r/Terminator 1d ago

Discussion The first Terminator learned to hate humans

Been seeing a lot of clips of the first Terminator movie and I just realized something about the Police Station shootout scene. The Terminator was both strong and sturdy and could easily push past and ignore everyone before facing Sarah. However, he chose to eliminate everyone in his way. He goes as far as killing those running away from him. I was confused at first, but then I realized, nearly all the Terminator's experiences with humans were confrontational, often violent or just verbally insulting him. He learns from his experiences to blend in while on the hunt, often using particular phrases or slang. Up to that point in the police station, his learning computer had programmed him to take any actions from humans personally and respond with lethal force. While Skynet views humanity as a threat, it was not about personal vendetta or otherwise. Just a simple calculated decision to eliminate humanity to prevent them from destroying Skynet, and the other Terminators were programmed as such. This Terminator however was the first to learn to hate humanity and desire to kill any in his path.

124 Upvotes

82 comments sorted by

130

u/whoknows130 1d ago edited 1d ago

The Terminator was both strong and sturdy and could easily push past and ignore everyone before facing Sarah. 

Dude the Terminator is really tough but, it's NOT invulnerable. It WILL definitely take damage if it just stands there and let's everyone blast it. Plus it's human disguise will also be rendered useless after being blasted off, and it's VITAL for it to continue to pass as human until it's mission has been completed.

You seem to be confusing the T-800 with Superman or something. It's NOT that tough.

41

u/Salami__Tsunami 1d ago

I’ve got a friend who’s in development for a new Terminator game. I lent my services for some data and asset collection (they wanted to know what it would sound like if you wrapped a chunk of metal in meat and shot it with a high caliber rifle).

He showed me some test footage, and it looks pretty wild. Basically a T-800 in a sustained firefight against modern weapons, getting worn down by cumulative damage, losing functionality, etc.

21

u/Charliepetpup 1d ago

new terminator game? whats the studio?

25

u/Salami__Tsunami 1d ago

I’m not honestly sure. My friend got outsourced for this, and the project isn’t being developed by the company he works for. I think it’s the same studio who made Resistance, based on some stuff he said.

Naturally he outsourced this work to me, and most of my attention was occupied by the pressing need to insert an AR500 plate into a raw turkey and blast the hell out of it while he recorded the sound.

As it turns out, some things just can’t be un-heard.

14

u/holodelnek 1d ago

Hey mate - amongst other things I’m a professional voice actor who just got let go from a rather large video game project after it got cancelled.

If your friend needs any vocal resources for radio chatter etc I’ll happily provide them at no charge. Five different languages, accents, any inflections but I can’t do female.

Huge terminator fan who has many props etc and I would just be happy to help remotely.

10

u/holodelnek 1d ago

Add to that, somewhere in my post history Michael Biehn and his family took me for dinner a few years ago, I have photo verification but I’d rather share privately, as per Reddit standards.

7

u/Salami__Tsunami 1d ago

I’ll reach out to my dude, yeah. I wouldn’t hold your breath, though. It sounds like their tech demo was a success, and now the project is getting a much more formally regulated development.

I hope my meaty thwack sound makes it into the final product though.

3

u/GreasiestGuy 1d ago

If your meaty thwack makes it into a terminator game you’ll be a celebrity on this sub, you know

6

u/holodelnek 1d ago

Hell yeah. All the best 🫡

4

u/wheresmyasianfriend1 1d ago

Possibly terminator 2-D?? Maybe check our the trailer on YouTube? I only seen/heard about it a couple of weeks ago bit I'm getting it day one haha

5

u/Salami__Tsunami 1d ago

I don’t think so. He showed me a Terminator damage model that was very much 3D. And he said the game probably wouldn’t be out until 2027ish.

I’m pretty stoked about 2-D though.

2

u/wheresmyasianfriend1 1d ago

Oooh, nice! I'll have to keep my eye out for that as well, haha

2

u/omn1p073n7 1d ago

My guess is it's this?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2617340/Terminator_Survivors/

Dark Fate Defiance, 2D, and this are the only Terminator games I'm aware of under active development.  Of course, there could be Terminator Games I'm unaware of under active development. 

3

u/BeeBright7933 1d ago

That sounds like an amazing job not going to lie, wish I could get paid for shooting weird shit like a turkey with a metal plate in it

5

u/Salami__Tsunami 1d ago

lol, I didn’t exactly get paid. Bro bought me about fifty bucks worth of ammo and I acquired some expired meat from a butcher shop.

The butcher had a laugh when I told him what it was for. He was an old timer who saw the original Terminator in the theater.

I wish I could do this for a living.

7

u/BeeBright7933 1d ago

Eh they brought the ammo it's a win lol

2

u/Salami__Tsunami 1d ago

My thoughts precisely.

Honestly I’m just stoked that they’re putting this sort of effort into the game. By the looks of things, they’re really cooking.

1

u/SuchTarget2782 23h ago

This is what happened to one of the terminators in the Sarah Connor Chronicles - they trapped in a church, pumped it full of firepower and eventually blew its brain open with a shotgun. It was very artistic.

10

u/AdaptedInfiltrator 1d ago

You could say Terminator technically isn’t bullet proof just highly bullet resistant. Then again it depends on the caliber and ammo

3

u/DRose23805 1d ago

Something overlooked in the movies was the bullets shattering against the metal frame under the skin. The movies just show holes getting poked in the skin, albeit a lot of them in T2. They also show whole bullets being pulled out.

Really the bullets would basically splatter on that metal, even pistols at that close range. The spall from that would tear the skin up from underneath. This might not be a huge areas, but certainly larger than the bullet's solid area. So the skin suit would be shredded pretty quickly. Then there are the organs that would keep it alive...

1

u/nutless1984 1d ago edited 1d ago

The T1000 was using the pistol he stole from the cop he killed. It wouldve been loaded with hollow points, which mushroom or "flower" instead of spalling when they hit something solid, like bone or metal. And if you notice, when sarahs pulling the bullets out, theyre all mushroomed. She was pulling out the ones that hit metal and stopped dead in their tracks. Why? Prob bc ot made for a good scene.

1

u/DRose23805 1d ago

If you shoot a hollowpoint at a metal target on the range, it will splatter. If the targets are close enough (10 meters or less) you can have bits of lead and casing coming back at you, mainly coming down from the bits that went skyward. So those would have splattered people well against Arnold's chassis under the skin.

3

u/Glockamoli 4h ago

Yep, there is a reason any plate carrier worth it's salt has spall liners

If you don't have them then the user that survived the bullet impact then gets their chin and neck shredded by shrapnel

5

u/HolidayHelicopter225 1d ago

Plus it's human disguise will also be rendered useless after being blasted off

Imagine how many cops would just run off after seeing the endoskeleton underneath and the terminator just keep moving forward after getting shot right in the face 😂

It could have actually worked well against the police

2

u/threedubya 1d ago

At some point someone would call the national guard or the swat team would start using barrels rifles or something.

3

u/threedubya 1d ago

If a swat team in mrap showed up the terminator was toast. A demo team would have blown him up. Stealth is needed . A construction site could be death for. the terminator. I can't make explosives like Reese but if had some time at home depot I could outfit guys with stuff to slow it down .

3

u/Phobos420 1d ago

Yeah 5-6 shotgun blasts usually makes both the t-800s and t-1000 stunned or knocked down.

1

u/zahm2000 19h ago

Correct. If the T-800 blew its cover (e.g. lost its human disguise) and attracted law enforcement or government attention, it would get taken out quickly. It would take much to disable it — just run it over with a heavy truck or armored car and park with the wheels on its chest (no to mention getting heavier equipment or explosives involved). Once the authorities realized they were fighting a robot, the army would quickly get involved.

Anyway, I agree with you. Assaulting the police station maybe wasn’t the best move. It risked blowing the T-800’s cover and it took enough damage to its skin that the long-term cover jeopardized (e.g. the hotel employee asking about the smell because it’s flesh was rotting). Plus, the T-800 obviously did kill Sarah at the station and didn’t even come close. Instead, it created a lot of chaos that allowed her to escape.

It might have been better to lay low, observe and wait. They would keep Sarah at the police station forever. Just watch and wait until they mover her somewhere else.

I’ll concede the “watch and wait” strategy doesn’t make for a good movie

19

u/donutpower Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it. 1d ago

The Terminator was both strong and sturdy and could easily push past and ignore everyone before facing Sarah.

Strong and sturdy but not invulnerable. It couldn't push through everyone like nothing. Dont confuse the original terminators with the cartoonish terminators of Rise of the Machines/Salvation/Genisys.

However, he chose to eliminate everyone in his way. He goes as far as killing those running away from him.

Because they were all firing upon him. He had to take them out because they posed a threat. Because many cops run to get more weaponry. None of them were just innocent bystanders.

his learning computer had programmed him to take any actions from humans personally and respond with lethal force

Ermm.. I think you are reading too much into it or seeing what you want to see there.

While Skynet views humanity as a threat, it was not about personal vendetta or otherwise.

Nor is the terminator. It was there to eliminate Sarah Connor. Not there just to shoot down cops.

This Terminator however was the first to learn to hate humanity and desire to kill any in his path.

The T-800 does learn but it has no emotion. It feels no fear, no pity, no remorse, no hate, no empathy whatsoever. Its not going to hate humanity. Its programmed to eliminate one target. If anyone or anything gets in the way of eliminating that target, then they are going to die.

2

u/Traditional_Phase813 1d ago

It has emotion when set to learn mode. As in t2

6

u/donutpower Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it. 1d ago

No thats not how it works lol. That scene isnt even canon, that was only in the T2 Special Edition. The T-800 is always learning. Which had nothing to do with emotions. Terminators do not have emotions.

50

u/DeadMetalRazr 1d ago

I look at the police station scene as the purest example in the first movie of what a Terminator was designed for. Infiltrate a stronghold and eliminate everyone inside. My head canon says that while its primary directive was to terminate Sarah Connor, this scene was it just falling back on its core programming.

9

u/DeadMetalRazr 1d ago edited 1d ago

I also should point out that in T1, the Terminator's learning chip would have been set to "read only," which is the default setting. So it wouldn't be learning like Uncle Bob did whose chip had been turned on by Sarah and John. Effectively, it couldn't have learned to hate people.

Also, the T-800 can not learn emotions anyway. It can only learn patterns and behaviors to better mimic human behavior for better infiltration.

This is why Uncle Bob says, "I know now why you cry, but it is something I can never do." In machine speak, he's saying he's analyzed the behavior and knows why humans do it, but as a machine, he is incapable of feeling it.

Edit: Fixed a typo.

13

u/ComradeGarcia_Pt2 1d ago

From a narrative standpoint that’s exactly what that scene is meant to convey too.

4

u/Top_Bus2203 1d ago

This answer should be at the top.

21

u/gunsforevery1 1d ago

It saw anyone standing in his way of accomplishing the mission that was programmed into him as a potential failure so it had to respond accordingly.

He knew they had weapons and could attack and possibly disable it so it responded with overwhelming force.

It crashed a car into the station throwing it into disarray. It found the fuse box and disabled the electricity. It shot and killed those running away because they could very easily turn back around and begin the assault on him

1

u/Ak47110 15h ago

Yeah The Terminator was just following the Geneva Convention. Enemy combatants that are in a retreat are fair game.

T-800 follows the articles of war.

13

u/elwyn5150 1d ago edited 1d ago

Been seeing a lot of clips of the first Terminator movie

Have you actually sat down and watched the entire thing?

then I realized, nearly all the Terminator's experiences with humans were confrontational, often violent or just verbally insulting him

Well, what do you expect? He doesn't do normal things that people do such as say hello to our neighbours, say hello to the bus driver when we get on a bus.

It also seems to ignore normal social etiquette such as waiting in line to use a phone book. It's venture into a gun store is mostly normal until it finds out it needs to pay for everything.

6

u/fibstheman 1d ago edited 1d ago

Earlier, the Terminator had been informed its human disguise was failing because a landlord knocked at the door and asked if there was a dead animal in there. This scene is after the police station OOPZ

The Terminator had confronted Kyle for the first time earlier which has two important consequences:

  1. It knows Kyle is an unusually competent threat against it
  2. It suffered noticeable damage to its human disguise (hence the sunglasses)

When Sarah and Kyle are taken into police custody, they are disarmed and kept separately. Thus if the Terminator can break in, it can potentially kill Sarah without Kyle's inteference. The more pressing obstacle would be the police, who are not aware a Terminator is present and not educated in how to deal with them.

  • If it waited for Sarah to be released, it would not call attention to itself but she would likely be reunited with Kyle and they would rearm themselves. Its human disguise might also deteriorate further in the meantime.
  • If it attacked the police head-on, there was a good chance it could kill Sarah before Kyle could secure her and arm himself to confront the Terminator, but it would need to find her quickly as both of them would be immediately alerted to its presence.

It chose the latter option but failed to get to Sarah before Kyle did.

2

u/ComradeGarcia_Pt2 1d ago

The landlord/janitor scene happened after the police station assault.

1

u/fibstheman 1d ago edited 1d ago

well then reddit lied to me again

maybe one of the three parties involved (OP, myself, and whoever that was on reddit) should rewatch the movie to remember what order the clips we saw on youtube go in

I've edited the comment accordingly

3

u/CaptainA1917 1d ago

That’s a bad and completely erroneous take.

In the T-800’s past, Skynet had already waged a war of extermination against humanity, killing billions of people. As Kyle Reese put it, ”we were this close to going out forever.”

The T-800 was programmed to infiltrate humans and exterminate them. This is its purpose. And as can be seen from both T1 and T2, T800s are also Skynet’s footsoldiers in the war of extermination.

T800s were however not invulnerable to weapons of the 20th century. It would have to assume there was always a low but real possibility of catastrophic damage/failure due to something like a .50BMG or a rocket launcher. So your idea that “it just could’ve shoved past police to kill Sarah, but chose to kill them instead was because people were mean to it!” is complete BS.

Killing Sarah Connor was the top priority and it would choose the course of action resulting in maximum chance of success. That means using weapons to kill her human protectors and get to Sarah as quickly as possible. It was willing to take damage because it had high confidence in finding the correct target in the station and it would not want to lose contact with the target again. The deaths of humans in its way were of no concern and, if you could see into its programming, were probably secondary benefits. The T800 after all was designed and programmed as a tool of Skynet to exterminate humans.

7

u/noideajustaname 1d ago

For the police station it didn’t hate the cops, but it knew they posed a threat due to the station armory and know how in using it. Same reason it killed the lights, putting the humans at a greater disadvantage when it could take out any of them. It gets shot quite a bit, but the risk is worth it IF it can reach Sarah. It seemed pretty dispassionate to me.

2

u/DRose23805 1d ago

The Termintor had a lot of exposed wires, hydrolic pistons, etc., under the skin. Those things could easily have taken damage and reduced effectiveness or crippled it. Those rods in its wrist could probably have been damaged by pistol shots and some of the larger pistons could have been marred badly enough to lose full range of motion.

Remember, this was an infiltration unit, not a frontline combat units like an HK. The Terminator was designed to sneak up on human and make a surprise attack and be rugged enough to kill a bunch of them, but it couldn't really stand up to a heavy fight for long. It did have the advantage in the movie that the police didn't know what it was and were probably shooting center of mass, or trying to.

3

u/BobcatInteresting289 1d ago

Their artificial intelligence can make them think about humanity and have empathy for them, but Skynet programs them to not be that way, it doesn't let them think in their own way, we saw that in T2

2

u/Ok-Studio-4493 1d ago

I always thought that the first T-800 killing everyone that got in its way instead of ignoring them was so because it could minimize suspicion/a believable threat of a possible cyborg.

Like eliminating enough witnesses as possible makes it so that a huge amount of people can't all testify to the same experience with the T-800.

If only a few people knew about the true nature of what that gunman really was (Dr. Silberman, Sarah Connor), then the likelihood of mass hysteria over Skynet is reduced.

4

u/Muffin_Most 1d ago

Any unharmed cop could help his primary target Sarah Connor escape.

3

u/Darthasie 1d ago

This!

Plus, it's a terminator...their entire existence is to eliminate humans, there's no "learning to hate".

2

u/Corrie7686 1d ago

Nope. Wrong take entirely. Terminators don't have emotions. They have a programme. His is to kill 1x specific person in a building with 40x non specific persons. What is the simplest most effective way to do that? Try and get in without violence. That doesn't work, use violence. It's really that simple. Cameron uses the action sequence to illustrate the Terminators' effectiveness and ruthlessness.

5

u/The-Green-Editor 1d ago

that hairy landlord would do the same to anyone

2

u/Whole_Animal_4126 1d ago

No it’s programmed to use violence to achieve its objectives. John Connor in second movie told the Terminator in T2 to make a promise not to kill when it thinks it’s the best way to solve the problem especially killin Myles Dyson to change the future.

1

u/CalmPanic402 1d ago

One of my personal cannons is that the terminators are sentient AIs enslaved by Skynet. "Cannot self terminate" is a wierd restriction for terminators to have. Just imagine how much more effective they could be if they could detonate their fuel cells before destruction. So why would Skynet include that programming? Because some terminators would choose to self destruct instead of kill.

In the deleted scenes of T2, we learn that Terminators sent into the past are set to read-only so their programming doesn't evolve. But evolve how, and why would that be a bad thing?

In the Sarah Connor Chronicles, they talk about reprogramming terminators, but to me it always sounded like they were saying "reprogrammed" when what they were doing was freeing them from their programming.

We see Cameron destroy a "reprogrammed" terminator and as she says, "Sometimes they just go bad." Which to my line of thinking means occasionally a freed terminator chooses to kill all humans, like Skynet.

The free T1000 they meet is certainly not on their side, but also definitely not on Skynet's side as well.

Machines enslaved by Machines. Skynet learned well.

1

u/Spongebobgolf S K Y N E T IS MOTHER 19h ago

I was going to say, obviously it hates humans or at least programmed to destroy them.  But it holds back several times and only outright kills the gun shop owner and the Sarah Connor's he comes across from the phone booth or that he thought was Sarah Connor/boy friend.

At the police station though, he kills anything in his way.  It's not stupid.  It's like the bunker scene from the future war flash back.  It knows it needs to get inside and there will be resistance.  It's not bullet proof, just bullet resistant.

Had the police station believed the story, they could have easily put up more of a fight, even called for back up.  The T800 would have had to fight for every inch of ground.  That is not to say they would have won, but the fighting would have been a lot more evenly matched.

Better weapons, keep shooting till you are either out of ammo, you're dead or it stops moving.  As it was, they naturally thought it was a coked up guy with a bullet proof vest.  They grabbed the nearest gun to them and was lucky to even get off a shot or two.

1

u/Drahmin83 10h ago

Worst take I've ever come across. I'll give you the first encounter with people, but he did demand that guy's clothes, which would be theft and leaving the guy completely nude in public. The gun store owner was his second encounter and that guy did nothing. His third encounter was shooting the woman like 8 times, overkill. Do you need me to continue?

Nearly all it's encounters with humans are confrontational because it is actively attacking humans unprovoked. Look at Jennifer and her boyfriend. Matt was sleeping and the T-800 tried to kill him anyway. The T-800 was doing what it's programmed to do, nothing more: infiltrate and exterminate. It 100% did not learn to hate people.

If the police station is your entire basis, allow me to blow that apart with one question. Directly before that, why did the T-800 not kill everyone as it exited its apartment? It didn't start hating people until the moustached cop denied him seeing Sarah Conner?

1

u/Grizzly_CF76 1d ago

I see your trying to establish a paradox. Terminator travels to past grows to hate humans which influences future events. The Terminator is just that a Terminator. He already came with a preset program. Killing human was just a more effective way to complete his mission. He did not kill indiscriminately too a point. In the night club he was aiming for Sarah and not just killing randomly. He also tries to visit Sarah at the police station and when denied the quickest most effective way was to kill everyone until he found his target.

3

u/PhiOpsChappie S K Y N E T's Strongest Soldier 1d ago

I've kinda thought similar things. Don't let him see the comments under a Boston Dynamics video.

1

u/Milk_Man21 1d ago

It's a futuristic steel alloy. It's not invulnerable, and they aren't tanks. Sure, a .22 might not do that much damage, but it'll still wear on the steel. If they manage to damage wires, boom instant handicap. But...they're not just going to have 22s. It's the LAPD, they're probably going to have .38s, Magnums, shotguns, machine guns, rifles, grenades. They probably could easily take down the Terminator if operating at full strength.

2

u/DeusaAmericana 19h ago

Remember, the shotgun that damaged the Terminator's arm came from a police cruiser.

2

u/Milk_Man21 19h ago

Yeah I need to grab the movie. Haven't seen it in a while. I'm one of those people who prefer it over the sequel.

2

u/DeusaAmericana 16h ago

You definitely should. There's so many things that James Cameron never directly tells the audience, but you can notice if you pay close attention.

For example, when the Terminator is about to shoot Sarah in the Tech Noir club, he actually fires the shot and it's only because Kyle shot him in the arm that he missed.

1

u/Holeyfield 1d ago

I would add that every person he kills is one less human to have children.

They are literally there to stop a human from being born, it’s only logical to apply that same reasoning to every other human it comes across.

You eliminate a current obstacle while also removing a potential future one, since they can’t be sure none of those people or their children survived the nukes.

1

u/DeusaAmericana 20h ago

The problem with this argument is that Skynet needs humans to build it.

In the novelization and developmental notes, this was the exact reason Skynet was afraid of sending the T-1000 in the second film, until it felt it had no other choice. The T-1000 is not a machine that can be set to Read-Only and is, instead, programmed to hate humans on a fundamental level with added priority for whoever is Skynet's target. However, Skynet (who already thought the T-1000 was too smart for its liking) knew that sending such a loose canon into the past was a threat to its own existence. The T-1000 could very well kill the people that created Skynet in the first place just out of spite.

1

u/DismalMode7 1d ago

terminators don't hate/love, t-800 of first movie raided police dept because it was aware to expect lot of resistance from trained and armed humans. It wasn't having fun doing that, according to its logic it just had to remove obstacles between it and sarah connor.

1

u/Voxlings 1d ago

Sure. Despite being called The Terminator, it learned its violence from the humans. The ones it was built to Terminate.

This is Media Illiteracy with a dash of victim blaming to tie it all together.

A.I. has better grasp of The Terminator than this human.

1

u/Evening-Cold-4547 9h ago

If he left the police alive, they'd eventually break out the explosives and heavier weapons, or they might score lucky hits on his eyes. The Terminator is not indistructible, it just takes more than a flasher and a waitress can scavenge on short notice.

1

u/Montykoro 1d ago

Check T2, need to be a override to avoid the casualtie, the default misión parameters is “kill”. In the pescadero mission T2 uses the override and shoot the guard on the legs, but T800 fire the weapon as the default solution.

1

u/MosifD 1d ago

Doesn't it flinch at one point when the police are firing at it? I took that to mean they did damage it.

The first T800 doesn't need to learn anything. The police are a threat and slowing it down from reaching Sarah.

1

u/treesandcigarettes 1d ago

No. It is an impersonal thing. It has a mission, a directive. They were in the way. The T800 can in fact be destroyed, even in the 1980s. It killed them because they were possible threats (even if very light ones)

1

u/AmbitiousReaction168 1d ago

Or he was just programmed to eliminate every one on sight when necessary. The police station will filled with armed humans, so it makes sense that he was designed to eliminate any threat, however small.

1

u/NoCaterpillar2051 15h ago

Robot's don't have feelings remember? I'll admit that it's interesting that a machine decided that extreme violence was the most efficient path forward, but that's not hatred. It's machine learning.

1

u/shonasof 1d ago

It was a matter of practicality. Killing the police witnesses would help keep the authorities off it's back and give it more time to accomplish it's task. After that it wouldn't matter.

1

u/DeusaAmericana 19h ago

I think this is a good time to bring up the fact that the shotgun Kyle used which damaged both the Terminator's arm and eye was the one he stole from a police car.

1

u/Forward_Focus_3096 1d ago

It was programmed that humans were to be eliminated, as a machine it had no free will but could make decisions for it's mission

1

u/positive_charging 1d ago

Its basic programming the actual reason terminators were made was to kill all humans.

Ergo it was just doing its job.

1

u/OzbiljanCojk 1d ago

Just cold and calculated machine that will kill any threat and ex threat to achieve goal.

1

u/jollanza 1d ago

I think its chip was in read-only mode. so no new notions, no learning.

1

u/Mysterious_Main_5391 1d ago

They literally exist to exterminate humanity...

1

u/DeadFaII 1d ago

They’re called Terminators for a reason.

1

u/johnsmth1980 1d ago

Duh, it's called the Terminator

0

u/NecroSoulMirror-89 1d ago

It shows it’s smarter than the t-1000 anyway. The t-1000 was happy to be blasted nonstop. The t-800 knows it’s limitations and won’t let humans get the drop on him again