MovieChat Forums > The Terminator (1984) Discussion > What is it that makes Terminators notice...

What is it that makes Terminators noticeable by dogs?


I do not think anyone has ever asked his or maybe they have and I have just not found it yet.

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[deleted]

Could be, however, I was hoping for a link to James Cameron's response to this (if he ever said anything about it) or within the novel.

Additionally, it was not just the T-800 model. When the T-1000 came to John's foster parent's house; Wolfie was barking as well.

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The dog's name was Max.

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Oh my god! Arvin-G-Borkar is a terminator! Get im!

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Dogs can hear sounds that humans can't hear - sounds that are irritating to dogs, but go unnoticed by us.

When we see through the Terminator's POV everything is red, but there is also a distinctive electronic noise, like a constant clicking. If you look on YouTube the Terminator's POV is shown in a clip of the police station massacre. Also when the Terminator has located the motel.

If you heard that noise constantly, you would find it annoying. Maybe that's what the dogs are reacting to. But I'm only guessing.

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And even liquid metal terminators have this noise? We did not even know if the T-1000 has a camera. Apparently, he sees through touch.

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It was a plot device, to add tension to signal the arrival of the Terminator. Same with the naked arrivals, to avoid Cameron having to explain away their laser guns/futuristic clothes.

The film was made a fast paced down and dirty exploitation thriller (it's essentially Halloween with a robot...) for a limited theatrical run. VHS had not quite launched yet, so i don't think they expected it to be re-watched that often.

It's a really tight solid script, but i also guess that Cameron in 1984 was putting in things for the sake of drama/suspense and not expecting us to all be analysing it in tiny detail all these years later. But incredibly, it does hold up to scrutiny!!!

"What are you, some kind of doomsday machine, boy?"

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*sigh*

I really wish movies would at least have something tied to reality. I mean I wanted to believe it was something obvious and then I could have said to myself "Oh wow! I would have never thought of that!"

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Do you like the movie? If so, then what difference does it really make? Dogs can sense terminators, just like certain animals can sense earthquakes before they happen. How they’re able to sense them is still a matter of speculation amongst scientists, but that doesn’t make it any less “tied to reality”. Also, an answer to the dog situation isn’t necessary for the viewer to possess a thorough understanding of the plot, thus it’s irrelevant. Long story short, enjoy speculating. That’s part of the fun in science fiction. Besides, having answers spoon fed to you is for babies. Grown men drink beer and come to their own conclusions.

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VHS had not quite launched yet, so i don't think they expected it to be re-watched that often.


VHS launched in the U.S. in 1977, and by 1984 it was very mainstream, enough so that even small towns had video rental stores. In 1984 in my small town (population ~4,000 people), there was a dedicated video rental store with a large selection, which had been there since 1980, plus you could rent movies from the grocery store, drug store, and at least two convenience stores. Not only was VHS mainstream in '84, but it had already long since won the format war with Betamax (released in '75).

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"VHS had not quite launched yet, so i don't think they expected it to be re-watched that often."

VHS was huge by 1984. They started at about $350, and for people who couldn't afford one, or didn't want to pay that much for one, they could be rented at any video rental store for $5 a night. Video rental stores were everywhere by 1984; even my small town (population ~4,000) had one by 1982.

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Are you kidding me? We got our first VCR in 1984 and watched Terminator on VHS the next year.

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"And even liquid metal terminators have this noise? We did not even know if the T-1000 has a camera. Apparently, he sees through touch."

How the prototype T-1000 perceives its surroundings was never dwelt upon. But Terminator 2 wasn't as well thought out as The Terminator. The question that really bugs me is: "Why did the T-1000 copy the police officer's uniform but not his actual body?"

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Do you mean the police officer in the beginning or the police officer who he had stabbed through the head coffee time?

If it was the first, it was because somewhere in the movie it was stated that its current form was less energy consuming. Now I have no idea what the T-1000 runs on, as we have not heard of it having a nitrogen fuel cell like the T-800 nor a nuclear reactor like the T-X; however, whatever energy it did have to conserve was probably most efficient in its current T-1000 default form.

Examples of how this was proven: he did not stay as John's foster mom for too long nor the police officer he stabbed through the head. I am trying to recall other forms he had taken in the movie, however, that is all I can come up with right now.

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"If it was the first, it was because somewhere in the movie it was stated that its current form was less energy consuming."

It's been a while since I saw T2, but I can't remember any dialogue about the T-1000 needing to conserve energy. I suppose in that scene with the foster mother impersonation the dog was barking because it could just tell something wasn't right or normal. I just assumed the T-1000 changed back to its police officer form because it would be inappropriate to drive a policecar looking like a housewife.

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Check out the novel.

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Dogs' hearing doesn't work as amplification, it works in two ways:

- Dogs can hear more pitches than humans, especially on the high end
- Dogs can hear sounds 'separately', humans can't. An explosion happening simultaneously while a wire is cut is something dogs can hear separately, but human hearing is drowned out by the explosion, and doesn't hear the wire being cut.

So I don't think it's the hearing.

Every dog owner knows that dogs can 'mysteriously' 'sense' things. Animals always react way before an earthquake can be detected by any human devices or senses, animals always instantly know when the owner starts his/her journey back home. The owner always finds an animal waiting at the window or door, and can only wonder how the dog knows.

(This was even tested by the usage of cameras showing what the dog was doing - the INSTANT the owner seriously decided to head home, the dog reacted. You can test this yourself)

Dogs just 'know' things. They know your intentions before you. You can't lie to a dog, you can't 'fake out' a dog. This was also tested, by someone playing poker deciding to stop and leave - the dog owner didn't react at all when the owner was faking 'stopping the poker playing and leaving', but the instant he decided it for real, the dog perked up and walked to the owner.

So think in realistic terms, not just with sight and sound. By the way, dogs also have an incredible sense of smell, which is their main sense. Newborn dogs can smell before they can see before they can hear. Nose, eyes, ears, as Cesar Millan always says.

What is it that makes cell phones detectable by dogs? Well, could it be the same kind of thing - dogs can smell technology, and a soulless machine walking in human skin is sure to make a dog react (for multiple reasons).

It's really a no-brainer, an obvious thing, something so self-explanatory, I never even thought there were people that don't get it. Dogs have wider senses than human beings. Duh!

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My grandfather always said that children and dogs knew who the good people are. There was an episode of MacGyver where a dog named Frog barked at a man in the beginning of the episode and it was in a room full of other people so one might wonder why he was only barking at him. It gets found out at the end of the episode that he was crooked.

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-_-

I felt I was nearing an apex and then I see your answer.

Dogs cannot just KNOW if a person was bad.

Take me for instance. I went to my sister's friend's house once and they had a dog. When I came in, I was barked at so ferociously. Then when I sat down and the dog was called off, her friend told me that the dog only like females (no idea why) and would not let them touch her. Well, low and behold that dog allowed me to touch her. So yeah, the dog ended up barking at me and then allowed me to touch her after I allowed her to smell me.

Would this be something all dogs would do or did I hit on something? I would assume that a dog would think I am a bad person right? Well, they too can change their minds.

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It's a trope.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilDetectingDog

If you're determined to find a practical reason, you're probably not going to find one.

What, you thought I was being serious? 

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We humans have come too far from mother nature. It's all instincts. Dogs do sense bad intentions from slightest clues of demeanor.

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They wouldn't smell the same as humans, it would probably freak them out to see this "human" looking thing moving near them which obviously (to them) isn't a human.

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Yeah, true...they would not smell like humans...

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yup . that .

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Except that Kyle Reese says:

"The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy. But these are new, they look human. Sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait till he moved on you before I could zero him."

So they do smell like humans.

I suppose with the T-800s you could argue that, since they have moving mechanical parts, it can be easily heard by dogs.

As for the T-1000 - What the poster said below as to them emitting certain heat and energy that a normal human wouldn't possess. Though, I think they would have to be close enough to animals in order for them to pick up on it.

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Humans are not dogs. Some dogs can even smell if a person has cancer! So it is no stretch of the imagination to believe they can distinguish robots and cyborgs.

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It's possible there is an "uncanny valley" for dogs that humans can't perceive.

We know that with humans, the closer a robot looks to real, the more disturbing it is. We've all seen the very creepy lifelike robot videos by now to know this effect. The uncanny valley is effective until the robot design is so good that it cannot be distinguished from an actual human.

Although Reese goes through great lengths to describe how the newer models are indistinguishable from humans, this is from another human's perspective.

It could be a simple matter of a dog's more acute smelling and hearing knowing that something is "off" in the same uncanny valley manner. It's close enough to reality to fool a human's senses, while the dogs still know it's disturbingly fake.

This could be a either the smell or the sound or a combination of both. In the case of the liquid metal, the fact that it appears human but has no smell at all or has an electronic or metallic smell that only dogs can sense.

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To look beyond the reason of it's simply a popular trope, a terminator's cyborg skin may carry a particular cellular residue capable of being recognized by the superior senses of the dog. The machines may also make signature ultrasonic sounds which would be unable to be heard by humans but could be recognized by dogs, long before they ever saw the machines. A dog's sense of hearing has been shown to be aware of the change in tectonic pressures right before an earthquake.

As far as the T-1000 class of machines, their material makeup requires energy and likely the emission of electromagnetic phenomena such as heat. Their shape-changing capacity may emit an auditory signal easily perceived by dogs. Sometimes, there is actually a sound made the audience can hear while the liquid is forming into a shape, but I don't know if that is a sound a human character in the story would hear, or it's strictly audio enhancement for the audience.

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Good logical answer.

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I wanted to go head and point out that towards the end in the film, the Terminator smelled awful from its dead rotting flesh on its face from where its eye had been removed and so it's possible that the dog at the motel Sarah and Kyle were at smelled that metal robotic eye or rotting flesh and knew something was up.

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Could easily be the sound a dog might hear of the gears and hydraulics under the terminator, or normal cues missing from them that people have.

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Probably in the same way that sniffer dogs are used to find drugs hidden inside things. Also dogs can smell cancer (although not 100% proven) but if they can it stands to reason they could smell something not right with terminators. Also with their hearing they could possibly detect the metallic grinding & other sounds of the metals inside them when they move. If that's too much of a stretch maybe they simply notice the much heavier footfalls.

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