23 indestructible facts about a little franchise known as ‘The Terminator’

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The idea for the Terminator series came to James Cameron when he was in Rome during the release of his film ‘Piranha II: The Spawning’. Cameron fell ill and had a fever-dream in his hotel room about “this metal death figure coming out of a fire … the implication was that it had been stripped of its skin by the fire and exposed for what it really was.”

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Cameron admits that the final design for the T-800 is identical to the ‘death metal’ figure he saw in his dream. Which is actually kind of…

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…Terrifying.

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Cameron had more than nine months before work began on ‘The Terminator’ movie as Arnold was busy with ‘Conan The Destroyer’. Since he didn’t have time to do a full movie, Cameron wrote the screenplay that later developed into the movie ‘Aliens’ .

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Arnold was apprehensive of initially playing the T-800 as it was a villain’s role. Cameron, however, convinced the actor that the movie will be shot in such a way that made audiences cheer the killing machine.

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However, In Judgment Day, Arnold didn’t like that T-800 would now be a good guy, and that he would not be killing people. So, he convinced James Cameron that the character would only stop killing when John Connor would ask him to.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron violently disagreed on the former’s iconic catchphrase, “I’ll be back.” Arnold wanted to say “I will be back” because he thought it sounded more machine-like, while “I’ll” sounded too feminine. All Cameron had to say to that was “I don’t tell you how to act, so don’t tell me how to write.”

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Given Arnold Schwarzenegger’s $15-million salary and his total of 700 words of dialog, he was paid $21,429 per word. “Hasta la vista, baby” cost $85,716.

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In Poland, The Terminator was re-named, The Electronic Murderer. You see, in Polish “terminator” more or less means “an apprentice”.

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The Terminators famous laser pistol was a custom built Colt .45 longslide. The laser sight was custom-made for the movie, with a 10,000 volt power supply hidden in Arnold’s pocket.

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Surprisingly for a James Cameron film, ‘The Terminator’ had hardly any special effects. Most effects were created and shot in-camera while some other sequences used miniatures sets. In fact, the skulls being crushed in the opening sequence were about the size of marbles.

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Cameron also shot most of the scenes of ‘The Terminator’ at night with streets that had mercury-vapour lamps that helped to keep the filming costs low. This later gave the film its neo-noir look.

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Industrial Light and Magic’s computer graphics department had to grow from six artists to almost 36 to accommodate all the work required to bring the T-1000 to life, costing $5.5 million and taking 8 months to produce, which ultimately amounted to 3.5 minutes of screen time.

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The Terminators seen at the beginning of the movie were fully workable animatronic models.

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In the movie’s last scene at the steel mill, Linda Hamilton’s twin sister Leslie doubled for her when the T-1000 acquires Sarah Connor’s form.

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At the time T2 was being shot, Edward Furlong (who plays a young John Conner) was only 13 years of age. Because of a sudden voice change, Furlong had to rerecord a substantial amount of his dialogue.

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Arnold’s ‘gunflip’ during the chase scene in Terminator 2: Judgement Day is arguably one of the most memorable scenes in the series. For that scene to materialize, however, the studio had to make a gun with a larger lever as doing it with a regular gun could have broken the actor’s fingers.

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For the scene where the naked T-1000 arrives and steals the cops clothes, the effects team had to digitally remove a sensitive part of Robert Patrick’s anatomy.

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Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ was the first film that cost more than $100 million to make. It was an investment well worth it. This movie also set a precedent for winning an Oscar award when its prequel was not even nominated.

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More explicit shots of the arm cutting scene were removed as director James Cameron felt they were tasteless and unnecessary.

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To make the Terminator seem more unsettling, Schwarzenegger refrained from blinking wherever possible and spent the majority of the film with his skin covered in a thin layer of Vaseline so that his face had a perpetually waxy appearance.

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The damaged Terminator look in the climax of the film took five hours to apply and an hour to remove.

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With the film’s domestic box office adjusted for inflation, Terminator 2: Judgement Day is the top grossing R-rated action film of all time.

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