Crackerwax

Right. We’ve had The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machine, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and now Terminator: Salvation. So, what have we learnt about Terminators from all these films?

Well, they’re practically indestructible aren’t they? Well, except in Terminator: Salvation where it seems like they could be taken out with a pea shooter.

The entirely inconsistent nature of damage sustained by Terminators is – ironically – the only consistent thread between all the movies and the TV series!

In The Terminator they get torn in half by grenades yet in Terminator: Salvation they can survive multiple rounds of automatic fire to the head at point blank range and rocket launchers aimed at their chests but at the same time they’re offed alarmingly quickly by two shots to the temple – one assumes this only works if they’re pinned down under a helicopter though?

Let’s take a look at the effects of molten metal shall we?

Ok. In Terminator 2 Arnie melts himself in molten steel. At the end. A quick thumbs up, gurgle, gurgle, melty melt. Yet, yet in Terminator: Salvation we see a Terminator get covered in – what we must assume to be – molten Terminator alloy and there’s not a single bit of damage.

Sure it crusts up like Magic Shell but it isn’t long before it breaks free of its crispy coating and is on the rampage again.

They’re surely not telling us that being covered in molten alloy does no damage to Terminators at all? Logically the alloy most likely has a lower melting point than steel and – given – there wasn’t a big bath of it. It was poured all over the Terminators head though? For fuck’s sake surely there’d be some damage. Surely?

Anyway, moving on from the roll of the dice Terminator coconut shy for a moment let’s move on to the physics involved in moving a Terminator around.

They’re big. Really big. At least 6″ 2′, built like brick shit houses and judging by the momentum they seem to have they must weigh at least 500 kilos if not more.

So riddle me this: how can they sit on motorbikes and ride in jeeps without any noticeable effect on the suspension of said vehicles?

In Terminator 2 a T800 is seen zooming down flood channels on a motorbike and at one point even does some sweet jumps on said bike, but never at any point does the bike crumple under the immense weight of a Terminator with a shotgun!

Similarly in Terminator:Salvation a Terminator is seen getting in to a Jeep with a couple of kids, who’d have a combined weight of around 80 kilos – if they were soaking wet – yet the Jeep neither rocks nor sways as this hulking metal monstrosity clambers in.

How?!

Look I’m as willing as the next person to suspend belief – and c’mon Christian Bale leading the human resistance! – but there’s a line right? Right?