Why did the Terminator retreat after the first confrontation. Today we discuss the build up and analysis of the scene and reasons why the T(CSM)101 chose to tactically retreat.
I always took it that the terminator assessed the situation and determined that the safest course was to fall back, repair, rearm, and proceed directly to the known location that Sarah was going to be taken to...the police station. The terminator had a damaged arm, and was half blind due to damaged flesh of his eye. That many police with pistols and shotguns could cause further damage. And the police also have their vehicles. If used as a weapons, the vehicles could cause substantial damage to the terminator.
Might not even be damage, but the likelihood of them getting away and being harder to track later was probably viewed as higher in the car scenario. The police station is a location they couldn't easily get out of and he would be conducting an ambush no one expected...so the likelihood of it working was probably higher it just so happened that it still didn't work out:
I thought the same thing one of them might ram their car into the Terminator after all the gun shots were ineffective. While none of them could really take out the Terminator they could cripple it.
You could ram a semi at highway speed and still do hardly anything to it. Now a car from that distance even pinned against a wall would still be futile.
@@Madmaxxxx1984 i dunno a loaded semi driving at speed would be thousands and thousands pounds of force, unless the terminator is made of some fantasy unbreakable metal it get mangled just like at the end with the hydraulic press
@@Madmaxxxx1984 Did you not watch the movie? He gets run over by a semi and it cripples his leg, and that was just being dragged under it. Getting full on hit would do some serious damage. Although the alloy used to create the T101's chassis is strong it would still suffer from the impact damage of it, internal components would be damaged etc.
@@goldleader6074 His arm and eye got damaged. Kyle and Sarah could have escaped if the Police was fighting the Terminator. And the Terminator would have been exposed to the Police Force. They could have called the Military to finish it off.
@@goldleader6074If he stands his ground when all the cops surrounded him, Kyle and Sarah the likelihood of them escaping would be higher, he would lose their position and have to track them back down which means lost time , he is now identified and the manhunt starts sooner meaning potentially even more difficultly tracking them down. Going to the police station ends up a failure, but from a logic standpoint it makes sense...he knows their location and for the time they are actually restricted from leaving it, the cops are unaware who/what he is so the whole attack is an ambush. It's all about probability of success he actually had better chance at the police station given all the variables in place.....just happens that plan ended up failing anyway.
@@Yetis-o3z I watched the scene again and the Terminator's stolen cop car crashes like 15 feet from Sarah Conner's passenger side window...it takes the police arriving in their cars and getting out about 15 seconds to begin to get their weapons pointed at Kyle Reese. The Terminator had 15 full seconds to run over 15 feet and take her out with his hands or any weapons he had. Big plot hole.
He had limited weapons and ammo. Engaging the police would cost time, which would allow police backup to arrive, which would cause him to take more cosmetic damage, which would make him more identifiable, which would make it harder to find and kill Sarah Connor.
Nah, that's weak reasoning. Sarah's car was a few metres away - all he had to do was walk up to her window and shoot/strangle her. The Terminator demonstrated later in the movie that standard police firearms won't even make him flinch.
@@AchtungBaby77 It's a minor plot hole, immediately after the wreck it could have immediately ditched the police car and ran over and taken out Sarah Conner then run away into the night before the police caught up with them. What's realistic doesn't necessarily make for a good movie.
What always took me by surprise was how the terminator slipped away like a ninja. You see the police closing in immediately after the crash but they never even catch sight of the terminator. Its just gone, vanished into thin air.
This is a stretch, but it could be that the cops had tunnel vision and didn’t pay attention to the terminators police car. While they were honed in on Reese and Sarah, he slipped away with little effort You can find dash cam videos of suspects on traffic stops slipping away, while the officer is writing a ticket
@@Harry_JJ You have a point. They had absolutely no reason to suspect that the police car had been stolen because the terminator had successfully mimicked the voice of the officer he had stolen it from when checking in over the radio. They would have assumed the occupant of the car was on their side and would've focused on Reese's vehicle. Still, the terminator was massive compared to most people and was wearing clothing that beared no resemblance whatsoever to a police uniform. And as the video's author pointed out, all indications were that these cops knew what they were doing. So, I think it's pretty safe to say that the terminator definitely pulled a Batman-esque move here, proving that terminators are stealthy as hell when they want to be.
It may have known that it could defeat the police even with no weapons, but that Sarah could then easily escape as a result and police would slow it down enough. Then once Sarah was "off its radar" how could it ever find her? Yet if the machine retreated the cops would do the terminator's job for it and capture Sarah, taking her to a predictable location. In a cold calculating way this was the most logical choice, it should have worked had Kyle not been able to somehow spring Sarah from custody first.
That's much more succinct, and believable. Simple math. Her next location is known. He also attempted to do it without any fuss by asking "Can I see her please?" He was planning a stealth infiltration exactly as programmed to do.
In this confrontation, if he chose to engage, he ran the risk of the police helping to protect Sarah. This would cause him more damage. Which would expose him for what he truly is more clearly. It was a scenario that could ultimately lead to Skynet never existing if enough people saw him and what he was doing. He almost certainly could have gotten her there. But being THAT exposed must have been deemed too risky. He would have had the military after him like Grand Theft Auto..
Exactly it would expose The T800 along with skynets existence I mean just think if the cops there would have witnessed the terminator full exposure with the cops existing with this knowledge the timeline would have been altered big time and the terminator could not risk that paradox I mean the terminator is aware of knowing of paradox’s we see this as logic such when in T2 with the t800 saying killing dison my actually prevent war and T3 she here to kill off your future soldiers.
Perhaps the CPU of the T800 was disrupted in the crash and it is programmed to automatically return to it's home base for repairs rather than risk destruction and/or mission failure.
People seem to forget that the Terminator esp in 1 and 2 work off logical probability of something working. If he tries to stay in the car crash 1. He is damaged so his efficiency isn't at his max. 2. Sarah and Kyle in this scenario could have the chance to run in the chaos. 3. His cover is blown and the manhunt for him starts sooner if he kills all or most of these cops. In the police station he has the advantage of 1. Being repaired 2. Having a location Kyle and Sarah cannot as easily escape from as the cops themselves will not just let them leave and it's a building so an enclosed space. 3. The attack at this point is an ambush that no one anticipated. Now they still end up running away in the chaos so the plans fails, but given the factors it's is more likely he would have succeeded at the police station.
Although weapons in the polive station dont affect him, he still can be taken down by 50cal sniper bullet from distance which was around in 80s and we never seen of flashbangs afftect this model.
He had no reason to engage with the officers at that time, made no sense to his mission. He isn’t going off of emotion or anger or even instinct. He was though, damaged and outgunned and his analysis probably determined that he would be at a greater advantage if he fixed himself and armed himself better, and that proved to be true when he unleashed a surprise attack at the police station.
One thing people don't realise.....the Police in that scene (all of them) are ACTUAL POLICE OFFICERS. Cameron couldn't afford extras to play Police, so the Police themselves treated it as a training exercise. You can tell the way they take cover, the manner in which the Sergeant shouts orders, the way they wear the uniform, how they handle Sarah and Kyle on arrest, how they check the Terminator's police car, even the way they block the junction, that's not acting, that's Police training. It's very common for emergency services to do that. I know, my uncle was (retired) a UK firefighter, and he used to get calls from BBC, ITV etc to take part in things like Casualty, Crimewatch, The Bill, Coronation Street, on his days off. He'd get paid, or a payment to the Firefighters Benevolent Fund would be made, and the crew would just treat it as a training scenario, a car crash, collapse of a building, a rescue or a reenactment of a crime scene. As for why the Terminator went AWOL, he'd been damaged, people could identify him from TechNoir, and he'd be immediately shot by Police, potentially exposing the endoskeleton. It was a tactical move on his part. He went to the flophouse, repaired his optics, his arm servos, rearmed himself, changed his look. I reckon on the way to the grimy hotel, he got the leather jacket and the gargoyle glasses from someone on the street he'd probably killed. A lot of people wonder where those items he had came from, that's my angle. His eye damage, if you look carefully, looks like it was from the way he smashed into the "A Pillar" of the Police Car (yes I know it's a dummy, but Cameron, a well known detail obsessive, probably would have noticed that)
My head cannon always was ok with the dummy manequin look because its a machine masquerading as a man. The uncanney valley effect works in its favor to me.
In the novelization it is explained that the Terminator got those sun glasses and that leather jacket from the gun store owner he killed earlier. He also got the red motorcycle from him. I think the apartment the Terminator was staying in was also the gun store owner's. The book describes the gunstore owner as kind of a traveling salesman. He likes to drive across the country on his bike, so he frequently relocates his gunstore. Back in the 80's gun control laws were more lax. This would explain the gunstore owner's casual demeanor, and explain why he's not following protocol. Stocking ammunition out in the open, on his front counter goes against protocol I think. You're supposed to have all ammo under lock and key.
Spot on. I always just assumed that due to its compromised vision, it decided to back off. But you uncovered a lot of detail that I hadn’t considered previously.
A very big thank you for your comment. This specific scene always intrigued me. You could say it moved the plot along however I wanted to explain it logically without breaking the 4th wall.
Skynet: "So you're telling me - there is absolutely NO record AT ALL of what his mother looks like or where she lives in 1984??? Christ's sake, fine - just kill em all, kill all the Sarah Connors.... they're dead, honey!!" T800: "What if someone else gets in my way like a gun store owner?" Skynet: "SERIOUSLY? You're a terminator - Nobody gets in your way, they're all wrong and we're right, got it?" T800: "Affirmative."
A good overview. Post-crash, the Terminator was damaged, weaponless and exposed. As an infiltration unit, it assessed that its greatest chance of mission success was indeed to tactically retreat, address its impairments, rearm itself and reengage Sarah in a more controlled environment and with the element of surprise.
Kyle Reese says that the Infiltration units are not that bright, their systematic, it’s decisions are calculations and probabilities. He definitely was damaged and needed maintenance but allowing them to be captured would present a chance at an actual infiltration, which is the main purpose of his design and programming, acquiring them through that means would have a much higher success rate than to fight off a squad of police officers in open space which could result in their escape.
Well said. The fact that the movie stands this level of analysis, really shows how carefully Cameron thought the movie through. New sub here. Keep up the good work!
If I remember it correctly the most important thing he had to do after the car scene was that he had to repair his arm which was damaged but critical in terms of using the gun and pulling the trigger, one of the most important things he needed for the mission.
Well, for years that scene always got me and I did have the suspicion that the T-800 would calculate that there's a low probability of success due to the high police presence and had to repair it's own damage before making the surprise attack on the police station. This is a perfect explanation, thank you.
Thank you! This is the exact kind of mental gymnastics I do watching movies, explaining away apparent plot holes and is the kind of solution I've come to in some 35 years after first seeing this great masterpiece at the age of 10ish..
@@pasifred8589 hello my brother from another mother - i totally agree. Some movies really need you to suspend disbelief however here I think there are logical motives to why the T101 abandoned the attack to repair and rearm rather than a plot hole/device.
@@lastdimestudios Right back at you, brother from another mother - Also, the T101 wasn't aware of all the weapons the police might possess when they arrived. Earlier, it specifically asked for futuristic weapons at the gun shop, indicating very limited information, as all details regarding advanced weaponry were lost on Doomsday. Additionally, the T101 didn’t have the benefit of seeing the end of the movie; had it known, it would have definitely made a different move in this scene. The T101's response, 'Fuck you, asshole,' to the landlord indicates that it operates based on calculating the probability of achieving its goals in that moment. My mind just loves doing this
@@pasifred8589 Haha - the Terminator has detailed files and may anticipate many moves, but not all files are detailed and some moves can't be predicted. The next video, with plenty of 'mental gymnastics' delves deep into the mind/motives of the Police Detectives during, in-between and beyond T1 and T2.
Another good question is: 1. After the Terminator ran away in order to repair his damaged left eye and right arm, how was he able to still keep a low profile and remain inconspicuous enough that nobody noticed him walking or running around with a destroyed eye? 2. Also, how did he find the surgical tools to perform surgery on himself? Scalpels are only available in hospitals and only accessible by medical doctors? If he went to a major, large hospital in Los Angeles, California, that would've made it extremely difficult, almost impossible, to move around unnoticed so that he could blend in with the human population in L.A.'s general public as an infiltration unit. 3. Furthermore, how did the Terminator easily get more weapons and move around without people freaking out that he was carrying another shotgun, another handgun and another sub-machine gun? 4. How did the Terminator quickly find a hotel room to use as a place to repair himself and continue to track Sarah Connor down by studying the names, and addresses in her address book? He seems to have accomplished all of this in a span of just 12 to 24 hours. I presume he was using another stolen vehicle to get around because there was no way that he could've done everything while traveling on foot.
The truth is, as I believe, it retreated because it was originally written as an infiltration unit, so retreated to repair and then come back to finish the job. Why it seems strange is because when Arnold was cast, it turned into more of a human looking tank, so now the retreat and repair scene seems out of place, and it should’ve just carried on shooting all, including the cops.
Very well put together, also an importand thing to add is that the T800 was damaged and there were still Sarah Connors left in the phonebook so he had to ensure he is fuly operational to complete his mission risking everything to get this Sarah is not an option because the T800 didn't know exactly that she was the definitive target Sarah all Skynet knew was the name and the City.
The Terminator also can't be sure that this is THE Sarah Connor, there are still others to track down and eliminate. Being crippled,unarmed and facing a dozen armed police, he can't risk everything on the low chance of getting this Sarah just to not be able to go after the rest
No, I think it knew this was The Sarah Connor. Since she was being protected by clearly a skilled individual and someone who seemed to know about the Terminators.
@@RomanHistoryFan476AD I think it’s fair to say it has to be sure. The terminator may factor in that there is a reasonable level of human error, so is it possible Kyle made an error, yes. Skynet doesn’t know about the SC picture, it may conclude that JC only described his mother to Kyle which gave him the upper hand at the start. It’s a good question - what would the Terminator have done if he had killed the 3rd JC?? Cos if he went off to have a drapes business and feel guilty about his choices then that idea can go frack itself! Hang on - Woke fate ring a bell!
@@lastdimestudios Of course knowing how the Terminator's acted in the first two films, it would likely continue to make sure it has eliminated every Sarah Connor it can find, just to make sure. But I think what made it follow this Sarah Connor so much, put her as it's primary target/priority above the rest of his list, and not divert target temporarily to another more easy, unsuspecting target was because the Presence of Kyle likely raised the probability scale in the T-800's calculation that this was the real target. It being a machine likely gave this Sarah the highest percentage score of her being the true target, due to the fact this was the first time he encountered proper resistance to his attempt of Termination. (Ginger's boyfriend was a nuisance at best). And since Kyle is a resistance soldier, he might even been recognised by the T-800 database as a Soldier of Techcom. T-800 was following the best lead it had for the time. If the T-800 had completed it's mission and got rid of all Sarah Connor's I think it would have maybe either: 1) extended it's search Area to include even more Sarah Connors in maybe neighbouring towns even the whole state? 2) Go hide away and shut down and wait for further commands from Skynet/ Wait for a Skynet server to connect to appear. 3) Maybe hunt down a list of secondary targets, like officers, sub commanders of John, anyone who could become a future rally point for Mankind. 4) Maybe it would help from the shadows somehow to help build Skynet/ accelerate it's advancement and creation. Though I feel the T-800 would not be suited for this delicate task, due to it's lack of social ability. 5) Self destruct, hear me out now, we only know a Resistance reprogramed Terminator can't self terminate. Likely due to it needing to ensure John's survival at any cost. But a Skynet Infiltrator might be allowed to post mission. I think the same as well if this Terminator had terminated John Connor in Dark fate.
I'd explain it from a production perspective, not necessarily what the terminator would actually do 'in real life', but consider what themes the producers had for the film. Avoiding this intitial encounter with the police is important for maintaining the storyline and the themes in the terminator, which are similar to the ones found in the slasher tropes. The terminator is a relentless killing machine that is stalking a main protaginist. Killing the police is secondary, and done in the context of coming after sarah connor. Whearas an extended clash with the police at the location, while sarah connor gets away, would be an action climax that diverges from the main theme.The villian vanishes when the police arrive, as is common for there to be an escape trope, and then this sets up the scene later when the terminator comes again for sarah connor. The terminator is portrayed as an assasin with a primary objective. Delaying the action to the police station maintains this image and is deliberate to the pacing, giving a break in the tension with a down scene, then having the climactic encounter at the police station later, reinforcing the killing machine comming for the main protaginist trope. As an aside, the extra production cost for filming a superfluous police clash might also explain why they had the terminator simply vanish. As it's a lower budget film, done without permits, engaging the police at the location would require extended filming on location, which may have been impractical, or too expensive, but more importantly I think it doesn't fit with the plan for the film anyway.
I think you covered every reason perfectly. I looked at it the same way, the lack of firearms, and the damage to his arm were probably the biggest factors. Retreating was the most logical choice to make.
I always figured it had side objectives too, someone else pointed it out too. So it ran to ensure it could kill Sarah and take care of the side objectives later.
I remember talking about this when I was young. The answer I settled on was so Sarah and Reese could be taken to the police station, and we could then have a big shootout at the police station. Lol
Kyle did a shotgun blast that damaged Terminator's left eye. When Terminator used the 45 long slide to try to kill Sarah, Kyle shot Terminator's right wrist (a blast comes out of the long slide missing Sarah.. Since his arm is mechanical, Terminator's accuracy decreased because the shotgun affected his right arm. The reason why Terminator retreated is because he knows Sarah is going to be at a police station. Terminator wanted to change clothing because authorities are searching for a big guy that was involved in the Tech Noir shooting. LAPD talked to a lot of witnesses.
Alternatively, the Terminator could have feigned surrender to the police and let the police carry out its mission for it. Kyle wouldn’t have dropped his gun while the Terminator was still present and would have been screaming about the big guy being a killer machine. He simply couldn’t afford Sarah to be taken into custody alongside the Terminator. After a certain point, the police would have just shot Kyle as the clear immediate threat. The Terminator then could have wiped out the police and Sarah at its leisure. The T-101 is essentially impervious to small arms fire outside of close range shotgun slugs being able to overbalance it. It even shrugs off automatic weapons fire during the assault on the precinct house. So the police at the crash scene could have been ignored or overpowered with relative ease. Your what if, I think, overestimates the potential effectiveness of the police in the scene against a Terminator, but your explanation of why the Terminator retreats makes perfect sense, particularly if it had to reboot systems after the high speed crash.
Excellent breakdown, including a lot of details I had missed originally! But over all the damage to the terminator and the fact that the police would take Sarah into custody for predictable re-acquisition made the whole thing make perfect sense. I must say I really appreciate (and miss) the kind of care and logic of these older films, too many newer films would want to set up a scene like this, but just *do it* lazily with no reasoning behind it. Thanks for making this video!
Very good analysis! I always thought it was out of character for the terminator to flee the scene. And in reality it was probably a mistake in the script. But you made some very good arguments for the terminator’s decision to tactically retreat. Well done! 👍
I think the novelization states that it wasn't a motel, it was the gunstore owner's apartment. After Terminator killed him he took his keys, his red motorcycle (you see Terminator driving it later) and leather jacket and sunglasses. It's been a while since I read the book, but after robbing and killing the gunstore owner I assume he drove over to the guy's apartment (he'd know the address by going thru his wallet, looking at his license) in the car he stole earlier, with all the weapons in the trunk, stuffed in bags. He slips into the apartment unnoticed and sets up shop. Then he goes back to the gunstore to get the bike. Or maybe he leaves the bike parked at the gunstore, and only goes to get it after the massacre at the police station.
I appreciate this question being raised. I assumed it was a calculated move. Freeze framing the chase shows Kyle's last shot impacts the terminator in his left eye. Three seconds later the Terminator sticks its head out the window because its vision is impaired and subsequently crashes into the wall. The Terminator does not know if Kyle is holding ammunition in his trench coat and reloading. If the Terminator attempts to assassinate Sarah in that moment then he risks Kyle blowing out his functioning eye in front of the cops. Mission fail.
@@paulwoodford1984 The Terminator would've had to gouge his eye out single handedly as his right forearm and hand were shown to be nonfunctioning from the crash. Such an action would still take time and be sloppy. The cops were already bearing down on their position and the Terminator with limited mobility, presumably, had access only to the single rifle. The Terminator would no longer be an infiltration unit with the damage inevitably suffered while persisting under the circumstances. We were shown the Terminator's calculated thinking and this was emphasized again in Terminator 2 when Arnold said, "The T-1000's highest probability of success..." What could be interesting is if the Terminator killed Sarah, but disposed of itself or self-terminated in such a way as to never let its parts be salvaged for Cyberdyne to back engineer for the creation of Skynet, ironically ending the whole cycle and threat. Ultimately, the scene serves to set up a dilemma between trusting the police or Kyle. Sarah foregoes her passive nature by choosing Kyle and embraces her destiny, a pivotal decision to making the love story work.
Hes an infiltrator and is suppose to use stealth imo thats why. although he would of probably crushed the entire squad with sarah and john because those weapons were inefective.
@@coffeebeardtv thanks for the comment. There’s a few scenes where the T101 definitely flinches when shot by a single revolver so I was imagining him getting shot by 7 at once 6 times. Wouldn’t put him on the ground but defo would do something like buy time for Kyle and Sarah to get to a safe distance.
@@lastdimestudios yeah true Hollywood shoot out in real life proved how ineffective 38 special, 357 magnum and 9mm were against body armor but the m193 from the rifles in the police station would have been more then enough at that distance to put the terminator down plot armor is what saved it lol.
@@stevennunez6013 nah the m193 wouldn’t do squat, the terminator endoskeleton from the T800 was made to withstand heavy artillery even grenades at point blank. Only a 50 caliber was able to stop one and even that was inaccurate, because the material is made to deflect bullets. The people that made terminator genesis didn’t do their research it’s a shame. Only plasma rifles and pipe bombs can take down t800s. The t600s aren’t as resilient tho.
The Terminator didn't want to blow its cover til it felt it could gain an advantage. It's capable of thinking strategically. Also, the Arnie and Fraco-model Terminators (models 101 and 102, respectively) can be either infiltrators or shock troopers depending on mission requirements. Once their cover's blown, they go into shock trooper mode. 0:49 / 1:12 Ackchyually, it's an AMT Hardballer. It's based on the Colt 1911, sure, but so are a lot of licensed copies. 0:56 Armalite's "forgotten" rifle. Its reputation was ruined when the IRA started using it. 3:09 It's also susceptible to gangrene just like normal organic flesh.
@@lastdimestudios Oh, you're welcome. RUclips used to have annotations back in the day, and they were perfect for that sort of thing. What I usually do (nowadays), when I've put wrong info in a vid that I found out later is wrong, is I just put a timestamp in the description followed by a correction. I also do that to add notes or fun facts that I forgot about or just didn't put in while editing. Note: Forgotten Weapons did an episode on the AR-18.
I always thought it was a nod to Halloween, I read somewhere that Cameron was a big fan of Halloween. Logically, the Terminator most likely would have gone for the kill there because later in the movie, he was badly damaged and out of ammo like some of the posters here are saying that's the reason he retreated, he kept coming for Sara jumping in the semi to try and run her down, when that would have been the time to retreat and tend to damage.
I'm going to guess that it was a tactical decision to keep his human disguise intact. At that moment if he had fought the police who were there with guns drawn there would have been a whole bunch of cops witnessing what could only be a robot killing cops and trying to kill Sarah. Especially if he was forced to kill them all by hand. Had he failed in that moment the amount of protection that could have been put around his target would have made his mission nearly impossible. By retreating he ensured that the police would not believe kyle and Sarah that a robot was after them and would take them to the police department where they are easy to find. You don't have to chase someone if you know where they are going. He did attack the police at the station but without his robot eye showing and having the weapons to kill them quickly it did not reveal his true identity. You really have to assume that his mission was not only to kill Sarah connor but to not let himself give humanity knowledge of the future they could use to win the war.
I believe a terminator knew that it was injured but not too badly so during the shootout with Kyle at the club just moments before. Nevertheless he was still able to pursue Kyle and Sarah but after the crash, The Terminator detected police officers coming towards it, and may have interpreted the officers with their matching uniforms and vehicles as soldiers who may have had heavier weaponry, but The Terminator decided not to gamble due to its injuries from the shootout in the crash. Of course once The Terminator repaired its injuries and analyzed the situation correctly assumed that human weaponry even rifle caliber wouldn't have stopped it, but I think The Terminator may have retreated once it saw figures that he believed to be soldiers and saw them as a greater threat so he left
@@Defender78 I think it is safe to say that the terminator knew what cops were. It knew about phone books and gun stores. Most importantly it knew exactly where kyle and Sarah were taken and that it could ask to see them. So I doubt it thought the cops were soldiers while it ws driving around in a cop car listening to their radio chatter.
Great video though! Made the same conclusions you did. The T800 ran the numbers and decided it was a better option to retreat and refit before attempting to re-engage. It knew that it had time. John wasn't to be born for almost a year. It had the ability to track her relentlessly while she, (and Reese or whomever else assisted her) were humans and didn't possess the stamina to be pursued non stop. "It's what he does! That's all he does!"
T101 was also impaired by internal mechanical damage to its arm too. That would have made the fight against the police more difficult, and possibility of critical damage.
My thinking always was that the T800 being a machine, processed Kyle and Sarah being captured by the police and trapped in the police station, combined with retreating to recover his "blocked" eye and disfunctional arm before his all-out assault at the police station - it made sense based on those parameters alone - a machine consistently optimizing itself for the best chance of success
It was programmed to maintain the most clandestine status as the damage done to its human flesh covering was so severe to that if anyone were to see it they'd immediately put 2 and 2 together. But that's just me and the Terminator's "huh" moment @ 3:19 was a hoot to me. Obviously where it pokes it's head out of the window
makes sense. people i think tend to imagine what they would think in that situation. people in that situation wouldn't have the enormous expanded perspective and large compute to evaluate everything like the terminator does, so they only have a small list of reasons they pick from to explain the retreat.
Cameron didn't have the legal permits to film Terminator.So,he had to film a lot at night and leave as soon as possible and that's why their was alot of running and it all workEd out and the film became a classic.
he ran because it was in the script, and would have made for a very short movie, going by the fact of how quick of a getaway he made on foot, even with one eye impaired he could have easily bolted out of the car, and got to sarah to before the cops even had a chance to get out of their cars and draw their guns, nice vid though, you get a like from me, especially for some hypothetical world building on one of my favourite movies
@@Bubba__Sawyer well the movie proved it did not have ample opportunity because of script and plot armor, however he did have ample opportunity to run over to her car and crush her skull, even with an impaired eye and damaged hand it probably would have taken him around 20 seconds, job done, however, run time script, story etc lol
@@darkestfugue You're applying human logic to it though. It simply assessed its injuries and decided it would wait for a more certain opportunity to get to her. Also keep in mind that it doesn't know that this is _the_ Sarah Connor. It still needs to maintain a human appearance to take out the rest of them. It's an infiltrator.
Huh, you pieced this all together very nicely. It never occurred to me before that of course the terminator knew Sarah would be in police custody after! Subscribed!
Very logical. As you point out, the terminator is an infiltration unit not a battle model. We saw battle models in T2, no human skin and doing battle in the open. Kyle's dream sequence shows us the infiltration model. In that dream, the terminator infiltrates the underground bunker. After being discovered by the dog, the terminator unleashes his weapon and destruction. Another example is at the TechNoir, infiltrating and attacking at the opportune time. The police station scene is an infiltration. The terminator is not certain Sara is at the police station, its a tactical guess. The terminator converses with the police officer behind the desk and gets verification Sara is there from the officer. Then the terminator looks around assessing the defenses, planning the attack and measuring the opening of the building to verify the car will fit. Another reason this movie is so great, the attention to detail. We believe Arnold is the terminator, the audience recognizes all the small details of what that would look like making it more believeable.
@@superdude4402 I always the subtle visual appraisal he gives to the cage around the booking desk at the police station and thinks.... piece of cake..."I'll be back"
I think the "Don't want to impair future infiltration missions / affect the future" is the best answer. While 1980s Earth cops may not have weapons capable of stopping the T-800, those weapons do exist. If humans realize what's up, an effort could CERTAINLY be organized to take the T-800 relatively intact, and Kyle Reese is already a living witness to future events. An intact specimen would lend credibility to his story. Humans could prepare and prevent Skynet from happening.
My honest opinion is that it's a combination of multiple commentors' opinions. 1) It needed to re-arm and repair, as well as change its appearance. It's an infiltration unit, after all. 2, it wasn't the mission to engage the police at that moment. 3) it could have well waited for years to find sarah again. Once found, he would've dispatched Sarah, John, and Kyle.
I'm glad my guess lined up with yours. The terminator would know with certainty that kyle and Sarah would either be killed or captured by the police and taken to the police station and held there. That gives it time to prepare for an assault on the station where the police are not expecting it rather than fighting the cops who were ready to fight on the street and risking kyle and Sarah escaping to an unknown location. Because once they did get to an unknown location the terminator's next best option was to go to Sarah's mom's house and hope that Sarah both calls her mom and gives the terminator impersonating her mom her location. And let's be real about how stupid it was for Sarah to give her location to her mom. Even if it was her actual mom she told the terminator could get that information from her. Sarah really should have called her mom sooner and told her to go to a hotel or something. I'm a but surprised kyle let her call her mother at all because he should have figured that would be the terminator's next move. We know it is standard procedure because the t-1000 pulls the same move in terminator 2
I always liked this scene and also wondered why the terminator had fled the scene. I’ve always thought If they ever make a good terminator film one day they could potentially incorporate this scene from the first film to connect it with the later film with an element of time travel/ time displacement
When the Terminator says "in the 40 Watt range" he means 40 kilowatt range. The "kilo" is dropped because it is understood in his time. It's like when most people say "calorie" when they mean "kilocalorie"
If you look close it's arm takes the shotgun blast, the 45 goes off right by her head. After going through the window not seeing the damage may be a position thing. Personally I feel the retreat was due to the eye damage more than the arm plus the lost guns. Terminators like their guns.
Cool discussion topic indeed. Even when I was a lot younger, I just thought that Reese damaged its eye so maybe depth perception was off, therefore the targeting systems weren't optimal to insure the termination of its intended target, Sarah. Also, logical self preservation might have kicked in, not to just survive, but to complete its main mission / function later on. A purely logical and tactical case of "retreat to fight another day", fight another time with more powerful weapons. That makes me wonder why the Terminator didn't just use the Assault rifle and the SPAS shotgun straight away instead of saving them for later. Just finding out where Sarah was, learning a pattern, and then going in for the kill. But I suppose there wouldn't have been much of a film then hey, or it would have been purely stalking horror 😅😝
I always figured it was some kind of calculation given the damage he had suffered. And believe me, when that car hit that wall ... that likely caused some kind of serious damage as well.
Im more interested in where the terminator ran off to, it appears to be a dead end but maybe its just the filming angles. It would be funny if it was hiding under the car or behind a support pillar the entire time until the police left.
I assumed he exited the car passenger side and slipped over the edge/climbed the fence into a drainage ditch or something. He did it right before the cops could see him.
I never thought about the Terminator logically deducing that Kyle and Sarah would be arrested and detained at a Police station, thus giving him time to repair his damage, rearm and try again. Makes sense. Although, I do still wonder why it wouldn't just leap over towards her and punch through her chest like he did with one of the punks, he didn't need a gun to kill her.
Good video, but your transcript is inaccurate and inconsistent. I agree with most of your analysis: The movie already established that the Terminator, despite being incredibly durable, can still be disrupted and temporarily incapacitated by certain types of impacts (like shotgun blasts). Given the situation at the underpass, the Terminator would likely have been incapacitated by the overwhelming fire superiority of the officers if it had persisted in attacking Sarah. As you noted, this may have provided Sarah an opportunity for escape, but also introduced the possibility of the Terminator being permanently incapacitated and unable to complete its mission, so it opted to retreat instead. I think the confusion and frustration many have with this decision in T-1 is due to inconsistencies found in future films where the T-800 is shown as being able to withstand high powered firearms, impacts, and even explosives while continuing the pursuit of their targets, effectively contradicting the decision made at the underpass. I'm not sure I understand or agree with your point about the Terminators having an objective to minimize their impact and detection in the past for the purpose of preserving the timeline. I don't recall if the movies ever explicitly confirmed that all Terminators need to minimize their exposure in the past, with notable exception being in T-2, where the reprogrammed T-800 mentions to John that it's objective is to also destroy itself to prevent Skynet from being created. I would actually think that the opposite would be true; the Terminators need to be discovered in the past in order for Skynet to be created in future using the nueral-net chip design found in the T-800 models. Could you please clarify?
Thanks for your comment! You’ve raised some interesting points, and I’d be happy to clarify. First, regarding the confusion between T1 and later films, you're correct that there are inconsistencies. The T-800 in The Terminator isn't invulnerable, and though durable, certain impacts-like direct shotgun blasts-can momentarily disrupt it, in later films all the Terminators end up like bullet sponges (which I hate). In this case, potential overwhelming firepower from the police, combined with its compromised vision and injuries, likely made it calculate that continuing the pursuit was a significant risk. If Sarah had escaped or the machine was incapacitated further, it would fail its mission. As for the Terminator’s objective to minimise exposure-it's not about "preserving the timeline" in the traditional sense. But Skynet's original intent is for these infiltration units to remain undetected as much as possible. Even in T1, the Terminator operates covertly: getting clothes, avoiding witnesses, and systematically hunting Sarah Connor. Its mission isn't to create a spectacle-it’s focused on efficiently eliminating its target. Drawing unnecessary attention or creating more witnesses complicates that mission. Clarifying my point I hope - Skynet’s inevitable creation. Skynet’s plan in T1 was to eliminate Sarah Connor, thereby wiping out John Connor's entire existence, as Kyle explains in the interrogation (I realise you know this but I just want to be systematic). This would prevent the human counterstrike in 2027, securing Skynet’s complete victory. Skynet wasn’t concerned with preserving itself in the past at this point as it knew its creation would be inevitable(IMO); it was about preventing the birth of the future resistance leader. In T2, the T-800's chip/and arm plays a role in Skynet's eventual creation, contributing to what could be described as a Pogo Paradox-a byproduct of the events in T1, potentally not realised by Skynet. However, when Skynet makes another attempt in 1994, trying to kill John Connor directly, it’s only then that the concern shifts to preventing Skynet's own development. At this stage, they have the means to do something about it. (And this excludes any deleted scenes from T1) Lastly, about Terminator 3, you’re absolutely right-the T-800 gets an upgrade to the T-850, which explains its greater durability and resilience to heavier impacts. The T-850’s power cells and design tweaks allow it to withstand more damage and still keep going, which wasn’t the case with the original T-800 model in The Terminator. Also, apologies if the transcript in the video wasn’t 100% accurate, some of it was added to maintain engagement. Thanks for watching and engaging.
At 5-51 the police officer is not in the group that captures Kyle and Sarah, but a lone officer from earlier in the film who the Terminator assaults and then steals his car. Also, the officers detain Kyle and Sarah and then open the car doors the Terminator crashed, no evidence that the Terminator even tried to get at Kyle and Sarah because it seemed that he was long gone by then.
@@Riptidevulture thanks for the comment. I just slowed it down in FCP. It was mainly to show the shot gun getting ejected - but also the Terminator hits his face off the a-pilar, however I think the Terminators position was more of a match shot as there no damage to the pilar in the aftermath.
It could only see out of one eye and its arm was badly damaged from the car crash, and it was probably out of ammo. It needed to retreat to repair itself and rearm. Trying to fight the police would have risked exposure of its cyborg nature and Sarah would've probably gotten away.
The Terminator isn’t there to engage in all our warfare with the LAPD or the military, which is what would’ve happened had he stayed and confronted them in an effort to get to Sarah. His mission was about stealth, blending in. He couldn’t do that if his organic skin cover was shredded off by sustained gunfire. He’d already taken damage on board - you can see he retreats to repair the damage and cover the eye injury so that he can continue to blend in and make another attempt at getting Sarah. Sensible tactics.
Therefore I can call him a T-101 for short? , T references it’s a Terminator and 101 references Cyberdyne Systems Model 101. So the correct name is a Terminator CSM-101, in the first film the T-101 wasn’t classed as a series like the 600 as this one wasn’t a cyborg. The series 800 element was introduced in the teaser trailer shot in 1990 where it was called a Series 800 CSM 101, and also in a deleted scene (a slight rearranging of the words). Within this scene analysis I can’t refer to him as a T-800, it technically wasn’t designated a series number yet but I’m splitting hairs. I hope we can agree the T800/101 are the same but the 101 refers to the Arnie one. (I’ve edited this for more detail)
It was series of If Than statements in his (it’s) programming if then I pursue Sarah Connor in my damage state , I decrease my chances of completing my mission as opposed to if then I regroup and repair and take them by surprise. Logic circuits at work.
She'd be under police protection for a while though, since they know the Terminator is still out there. Until they find and detain this second individual she'd be at risk.
Excellent video. The same thing I thought with the T-1000 on why he didn't just outright slay anyone & everyone in its way when it first spotted John in the arcade. Sure it was hellbent on taking out its target but taking out everything there would have just drawn unwanted attention and and no doubt created further consequences. 👀
The 101 also probably knows that a prolonged firefight with police will draw the attention of SWAT who’s weapons could pose a higher risk or serious damage to the terminator.
I'd imagine the Terminator's onboard combat algorithm determines on the ideal course of actions would be depending on the situation. So after the crash and it's eye being damaged. It made the tactical decision to retreat and repair it's eye. Then put on some bad ass gargoyle shades. Arm up and take out Sarah and possibly Kyle too in the police station. Two birds with one stone. Also. It only gets one chance to take Sarah out and turning 1984 LA into a GTA lobby going up against the LAPD. Swat teams and perhaps the National guard would compromise it's mission and lead to failure.
Maybe it didn't want to be detected by the authorities that could lead to escalation with the government and FBI. But then why did it take out the entire police station of police officers if it didn't want escalation that could trigger a manhunt for the terminator and that could lead to an autopsy on the terminator's dead body making an conclusion it's from the future.
He did trigger a manhunt. You can hear it on a news report on the car radio Kyle and Sarah are listening to as they're driving away from the police station. The news reporter was saying something like "largest manhunt in the history of Los Angeles is being organized right now, the suspect's identity is unknown-" and then they turn off the radio.
I know exactly 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt why the Terminator ran. He ran for the same reason that the T 1000 was able to travel through time even though it wasn't surrounded by living tissue. Are you ready to have your mind blown? The reason the Terminator ran and the T 1000 could travel through time is James Cameron wasn't smart enough to realize he was creating plot holes when he wrote those things. He wanted to create tension so he had the Terminator disappear instead of killing all of the cops and Sarah right then and there. T 1000, he wanted this futuristic liquid metal Terminator to travel back and fight Arnold. He forgot that only living things could travel back or just didn't care about his own rules. So there you have it. James Camron screwed up, and that's why the Terminator ran away and the T 1000 could travel in time. Any plot hole you ever find, just change the name to that films writer and say they screwed up.
![Gunna - HIM ALL ALONG [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HiCxoDeo0hc/mqdefault.jpg)
The T-800 ran because otherwise how else could he say "I'll be back"😉
Freakin hilarious that!!
He calculated that "Fuck you, asshole" had a low probability of deterring the approaching police.
@@lonedragon3261 Now why didn't I think of that!🤣
Because he needed a Phased Plasma Rifle with a 40-watt range
@@jefff8130 if only he could have got his hand on that plasma rifle it would have been game over!! Just shows Skynet’s lack of knowledge!
Hey, just what you see pal!
@@yellowjackboots2624 Di Oozi nein millimeder
@yellowjackboots2😂624
You know your weapons buddy
I always took it that the terminator assessed the situation and determined that the safest course was to fall back, repair, rearm, and proceed directly to the known location that Sarah was going to be taken to...the police station. The terminator had a damaged arm, and was half blind due to damaged flesh of his eye. That many police with pistols and shotguns could cause further damage. And the police also have their vehicles. If used as a weapons, the vehicles could cause substantial damage to the terminator.
Might not even be damage, but the likelihood of them getting away and being harder to track later was probably viewed as higher in the car scenario. The police station is a location they couldn't easily get out of and he would be conducting an ambush no one expected...so the likelihood of it working was probably higher it just so happened that it still didn't work out:
I thought the same thing one of them might ram their car into the Terminator after all the gun shots were ineffective. While none of them could really take out the Terminator they could cripple it.
You could ram a semi at highway speed and still do hardly anything to it. Now a car from that distance even pinned against a wall would still be futile.
@@Madmaxxxx1984 i dunno a loaded semi driving at speed would be thousands and thousands pounds of force, unless the terminator is made of some fantasy unbreakable metal it get mangled just like at the end with the hydraulic press
@@Madmaxxxx1984 Did you not watch the movie? He gets run over by a semi and it cripples his leg, and that was just being dragged under it. Getting full on hit would do some serious damage. Although the alloy used to create the T101's chassis is strong it would still suffer from the impact damage of it, internal components would be damaged etc.
Because it got damaged in the Car Crash and got in a vulnerable Position. It repaired itself in his Apartment.
Vulnerable to what? .38 caliber pistols and shotguns that the police had?
@@goldleader6074 His arm and eye got damaged. Kyle and Sarah could have escaped if the Police was fighting the Terminator. And the Terminator would have been exposed to the Police Force. They could have called the Military to finish it off.
@@sonyx4500 So instead he goes to the police station and ignites the "largest manhunt in California law enforcement history"?
@@goldleader6074If he stands his ground when all the cops surrounded him, Kyle and Sarah the likelihood of them escaping would be higher, he would lose their position and have to track them back down which means lost time , he is now identified and the manhunt starts sooner meaning potentially even more difficultly tracking them down. Going to the police station ends up a failure, but from a logic standpoint it makes sense...he knows their location and for the time they are actually restricted from leaving it, the cops are unaware who/what he is so the whole attack is an ambush. It's all about probability of success he actually had better chance at the police station given all the variables in place.....just happens that plan ended up failing anyway.
@@Yetis-o3z I watched the scene again and the Terminator's stolen cop car crashes like 15 feet from Sarah Conner's passenger side window...it takes the police arriving in their cars and getting out about 15 seconds to begin to get their weapons pointed at Kyle Reese. The Terminator had 15 full seconds to run over 15 feet and take her out with his hands or any weapons he had. Big plot hole.
He had limited weapons and ammo. Engaging the police would cost time, which would allow police backup to arrive, which would cause him to take more cosmetic damage, which would make him more identifiable, which would make it harder to find and kill Sarah Connor.
but he had time to run up to the car and kill Sarah.
Nah, that's weak reasoning. Sarah's car was a few metres away - all he had to do was walk up to her window and shoot/strangle her. The Terminator demonstrated later in the movie that standard police firearms won't even make him flinch.
@@AchtungBaby77 It's a minor plot hole, immediately after the wreck it could have immediately ditched the police car and ran over and taken out Sarah Conner then run away into the night before the police caught up with them. What's realistic doesn't necessarily make for a good movie.
@@squirrelsinjacket1804 But there's still Kyle and he's got a shotgun. He'd keep shooting at the Terminator until the cops joined in and opened fire.
What always took me by surprise was how the terminator slipped away like a ninja. You see the police closing in immediately after the crash but they never even catch sight of the terminator. Its just gone, vanished into thin air.
It s a chuck norris move
This is a stretch, but it could be that the cops had tunnel vision and didn’t pay attention to the terminators police car. While they were honed in on Reese and Sarah, he slipped away with little effort
You can find dash cam videos of suspects on traffic stops slipping away, while the officer is writing a ticket
@@Harry_JJ You have a point. They had absolutely no reason to suspect that the police car had been stolen because the terminator had successfully mimicked the voice of the officer he had stolen it from when checking in over the radio. They would have assumed the occupant of the car was on their side and would've focused on Reese's vehicle.
Still, the terminator was massive compared to most people and was wearing clothing that beared no resemblance whatsoever to a police uniform. And as the video's author pointed out, all indications were that these cops knew what they were doing. So, I think it's pretty safe to say that the terminator definitely pulled a Batman-esque move here, proving that terminators are stealthy as hell when they want to be.
It may have known that it could defeat the police even with no weapons, but that Sarah could then easily escape as a result and police would slow it down enough. Then once Sarah was "off its radar" how could it ever find her?
Yet if the machine retreated the cops would do the terminator's job for it and capture Sarah, taking her to a predictable location.
In a cold calculating way this was the most logical choice, it should have worked had Kyle not been able to somehow spring Sarah from custody first.
That’s exactly what I was thinking too. She would run away while he’s busy throwing cops around and snapping necks.
That's much more succinct, and believable.
Simple math. Her next location is known. He also attempted to do it without any fuss by asking "Can I see her please?"
He was planning a stealth infiltration exactly as programmed to do.
In this confrontation, if he chose to engage, he ran the risk of the police helping to protect Sarah. This would cause him more damage. Which would expose him for what he truly is more clearly. It was a scenario that could ultimately lead to Skynet never existing if enough people saw him and what he was doing. He almost certainly could have gotten her there. But being THAT exposed must have been deemed too risky. He would have had the military after him like Grand Theft Auto..
@@davidsavage5630 thanks for the comment. Defo just like GTA, he would have had all the Stars!!
There's a 'Pay n Spray ' around the corner. The Terminator would have been fine.
Nice one. I'll be back. @@Alex-xh9kv
Exactly it would expose
The T800 along with skynets existence I mean just think if the cops there would have witnessed the terminator full exposure with the cops existing with this knowledge the timeline would have been altered big time and the terminator could not risk that paradox
I mean the terminator is aware of knowing of paradox’s we see this as logic such when in T2 with the t800 saying killing dison my actually prevent war and T3 she here to kill off your future soldiers.
Perhaps the CPU of the T800 was disrupted in the crash and it is programmed to automatically return to it's home base for repairs rather than risk destruction and/or mission failure.
Excellent comment!
People seem to forget that the Terminator esp in 1 and 2 work off logical probability of something working. If he tries to stay in the car crash 1. He is damaged so his efficiency isn't at his max. 2. Sarah and Kyle in this scenario could have the chance to run in the chaos. 3. His cover is blown and the manhunt for him starts sooner if he kills all or most of these cops. In the police station he has the advantage of 1. Being repaired 2. Having a location Kyle and Sarah cannot as easily escape from as the cops themselves will not just let them leave and it's a building so an enclosed space. 3. The attack at this point is an ambush that no one anticipated. Now they still end up running away in the chaos so the plans fails, but given the factors it's is more likely he would have succeeded at the police station.
@@Yetis-o3z I agree. Thanks for the comment!
Although weapons in the polive station dont affect him, he still can be taken down by 50cal sniper bullet from distance which was around in 80s and we never seen of flashbangs afftect this model.
This is mentioned in the book, yes.
He had no reason to engage with the officers at that time, made no sense to his mission. He isn’t going off of emotion or anger or even instinct. He was though, damaged and outgunned and his analysis probably determined that he would be at a greater advantage if he fixed himself and armed himself better, and that proved to be true when he unleashed a surprise attack at the police station.
@@aaronbrown4366 great comment!!
Haha! Good one!
One thing people don't realise.....the Police in that scene (all of them) are ACTUAL POLICE OFFICERS. Cameron couldn't afford extras to play Police, so the Police themselves treated it as a training exercise. You can tell the way they take cover, the manner in which the Sergeant shouts orders, the way they wear the uniform, how they handle Sarah and Kyle on arrest, how they check the Terminator's police car, even the way they block the junction, that's not acting, that's Police training. It's very common for emergency services to do that. I know, my uncle was (retired) a UK firefighter, and he used to get calls from BBC, ITV etc to take part in things like Casualty, Crimewatch, The Bill, Coronation Street, on his days off. He'd get paid, or a payment to the Firefighters Benevolent Fund would be made, and the crew would just treat it as a training scenario, a car crash, collapse of a building, a rescue or a reenactment of a crime scene. As for why the Terminator went AWOL, he'd been damaged, people could identify him from TechNoir, and he'd be immediately shot by Police, potentially exposing the endoskeleton. It was a tactical move on his part. He went to the flophouse, repaired his optics, his arm servos, rearmed himself, changed his look. I reckon on the way to the grimy hotel, he got the leather jacket and the gargoyle glasses from someone on the street he'd probably killed. A lot of people wonder where those items he had came from, that's my angle. His eye damage, if you look carefully, looks like it was from the way he smashed into the "A Pillar" of the Police Car (yes I know it's a dummy, but Cameron, a well known detail obsessive, probably would have noticed that)
@@mistermatix8241 excellent comments made, thank you.
My head cannon always was ok with the dummy manequin look because its a machine masquerading as a man. The uncanney valley effect works in its favor to me.
@@joshfacio9379 me too, the impact would make an unsecured (by seat belt) person/android bash about like that too
Kyle shot it to the eye with his sawed iff ithaca shotgun right before the crash.
In the novelization it is explained that the Terminator got those sun glasses and that leather jacket from the gun store owner he killed earlier. He also got the red motorcycle from him. I think the apartment the Terminator was staying in was also the gun store owner's. The book describes the gunstore owner as kind of a traveling salesman. He likes to drive across the country on his bike, so he frequently relocates his gunstore. Back in the 80's gun control laws were more lax. This would explain the gunstore owner's casual demeanor, and explain why he's not following protocol. Stocking ammunition out in the open, on his front counter goes against protocol I think. You're supposed to have all ammo under lock and key.
Spot on. I always just assumed that due to its compromised vision, it decided to back off. But you uncovered a lot of detail that I hadn’t considered previously.
A very big thank you for your comment. This specific scene always intrigued me. You could say it moved the plot along however I wanted to explain it logically without breaking the 4th wall.
Skynet: "So you're telling me - there is absolutely NO record AT ALL of what his mother looks like or where she lives in 1984??? Christ's sake, fine - just kill em all, kill all the Sarah Connors.... they're dead, honey!!"
T800: "What if someone else gets in my way like a gun store owner?"
Skynet: "SERIOUSLY? You're a terminator - Nobody gets in your way, they're all wrong and we're right, got it?"
T800: "Affirmative."
@@Astral_Dusk brilliant 🤩
It's funny imagining Skynet with the attitude of The Almighty Tallest from 'Invader Zim'. 🤣
Terminator has got Batman skills slipping away so easy without a trace
A good overview.
Post-crash, the Terminator was damaged, weaponless and exposed. As an infiltration unit, it assessed that its greatest chance of mission success was indeed to tactically retreat, address its impairments, rearm itself and reengage Sarah in a more controlled environment and with the element of surprise.
Hey thanks, and great comment!
That's accurate.
What powerful AI! Imagine a computer able to outwit you on a video game like this
He had to repair himself and re-up with his SPAS-12 and AR-18 then change his appearance a tactical move to keep the police off his back
I always believed that one of last 2 shots Reese put to termnator's windscreen hit it's eye
But then walks down the hall armed to the fucking teeth! "GODDAYUUUUMMMM! " 😂😂😂😂
And it knew which station Sarah was at because it probably tailed them before going to repair itself.
I misread SPAS-12 as SP-12 and thought I missed The Terminator makin beats 😂
Best line of the movie.
Kyle Reese says that the Infiltration units are not that bright, their systematic, it’s decisions are calculations and probabilities. He definitely was damaged and needed maintenance but allowing them to be captured would present a chance at an actual infiltration, which is the main purpose of his design and programming, acquiring them through that means would have a much higher success rate than to fight off a squad of police officers in open space which could result in their escape.
Well said. The fact that the movie stands this level of analysis, really shows how carefully Cameron thought the movie through. New sub here. Keep up the good work!
If I remember it correctly the most important thing he had to do after the car scene was that he had to repair his arm which was damaged but critical in terms of using the gun and pulling the trigger, one of the most important things he needed for the mission.
He fled because he didn’t have insurance. They address this in the box set 😉
@@jmag579 No license either....
Well, for years that scene always got me and I did have the suspicion that the T-800 would calculate that there's a low probability of success due to the high police presence and had to repair it's own damage before making the surprise attack on the police station. This is a perfect explanation, thank you.
Thank you! This is the exact kind of mental gymnastics I do watching movies, explaining away apparent plot holes and is the kind of solution I've come to in some 35 years after first seeing this great masterpiece at the age of 10ish..
@@pasifred8589 hello my brother from another mother - i totally agree. Some movies really need you to suspend disbelief however here I think there are logical motives to why the T101 abandoned the attack to repair and rearm rather than a plot hole/device.
@@lastdimestudios Right back at you, brother from another mother - Also, the T101 wasn't aware of all the weapons the police might possess when they arrived. Earlier, it specifically asked for futuristic weapons at the gun shop, indicating very limited information, as all details regarding advanced weaponry were lost on Doomsday. Additionally, the T101 didn’t have the benefit of seeing the end of the movie; had it known, it would have definitely made a different move in this scene. The T101's response, 'Fuck you, asshole,' to the landlord indicates that it operates based on calculating the probability of achieving its goals in that moment.
My mind just loves doing this
@@pasifred8589 Haha - the Terminator has detailed files and may anticipate many moves, but not all files are detailed and some moves can't be predicted.
The next video, with plenty of 'mental gymnastics' delves deep into the mind/motives of the Police Detectives during, in-between and beyond T1 and T2.
Another good question is:
1. After the Terminator ran away in order to repair his damaged left eye and right arm, how was he able to still keep a low profile and remain inconspicuous enough that nobody noticed him walking or running around with a destroyed eye?
2. Also, how did he find the surgical tools to perform surgery on himself? Scalpels are only available in hospitals and only accessible by medical doctors? If he went to a major, large hospital in Los Angeles, California, that would've made it extremely difficult, almost impossible, to move around unnoticed so that he could blend in with the human population in L.A.'s general public as an infiltration unit.
3. Furthermore, how did the Terminator easily get more weapons and move around without people freaking out that he was carrying another shotgun, another handgun and another sub-machine gun?
4. How did the Terminator quickly find a hotel room to use as a place to repair himself and continue to track Sarah Connor down by studying the names, and addresses in her address book?
He seems to have accomplished all of this in a span of just 12 to 24 hours. I presume he was using another stolen vehicle to get around because there was no way that he could've done everything while traveling on foot.
@@incubustimelord5947 definitely opened a can of worms there my friend - I will let you create a video to try and explain all that away. Good luck. 🤞
The truth is, as I believe, it retreated because it was originally written as an infiltration unit, so retreated to repair and then come back to finish the job.
Why it seems strange is because when Arnold was cast, it turned into more of a human looking tank, so now the retreat and repair scene seems out of place, and it should’ve just carried on shooting all, including the cops.
I think he realized the cops have 10+ guns all pointing at him without guns to fire back
Well he explainned very clearly why he woudlve choose to retreat in the video. All in a split second.
You'd think a Terminator would have extensive files on firearms and would know the SPAS-12 is an unreliable hunk of crap.
That made me laugh. 😂
Or maybe not so extensive, after all he did try to purchase a plasma rifle at a store
Some say it can cycle high-brass rounds on semi-auto mode just fine.
@@kaggykarr To be fair, he wouldn't have files on local LA stores that no longer exist in his future.
@@Billy-bc8pkno historical data??
Very well put together, also an importand thing to add is that the T800 was damaged and there were still Sarah Connors left in the phonebook so he had to ensure he is fuly operational to complete his mission risking everything to get this Sarah is not an option because the T800 didn't know exactly that she was the definitive target Sarah all Skynet knew was the name and the City.
That Ragdoll in the car always cracked me up
The Terminator also can't be sure that this is THE Sarah Connor, there are still others to track down and eliminate. Being crippled,unarmed and facing a dozen armed police, he can't risk everything on the low chance of getting this Sarah just to not be able to go after the rest
No, I think it knew this was The Sarah Connor. Since she was being protected by clearly a skilled individual and someone who seemed to know about the Terminators.
@@NYG5 This is a next level comment!! I thought there was a point I missed, it’s right here ⬆️. This comment isn’t just intricate - it’s brilliant!
@@RomanHistoryFan476AD I think it’s fair to say it has to be sure. The terminator may factor in that there is a reasonable level of human error, so is it possible Kyle made an error, yes. Skynet doesn’t know about the SC picture, it may conclude that JC only described his mother to Kyle which gave him the upper hand at the start. It’s a good question - what would the Terminator have done if he had killed the 3rd JC?? Cos if he went off to have a drapes business and feel guilty about his choices then that idea can go frack itself! Hang on - Woke fate ring a bell!
@@lastdimestudios Of course knowing how the Terminator's acted in the first two films, it would likely continue to make sure it has eliminated every Sarah Connor it can find, just to make sure.
But I think what made it follow this Sarah Connor so much, put her as it's primary target/priority above the rest of his list, and not divert target temporarily to another more easy, unsuspecting target was because the Presence of Kyle likely raised the probability scale in the T-800's calculation that this was the real target. It being a machine likely gave this Sarah the highest percentage score of her being the true target, due to the fact this was the first time he encountered proper resistance to his attempt of Termination. (Ginger's boyfriend was a nuisance at best).
And since Kyle is a resistance soldier, he might even been recognised by the T-800 database as a Soldier of Techcom. T-800 was following the best lead it had for the time.
If the T-800 had completed it's mission and got rid of all Sarah Connor's I think it would have maybe either:
1) extended it's search Area to include even more Sarah Connors in maybe neighbouring towns even the whole state?
2) Go hide away and shut down and wait for further commands from Skynet/ Wait for a Skynet server to connect to appear.
3) Maybe hunt down a list of secondary targets, like officers, sub commanders of John, anyone who could become a future rally point for Mankind.
4) Maybe it would help from the shadows somehow to help build Skynet/ accelerate it's advancement and creation. Though I feel the T-800 would not be suited for this delicate task, due to it's lack of social ability.
5) Self destruct, hear me out now, we only know a Resistance reprogramed Terminator can't self terminate. Likely due to it needing to ensure John's survival at any cost. But a Skynet Infiltrator might be allowed to post mission.
I think the same as well if this Terminator had terminated John Connor in Dark fate.
Actually, all other Sarah Connor’s had been killed and this was the final one. So he was sure this was THE Sarah Connor
I'd explain it from a production perspective, not necessarily what the terminator would actually do 'in real life', but consider what themes the producers had for the film.
Avoiding this intitial encounter with the police is important for maintaining the storyline and the themes in the terminator, which are similar to the ones found in the slasher tropes. The terminator is a relentless killing machine that is stalking a main protaginist. Killing the police is secondary, and done in the context of coming after sarah connor. Whearas an extended clash with the police at the location, while sarah connor gets away, would be an action climax that diverges from the main theme.The villian vanishes when the police arrive, as is common for there to be an escape trope, and then this sets up the scene later when the terminator comes again for sarah connor.
The terminator is portrayed as an assasin with a primary objective. Delaying the action to the police station maintains this image and is deliberate to the pacing, giving a break in the tension with a down scene, then having the climactic encounter at the police station later, reinforcing the killing machine comming for the main protaginist trope.
As an aside, the extra production cost for filming a superfluous police clash might also explain why they had the terminator simply vanish. As it's a lower budget film, done without permits, engaging the police at the location would require extended filming on location, which may have been impractical, or too expensive, but more importantly I think it doesn't fit with the plan for the film anyway.
That's some excellent analysis. I've always wondered about that but you've convinced me 100%
@@davidthegreen excellent comment!!
I think you covered every reason perfectly. I looked at it the same way, the lack of firearms, and the damage to his arm were probably the biggest factors. Retreating was the most logical choice to make.
@@Enruler excellent comment!
I always figured it had side objectives too, someone else pointed it out too. So it ran to ensure it could kill Sarah and take care of the side objectives later.
I remember talking about this when I was young. The answer I settled on was so Sarah and Reese could be taken to the police station, and we could then have a big shootout at the police station. Lol
Kyle did a shotgun blast that damaged Terminator's left eye. When Terminator used the 45 long slide to try to kill Sarah, Kyle shot Terminator's right wrist (a blast comes out of the long slide missing Sarah.. Since his arm is mechanical, Terminator's accuracy decreased because the shotgun affected his right arm. The reason why Terminator retreated is because he knows Sarah is going to be at a police station. Terminator wanted to change clothing because authorities are searching for a big guy that was involved in the Tech Noir shooting. LAPD talked to a lot of witnesses.
Because he knew the LAPD had a bad reputation. 😂
He needed to practice his lines in the apartment
The book explains this. After taking an 85-mile header at a wall. The terminator took 2 hrs to reboot itself.
It could still move though, right?
Alternatively, the Terminator could have feigned surrender to the police and let the police carry out its mission for it. Kyle wouldn’t have dropped his gun while the Terminator was still present and would have been screaming about the big guy being a killer machine. He simply couldn’t afford Sarah to be taken into custody alongside the Terminator. After a certain point, the police would have just shot Kyle as the clear immediate threat. The Terminator then could have wiped out the police and Sarah at its leisure.
The T-101 is essentially impervious to small arms fire outside of close range shotgun slugs being able to overbalance it. It even shrugs off automatic weapons fire during the assault on the precinct house. So the police at the crash scene could have been ignored or overpowered with relative ease.
Your what if, I think, overestimates the potential effectiveness of the police in the scene against a Terminator, but your explanation of why the Terminator retreats makes perfect sense, particularly if it had to reboot systems after the high speed crash.
@@StevenSRizzo I’ll respond to this just give me a second…..a split second.
It's not gonna surrender and allow itself to be bonded (handcuffed) and sent God knows where.
"After a certain point" like their arms get too tired and they just wanna go home for dinner so they shoot some guy in a parking garage? Yeesh.
This was a really well-made analysis, with sound logic and reason. Have a sub :D
@@Phoenix7786 thanks - very much appreciated and the next Terminator video is currently underway!
Great analogy, no reason to argue exactly this
@@lgbfjb1183 wow - nice comment!!
Excellent breakdown, including a lot of details I had missed originally! But over all the damage to the terminator and the fact that the police would take Sarah into custody for predictable re-acquisition made the whole thing make perfect sense. I must say I really appreciate (and miss) the kind of care and logic of these older films, too many newer films would want to set up a scene like this, but just *do it* lazily with no reasoning behind it. Thanks for making this video!
Very good analysis! I always thought it was out of character for the terminator to flee the scene. And in reality it was probably a mistake in the script. But you made some very good arguments for the terminator’s decision to tactically retreat. Well done! 👍
Mistake or a way to keep the story moving
The Terminator had a mission to complete. This is his only objective.
I always wanted to see a deleted scene where he rents the motel room he was using....😂
"Howdy doo, this is Peter McCallister, THE FATHERRRRRRRRRRRR..."
LMFAO!!
I think the novelization states that it wasn't a motel, it was the gunstore owner's apartment. After Terminator killed him he took his keys, his red motorcycle (you see Terminator driving it later) and leather jacket and sunglasses. It's been a while since I read the book, but after robbing and killing the gunstore owner I assume he drove over to the guy's apartment (he'd know the address by going thru his wallet, looking at his license) in the car he stole earlier, with all the weapons in the trunk, stuffed in bags. He slips into the apartment unnoticed and sets up shop. Then he goes back to the gunstore to get the bike. Or maybe he leaves the bike parked at the gunstore, and only goes to get it after the massacre at the police station.
Great analysis and a sound hypothesis. This will affect my viewing of the movie forevermore 😄👍🏼
What a really nice comment. A big thank you.
Congratulations on your 10,000th subscriber. You will get there sooner than you think.
@@heroperseus007 love this comment!!
Keep at it mate.
You're half way there.
I am subscribed to RUclips so I am on this platform a lot. You have what it takes. No doubt.
I appreciate this question being raised. I assumed it was a calculated move. Freeze framing the chase shows Kyle's last shot impacts the terminator in his left eye. Three seconds later the Terminator sticks its head out the window because its vision is impaired and subsequently crashes into the wall. The Terminator does not know if Kyle is holding ammunition in his trench coat and reloading. If the Terminator attempts to assassinate Sarah in that moment then he risks Kyle blowing out his functioning eye in front of the cops. Mission fail.
But he could have then taken his human damaged eyes out and used his robotic eyes.
@@paulwoodford1984 The Terminator would've had to gouge his eye out single handedly as his right forearm and hand were shown to be nonfunctioning from the crash. Such an action would still take time and be sloppy. The cops were already bearing down on their position and the Terminator with limited mobility, presumably, had access only to the single rifle.
The Terminator would no longer be an infiltration unit with the damage inevitably suffered while persisting under the circumstances. We were shown the Terminator's calculated thinking and this was emphasized again in Terminator 2 when Arnold said, "The T-1000's highest probability of success..."
What could be interesting is if the Terminator killed Sarah, but disposed of itself or self-terminated in such a way as to never let its parts be salvaged for Cyberdyne to back engineer for the creation of Skynet, ironically ending the whole cycle and threat.
Ultimately, the scene serves to set up a dilemma between trusting the police or Kyle. Sarah foregoes her passive nature by choosing Kyle and embraces her destiny, a pivotal decision to making the love story work.
Joking aside, the logic and reasoning in this video and the comment section is spot on, I have nothing else to add. Good video and good breakdown
@@ThatWolfFromHyruleGaming thanks for watching!
Hes an infiltrator and is suppose to use stealth imo thats why. although he would of probably crushed the entire squad with sarah and john because those weapons were inefective.
@@coffeebeardtv thanks for the comment. There’s a few scenes where the T101 definitely flinches when shot by a single revolver so I was imagining him getting shot by 7 at once 6 times. Wouldn’t put him on the ground but defo would do something like buy time for Kyle and Sarah to get to a safe distance.
@@lastdimestudios yeah true Hollywood shoot out in real life proved how ineffective 38 special, 357 magnum and 9mm were against body armor but the m193 from the rifles in the police station would have been more then enough at that distance to put the terminator down plot armor is what saved it lol.
@@stevennunez6013 nah the m193 wouldn’t do squat, the terminator endoskeleton from the T800 was made to withstand heavy artillery even grenades at point blank. Only a 50 caliber was able to stop one and even that was inaccurate, because the material is made to deflect bullets. The people that made terminator genesis didn’t do their research it’s a shame. Only plasma rifles and pipe bombs can take down t800s. The t600s aren’t as resilient tho.
The t850 had more armor against plasma rifles
Withstand an artillery grenade? He couldnt even take a pipebomb without serious damage. A 105 mm grenade would vaporise him.
The Terminator also buys a 357 Magnum revolver as well.
@@MrLorenzovanmatterho he definitely gets one as uses it on the motorcycle at the end. Not sure where that came from.
@@lastdimestudios He probably got it from the gunstore he robbed earlier.
Great vid and analysis
The Terminator didn't want to blow its cover til it felt it could gain an advantage. It's capable of thinking strategically. Also, the Arnie and Fraco-model Terminators (models 101 and 102, respectively) can be either infiltrators or shock troopers depending on mission requirements. Once their cover's blown, they go into shock trooper mode.
0:49 / 1:12 Ackchyually, it's an AMT Hardballer. It's based on the Colt 1911, sure, but so are a lot of licensed copies.
0:56 Armalite's "forgotten" rifle. Its reputation was ruined when the IRA started using it.
3:09 It's also susceptible to gangrene just like normal organic flesh.
0:56 As soon as I saw that shotgun, I thought Half-Life!!!
@@STEJTHEGREATEST Heyooooh! 😄
@@judsongaiden9878 Hi!!
Thanks for the AMT correction, I've added wording to correct the error.
@@lastdimestudios Oh, you're welcome. RUclips used to have annotations back in the day, and they were perfect for that sort of thing. What I usually do (nowadays), when I've put wrong info in a vid that I found out later is wrong, is I just put a timestamp in the description followed by a correction. I also do that to add notes or fun facts that I forgot about or just didn't put in while editing.
Note: Forgotten Weapons did an episode on the AR-18.
I always thought it was a nod to Halloween, I read somewhere that Cameron was a big fan of Halloween. Logically, the Terminator most likely would have gone for the kill there because later in the movie, he was badly damaged and out of ammo like some of the posters here are saying that's the reason he retreated, he kept coming for Sara jumping in the semi to try and run her down, when that would have been the time to retreat and tend to damage.
I'm going to guess that it was a tactical decision to keep his human disguise intact.
At that moment if he had fought the police who were there with guns drawn there would have been a whole bunch of cops witnessing what could only be a robot killing cops and trying to kill Sarah. Especially if he was forced to kill them all by hand.
Had he failed in that moment the amount of protection that could have been put around his target would have made his mission nearly impossible.
By retreating he ensured that the police would not believe kyle and Sarah that a robot was after them and would take them to the police department where they are easy to find. You don't have to chase someone if you know where they are going.
He did attack the police at the station but without his robot eye showing and having the weapons to kill them quickly it did not reveal his true identity.
You really have to assume that his mission was not only to kill Sarah connor but to not let himself give humanity knowledge of the future they could use to win the war.
What a comment! And I totally agree with that assumption.
I believe a terminator knew that it was injured but not too badly so during the shootout with Kyle at the club just moments before. Nevertheless he was still able to pursue Kyle and Sarah but after the crash, The Terminator detected police officers coming towards it, and may have interpreted the officers with their matching uniforms and vehicles as soldiers who may have had heavier weaponry, but The Terminator decided not to gamble due to its injuries from the shootout in the crash. Of course once The Terminator repaired its injuries and analyzed the situation correctly assumed that human weaponry even rifle caliber wouldn't have stopped it, but I think The Terminator may have retreated once it saw figures that he believed to be soldiers and saw them as a greater threat so he left
@@Defender78 I think it is safe to say that the terminator knew what cops were.
It knew about phone books and gun stores.
Most importantly it knew exactly where kyle and Sarah were taken and that it could ask to see them.
So I doubt it thought the cops were soldiers while it ws driving around in a cop car listening to their radio chatter.
Great video though! Made the same conclusions you did. The T800 ran the numbers and decided it was a better option to retreat and refit before attempting to re-engage. It knew that it had time. John wasn't to be born for almost a year. It had the ability to track her relentlessly while she, (and Reese or whomever else assisted her) were humans and didn't possess the stamina to be pursued non stop. "It's what he does! That's all he does!"
T101 was also impaired by internal mechanical damage to its arm too. That would have made the fight against the police more difficult, and possibility of critical damage.
It's actually a T-800, model 101; LDS made the same mistake in this video.
My thinking always was that the T800 being a machine, processed Kyle and Sarah being captured by the police and trapped in the police station, combined with retreating to recover his "blocked" eye and disfunctional arm before his all-out assault at the police station - it made sense based on those parameters alone - a machine consistently optimizing itself for the best chance of success
@@MrFreakyStory great summary!
It was programmed to maintain the most clandestine status as the damage done to its human flesh covering was so severe to that if anyone were to see it they'd immediately put 2 and 2 together.
But that's just me and the Terminator's "huh" moment @ 3:19 was a hoot to me. Obviously where it pokes it's head out of the window
makes sense. people i think tend to imagine what they would think in that situation. people in that situation wouldn't have the enormous expanded perspective and large compute to evaluate everything like the terminator does, so they only have a small list of reasons they pick from to explain the retreat.
Cameron didn't have the legal permits to film Terminator.So,he had to film a lot at night and leave as soon as possible and that's why their was alot of running and it all workEd out and the film became a classic.
Damn this is a great breakdown. I always wondered this.
he ran because it was in the script, and would have made for a very short movie, going by the fact of how quick of a getaway he made on foot, even with one eye impaired he could have easily bolted out of the car, and got to sarah to before the cops even had a chance to get out of their cars and draw their guns, nice vid though, you get a like from me, especially for some hypothetical world building on one of my favourite movies
It was damaged and wasn't about to take such a risk. It's not like time was of the essence. It had ample time and opportunity to get to her later.
@@Bubba__Sawyer well the movie proved it did not have ample opportunity because of script and plot armor, however he did have ample opportunity to run over to her car and crush her skull, even with an impaired eye and damaged hand it probably would have taken him around 20 seconds, job done, however, run time script, story etc lol
@@darkestfugue You're applying human logic to it though. It simply assessed its injuries and decided it would wait for a more certain opportunity to get to her. Also keep in mind that it doesn't know that this is _the_ Sarah Connor. It still needs to maintain a human appearance to take out the rest of them. It's an infiltrator.
Yep. I don’t agree with the others saying he could wait. Sarah could have escaped and fled the country. Simple plot armor.
Great Analysis.... Nice video!
Huh, you pieced this all together very nicely. It never occurred to me before that of course the terminator knew Sarah would be in police custody after! Subscribed!
@@geordie170101 legend right here! Thank you.
Very logical. As you point out, the terminator is an infiltration unit not a battle model. We saw battle models in T2, no human skin and doing battle in the open. Kyle's dream sequence shows us the infiltration model. In that dream, the terminator infiltrates the underground bunker. After being discovered by the dog, the terminator unleashes his weapon and destruction.
Another example is at the TechNoir, infiltrating and attacking at the opportune time.
The police station scene is an infiltration. The terminator is not certain Sara is at the police station, its a tactical guess. The terminator converses with the police officer behind the desk and gets verification Sara is there from the officer. Then the terminator looks around assessing the defenses, planning the attack and measuring the opening of the building to verify the car will fit. Another reason this movie is so great, the attention to detail. We believe Arnold is the terminator, the audience recognizes all the small details of what that would look like making it more believeable.
@@superdude4402 I always the subtle visual appraisal he gives to the cage around the booking desk at the police station and thinks.... piece of cake..."I'll be back"
I think the "Don't want to impair future infiltration missions / affect the future" is the best answer. While 1980s Earth cops may not have weapons capable of stopping the T-800, those weapons do exist. If humans realize what's up, an effort could CERTAINLY be organized to take the T-800 relatively intact, and Kyle Reese is already a living witness to future events. An intact specimen would lend credibility to his story. Humans could prepare and prevent Skynet from happening.
As we saw in Genesis, it can be taken down by well placed 50cal bullet to chest and that was around in 1980s
The surefire lasersigth was one of two worldwide. The secound one was used atop a jatimatic smg in city cobra.
Great video and agree with the reasoning.
My honest opinion is that it's a combination of multiple commentors' opinions.
1) It needed to re-arm and repair, as well as change its appearance. It's an infiltration unit, after all.
2, it wasn't the mission to engage the police at that moment.
3) it could have well waited for years to find sarah again. Once found, he would've dispatched Sarah, John, and Kyle.
I'm glad my guess lined up with yours. The terminator would know with certainty that kyle and Sarah would either be killed or captured by the police and taken to the police station and held there.
That gives it time to prepare for an assault on the station where the police are not expecting it rather than fighting the cops who were ready to fight on the street and risking kyle and Sarah escaping to an unknown location.
Because once they did get to an unknown location the terminator's next best option was to go to Sarah's mom's house and hope that Sarah both calls her mom and gives the terminator impersonating her mom her location.
And let's be real about how stupid it was for Sarah to give her location to her mom. Even if it was her actual mom she told the terminator could get that information from her. Sarah really should have called her mom sooner and told her to go to a hotel or something.
I'm a but surprised kyle let her call her mother at all because he should have figured that would be the terminator's next move.
We know it is standard procedure because the t-1000 pulls the same move in terminator 2
I always liked this scene and also wondered why the terminator had fled the scene. I’ve always thought If they ever make a good terminator film one day they could potentially incorporate this scene from the first film to connect it with the later film with an element of time travel/ time displacement
When the Terminator says "in the 40 Watt range" he means 40 kilowatt range. The "kilo" is dropped because it is understood in his time. It's like when most people say "calorie" when they mean "kilocalorie"
If you look close it's arm takes the shotgun blast, the 45 goes off right by her head. After going through the window not seeing the damage may be a position thing. Personally I feel the retreat was due to the eye damage more than the arm plus the lost guns. Terminators like their guns.
Cool discussion topic indeed. Even when I was a lot younger, I just thought that Reese damaged its eye so maybe depth perception was off, therefore the targeting systems weren't optimal to insure the termination of its intended target, Sarah.
Also, logical self preservation might have kicked in, not to just survive, but to complete its main mission / function later on. A purely logical and tactical case of "retreat to fight another day", fight another time with more powerful weapons.
That makes me wonder why the Terminator didn't just use the Assault rifle and the SPAS shotgun straight away instead of saving them for later. Just finding out where Sarah was, learning a pattern, and then going in for the kill. But I suppose there wouldn't have been much of a film then hey, or it would have been purely stalking horror 😅😝
Nice analysis
@@ChazUBCS a very big thank you from the LDS team!
Good explanation! English isn't my native language so watching the video with subs was a bit difficult. However, it makes sense!
I always figured it was some kind of calculation given the damage he had suffered. And believe me, when that car hit that wall ... that likely caused some kind of serious damage as well.
@@TheMightyCookieShow I was thinking the exact same thing!
Im more interested in where the terminator ran off to, it appears to be a dead end but maybe its just the filming angles. It would be funny if it was hiding under the car or behind a support pillar the entire time until the police left.
I assumed he exited the car passenger side and slipped over the edge/climbed the fence into a drainage ditch or something. He did it right before the cops could see him.
What a good video. Subbed.
I never thought about the Terminator logically deducing that Kyle and Sarah would be arrested and detained at a Police station, thus giving him time to repair his damage, rearm and try again. Makes sense. Although, I do still wonder why it wouldn't just leap over towards her and punch through her chest like he did with one of the punks, he didn't need a gun to kill her.
Good video, but your transcript is inaccurate and inconsistent.
I agree with most of your analysis: The movie already established that the Terminator, despite being incredibly durable, can still be disrupted and temporarily incapacitated by certain types of impacts (like shotgun blasts). Given the situation at the underpass, the Terminator would likely have been incapacitated by the overwhelming fire superiority of the officers if it had persisted in attacking Sarah. As you noted, this may have provided Sarah an opportunity for escape, but also introduced the possibility of the Terminator being permanently incapacitated and unable to complete its mission, so it opted to retreat instead. I think the confusion and frustration many have with this decision in T-1 is due to inconsistencies found in future films where the T-800 is shown as being able to withstand high powered firearms, impacts, and even explosives while continuing the pursuit of their targets, effectively contradicting the decision made at the underpass.
I'm not sure I understand or agree with your point about the Terminators having an objective to minimize their impact and detection in the past for the purpose of preserving the timeline. I don't recall if the movies ever explicitly confirmed that all Terminators need to minimize their exposure in the past, with notable exception being in T-2, where the reprogrammed T-800 mentions to John that it's objective is to also destroy itself to prevent Skynet from being created.
I would actually think that the opposite would be true; the Terminators need to be discovered in the past in order for Skynet to be created in future using the nueral-net chip design found in the T-800 models.
Could you please clarify?
Thanks for your comment! You’ve raised some interesting points, and I’d be happy to clarify.
First, regarding the confusion between T1 and later films, you're correct that there are inconsistencies. The T-800 in The Terminator isn't invulnerable, and though durable, certain impacts-like direct shotgun blasts-can momentarily disrupt it, in later films all the Terminators end up like bullet sponges (which I hate). In this case, potential overwhelming firepower from the police, combined with its compromised vision and injuries, likely made it calculate that continuing the pursuit was a significant risk. If Sarah had escaped or the machine was incapacitated further, it would fail its mission.
As for the Terminator’s objective to minimise exposure-it's not about "preserving the timeline" in the traditional sense. But Skynet's original intent is for these infiltration units to remain undetected as much as possible. Even in T1, the Terminator operates covertly: getting clothes, avoiding witnesses, and systematically hunting Sarah Connor. Its mission isn't to create a spectacle-it’s focused on efficiently eliminating its target. Drawing unnecessary attention or creating more witnesses complicates that mission.
Clarifying my point I hope - Skynet’s inevitable creation. Skynet’s plan in T1 was to eliminate Sarah Connor, thereby wiping out John Connor's entire existence, as Kyle explains in the interrogation (I realise you know this but I just want to be systematic). This would prevent the human counterstrike in 2027, securing Skynet’s complete victory. Skynet wasn’t concerned with preserving itself in the past at this point as it knew its creation would be inevitable(IMO); it was about preventing the birth of the future resistance leader. In T2, the T-800's chip/and arm plays a role in Skynet's eventual creation, contributing to what could be described as a Pogo Paradox-a byproduct of the events in T1, potentally not realised by Skynet.
However, when Skynet makes another attempt in 1994, trying to kill John Connor directly, it’s only then that the concern shifts to preventing Skynet's own development. At this stage, they have the means to do something about it. (And this excludes any deleted scenes from T1)
Lastly, about Terminator 3, you’re absolutely right-the T-800 gets an upgrade to the T-850, which explains its greater durability and resilience to heavier impacts. The T-850’s power cells and design tweaks allow it to withstand more damage and still keep going, which wasn’t the case with the original T-800 model in The Terminator.
Also, apologies if the transcript in the video wasn’t 100% accurate, some of it was added to maintain engagement.
Thanks for watching and engaging.
At 5-51 the police officer is not in the group that captures Kyle and Sarah, but a lone officer from earlier in the film who the Terminator assaults and then steals his car. Also, the officers detain Kyle and Sarah and then open the car doors the Terminator crashed, no evidence that the Terminator even tried to get at Kyle and Sarah because it seemed that he was long gone by then.
It s weird he has to use his finger to read the phone book when he could instantly scan it
Wow! Never seen that crash in slow motion. What did you use for that?
@@Riptidevulture thanks for the comment. I just slowed it down in FCP. It was mainly to show the shot gun getting ejected - but also the Terminator hits his face off the a-pilar, however I think the Terminators position was more of a match shot as there no damage to the pilar in the aftermath.
Great video. I will always say that Terminator 1 is better than Terminator 2.
That wouldve been an interesting alternate scene to see
Totally agree
From my understanding the T-800 damages the skin of its eye by smacking the eye on the steering wheel
Well for 1 thing it got damaged and if it did get out the car and kill Sarah the movie would be over
To keep it kind of a BFlick horror flick is what thought, it didn't become action until the 2nd one.
It could only see out of one eye and its arm was badly damaged from the car crash, and it was probably out of ammo. It needed to retreat to repair itself and rearm. Trying to fight the police would have risked exposure of its cyborg nature and Sarah would've probably gotten away.
The Terminator isn’t there to engage in all our warfare with the LAPD or the military, which is what would’ve happened had he stayed and confronted them in an effort to get to Sarah. His mission was about stealth, blending in. He couldn’t do that if his organic skin cover was shredded off by sustained gunfire. He’d already taken damage on board - you can see he retreats to repair the damage and cover the eye injury so that he can continue to blend in and make another attempt at getting Sarah. Sensible tactics.
T800 is the terminator model 101 is the model number of the exterior, the arnie look is csm 101
Therefore I can call him a T-101 for short? , T references it’s a Terminator and 101 references Cyberdyne Systems Model 101. So the correct name is a Terminator CSM-101, in the first film the T-101 wasn’t classed as a series like the 600 as this one wasn’t a cyborg. The series 800 element was introduced in the teaser trailer shot in 1990 where it was called a Series 800 CSM 101, and also in a deleted scene (a slight rearranging of the words).
Within this scene analysis I can’t refer to him as a T-800, it technically wasn’t designated a series number yet but I’m splitting hairs. I hope we can agree the T800/101 are the same but the 101 refers to the Arnie one. (I’ve edited this for more detail)
@@Ron_Connor awesome bit of trivia! Thanks!
It was series of If Than statements in his (it’s) programming if then I pursue Sarah Connor in my damage state , I decrease my chances of completing my mission as opposed to if then I regroup and repair and take them by surprise. Logic circuits at work.
Because he really took the role of being human seriously and needed the bathroom badly
@@paulwoodford1984 haha that’s a good one…..or was that a number two.
@@lastdimestudios He seemed in a real hurry, so could have been both lol
@@paulwoodford1984 oh no double jeopardy!
Could the terminator have waited until Sarah came out of the police station, they’d have likely kept Kyle longer, leaving Sarah vulnerable.
She'd be under police protection for a while though, since they know the Terminator is still out there. Until they find and detain this second individual she'd be at risk.
Because he is made to be efficient. His arm and his eye are messed up
Excellent video. The same thing I thought with the T-1000 on why he didn't just outright slay anyone & everyone in its way when it first spotted John in the arcade. Sure it was hellbent on taking out its target but taking out everything there would have just drawn unwanted attention and and no doubt created further consequences. 👀
The 101 also probably knows that a prolonged firefight with police will draw the attention of SWAT who’s weapons could pose a higher risk or serious damage to the terminator.
I'd imagine the Terminator's onboard combat algorithm determines on the ideal course of actions would be depending on the situation. So after the crash and it's eye being damaged. It made the tactical decision to retreat and repair it's eye. Then put on some bad ass gargoyle shades. Arm up and take out Sarah and possibly Kyle too in the police station. Two birds with one stone. Also. It only gets one chance to take Sarah out and turning 1984 LA into a GTA lobby going up against the LAPD. Swat teams and perhaps the National guard would compromise it's mission and lead to failure.
@@Doughboy842 brilliant!
Maybe it didn't want to be detected by the authorities that could lead to escalation with the government and FBI. But then why did it take out the entire police station of police officers if it didn't want escalation that could trigger a manhunt for the terminator and that could lead to an autopsy on the terminator's dead body making an conclusion it's from the future.
Easier to hide in 1984
He did trigger a manhunt. You can hear it on a news report on the car radio Kyle and Sarah are listening to as they're driving away from the police station. The news reporter was saying something like "largest manhunt in the history of Los Angeles is being organized right now, the suspect's identity is unknown-" and then they turn off the radio.
Did you get this from the book?
@@mrmaxaxl just referring from general knowledge of the films and what seems logical.
I know exactly 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt why the Terminator ran. He ran for the same reason that the T 1000 was able to travel through time even though it wasn't surrounded by living tissue.
Are you ready to have your mind blown? The reason the Terminator ran and the T 1000 could travel through time is James Cameron wasn't smart enough to realize he was creating plot holes when he wrote those things.
He wanted to create tension so he had the Terminator disappear instead of killing all of the cops and Sarah right then and there.
T 1000, he wanted this futuristic liquid metal Terminator to travel back and fight Arnold. He forgot that only living things could travel back or just didn't care about his own rules.
So there you have it. James Camron screwed up, and that's why the Terminator ran away and the T 1000 could travel in time.
Any plot hole you ever find, just change the name to that films writer and say they screwed up.
@@jackinmyhoggoff807 thanks for clearing that up.
Actually the T-1000 was supposed to be in a cocoon made of human flesh during his time travel scene, it was in the script. But it never made the cut.