He is indestructible, why bother to buy guns? I wish the movie made the terminator only use hands to kill: twist the neck, crush the skulls, pull the heads off the bodies with the spines attached.
shareMaybe try the decaff.
shareI thought the same when it first came out. Why does he need any of this stuff? We're told he's completely unstoppable, ridiculously powerful, and will never give up. I could understand it if he had to take out many people at the same time. But one person? Obviously, it all looks cool onscreen, but I can't see he'd need it.
shareThat is what made T2 great: T-1000 rarely used guns. I wish they did the same thing for T1. There are reasons why in horror movies the antagonist rarely uses guns: Halloween (knife), Alien (mouth), Friday the 13th (knife), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (chainsaw), Scream (knife), A Nightmare on Elm Street (knives), Jaws (mouth), Psycho (knife).
Using guns to kill is lame, it's painless compared to knife and mouth, that is why no other horror movies use guns.
But futuristic weapons in a sci-fi movie are fun, and for an 80s flick, practically necessary.
Besides, we’d be deprived of the great gun shop scene, where the T-800 requests a “phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range” and the gun dealer incredulously responds “hey, just what you see pal!” That one’s always good for a quick laugh…
T-800 didn't use futuristic weapons to kill Sarah.
shareTrue, but I was just thinking about the phased plasma rifle thing, and I was unclear and what I said doesn’t make sense…not the first time, ha…
Perhaps the T-800’s lack of creative termination methods are due to the evolution of the prototype. As you mentioned above, the T-1000 is more advanced, and the T-X in T3 is even more sophisticated and slick.
In short, I think this story arc works….
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A team of long-range shooting experts in Wyoming set what appears to be the new world record for the longest rifle shot ever completed: 7,774 yards or 4.4 miles.
shareInteresting…and mildly impressive. I do wonder if the Phased Plasma Rifle in the 40 watt range could top that. But still, as I return from fantasyland, four and a half miles…damn. I take it these dudes were military trained or special forces or something like that….
shareIt’s an assembly-line machine with CPU programming that, while it did end up traveling through time, wasn’t designed for the purpose of temporal assassination. It was designed to hunt humans in general in the future war environment. It obviously had no memory banks of data of human history and evolution of technology, evident from the plasma rifle request. It only attempted to arm itself in accordance with it’s most basic programming, which would be overkill in 1984. Didn’t even have any info on Sarah Connor other than name and city.
In future installments, since the T-800 had been reprogrammed by John Connor to be good, they had greater knowledge and sophistication to adapt to the late-20th century timeframe.
Makes sense to me.
Think also of it’s list of acceptable responses as it receives a knock on the door in the motel room. It chooses what it considers the most appropriate response as, “Fuck off, asshole.” But a strategy for non-suspicion in a peaceful environment would surely include a response such as, “No turn-down service required. Do not disturb at this time.” That response, however, would, ironically, be more suspicious and uncharacteristic in 2045 or whenever, post-Judgment Day.
^^this….better than what I said, but similar sentiments. One nit-pick: he did say “ Fuck you, asshole.” But both are appropriate responses when someone jams you up inquiring about a dead cat. Nevertheless, good answer, A….
shareYour point is moot by what we see of the dark future Reese came from. The terminators in the future have guns so the one sent back in time thinks it needs guns. I also have to assume the Terminator would know the resistence sent a human back in time as well who would be educated on it and what its weaknesses are. Hence, why it needs guns to shoot back at the better trained human from the future who would get the human it's after to run away from it. Hence shooting at a running target.
share^^ this
shareYou know that there's benefits to killing from range, right? As well as hitting multiple targets in close succession? Planning for all possibilities... like efficiently taking on a police station to get to your target, or stopping a moving vehicle, etc. etc. etc.
Countless examples where having a ranged weapon has blatant benefits, including those literally demonstrated in the movie.
There ya go.
Question answered.
same reason guns exist at all , makes it more efficient
"twist the neck, crush the skulls, pull the heads off the bodies with the spines attached."
personally I'd rather not see that.