Goofs for
The Terminator (1984) More at IMDb Pro »

• Continuity: The number 14239 appears above the entrance of the Alamo Gun Shop and above the front door of the first Sarah Connor. The address 14239 also does not match any of the addresses for Sarah Connor shown in the telephone directory.
  
  
• Factual errors: The entrance door to the gun shop offers a 'clearnce' sale.
  
  
• Continuity: As the Terminator is approaching Sarah in the Tech Noir nightclub, several other patrons can be seen behind her sitting in booths. These same people are in front of Kyle (he pushes them out of the way to get to Sarah before the Terminator does), yet he's on the other side of the club by the bar.
  
  

• Continuity: The position of "Pugsley" while Sarah listens to the telephone messages.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: The sound of the car window being smashed by the terminator.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Terminator is stalking Kyle and Sarah in his police car, the sticker on the driver's door reads "To care and protect". When the car is later wrecked in a tunnel, the sticker has changed to "Dedicated to serve".
  
  
• Continuity: The police clerk looks up from his desk to see headlights coming at him. When we see the front of the car, the headlights are off.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the police station massacre, the camera is positioned on the floor, and shows the Terminator shooting through a door on the left. As he fires his gun, the supposedly dead cop in the foreground can be seen to jump.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During the police station massacre, the fourth cop that the Terminator kills gets blasted by the shotgun, but we hear the sound of the machine gun instead.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: During the police station shoot-out. The terminator uses a shot-gun to shoot at an office. But it makes the sound of an automatic weapon.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: Obvious stunt double for the Terminator when he first turns the police car around to find Sarah and Reese.
  
  
• Continuity: When Reese is being interrogated by Dr. Silberman, Reese never looks away and he always looks at Silberman whenever he is talking. When we cut to the video of his interrogation, he is suddenly facing the camera.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the Terminator is rising to his feet after getting blasted out the window, a production vehicle and a huge stage light are visible behind him.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: Just before the Terminator kills the power to the police station, he comes to a door at the end of a hallway. He fires his shotgun, but we hear the sound of the machine gun instead.
  
  
• Continuity: The black pickup truck that Sarah rolls onto its roof appears soon after undamaged.
  
  
• Continuity: As Sarah is talking into the tape recorder, the microphone is up to her mouth. As the boy takes her picture, the microphone is not visible in the photograph of her and her dog.
  
  
• Continuity: The terminator's supposedly cut-out eye is visible through the sunglasses.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Tanker truck obviously being towed.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Near the end when the truck the Terminator is driving blows up, it's obviously a model. This is made clear mostly by the front grill. Instead of a metal grooved and indented grill like on the real truck, during the explosion we see a front grill that is obviously a piece of silver cardboard with a few black strips of cardboard stuck on top of it.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As the tanker truck is pursuing Sarah near the end of the film, the parked car that the truck smashes is already badly damaged from a previous take.
  
  
• Continuity: When Reece and Sara are in the parking garage. Reece reaches over the rolled down window of a car and unlocks it. When they get in and close the door, the window is clearly rolled up all the way.
  
  
• Continuity: When Reese tosses the third pipe bomb, we can see that the pick-up and motorcycle are almost at the end of the tunnel. But when Reese tosses the fourth bomb, the two vehicles still have a long way to go. After the fourth bomb explodes, the truck and motorcycle have cleared the tunnel.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The wire pulling the tanker truck is visible several times.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Terminator gets into the tanker truck, there is a close-up shot of his left hand grabbing onto the type of door handle that protrudes from the door, and pushing the button on the handle with his thumb. But when the Terminator is chasing Sarah and Kyle with the truck, the door handle is the rectangular type that is recessed into the bottom right corner of the door.
  
  
• Continuity: After the Terminator says, "I'll be back," he walks out the door, never closing it. It does sway a little back but swings open again. But when he drives the car through it, it is neatly closed.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt double for Kyle when he and Sarah are switching sides in the pick-up truck.
  
  
• Continuity: In the tanker truck scenes, the truck's wheels go from Daytons (five-spoke hubs), when it is running over the Terminator, to Budds (10 lugs) with aluminum wheels when the Terminator is chasing Sarah, to Budds, with five-hole steel wheels when the truck is burning. The truck also changes from an International Cabover, to a Kenworth Cabover (two round headlights change to four smaller round headlights).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious dummy for the Terminator when he is sliding on the asphalt after getting hit by the pick-up truck.
  
  
• Continuity: In Tech Noir, there is a man wearing a white and black tank top on the dance floor. In the next shot, the same guy is standing behind Reese as he's preparing to fire at the Terminator.
  
  
• Continuity: When Reese starts his explanation in the Ford LTD, he appears to have a brand new wound under his lower lip. When he continues his explanation in the other car (which is only a few minutes later) the wound has been healed and replaced by a scar.
  
  
• Continuity: Reese's burns/scars.
  
  
• Continuity: In the parking garage Reese's shotgun goes from sawn-off to full length as he breaks the dashboard to hot wire the car. Before this and after this he is shooting at the terminator with a sawn-off shotgun.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At one point during Reese's explanation, Sarah begins to say "Ky..." and then stops herself. Linda Hamilton obviously forgot that Sarah doesn't ask Reese's first name until much later.
  
  
• Continuity: In some scenes, Reese has a clean shaven face. In others, he looks like he's growing a beard.
  
  
• Continuity: The bandage on Reese's right hand disappears when he and Sarah climb into the black pick-up truck. During the following chase, it is back on his hand.
  
  
• Continuity: Position of Sarah's right hand (on Reese's cheek) before she starts kissing him and when she is kissing him.
  
  
• Continuity: The burning cab that the Terminator jumps out of is not the same type as the one he jumps into.
  
  
• Continuity: When Sarah tries to escape from Reese in the car, he is seen grabbing hair. In the next shot, his arm is in front of her chest. The next shot shows him grabbing her hair again.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The three "Sarah Connors" are listed in different sections in the phone book when Reese, The Terminator and Sarah Connor look them up (right page, left page, right page). They might have been different editions, though books at pay phones are generally all replaced at the same time.
  
  
• Continuity: The second Sarah killed is given the full name of "Sarah Louise Connor". However, she is listed in the phone book as Connor, Sarah Ann.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Reese and Sarah Connor get back from the police massacre, Reese is bleeding from a bullet fired by the Terminator. While the car's windows were not broken during that gunfight, the driver's window is either rolled down or missing, and he could easily have been hit through it - or indeed he may even have been hit by a stray bullet while making his way through the police station, which, throughout the Terminator's attack, is riddled with gunfire.
  
  
• Continuity: The broken window in the Gray Ford changes sides during the movie.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Terminator comes through the window after the police chase, he turns on a light to reveal his damaged right eye. However, when he sits down to fix his arm, which is also damaged, his damaged eye is his left one, and it remains this way during the rest of the movie.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the police station massacre, you see the terminator get shot, then you see the shooter get shot and when the camera goes back to the terminator only then does he have the fresh bullet hole in his chest.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Terminator stumbles out of the burning cab, he collapses and burns in the fire. Its skull is clearly shown burning with no internal machinery. Later, when it rises out of the fire, it does so from underneath wreckage of the cab. These two inconsistencies have led some to erroneously believe that there was someone else in the truck.
  
  
• Continuity: The events from the time Sarah and Reese arrive at the hotel until the love scene are all during the day. In the middle of this Sarah calls her mom's cabin and talks to the terminator. The shot of the cabin is at night, as is the following shot of the terminator riding his motorcycle. Then everything is daytime again until he arrives at the hotel.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When the Terminator is heading into the gun store, there is a sign on the glass that says "Clearnce Sale".
  
  
• Continuity: The message on Sarah's answering machine goes, "Hi there... Ha-ha, fooled ya. You're talking to a machine..." with a pause between "Hi there" and "Ha-ha". When the Terminator has shot Ginger, the answering machine starts and we hear the words immediately following each other. Also, when the police call Sarah's apartment, the message changes/speeds up; it is much quicker.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Shortly after the Terminator in his police car discovers Reese and Sarah in the Cadillac, Reese hot-wires the car and starts to speed away. For the first few shots of Reese driving the Cadillac, you can see through the windshield and it is a very obvious stunt double driving the car.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt double for Reese when the Terminator punches him on the catwalk.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: Reflected in Sarah's sunglasses when she puts them on just before driving off at the end of the film.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: When Sarah is put into the ambulance, the boom microphone is briefly reflected in the left rear window.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the second future-war sequence. When the H-K is pursuing the car, you can briefly see a semi trailer in the background. Possibly a production vehicle.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: A stage light is visible in the background when Reese is in his crouch after arriving from the future.
  
  
• Continuity: The bandage on Reese's right hand disappears when he and Sarah climb into the black pick-up truck.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Terminator's flesh is burning off, a wire is clearly visible moving the Terminator puppet around.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the Terminator finishes punching the hole in the door to the computer factory and walks in, a puppeteer's head can be briefly seen behind him.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the Terminator skeleton rises out of the flames, a silhouette of a crew member can be seen behind the flames, rising from a crouch to pull a big lever. As the lever comes down, the metal skeleton rises up.
  
  
• Continuity: The phone number that Sarah Connor gives the Terminator (impersonating her mother) for the Tiki Motel, where she and Kyle are staying, is 408-555-1439. However, after the Terminator hangs up with Sarah, we see him dial 555-1639 and get an answer from the Tiki Motel.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Terminator is using the knife to cut away his eye, from the side view, there is no blade in the knife.
  
  
• Factual errors: Towards the beginning of the movie, a caption gives the year as 1984. When asked, the police officer gives the date as Thursday May 12 but, in 1984, May 12 was a Saturday. All manner of explanations have been given (mainly revolving around the policeman's mistake being induced by fear while a gun is pointed at his face), but the most likely is that it is a genuine goof and that the line was overlooked when the script was revised to be set in 1984 instead of 1983 (when May 12 did, indeed, fall on a Thursday).
  
  
• Continuity: The same woman - blonde with a pink dress - appears simultaneously on the dance floor at Tech Noir and behind Sarah as the laser beam is pointed at her.
  
  
• Continuity: Before Sara closes the cage-like door at the press, a silhouette of the Terminator's legs can be seen in close-up, even though they're supposed to have been blown off.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Sarah is walking from her apartment you can hear the heels of her shoes hitting the pavement. Later when she's walking into the disco she's wearing tennis shoes.
  
  
• Continuity: In the chase with the gray Ford LTD, dents, and hubcaps appear, disappear, and reappear on the vehicle throughout the chase.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Sarah realizes that despite being burned, the terminator is still alive, you can hear her screaming "No, no!". It's obvious that she's not actually screaming the second "No!"
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the factory, when Reese is attempting to damage the terminator with a metal rod, one of the shots reveals an obvious stunt double.
  
  
• Continuity: In the parking garage, when Reese and Sarah get into the car to steal it, Reese's coat gets caught in the door of the car and is pulled tight enough to restrict his movement. A moment later, the coat is free and loose around his neck.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the end of the film, the paramedics load Sarah into the ambulance feet first. Paramedics always load a victim's body head first.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the black pickup rolls over, it is obvious that it has no engine, transmission, or driveshaft.
  
  
• Continuity: As Kyle and Sarah are sneaking toward another car in the parking garage, a police car with the serial number 1874 drives by. The number 1874 is also visible on the Terminator's police car. The first car that drove by couldn't have been the Terminator's because a second cop is visible in the passenger seat.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: After obtaining information on Sarah's mother's address, the Terminator walks into a hallway. We can see that he is suddenly wearing white sneakers instead of the black boots he had been wearing throughout the film and is seen to still be wearing later, most clearly when being run over by the truck and walking towards the cab.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The future John Connor is supposed to be a great general and the salvation of mankind. But the glimpse of the future reveals the human forces transmitting uncoded messages on open frequencies, the kind of mistake only an amateur would make.
  
  
• Continuity: We see Ginger walking back to the bedroom with a plate of food and a glass of milk. When Matt crashes through the door, Ginger tosses and drops the food. When Ginger is shot and is trying to crawl away from the Terminator, the food on the floor in the hallway had some how disappeared.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Sarah Connor uses the pay phone to dial 911, she puts a quarter into the phone before dialing. 911 is a toll-free call. However, one could say that she would have been too frightened under the circumstances to remember that.
  
  
• Continuity: At the beginning of the chase with the Cadillac, bullet holes can be seen appearing in the front windshield several times, but during most of the chase, it only has one hole.
  
  
• Continuity: In a scene in an alley, Reese clearly saws off the buttstock of the shotgun (so he can hide it in his overcoat easier). After the first car chase, however, when he is explaining the future to Sarah, the wooden stock is clearly visible.
  
  
• Factual errors: A "phased-plasma rifle in the forty watt range" wouldn't be very lethal as it has the power output less than a small standard light bulb resulting in minor burns at best. To be lethal it should have been in kilowatts.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Dr Silberman says to Kyle Reese, "this terminator was sent back in time to kill his mother, killing him in effect before he's even conceived. Sort of a retroactive abortion". The word would be PROactive, not RETROactive. PROactive is preventive;before the fact. Retroactive is after the fact. Abortions in themselves are retroactive.
  
  
• Continuity: When Kyle and Sarah hit the Terminator with their truck at the Tiki Motel, the grill has significant damage. During the highway chase, the shots of the front of the truck show no damage to the grill whatsoever.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the flashback scene in which a Terminator infiltrates the underground human hiding place and starts killing people, if you look at the right side (his right side) of the Terminator's face by his eyes, you can see a flat line which is part of the makeup used to give him his glowing red eyes (like the sunglasses with LED lights that were popular to wear in the 1980's).
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: When the Terminator kills the first Sarah Connor, he comes through the door and extends his gun arm fully. After a brief cutaway he fires, but he is now behind the door frame and his arm is in a different position.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: "Dead" Kyle Reese can still be seen breathing and moving his eyes.
  
  
• Factual errors: SPOILER: When the Terminator shoots Ginger in the back while running away, she knocks the phone off the table, you hear the bell ringer make a brief noise as it falls to the ground. A few seconds later, Sara calls and the phone rings. With any phone in the apartment off the hook, the party calling would get a busy signal and the phone could not ring
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: SPOILER: As Sarah sees Reece get zipped up into the body bag, and as she starts to get wheeled away on the stretcher, she says "Kyle", but her lips aren't moving (post-dubbing).
  
  

Related Links