The production shot the scenes in a space formerly occupied by a restaurant. When the shoot was completed, the set was taken down, despite the fact that many passers-by had mistaken the location for an actual club and were attempting to pay their way in.