James Cameron originally based the movie on a nightmare he had of a robot skeleton emerging from a fiery explosion and coming after him.
Cameron’s original choices to play the Terminator were Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone, who both turned down the role.
It was Michael Biehn’s idea that Kyle should go up to the wall and scream into the camera when he’s being questioned by Dr. Silberman.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was originally considered for the role of Kyle Reese, as Cameron originally envisioned the killing machine as having a more ordinary appearance to blend in with the rest of society. Cameron changed his mind when he met Arnold and felt that he was in the presence of “a living machine”. Arnold also had many ideas how the Terminator would act. In particular, Arnold felt the Terminator was such a perfect machine it could reload a gun or start a vehicle without looking. Before changing his mind and hiring Schwarzenegger, Lance Henriksen was Cameron’s first choice to play the Terminator. Henriksen was instead cast as Detective Vukovich.
James Cameron became one of the most successful filmmakers of all time after The Terminator was released. While waiting for production on The Terminator to start, Cameron penned a script for a sequel to Alien, and made an agreement with 20th Century Fox: If The Terminator was a success, they’d hire him to direct Aliens. It was and they did, he did.
Kyle and Sarah are the main characters in the first film, yet their actors, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton respectively, are billed below Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, who, while still the titular villain, isn’t seen as frequently and only has about 35 lines.
Schwarzenegger originally expected the movie to be a flop, yet ironically it became his most iconic role. It is one of very few films in which Schwarzenegger is portrayed as a ruthless, terrifying villain. Both before and after this film, and even in the later Terminator films, his roles have primarily been action heroes.
Schwarzenegger tried to have the iconic line “I’ll be back” changed because he felt with his accent, “I’ll” felt weaker and the robotic character would not speak in contractions and be more declarative. James Cameron refused to change the line to “I will be back”, so Schwarzenegger worked to say the line as written the best he could. He found that his fans would ask him to repeat THAT line, and it would become his career-defining line showing up in almost all of his later films.
Harlan Ellison obtained a writing credit which he got after a settlement over perceived similarities to his The Outer Limits (1963) episode “Soldier”. James Cameron writing years later in ‘The Futurist’ said:
“It was a nuisance suit that could easily have been fought. I expected Hemdale and Orion to fight for my rights, but they abandoned me. The insurance company told me if I didn’t agree to the settlement, they would come after me personally for the damages if they lost the suit. Having no money at the time, I had no choice but to agree to the settlement. Of course there was a gag order as well, so I couldn’t tell this story but now I frankly don’t care. It’s the truth. Harlan Ellison is a parasite who can kiss my ass.“
Defying low pre-release expectations, The Terminator topped the United States box office for two weeks, eventually grossing $78.3 million against a modest $6.4 million budget. In fact, the budget for this film was so limited that some scenes had to be shot in secret without permits.
During post-production, John Daly, the producer, tried to shorten the film by insisting it end when the truck the Terminator is driving blows up, eliminating the whole scene with the now-skeletal Terminator chasing Sarah and Reese through the factory. Cameron physically threw him out of the editing suite.
Bloopers
During the famous moment where the Terminator leans close to the glass at the police station to promise “I’ll be back”, you can see both of Arnie’s eyes behind his sunglasses, despite the fact that the Terminator had cut out its damaged left eye in the previous scene and was wearing the sunglasses to cover up the exposed glowing red optic lens.
The policeman behind the front desk of the police station is alerted to the Terminator about to ram-raid the building in a car by the headlights illuminating him. When the car comes crashing through the door, it clearly has its headlights turned off.
Look closely when the Terminator is at the end of the first floor hallway during the police station rampage and is firing into a room with his left hand. His left hand that has the shotgun but makes automatic rifle sounds.
When the Terminator is pursuing Sarah and Kyle in the police car and is searching for them in the parking garage, the motto on the side of the police car reads, “To care and to protect”. After the same police car has crashed into a wall, the motto reads, “Dedicated to serve”.
Deleted Scenes
Several short deleted scenes show a subplot where Lt. Traxler, realizing that something is off about the entire situation, gradually comes to believe that Reese is telling the truth. In the final scene, now fully convinced after seeing the Terminator’s unstoppable rampage at the police station, he survives his bullet wounds long enough to give Reese and Sarah his gun as they leave (which is where Kyle’s gun comes from in the next scene).
As Sarah was taken away by paramedics we would learn that the factory where Sarah and Reese had their final fight with the Terminator was actually Cyberdyne in its earlier, more humble years. Two employees managed to hide the remains of the Terminator to show to their bosses, adding another layer to the predestination paradox. This of course was later revisited in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.