Movie Trivia # 020: Picking on the Biggies - Terminator II: Judgment Day

This part of the book, whenever it comes up, is a long and very detailed look at some of the mistakes of the most popular and/or biggest movies of the time this book was published. In other words, this is going to be a long post.

Early on, a couple of flubs pop up. When Arnie is heading towards the bar, he passes a car parked outside. His cranial read-out says that the car he is scanning is a Plymouth Sedan. But those in the know say that it's a Ford.

Then he goes into the bar, where a denizen burns a hole in his chest with a cigar. But as the cigar is pulled away, the burn disappears for a brief moment before returning in the next shot.

A couple of errors even dog Linda Hamilton. As she runs down a hospital hallway barefoot, you hear the pitter-patter of feet wearing shoes. A little glitch from the Foley stage.

Later, she tells the doctors that there are 215 bones in the human body. He should have corrected her--there are only 206. Another thing about this sequence bothered many viewers--if she's in a high-security hospital, how could she get out with something as simple as a paper clip?

The film is plagued with examples of glass breaking out then popping right back in. One of the most obvious happens when Robert Patrick, as the "bad" Terminator, drives the heaving wrecker over the bridge into the Los Angeles River--yup, that's what it really is; that's the best we can do for a river out there.

Notice that as the truck hits the pavement, both windshields pop out. But then the very next shot, as the chase continues, they're back in place, albeit cracked. The glass broken out of the guard shack at the hospital by Arnie also returns in a later shot, as does a rear window in the police van as they're being chased by a helicopter. And while we're at it, in a close-up you can see a hole in the helicopter's windshield. In a later long shot, the hole's gone.

When Scwarzenegger, as the "good" Terminator, and young Edward Furlong are in the parking lot and Furlong tells him to put the gun down, he does so on his right side. But when Furlong picks the gun up, it has moved closer to the other side.

When Robert Patrick transforms into Furlong's foster mother, he kills the foster father when his left arm that's been turned into a blade. But when he falls into the molten metal and "rewinds" through his various transformations, Patrick's right arm is the blade.

Speaking of the molten metal sequence, an electrician noted that when she lowers Arnold into the soup, Linda Hamilton pushes the button on the control panel that would normally raise him up rather than lower him. Was this a last-ditch rescue attempt?

Finally, a closer look at Robert Patrick chasing the police van in the helicopter.

A couple of times when he's using both hands to reload his gun, you see an extra hand sneak out to fly the helicopter. We know he could transform himself, but an extra hand? It's surely the real-life helicopter pilot.

This and other Movie Trivia posts brought to you by Roman Soldiers Don't Wear Watches by Bill Givens.