Kyle G.

Question: How did the police officers questioning Sarah know about the foster parents' murder so quickly? First answer is the deleted scene of T-1000 searching John's room (extends time passed). But that won't explain how the police discovered the murder and then told the two officers so fast. In the special edition cut, the police talk to Sarah in between T-800 explaining the T-1000 and when John learns the T-800 does what John says. Not a lot of time, because those two guys the T-800 beats up also have to hang around (they pull up in a car before T-800 & John make the phone call). All I could think of was the T-1000 could have reported it. This might make the police look for John and the T-800, making the T-1000's job easier. He also might have anticipated the police talking to Sarah, he just didn't arrive in time to interview her. However, I'm not sure if the machine is that creative. Anyone else want to take a crack at this?

Answer: The best explanation is that the time passed between scenes isn't minute by minute. In the scene between the detectives and Sarah the detective says "Look I've just sat here and told you that you son is missing..", which would suggest that the scene was taking place a little while after John and T-800 made the phone call. Being that the scenes don't make mention of the time between scenes it could have been any length of time after the phone call that they interviewed Sarah. As for how the police found out, neighbours could have heard the commotion from the dog and reported it to the police and upon inspection of the property found the dead parents. This could have happened pretty quickly if a patrol car was in the area.

Lummie

Answer: Since John is in the foster system and is a known troublemaker with an arrest record, we could assume that he and the foster parents have pretty regular contact with a social worker or probation officer, or someone of that nature. Could be that the social worker stopped by for a check after not hearing from anyone and found the dead foster parents.

Kyle G.

Question: At the end of the movie where they lower The Terminator to its death, how come it has stopped obeying John's orders? John orders it not to go, yet it only replies that it now knows why humans cry. It also actually gave John an order, telling him to run earlier in the movie. How can it be able to do these things if it's programmed to listen to John's command?

marcusforsberg

Chosen answer: There are a couple of possibilities. One, he has "a neural net processor, a learning computer" He become able to resist that programming (a feature he demonstrates again in T3 when he shuts down rather than kill John). Also, his overriding mission is to protect John's past self. Telling John to run while he delays the T1000 and destroying himself to avert Judgment Day both fall under this.

Grumpy Scot

Another possibility: Doing whatever John says is one of his mission parameters. Once the T-100 was destroyed, the mission was complete so all mission parameters would be moot.

Kyle G.

Question: Arnold said that when the T-1000 took the form of someone he would likely terminate the person being copied. Why didn't the T-1000 kill Sarah? He had been in physical contact and could mimic her voice. There was no reason to get her to call John at the end, he could have killed her immediately.

Answer: In addition, another deleted scene shows that the T-1000 was damaged by being frozen and thawed and was having difficulty maintaining form. He wanted to be sure he wouldn't mess it up.

LorgSkyegon

What's especially odd about the scene is that both examples we gave to help answer this question were actually deleted from the original release. When I first saw this movie in the theater when it was released I had the exact same question, it wasn't until I saw the Special Edition with the deleted scenes reinserted that it made sense.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: It comes down to the difficulty in impersonating someone John actually knows. The T-1000 had failed impersonating someone close to John when he got the name of the dog incorrect. A deleted scene (re-incorporated into the film in the Director's Cut) shows him checking the dog's tag afterwards, so he is aware exactly how he was outsmarted. Keeping Sarah alive is a way to avoid this sort of mistake. She is more useful to him at this point alive. He is not expecting her to endure his torture and he certainly isn't expecting her to be able to fight him afterwards.

BaconIsMyBFF

Answer: While the T-1000 can copy her appearance and her voice, he knows he can't quite copy the emotion and desperation conveyed in her real voice, at least not enough to be convincing to John. Of course, he tries anyway and almost succeeds until the real Sarah shows up.

Kyle G.

Question: The 3 of them escape the T-1000 after the mental hospital and end up in the desert. Arnold explains the history of Skynet to Sarah and one line of dialogue that has confused me for so many years is me is that he says Skynet became self aware at 2:14am Eastern time. That would be 11:14pm in Los Angeles. Why does the film imply the bombs were dropped during the late morning or early afternoon?

Richie

Answer: Skynet became self-aware at that time, but didn't launch the attack until the humans got scared and tried to pull the plug on Skynet.

Answer: The only indication of the time of the bombing was Sarah's nightmare, which was based on the story told to her by Kyle Reese. Despite this, even with Skynet becoming self-aware in the late evening / night, it doesn't mean it launched the missiles instantly. It may have chosen to wait before attacking.

Answer: As the T-800 explains, Skynet attacked Russia first, and the Russian counterattack is what hit LA.

Kyle G.

29th Apr 2005

Heat (1995)

Question: During the bank heist, where did the three men's large weapons come from? They could have tucked them in their suits as they did while leaving after the robbery, but the weapons would have been very visible. Where did they come from?

Answer: The CAR-15 type rifles the bank robbers have can be fitted with telescopic stocks. With the stock collapsed and a 11.5 inch barrel (which is what it looked like DeNiro had when he used his rifle to shoot through the windshield of the car he was in) it is relatively easy to conceal the rifle beneath a normal suit jacket. The only thing visible may have been the flash suppressor at the end of the barrel, but most people wouldn't recognize that anyway.

Mobrien316

Answer: They have the rifles slung over their shoulders underneath their jackets. You can see the impression if you look closely.

Kyle G.

Answer: No, that's a mistake. A carbine style rifle with an 11.5" barrel still has too much length, even once the stock is collapsed. See imagine here: https://c5.staticflickr.com/2/1649/25492440284_c3ba0c97cf_k.jpg It's a long, heavy piece of machinery that would easily profile under a sport coat.

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