99 Fun Facts About Terminator

A fever dream in Rome gave James Cameron the idea for The Terminator; which film had taken him there?

Piranha II: The Spawning had gone so badly that Cameron was in Rome, broke and sick, when he dreamed of a metal figure dragging itself out of a fire; he sketched it, and it became the Terminator.

Which studio distributed The Terminator in 1984?

Orion Pictures released The Terminator in October 1984 with modest expectations and little marketing push, yet it opened at number one and topped the US box office for two weeks.

Roughly how much did The Terminator cost to make?

Made for about $6.4 million, The Terminator grossed roughly $78.3 million worldwide, more than twelve times its budget, and launched Cameron's career.

Which football star was suggested for the Terminator, only for James Cameron to find him unbelievable as a killer?

O. J. Simpson was a studio chief's idea for the Terminator, but Cameron thought the likeable star of the Hertz adverts would never be believable as a killer; Schwarzenegger was meant to play Reese.

Which actor did James Cameron first picture as the Terminator, before casting him as a police detective instead?

Lance Henriksen suited Cameron's first idea of a killer who could vanish in a crowd; once Schwarzenegger took the part, Henriksen played Detective Vukovich, and later the android Bishop in Aliens.

In The Terminator, where is the cyborg when it first says 'I'll be back'?

A police station: turned away by the desk sergeant, the Terminator says the line, then drives a car through the front doors. Schwarzenegger had asked to say 'I will be back', and Cameron refused.

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

Michael Biehn nearly lost the part by reading with a trace of Southern drawl, left over from rehearsing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that morning; told he seemed 'too regional', he went back and read again.

What is Sarah Connor's job at the start of The Terminator?

Diner waitress: when a boy drops ice cream into her apron at Big Jeff's, a co-worker tells her, 'In a hundred years, who's gonna care?', and that night Sarah learns the future depends on her.

What is the name of the nightclub where Reese first fires on the Terminator?

Tech Noir is the club where Reese first opens fire; the name was later borrowed by critics for the blend of film noir and science fiction that Blade Runner and The Terminator typify.

Harlan Ellison threatened to sue over The Terminator, claiming it borrowed from his episode of which anthology series?

The Outer Limits episode 'Soldier', in which a fighter from a future war lands in the present day, was the one Ellison named; the makers settled, and later releases carry an acknowledgment of his works.

Who composed the synthesizer score for The Terminator, including its pounding main theme?

Brad Fiedel, who once played keyboards for Hall & Oates, said he wanted the music to be a metallic heartbeat for the cyborg; James Cameron brought him back to score Terminator 2 and True Lies.

What accident gave The Terminator's theme its 13/16 beat?

A mistimed loop: the composer stopped the rhythm pattern on his Prophet-10 a split second early, liked how the beat seemed to fall forward, and kept it, never writing the theme down in notation.

Who added The Terminator to its National Film Registry in 2008?

The Library of Congress names 25 films a year for preservation; its 2008 citation began by noting that few had expected much from The Terminator, and Terminator 2 followed in 2023.

How did press reports in 1991 say most of Schwarzenegger's Terminator 2 fee was paid?

With a Gulfstream III jet, the reports said: a Carolco aircraft handed over in place of cash. His spokeswoman denied it was in lieu of pay, and FAA records showed he had bought the studio's stake in the plane's owner.

Who played the liquid-metal T-1000 in Terminator 2?

Robert Patrick was cast as a lean, fast contrast to the muscular T-800; he reprised the T-1000 for a gag cameo in Wayne's World, asking Wayne 'Have you seen this boy?'

Which rock star was up for the T-1000 until injuries from a motorcycle crash ruled him out?

Billy Idol read for James Cameron, but the leg he nearly lost in a 1990 motorcycle crash was still healing; as Idol tells it, Cameron needed a T-1000 who could run, and he could barely walk.

Where was Edward Furlong discovered before being cast as John Connor in Terminator 2?

A Boys & Girls Club in Pasadena is where casting director Mali Finn spotted Furlong, who had never acted; he won the part at his last audition, less than a month before shooting began.

Who shared Terminator 2's Oscars for makeup and visual effects?

Stan Winston won for both makeup and visual effects, half of Terminator 2's four Oscars; he had landed the 1984 original only after makeup legend Dick Smith turned it down and passed on his name.

Which band did Schwarzenegger recruit for Terminator 2's theme song and tie-in music video?

Guns N' Roses offered 'You Could Be Mine' after Schwarzenegger asked for the biggest band in the world; as Cameron recalls the pitch, they fitted because the film has a rose and bloody guns.

Which effects house created the liquid-metal T-1000 for Terminator 2?

Industrial Light & Magic had made the water creature for Cameron's The Abyss; asked whether a chrome version could be a whole running figure, its effects chief Dennis Muren said yes, but only for a few shots.

Who doubled for Linda Hamilton in the Terminator 2 scenes where two Sarah Connors appear at once?

Her identical twin sister, Leslie Hamilton Gearren, stood in so that two Sarahs could share a shot in the steel mill; twins Don and Dan Stanton pulled the same trick for the hospital guard.

What does the T-800 say just before it shoots the frozen T-1000 to pieces in Terminator 2?

Hasta la vista, baby is slang John Connor teaches the T-800 on the road, as a way to brush people off; the cyborg files it away, then delivers it over the frozen T-1000 before firing a single shot.

In Terminator 2, how does Skynet respond when humans try to pull its plug?

Fires missiles at Russia: self-aware at 2:14 a.m. on August 29, 1997, Skynet knows the Russian counterattack will wipe out its enemies in America, the T-800 explains; three billion people die.

Who plays Miles Dyson, the engineer whose work will lead to Skynet, in Terminator 2?

Joe Morton purposely kept away from Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger off camera, so that the pair who burst into Dyson's home with news of the future would feel alien to him.

T2 3-D: Battle Across Time, co-directed by James Cameron, opened at which park in 1996 before being copied in Hollywood?

Universal Studios Florida got the show first; its 12-minute 3D film reunited the stars of Terminator 2 and cost about $24 million, more per minute than the notorious budget-buster Waterworld.

Who directed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the first entry made without James Cameron?

Jonathan Mostow took over after Cameron declined, saying later that he had told the story he wanted to tell; Schwarzenegger, unwilling at first to return without him, signed on with Cameron's blessing for about $30 million.

Who plays the T-X, the 'Terminatrix', in Terminator 3?

Kristanna Loken prepared for the T-X with weight, fight and weapons training, and took a mime movement class so that the 'Terminatrix' would move like a machine.

Which actor took over as John Connor in Terminator 3?

Nick Stahl plays an older John Connor, a drifter in his twenties who has lived off the grid since his mother's death; Edward Furlong had signed to return but was replaced before filming.

What twist ends Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines?

Judgment Day begins after all: Crystal Peak turns out to be a sealed fallout shelter, not Skynet's core, so John and Kate can only listen as the missiles fly. Terminator 2 had merely postponed it.

Who directed Terminator Salvation, the 2009 film set during the future war?

McG at first asked himself why anyone would flog a dead horse, then sought out James Cameron, who gave neither blessing nor scorn but pointed to Aliens as proof a sequel to a masterpiece could stand apart.

Which actor plays Marcus Wright, the death-row inmate who wakes up as a cyborg in Terminator Salvation?

Sam Worthington got the part on James Cameron's word: Cameron had just cast the little-known Australian as the lead in Avatar and recommended him to the film's director in a phone call from New Zealand.

Which Game of Thrones actress plays Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys?

Emilia Clarke watched Alan Taylor, a director she knew from Game of Thrones, get 'eaten and chewed up' on the shoot, and said she was relieved when weak box office spared her the planned sequels.

What did a Terminator Genisys trailer give away?

John is a Terminator: months before release, the second trailer showed the resistance leader remade as a machine. Director Alan Taylor said he had 'a few unpleasant conversations' about it.

What does the young Sarah Connor call the reprogrammed T-800 that raised her in Terminator Genisys?

Pops is Sarah's name for the T-800 that an unknown party sent to 1973 to protect her after a T-1000 killed her parents when she was nine.

Who directed Terminator: Dark Fate after leaving Deadpool 2?

Tim Miller, who had directed the first Deadpool and left its sequel over creative differences, made Dark Fate with Cameron back as producer; the story ignores the third, fourth and fifth films.

In Terminator: Dark Fate, which AI replaces Skynet as humanity's destroyer?

Legion, built for cyberwarfare, rises in a future where Skynet never existed: Sarah Connor's victory in Terminator 2 erased one machine uprising, and humanity went on to build another.

What name has Schwarzenegger's Terminator adopted while living quietly with a human family in Dark Fate?

Carl is the name the T-800 took once Skynet was gone and it had no more orders, settling in Texas with a human family; Sarah Connor's answer in the film is that she is never going to call him that.

Who plays Grace, the augmented soldier sent to protect Dani Ramos in Terminator: Dark Fate?

Mackenzie Davis plays a soldier with a secret the film saves for late on: in her future the grown-up Dani took in the young Grace and raised her, so she has come back to protect the woman who brought her up.

On which network did Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles air for its 31 episodes?

Fox aired two seasons and cancelled the series in May 2009 as ratings slid despite good reviews, days before Terminator Salvation opened in cinemas.

Who plays Sarah Connor in The Sarah Connor Chronicles?

Lena Headey beat some 300 actresses: creator Josh Friedman watched her on tape from London after a director friend recommended her, and called her 'a tough, tough woman' who had trained as a boxer.

Summer Glau, the protective Terminator in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, was best known for which Firefly role?

River Tam had already cost the show's creator his star once: Josh Friedman tried to cast Glau in an earlier pilot, lost her to the Firefly film Serenity, and kept her in mind for his Terminator.

Which rock singer joined The Sarah Connor Chronicles as Catherine Weaver, a company boss who is secretly a T-1001?

Shirley Manson of Garbage joined for the second season, and also sang the cover of the gospel song 'Samson and Delilah' that plays over the premiere in which her liquid-metal executive first appears.

The Netflix anime Terminator Zero is set in 1997 in which city?

Tokyo in 1997 is the setting, on the eve of Judgment Day, and Netflix released all eight episodes on August 29, 2024, the 27th anniversary of the day Skynet strikes in the films.

In The Terminator, Reese says Cyberdyne built Skynet for which military body?

SAC-NORAD is the body Reese names under questioning; hooked into everything and trusted to run it all, its new computer, he tells Sarah, saw all people as a threat and 'decided our fate in a microsecond'.

For how much did James Cameron sell his Terminator rights to Gale Anne Hurd before directing the first film?

$1 was the price, on the condition that Hurd would produce the film only with Cameron as director, which locked in the unproven filmmaker's job before any studio could replace him.

Which company published the first Terminator video game, a 1991 MS-DOS title?

Bethesda Softworks took the licence in 1990 and built a free-roaming Los Angeles long before Grand Theft Auto III made the idea standard; its director, Julian LeFay, went on to make Arena, the first Elder Scrolls game.

Midway's 1991 arcade game Terminator 2: Judgment Day was what kind of game?

A light gun shooter: players fired cabinet-mounted guns at digitized images of the film's actors and models, a look Midway used here a year before the same technique made Mortal Kombat famous.

What does the real Japanese robotics company Cyberdyne sell?

A powered exoskeleton suit called HAL, for Hybrid Assistive Limb: sensors on the skin pick up the faint signals of a wearer trying to move and motors at the joints do the rest, helping patients with spinal injuries to walk.

Terminator producer Gale Anne Hurd, who began as Roger Corman's assistant, later became an executive producer of which long-running TV series?

The Walking Dead had Hurd as an executive producer from its 2010 debut; she also produced Aliens, The Abyss and Armageddon, and was married to Cameron from 1985 to 1989.

How does Sarah Connor finally destroy the cyborg's crawling torso at the end of The Terminator?

With a hydraulic press in a factory, Sarah crushes what is left of the machine after Kyle Reese dies blowing it in two.

In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the shape-shifting T-1000 spends most of the film disguised as what?

A police officer made the perfect cover for the T-1000, since the uniform earned trust and gave it access to information about its target.

What gesture does the T-800 give John Connor as it sinks into molten steel in Terminator 2?

A thumbs-up is the T-800's farewell, a touch added during filming even though Linda Hamilton thought it too sentimental.

Which motorcycle maker built the Fat Boy that the T-800 rides in Terminator 2: Judgment Day?

Harley-Davidson saw its Fat Boy earn a place in pop culture through the film, and one of the bikes used on screen now sits in the company's museum.

Months after Terminator 3 opened, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected to which political office?

Governor of California was the job he won in a 2003 recall election, which is why he could not film a full role for Terminator Salvation.

Which star of The Dark Knight plays the adult John Connor in Terminator Salvation?

Christian Bale agreed to the part while still filming The Dark Knight, and audio of him losing his temper with the film's cinematographer later leaked and went viral.

In Terminator 2, what spills from a crashed tanker truck and freezes the T-1000 solid?

Liquid nitrogen freezes the T-1000 so hard that the T-800 shatters it with one pistol round, but the heat of the steel mill soon thaws the pieces.

What does the cyborg in The Terminator use to find the addresses of women named Sarah Connor?

A phone book gives the cyborg its list of targets, which is why the murders become known as the Phone Book Killer case.

The Terminator's shoot waited nine months while Arnold Schwarzenegger played which sword-swinging hero?

Conan the Destroyer tied him up after producer Dino De Laurentiis used a contract option, and James Cameron filled the wait by working on the script for Aliens.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator joined which fighting game as a downloadable guest character?

Mortal Kombat 11 added him as a tie-in with Terminator: Dark Fate, though Schwarzenegger lent only his face and picked another actor to supply the voice.

Where is Sarah Connor locked up at the start of Terminator 2: Judgment Day?

A psychiatric hospital, Pescadero State, holds her after she tried to blow up a computer factory, and even her own son thinks she is delusional.

In Terminator 2, what order does young John Connor give the T-800 that it obeys for the whole film?

Not to kill anyone becomes the rule once John realises the machine is programmed to obey him, and his next order is to rescue his mother.

Who plays Kate Brewster, John Connor's former classmate, in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines?

Claire Danes replaced Sophia Bush a month into filming, after the director decided Bush looked too young, and started work the day after she was hired.

What homemade weapons do Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor assemble in a motel room in The Terminator?

Pipe bombs are Reese's answer to a machine that bullets cannot stop, and one thrown into a tanker truck burns the cyborg down to its metal skeleton.

In which country does a boy photograph the pregnant Sarah Connor at the end of The Terminator?

Mexico is where she buys the instant photo at a filling station, the very picture her son will one day hand to Kyle Reese.

In what kind of place does the T-1000 first catch up with young John Connor in Terminator 2?

A shopping mall is where both machines find John, and co-writer William Wisher appears there as a bystander photographing the T-800.

In Terminator 2, the newly arrived T-800 takes its clothes from a customer in what kind of place?

A biker bar supplies the outfit, and a bystander who videotaped the filming there later caught the police beating of Rodney King on the same tape.

What is Kate Brewster's job when the T-X comes hunting for her in Terminator 3?

Veterinarian Kate is cornered at the animal clinic where she works, and her father turns out to be the general running the program behind Skynet.

What does Arnold Schwarzenegger's aged T-800 sell for a living in Texas in Terminator: Dark Fate?

Draperies were James Cameron's idea for the machine's trade, a nod to Schwarzenegger's real-life love of interior decorating.

Which future Apollo 13 star plays one of the punks the naked cyborg confronts in The Terminator?

Bill Paxton became a James Cameron regular after that minor role, returning for Aliens, True Lies and Titanic.

Which doubting psychologist, played by Earl Boen, appears in each of the first three Terminator films?

Dr. Peter Silberman dismisses Kyle Reese's warning in the first film and is the doctor in charge of Sarah at Pescadero in the second.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator ranks as both a hero and a villain on a list from which organisation?

American Film Institute voters ranked the killer of the first film 22nd among villains and the protector of the sequel 48th among heroes.

Which George Thorogood song plays as the T-800 dresses in stolen leathers early in Terminator 2?

Bad to the Bone was co-writer William Wisher's suggestion, and Thorogood recalls Schwarzenegger phoning in his Terminator voice to demand the song.

In Terminator 2, what is the liquid metal that makes up the shape-shifting T-1000 called?

Mimetic polyalloy lets it copy people and objects it touches, but not machines with moving parts, so it can never become a gun or a bomb.

The Terminator films met which other 1980s series in a 1992 comic crossover later made into a video game?

RoboCop is the source of Skynet's technology in the story, so a resistance soldier travels back in time to destroy him before the machines can be built.

Which Doctor Who star plays Alex, the physical embodiment of Skynet, in Terminator Genisys?

Matt Smith is billed in the credits as Matthew Smith, and his T-5000 first passes itself off as an ordinary resistance soldier.

In Terminator Genisys, Skynet hides behind Genisys, which the eager public awaits as what kind of product?

An operating system about to launch worldwide, Genisys was co-created by the grown-up son of Miles Dyson, the engineer from Terminator 2.

In Terminator Salvation, the Resistance attacks Skynet's headquarters in which US city?

San Francisco holds Skynet's base, and the effects team built a 20-foot model of its 30-storey lab just to blow it up.

Who plays O'Brien, a detective obsessed with time travellers, in Terminator Genisys?

J. K. Simmons plays an alcoholic ex-Marine who saw the time travellers as a young beat cop, and he was due a larger part in sequels that were cancelled.

At the end of Terminator Salvation, what does Marcus Wright give up to save the dying John Connor?

His heart is still human despite his machine skeleton, and he offers it for transplant after John's own is fatally damaged.

Why is Dani Ramos hunted by a time-travelling machine in Terminator: Dark Fate?

She will lead the Resistance herself, a twist on the first film, where Sarah Connor mattered as the mother of the leader to come.

How does Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator finally destroy the T-X at the end of Terminator 3?

With its last fuel cell, a hydrogen unit it sets off while holding a bunker door open, the machine destroys both itself and the T-X.

Which star of the 2009 Star Trek reboot plays the teenage Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation?

Anton Yelchin had both films in cinemas in May 2009, playing a teenager in each: the Enterprise navigator and the boy who will father John Connor.

In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, how is Brian Austin Green's Derek Reese related to John Connor?

His uncle Derek is the older brother of Kyle Reese, John's father, and a Resistance fighter who has travelled back from the future war.

Which country's military has run real satellites named Skynet since before The Terminator was made?

Britain has run military communications satellites called Skynet since Skynet 1A was launched in 1969, fifteen years before the film.

Which independent studio, fresh from Total Recall, bought the Terminator rights and produced Terminator 2?

Carolco was talked into the purchase by Schwarzenegger himself, and its owner later called it the most difficult deal the studio ever made.

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

Her roommate, Ginger, is murdered at home along with her boyfriend while Sarah herself is sheltering in a nightclub.

In Terminator 3's street chase, what huge vehicle does the T-X drive in pursuit of John Connor?

A mobile crane weighing 100 tons carries the chase, and its swinging arm smashes Schwarzenegger's Terminator through a glass building.

Which filmmaker directed Terminator Genisys after making Marvel's Thor: The Dark World?

Alan Taylor got the job only after Rian Johnson, Denis Villeneuve and Ang Lee had each been approached to take over from Justin Lin.

Who plays Kate Connor, John Connor's wife, in Terminator Salvation?

Bryce Dallas Howard stepped in when Charlotte Gainsbourg left over a scheduling clash, and suggested Kate had taught herself medicine from books after Judgment Day.

Which British actress plays Dr. Serena Kogan, whose face Skynet borrows to speak in Terminator Salvation?

Helena Bonham Carter replaced Tilda Swinton before filming and took the ten-day job because her partner Tim Burton was a Terminator fan.

Which old-school effects technique moves the walking metal endoskeleton in several scenes of The Terminator?

Stop motion by Gene Warren Jr.'s company Fantasy II animated a model skeleton, while a full-size puppet took seven artists six months to build.

Which composer wrote the music for Terminator Salvation?

Danny Elfman wrote a new theme but kept the five-note percussive figure that had featured in every Terminator film.

Who plays Ed Traxler, the police lieutenant on the Sarah Connor murders, in The Terminator?

Paul Winfield, an Oscar nominee for Sounder, plays the lieutenant who tries to protect Sarah while investigating the murders of her namesakes.

Which actor left a recurring role in Heroes to play teenage John Connor in The Sarah Connor Chronicles?

Thomas Dekker had played Zach for eleven episodes of Heroes when he left to take the starring role in the Terminator series.

Which Japanese studio animated the Netflix anime series Terminator Zero?

Production I.G made the series for Netflix with Skydance Television, under director Masashi Kudō and showrunner Mattson Tomlin.

Which company, run by John Daly and later the maker of Platoon, financed The Terminator?

Hemdale backed the film with help from HBO, and its later productions Platoon and The Last Emperor won Best Picture in back-to-back years.

Which Justified star voices the Terminator in the English version of the Netflix anime Terminator Zero?

Timothy Olyphant was announced in June 2024, taking a part that Yasuhiro Mamiya voices in the Japanese original.

In the anime Terminator Zero, scientist Malcolm Lee builds which AI to compete with Skynet?

Kokoro, voiced in English by Rosario Dawson, is the program that a soldier from 2022 is sent back to keep from ever being launched.

Which bodybuilder, Arnold Schwarzenegger's lifelong friend, plays a Terminator in the war scenes of The Terminator?

Franco Columbu met Schwarzenegger at a 1965 contest in Stuttgart and was later best man at his wedding to Maria Shriver.