MovieChat Forums > The Terminator (1984) Discussion > OK, why did the Terminator shoot the gun...

OK, why did the Terminator shoot the gun shop owner?


Arnie already had the guns and ammo and it wasn't like the owner could stop him from walking out, not even with a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.

So, what gives? Why did Arnie shoot the gun shop owner?

Shall we play a game?

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The gun-shop owner may have tried to put up a fight (probably has a gun behind the counter), and of course, calling the cops, which would slow down the Terminator. It's much more efficient to kill the owner and make off with the weapons. by the time the police arrive, he's long gone.

It doesn't automatically kill anyone who gets in his way, like the bouncer at Tech Noir, who he just disables.

"He's dusted, busted and disgusted, but he's ok"

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It doesn't make sense to shoot him with such a loud weapon. Arnie could have easily reached over and broke his neck.

Shall we play a game?

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Your grabbing at straws now. Shooting the clerk is the quickest way to get rid of him. The terminator is really powerful and isn't interested in stealth kills. This is the same machine that took out a police station, no need to worry about being loud with a stor3e clerk.

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Arnie should have crushed the guy's throat. No noise that way.

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[deleted]

The gun shop owner would not have had a chance in hell against the T-800.
As far as the cops go, the T-800 didn't seem to care about keeping a low profile.

Is that even possible?
I never ask that question till after I've done it

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Pawn Shop Clerk: There's a 15-day wait on the hand guns but the rifles you can take right now.

[sees the Terminator load his 12-gage shotgun]

Pawn Shop Clerk:
You can't do that.

The Terminator: [shoots the clerk] Wrong!

What, you thought I was being serious? 

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Damn the 15 day wait! I want the guns now!

I feel a great sadness, in my bosom.

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I'm surprised the gun shop owner didn't suspect something was up when a guy in scruffy clothing comes in to buy an assault rifle, an Uzi, a shotgun and a revolver. Who buys that much firepower at one time?

As for killing the owner, it makes sense to prevent him from contacting the authorities. And the Terminator showed earlier that he is willing to terminate with the slightest provocation; he killed the one punk when he could have simply beat him up and stole the other guy's clothes.

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The truth is as long as someone has a permit it’s no one else’s business. The thing is the terminator didn’t have a permit and if he didn’t kill the owner then he would certainly call the cops and then he would be hunted down. This certainly would slow him down and be an obstacle in the way of him completing his mission

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I am not American so could be wrong but what kind of gun shop keeps live rounds on the counter and then hands you the gun to see if you like the feel. Surely the rounds would be out of reach even in usa

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Early eighties? Not unusual.

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Gun stores here in the US still sale live ammo off the selves. I guess it does seerm akward that bullets are open on the shelves but cigars and cigarettes are behind the counter to non americans. I do notice that ost stores have a policy of having only one weapon out at a time.IE if you where purchasing a lot of guns like in the movie each weapon would be boxed right after being inspected by a purchaser. In general i always find it awkward being handed a weapon at a store and just move to purchase the gun without actually trying the trigger. i just bought a glock 19 5th generation and was told at the store the trigger on the 5th generation has a little bit of a weight pull then the 4th and 3rd generations but I haven't taken it to the range to fell the difference. IE I had a gun for over a munth that I still have not taken to the range or even dry fired yet.

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An American gun shop owner! ;-)

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Why did Arnie shoot the gun shop owner?

He didn't. The gun shop owner, like 'Arnie', is an actor. The two were performing a scene together.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmK8-13LTqI
I Excel and Prevail

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He didn't. The gunshop owner like 'Arnie' is an actor. The 2 were performing a scene together.

Hey. Nobody likes a smart ass.

Green Goblin is great! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1L4ZuaVvaw

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"He didn't. The gun shop owner, like 'Arnie', is an actor. The two were performing a scene together."

That's not true. You are changing the question - the original question is, why did The Terminator (character in the STORY we are discussing) shoot the gunshop owner (also a character, since the ACTOR probably doesn't own a gunshop, but it wouldn't change anything even if he did).

We're not discussing the actors here, we're talking about the characters in the story, so yes, IT DID shoot the gunshop....worker? Not sure if he was the owner, now that I think about it.

The _REAL_ question, though, is, why did he bother to say "wrong"? Why waste battery life and energy required to produce vocals, audio and language - why activate the linguistic system JUST before you kill the one you say something to? It's like buying someone a dinner and then shooting them in the head, it makes no sense, it's just wasteful, and NOT something a robot would do.

I mean, the ONLY reason I can think of why someone would do that is to appear tough or because they're irritated and want to CORRECT someone. Why would The TERMINATOR what to CORRECT someone? He's not the CORRECTATOR!

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You would have to analyse the source code in the Terminator's OS to answer this. Possibly something like this:

If (threat = true) and (witnesses = 0) then terminate();

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"If (threat = true) and (witnesses = 0) then terminate();"

What language is that? C++ or something?

The Terminator uses 6510 machine code, so try again.

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6502

The MOS Technology 6510 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by MOS Technology. It is a modified form of the very successful 6502. The 6510 was only widely used in the Commodore 64 (C64) home computer and its variants.

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[deleted]

I always assumed he had no money to pay for those guns.




What's best in life ?

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He's a machine. A terminator. He doesn't rationalize what he's doing, he just follows his programming.

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It.

And its programming says "always utter a word, especially where it serves no purpose and doesn't advance your mission"?

There is NO reason for a robot to say the word "wrong" in that situation! It's completely idiotic writing.

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[deleted]

[deleted]

No - you're stupid.

Terminator still 100% perfect

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[deleted]

"Terminator still 100% perfect"

Your sentence is not only 100% wrong, but it's also redundant and lacks punctuation and proper grammar - you don't even have a VERB in there.

Someone with this kind of lack of linguistic skills can't really be trusted to be intelligent enough to be able to give us an adequate, truthful assesment of ANYTHING, let alone a movie with time travel in it.

In any case, The Terminator (which is what you probably mean by 'Terminator' - you can't even write the NAME of the movie you are talking about, and we're supposed to trust your views, that you also do not explain at all?) is _VERY_ flawed movie, with _AN_ENORMOUS_ amount of nonsensical parts, and almost nothing about the movie, its story, plot, etc. makes any sense.

You can take any random part, and I can tell you why it's unrealistic or nonsensical. How Sarah falls for this introvert loser is unrealistic (although he DID protect her, so it makes -some- sense, I guess), after such a confession, urgh. THAT never happens in real life.

The way The Terminator mimics Sarah's mother SO PERFECTLY that it can hold long conversations with her DAUGHTER of all things, and the daughter never even suspects anything! This is 100% impossible, no matter how well programmed that machine is. The movie has the NERVE to show us a smoking door, which means everything has happened VERY quickly and recently. The machine wouldn't have had time to learn Sarah's mother's mannerisms, intonations, tones of voice, expressions, let alone gather enough information to be able to convincingly talk about topics Sarah might want to discuss, and so on. It knows nothing about Sarah's mom's history, and yet it can talk with Sarah without raising any red flags??!

IMPOSSIBLE in such a short time!

Also, why can it PERFECTLY imitate a cop, Sarah's mom, etc., but when it isn't imitating anyone, it can barely pronounce english words without a heavy Austrian accent?

I mean, we all know the real reason why, but..

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I only mention these bits just to show that you can take ANY random part of this movie, and it doesn't make sense, or is extremely unrealistic or impossible.

One thing I always wondered about, is that The Terminator takes out its eye and drops it, but we don't see an EYEBALL drop, but just some kind of thin layer. What happened to the heavy-looking eyeball?

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