FAQ

Yes. Reese explains that the terminators used to have rubber skin and were easy to spot. The T-800 has living human skin so it's impossible to tell by simply looking at them. That is why the resistance starts using dogs to spot terminators. The terminator that attacks the base looks entirely human and only the dogs know anything is out of the ordinary.

They have a vast data repository which would include how to drive a car, after all, they are supposed to blend in, so if the rebels are driving vehicles, then the terminators would also need to be able to. Note that when the Terminator gets in to the fuel truck, we see him scan the interior of the vehicle to learn how to drive it.

As Reese says to Sarah "The Terminator is an infiltration unit" It is programmed to emulate humanity, so it emulates the human way of finding names in the phonebook. It is just how it was programmed.

(Because it's a movie; It's just the simplest way for the director to tell the viewer "this character is scanning through names in the phone book". The viewer hasn't been explicitly told tha Arnie is robot, yet- It's only been heavily implied, so the director chose not to use a 'Terminator-vision' shot to communicate that Arnie was scanning the phone book. Probably because he was saving the reveal of the 'Terminator-vision' effect, for something more impactful that this fairly mundane bit of exposition. And because, this early in the movie, the viewer's still meant to have SOME doubt, whether Arnie is a human, or a robot. You're meant to SUSPECT he's robot, but not KNOW he's a robot, up until the point where Kyle spells this info out to Sarah.)

No. The reason we see him using infrared only is because it saves him energy, but he also has a 'normal' vision. Novelization: (To save energy) power was cut to 40 percent of nominal functions. The optical system switched to infrared only.

Since Arnold Schwarzenegger was purposely sprayed with Vaseline the entire time, and since the stand in-puppet was portrayed as being very sweaty as well, it's apparent that his sweaty appearance was purposeful. The filmmakers mentioned that the thin layer of Vaseline was applied so that something in his appearance wouldn't look quite right. Reese mentions sweating as one of the characteristics of the 800 series Terminators. The future Terminator from the bunker is also unnaturally sweaty.

One theory is that the Terminator sweats so much because the skin is placed on metal which obviously gets really warmed up. The temperature of the metal keeps heating the flesh, causing it to greatly exceed the natural human body temperature and eventually die. There's also a suggestion that it's caused by the fever of the flesh caused by the direct contact and link to artificial metal, like in transplants when the body doesn't accept the artificial part. An alternative, perhaps better explanation, is that sweating acts as a cooling mechanism for the cyborg, just as it does in the human body. As mentioned above, activity of the metal structure develops heat, which is normally dissipated with a coolant circuitry or with fans in robots. Since a cyborg must resemble human physiology as much as possible, it cools down through sweating. Evaporation of the aqueous sweat lowers the temperature of the cyborg, a basic principle of physical chemistry.

The idea was toned down in the sequel but still maintained.

The Terminator uses:

Colt .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol with laser sighting

9mm UZI submachine gun

Franchi SPAS-12 auto loading 12 gauge shotgun

Ithaca 37 5.56mm Armalite AR-180 assault rifle

.38 caliber full frame revolver

Reese uses:

.38 caliber Police Special service revolver

Remington Model 870 twelve gauge pump-action shotgun

38 caliber snub-nose revolver

Terminator drove

1979 Chevrolet Caprice Wagon 1977 Dodge Monaco 1972 1975 Chevrolet Nova Honda CB 750 Four K2 1972 International Harvester Transtar 4070

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................

Reese drove

1975 Ford LTD 1977 Cadillac Eldorado 1972 AMC Gremlin 1973 Chevrolet C-10

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................

Sarah drove

1984 Honda Elite 1977 Cadillac Eldorado 1973 Chevrolet C-10

They were responding to the electrical disturbance of Kyle Reese arriving from the future. Likely, the police were just on their regular patrol, then saw the flash of electricity.

Possibly, not that it's relevant. Homeless pants theft wasn't what he was arrested for. He had the shotgun he stole from the police cruiser and likely still had the revolver on him as well. So they'd be able to trace that to the particular incident at the department store. As well as the stolen shoes and trenchcoat.

It's likely Skynet doesn't know what the average human would look like in the 1980's. They likely just picked a random T-800 model to send back. Which happened to resemble a giant Austrian man. It is also likely that the T-800 endoskeleton is bulkier than the average human skeleton which in turn makes the terminator a much larger person once the skin has been applied.

Their sense of smell.

Dogs in the present day can smell when Humans have cancer, when Humans suffering from diabetes are going to experience a blood glucose emergency in the near future, and show other remarkable olfactory feats that Humans have put to good use in the present.

Although Skynet has advanced Terminator manufacture to the point where Terminators have Human-like flesh, sweat, bad breath, and so forth, it is quite clear that these Human-like features are not *exactly* Human-like. Just Human-like enough to fool Humans. A Human's primary hunting sense is sight, a Dog's primary hunting sense is smell. Given that a Dog can smell changes in a Human's biological chemistry that indicate a medical emergency might occur in a matter of hours, it is even quite likely a Dog can smell the metal "bones". Or the camera eyes that are barely hidden beneath eye-mimicking membranes.

He was probably still homeless.

After the near destruction of humanity, after which John Connor, the son of waitress Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), will rise against the Skynet machines who caused the war, a cyborg called the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from 2029 is sent back to 1984 to assassinate Sarah before she can give birth to her son. Meanwhile, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a young soldier from that apocalyptic war, is also sent back to 1984 to protect her and her yet-to-be-born son.

The film screenplay for "The Terminator" 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: Soldier (1964) and Demon with a Glass Hand (1964), of The Outer Limits. The Terminator is followed by Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009), and Terminator Genisys (2015) and Terminator: Dark Fate (2019). There was also a short-lived TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008)).

In the context of the movie, a Terminator is an artificially-intelligent cyborg or "cybernetic organism" composed of a hyper-alloy combat chassis (formed in roughly the same shape as the human skeleton) covered in living tissue to give it the appearance of a human being, and is also a tactical agent of a sapient, self-aware, strategic computer network known as Skynet.

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 to avoid detection by the aerial and ground HKs, therefore the early versions of Terminators (in particular, the 600 series) were produced and covered with a flimsy rubber covering meant to mimic human skin. After this proved to be very unsuccessful (seeing as how the rubber skin would deteriorate and the Terminators were easily identified), Skynet developed a way to grow human skin and fuse it to the chassis of a Terminator of an improved model (known as the 800 or 850 series), allowing the Terminators to more successfully infiltrate human resistance settlements and proved devastating to the Resistance's efforts.

Eventually, the human resistance was able to figure out tactics to identify even these new terminators -- like using dogs to ID them -- and turn the tide of the war with Skynet.

Skynet, despite being largely unseen, is the primary antagonist in The Terminator. It is an artificially-intelligent, self-aware, strategic 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 Skynet was built by Cyberdyne Systems. Terminator units are just one variation of its (future) agents and forces. Hunter/Killer units are another variation; but there are likely even more, seeing as how it is a exhaustively-connected network.

Two possibilities have been suggested: (1) This was an error or omission in Skynet's programming of the Terminator (since directed energy weapons had not yet been invented in 1984), or (2) Reese explains to Sarah that many records of the past were lost. It's likely Skynet didn't know what the exact level of technology was, any more than it knew exactly where/who Sarah Connor was, so the cyborg continued to ask for bigger and better weapons until he passed the current level of tech. The Terminator was just being thorough in its acquisition of weapons.

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. Of course, this illustrates that the the feature in question concerning the machine is conditional or, so to speak, subject to a loophole. Thus, things like clothing, jewelry, armor, equipment and effects outside of the living body presumably do not travel with the body, whether they are left behind or destroyed in transit, or they present a hazard that precludes the very attempt to time travel in the first place. Reese also explains that he doesn't know "tech stuff", so his statement that the time displacement machine "only" allows living organisms through may not be exact, and his explanation of how the Terminator came through may be something of a layman's inference, but more importantly Reese covered the basics of why he as an individual couldn't bring any non-living material (of interest) with him from the future.

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 (1991).

The real-life answer is because that is how the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger talks. The Terminator universe answer is that Skynet obviously can't have every Terminator they create and send out on infiltration missions looking exactly alike. If they did, people would easily recognize them. Skynet's source for various likenesses are probably from either people they have captured and held in custody, or people they have encountered, killed or fought out in the field. Tissue samples would be taken (for cloning, tissue cultivation, etc), visual images captured, and if possible, voice patterns and sound recorded. In a deleted scene from Terminator 3, Arnold's character is shown to be modeled on a military man, Sgt. William Candy who has a high voice and southern dialect. An official says, "I don't know about the voice," followed by another official, with Arnold's voice, who says: "We can fix it." However, this idea is a later rationalization created by an author other than James Cameron and also not a consideration made at the time of the film's production. Also, as the scene was omitted from the final cut, it cannot be considered canon. Another problem with this explanation is that it has been established in The Terminator and Terminator Salvation that early Terminators had very obvious rubber skin. While this skin was surely shaped like a human face/body, it was likely similar to a generic rubber mask one might buy in a costume shop, and not intended to look like anyone specific (i.e., Arnold).

Sergeant Techcom, DN38416, 132nd under Commanding officer Perry.

Several possibilities exist. (1) Sarah didn't record the address in her address book, as she knew it by heart. (2) The cabin's address was listed first in the book so he started his search there. (3) The cabin was closest to his present location when he began his search. As such, it takes less time to start there, than going back and forth to different locations. (4) The Terminator did check her mother's home address before moving on to the cabin, while we simply aren't shown this in the film. After all, there's no reason why the filmmakers would show us every dead-end along the way. (5) The cabin was her house.

It isn't actually known how many Terminators that Skynet sent backwards through time in general, only that one was sent to 1984 Los Angeles with Sarah Connor as the target. Perhaps sending more than one on the same exact mission would have been poor use of resources, (including the resource of "time travel") especially considering that there is just one target and no more than a single operative is needed to eliminate the target. Sending back an army (millions of units or so) to the same date would imply another objective altogether, likely one uninteresting to Skynet as explained hereafter.

According to Kyle Reese, "Skynet's defense grid was smashed; we'd won"; meaning that John Connor's forces had defeated Skynet and the supercomputer's defeat was inevitable. Sending a Terminator back was a last ditch effort on Skynet's part to try to erase the leader of the Human Resistance from history. It is unknown whether Skynet had the time, resources, or troops in general, to send back more than one Terminator (just to kill Sarah Connor, regardless of her importance). However, unused parts of the script from Terminator 2: Judgment Day detailed a backstory in which the Resistance enters the Skynet facility, which contains the Time Displacement Device. They also find a cold storage full of inactive T-800 model 101 Terminators, of which only one has been sent, indicating that lack of infiltration units was not the issue. Most likely, the process of time travel takes a lot of time and energy, only allowing for one person or object to be sent at a time; so if more could be sent at a time, the Resistance would most likely have sent more people back than just Kyle Reese. We can also assume that time travel is pretty much Skynet's last resort, something it would only do on the brink of destruction. The reason for this may be that time travel always carries a danger of making unwanted changes to the past, which may lead to unpredictable, but very negative consequences in the future. So Skynet probably did not start sending back Terminators until the very last moments; whereby they had enough time to send just two (one T-800 and the T-1000) and got interrupted before they could send a third one. After sending Kyle back, Connor and his team destroyed the Time Displacement Device to insure that neither Skynet or anyone else could use it again.

However, assuming they were able to send back a few Terminators or a whole army, they would likely be detected and run into significant resistance from present day human armies pretty quickly, which number in the millions and are backed by intact governments with fully functional industrial bases. Not to mention, while Terminators are virtually impervious to bullets, they don't fare so well against explosives. So it wouldn't take long for a modern army to discover this. It therefore makes sense that Skynet sends Terminators sparingly and to different time periods. It would minimize the risk of detection, while at the same time doubling the chances that one of them will be successful. Remember that Skynet was able to virtually wipe out humans only through a surprise first strike nuclear attack which destroyed their societies. The human survivors were ultimately able to defeat Skynet using scrounged weapons and an improvised military force. Skynet's army of terminators would not have stood a chance against a pre-"judgement day" human military force.