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[[caption-width-right:300:''"I'll be back."'']]

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[[caption-width-right:300:''"I'll [[caption-width-right:300:''[[ImplacableMan "I'll be back."'']]"]]'']]
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* WrongGenreSavvy: The police believe themselves to be in a standard SlasherMovie. To their credit, they would have done ''very'' well against, say, Jason Voorhees. As soon as they receive the death certificates of [[SerialKillingsSpecificTarget the first two ladies named Sarah Connor, they send out a news bulletin to warn any other Sarah Connors that might be out there]] as well as their friends and family, and they keep officers on the 911 lines just in case one of the Sarahs calls in. Then they bust open a crate of [=M16s=] and hide Sarah behind a wall of guns. If the titular Terminator hadn't been itself, they may have made a major difference.

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* WrongGenreSavvy: The police believe themselves to be in a standard SlasherMovie. To their credit, they would have done ''very'' well against, say, Jason Voorhees. As soon as they receive the death certificates of [[SerialKillingsSpecificTarget the first two ladies named Sarah Connor, they send out a news bulletin to warn any other Sarah Connors that might be out there]] as well as their friends and family, and they keep officers on the 911 lines just in case one of the Sarahs calls in. Then they bust open a crate of [=M16s=] and hide Sarah behind a wall of guns. If the titular Terminator hadn't had merely been itself, a murderous human instead of a killer robot, they may might have made a major difference.
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* SquashedFlat: [[spoiler:Sarah finally destroys the T-800 for good in a massive industrial press, turning it metal junk.]]

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* SquashedFlat: [[spoiler:Sarah finally destroys the T-800 for good in a massive industrial press, turning it into metal junk.]]
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* WrongGenreSavvy: The police believe themselves to be in a standard SlasherMovie. To their credit, they would have done ''very'' well against, say, Jason Voorhees. As soon as they receive the death certificates of [[SerialKillingsSpecificTarget the first two ladies named Sarah Connor, they send out a news bulletin to warn any other Sarah Connors that might be out there]] as well as their friends and family, and they keep officers on the 911 lines just in case one of the Sarahs calls in. Then they bust open a crate of [=M16s=] and hide Sarah behind a wall of guns. If the titular Terminator wasn't, you know, itself, they may have made a major difference.

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* WrongGenreSavvy: The police believe themselves to be in a standard SlasherMovie. To their credit, they would have done ''very'' well against, say, Jason Voorhees. As soon as they receive the death certificates of [[SerialKillingsSpecificTarget the first two ladies named Sarah Connor, they send out a news bulletin to warn any other Sarah Connors that might be out there]] as well as their friends and family, and they keep officers on the 911 lines just in case one of the Sarahs calls in. Then they bust open a crate of [=M16s=] and hide Sarah behind a wall of guns. If the titular Terminator wasn't, you know, hadn't been itself, they may have made a major difference.
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* ReducedToRatburgers: In the most elaborate of Kyle's future flashbacks, showing how wretched life actually is for the surviving humans, we briefly see children catching a rat, clearly intending to eat it.
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Crosswicking

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* StoryboardingTheApocalypse: The movie provides a glimpse of the future where humanity is being hunted down by [=SkyNet=].
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Crosswicking

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* OffTheGrid: Sarah Connor is doing this at the end of the movie, getting out of the US and heading to the bottom of South America. One, because the southern hemisphere is much safer than the northern hemisphere when it comes to surviving a nuclear war, and she needs to leave as few traces of her existence as possible so Skynet can't know where to send another Terminator to try and kill her. Even though she didn't know it, Kyle does make this clear to the cops when being questioned, saying so many records were destroyed in the war that Skynet only knew her name and the city she lived in.
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Crosswicking

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* FutureCopter: The Hunter-Killer Aerials are of the ducted jet engine VTOL type.
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Crosswicking

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* EyeLightsOut: The sign that the Terminator is finally destroyed after it is crushed in a hydraulic press is its red eyes going out.
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This was not addressed in the movie.


* LifeSavingMisfortune: The cop who was knocked unconscious by Reese likely survived the Terminator's attack on the police station as a result.
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* LifeSavingMisfortune: The cop who was knocked unconscious by Reese likely survived the Terminator's attack on the police station as a result.
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* BestedByTheInexperienced: [[spoiler:Sarah Connor is able to beat an unstoppable death machine without any real training. Somewhat downplayed in that by the time she faces off with the terminator alone, it has been seriously damaged (in fact it's been blown in half) by Kyle Reese, who is not only an experienced soldier but has faced off with terminators before.]]

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* BestedByTheInexperienced: [[spoiler:Sarah Connor is able to beat an unstoppable death machine without any real training. Somewhat downplayed in that by the time she faces off with the terminator Terminator alone, [[DramaPreservingHandicap it has been seriously damaged damaged]] (in fact it's been blown in half) by Kyle Reese, who is not only an experienced soldier but has faced off with terminators before.]]
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Added Bested By The Inexperienced example from its page

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* BestedByTheInexperienced: [[spoiler:Sarah Connor is able to beat an unstoppable death machine without any real training. Somewhat downplayed in that by the time she faces off with the terminator alone, it has been seriously damaged (in fact it's been blown in half) by Kyle Reese, who is not only an experienced soldier but has faced off with terminators before.]]
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dewicking disambiguation page


* MaleFrontalNudity: There's a brief but clear shot of Arnie's [[JustForPun hard drive]] as he walks naked over to the punks.

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* MaleFrontalNudity: There's a brief but clear shot of Arnie's [[JustForPun hard drive]] "hard drive" as he walks naked over to the punks.
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** Kyle steals a gun that has been ''left on the seat of an open and unlocked police car''. One sincerely hopes the idiotic cop who did was summarily fired for his gross stupidity.

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** Kyle steals a gun that has been ''left on the seat of an open and unlocked police car''. One While the cop who was this careless did unwittingly help save humanity by letting a shotgun fall into Kyle's hands, one sincerely hopes the idiotic cop who did he was summarily fired for his gross stupidity.



* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Surprisingly nuanced for a movie named "The Terminator" with an epic body count. The T-800 is programmed to kill the target. It would prefer to not waste time doing anything else, including unnecessary fights. However, if it calculates a fight '''is''' necessary, it is incapable of messing around. And as Reese lays out, it has no thought process about being excessive.

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* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Surprisingly nuanced for a movie named "The Terminator" with an epic body count. The T-800 is programmed to kill the target. It would prefer to not waste time doing anything else, including unnecessary fights. However, if it calculates a fight '''is''' necessary, it is incapable of messing around.'''will''' do what it must. And as Reese lays out, it has no thought process about being excessive.
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Crosswicking

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* TerminatorTwosome: A robot is sent back to kill Sarah Connor before she even gives birth to John Connor, and a BadassNormal human is sent back to protect her.
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Crosswicking

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* SelfDestructiveCharge: The T-800 exoskeleton has the lower half of its body blown off when Kyle Reese plants explosives in its chest. It then follows Sarah Conner by dragging itself with its arms, and is trapped under a hydraulic press and squished.
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Crosswicking

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* OpenAirDriver: The movie only does this temporarily as the Terminator punches a hole through the window trying to kill Sarah Connor. Since the vehicle is easily identified, the heroes switch cars to another one.
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Crosswicking

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* NoNonsenseNemesis: There's a lot of crossover with ImplacableMan, but Reese's description of one in this film, both to Sarah and the police, nails this trope as squarely on the head as possible:
-->'''Reese''': That Terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with; it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, EVER, until you are DEAD.
-->'''Reese''': You still don't get it, do you?! He'll find her! That's what he does! That's ''all'' he does! You can't stop him! He'll wade through you, reach down her throat, and pull her fucking heart out!

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* DramaticGunCock: The SlowMotion chambering of their respective weapons by Kyle and the Terminator, as the latter is about to shoot Sarah in Tech Noir.

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* DramaticGunCock: The SlowMotion chambering of their respective weapons by Kyle DramaticGunCock:
** Reese does one after [[SawedOffShotGun sawing off the stock
and barrel of his shotgun]]. He pumps the Terminator, as shotgun three times: Once when he cuts the latter is about barrel off, once when he wakes up from his dream, and once in Tech Noir before he starts blasting. It would seem that he pointlessly ejected two good shells, or he was walking around with it empty and was, ahem, pumping it for fun. Or he had the chamber empty for safety reasons. A good precaution if you have nightmares that make you rack the action of your shotgun.
** In Tech Noir, right before he attempts
to shoot Sarah Connor, the Terminator cocks the pistol. (Since his .45 is a "single-action automatic", meaning the hammer must be cocked in Tech Noir.order to fire, this is justified.)
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* MurderIsTheBestSolution: Surprisingly nuanced for a movie named "The Terminator" with an epic body count. The T-800 is programmed to kill the target. It would prefer to not waste time doing anything else, including unnecessary fights. However, if it calculates a fight '''is''' necessary, it is incapable of messing around. And as Reese lays out, it has no thought process about being excessive.
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** Similarly the T-800s mass and sheer resistance to injury was not clearly set; the script wasn't originally written with Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind and allowed for a "smaller" Terminator. It's not until T2 that the walking tank that's ''always'' the police station massacre toughness is truly codified.

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** Similarly the T-800s T-800's mass and sheer resistance to injury was not clearly set; the script wasn't originally written with Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind and allowed for a "smaller" Terminator. It's not until T2 that the walking tank that's ''always'' the police station massacre unflinching toughness is truly codified.

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** Ginger's boyfriend tries to fight the Terminator when he bursts into their house. It is, of course, a CurbStompBattle, but he somehow manages to keep the Terminator occupied for a good half minute or so, even managing to shove the Terminator backwards a few steps at one point. In later ''Terminator'' media, any human going up against a Terminator in hand-to-hand would get killed instantly.

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** Ginger's boyfriend tries to fight Matt brawls with the Terminator when he bursts into their house. It is, of course, a CurbStompBattle, but he somehow manages to keep the Terminator occupied for a good half minute or so, even managing to shove the Terminator backwards a few steps at one point. In later ''Terminator'' media, any human going up against a Terminator in hand-to-hand would get killed instantly.instantly.
** Similarly the T-800s mass and sheer resistance to injury was not clearly set; the script wasn't originally written with Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind and allowed for a "smaller" Terminator. It's not until T2 that the walking tank that's ''always'' the police station massacre toughness is truly codified.
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Crosswick.

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* {{Symploce}}: Reese describes the terminator to Sarah with these words: "It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with."
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* MurderByMistake: Happens to two of the Terminator's victims who were unfortunate enough to share the same name with Sarah Connor.

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* MurderByMistake: Happens to two of the Terminator's victims who were unfortunate enough to share the same name with Sarah Connor. Sarah's roommate Ginger is also killed because the T-800 doesn't know what Sarah looks like.
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Exact movie quote.


--->'''Det. Vukovich:''' See this scar? There was this guy once...

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--->'''Det. Vukovich:''' See this scar? There was this guy once...once, you see this scar...?

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--->'''Kyle Reese:''' "''There was a nuclear war. A few years from now, all this, this whole place, everything, it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there. Nobody even knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah...Defense network computers. New, powerful, hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination...Most of us were rounded up, put into camps for orderly disposal...Some of us were kept alive, to work, loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day - We were ''that close'' to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us '''back from the brink'''. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah - your unborn son.''"

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--->'''Kyle Reese:''' "''There There was a nuclear war. A few years from now, all this, this whole place, everything, it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there. Nobody even knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah...Defense network computers. New, powerful, hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination... Most of us were rounded up, put into camps for orderly disposal...disposal... Some of us were kept alive, to work, loading bodies. The disposal units ran night and day - -- We were ''that close'' to going out forever. But there was one man who taught us to fight, to storm the wire of the camps, to smash those metal motherfuckers into junk. He turned it around. He brought us '''back from the brink'''. His name is Connor. John Connor. Your son, Sarah - -- your unborn son.''"



'''Det. Vukovich:''' He's probably on PCP. Broke every bone in his hand and won't feel it for hours. There was this guy once, you see this scar...?\\[''[Lt. Traxler shoves the armor into Det. Vukovich's chest]''\\

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'''Det. Vukovich:''' He's probably on PCP. Broke every bone in his hand and won't feel it for hours. There was this guy once, you see this scar...?\\[''[Lt.?\\
''[Lt.
Traxler shoves the armor into Det. Vukovich's chest]''\\



-->'''Kyle:''' Not a robot. A cyborg. Cybernetic organism.

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-->'''Kyle:''' -->'''Reese:''' Not a robot. A cyborg. Cybernetic organism.



* LoveBeforeFirstSight: Reese claims to have fallen for a photograph of Sarah. [[spoiler:The photo was in fact taken of Sarah while she was thinking of what to tell John about his father...Reese.]]

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* LoveBeforeFirstSight: Reese claims to have fallen for a photograph of Sarah. [[spoiler:The photo was in fact taken of Sarah while she was thinking of what to tell John about his father... Reese.]]



---> "See this scar? There was this guy once..."

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---> "See --->'''Det. Vukovich:''' See this scar? There was this guy once..."



-->Kyle: You still don't get it, do you? He'll find her! That's what he does! THAT'S ''ALL'' HE DOES! You can't stop him! He'll wade through you, reach down her throat, and pull her fuckin' heart out!

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-->Kyle: -->'''Reese:''' You still don't get it, do you? He'll find her! That's what he does! THAT'S ''ALL'' HE DOES! You can't stop him! He'll wade through you, reach down her throat, and pull her fuckin' heart out!



--> '''To Sarah:''' Listen and understand. That Terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop, ''ever'', until you are dead.
--> '''To the police:''' Shut up! You still don't get it, do you? He'll find her. ''That's what he does! '''That's all he does!''''' You can't stop him! He'll reach down her throat and pull her fucking heart out!
* TheQuincyPunk: The movie opens with three stereotypical punks smashing up the Griffith Park Observatory...[[UnderestimatingBadassery and then they try to attack the T-800]].

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--> '''To Sarah:''' -->'''Reese:''' ''[to Sarah]'' Listen and understand. That Terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop, ''ever'', until you are dead.
--> '''To
dead.\\\
'''Reese:''' ''[to
the police:''' police]'' Shut up! You still don't get it, do you? He'll find her. ''That's what he does! '''That's all he does!''''' You can't stop him! He'll reach down her throat and pull her fucking heart out!
* TheQuincyPunk: The movie opens with three stereotypical punks smashing up the Griffith Park Observatory... [[UnderestimatingBadassery and then they try to attack the T-800]].



'''Terminator:''' Wrong. '''*BOOM*'''

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'''Terminator:''' Wrong. '''*BOOM*''''''BOOM'''
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--->'''Sarah:''' ''(waking up)'' I was dreaming about dogs.\\
'''Reese:'''' We use them to spot Terminators.\\

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--->'''Sarah:''' ''(waking up)'' ''[waking up]'' I was dreaming about dogs.\\
'''Reese:'''' '''Reese:''' We use them to spot Terminators.\\
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On a second thought, crosswicking this one is also nice

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* YouDoNotWantToKnow:
** Sarah Connor asks who the father of the future John Connor will be, "so I won't tell him to get lost when I meet him." All Kyle Reese knows is that [[{{Foreshadowing}} he died before the war]], whereupon [[TooMuchInformation Sarah decides she doesn't want to know any further details]].
** Sarah and Kyle stop at a motel, and Kyle pulls out a fistful of cash and [[RaisedByWolves asks if it's enough to pay for a room]]. Sarah hastily assures him it's enough, adding, "I don't wanna ask where you got it."

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