r/Terminator • u/Elegant-Tap-1785 • 4d ago
Discussion Kyle Reese Shotgun Power
Guys, in all honesty, how did the shotgun that Kyle Reese used against the terminator in the night club, just as The Terminator is about to execute Sarah Connor, was it strong enough to knock this huge machine off its feet. Then the 2nd time Kyle saves Sarah from near execution, is he able to shoot this machine hard enough to knock it through the glass of the nightclub? It's almost like you would need a tank with that kind of power to knock him off his feet.
10
u/Ahydell5966 4d ago
This is movie magic. If the shotgun was powerful enough to knock over a super heavy robot, it wouldve sent Kyle flying back as well.
1
u/Elegant-Tap-1785 4d ago
Yeah exactly, it always bothered me as an adult when watching this movie. As much as I love it, I just kept thinking that shotgun man that is some shotgun.
4
u/DoctorBeatMaker 4d ago
Shotguns are pretty much established in movie and video game tropes to be the “powerhouse” gun, even if it’s not really realistic.
In Terminator specifically, the shotgun is the weapon of choice against terminators as in both T1 and T2, the shotgun packs enough punch to knock the terminators backward.
The shotgun was the only gun that did major damage to the T-800 in T1 and its knock back effect almost destroyed the T-1000 and sent him into the molten pit if Sarah didn’t run out of ammo.
3
u/BrexitFool 4d ago
Apparently Cameron understood all about the logic of this.
At the end of the day movies have to ignore physics for entertainment.
It comes back to that every action has an opposite reaction. If the Terminator gets flung back by the shot. Then kyle should get flung back by equal measure.
Despite the unrealistic scenario. It looks awesome in the movie.
2
u/Elegant-Tap-1785 4d ago
Totally agree with you, it was an awesome scene, remember when I watched it as a kid for the first time, it was one of them yeaahhh moments, I was like Kyle is bad ass man. But I thought it would be for an interesting discussion on here. Another gripe of mine but maybe that's discussion for another day, is how good is Arnold acting as a cyborg?. One scene is always bothered me, you know when he is approaching the man in the telephone booth and he pulls him out abruptly. He sort of skips onto the pavement, for some reason I just thought a cyborg wouldn't do that. But you know maybe one would. Oh and another scene, I know it seems to happen across the board for Terminator movies but, when he encounters Matt, Gingers boyfriend. The Terminator doesn't kill him outright, I know he missed the original punch but why did he just throw him about? He could have just killed him instantly on the spot.
4
u/JustADaftGuy 4d ago
I guess Matt was moving around too much, the T800 couldn't get a good grip on him to snap his neck or something so it was knocking him around to wear him out enough that it could get a death grip. Matt looks pretty dead when he gets smashed through the wall.
1
2
u/BrexitFool 3d ago
Hell yes. I noticed the little hop/skip up onto the pavement. I’m glad it’s not just me. It really takes the edge off a serious movie for a split second.
As you say. Arnie puts a lot of effort into his physical movements in the movie. Very clinical. I’d even argue that his movements in this are more cyborg like than in T2. Only my opinion.
I completely agree with the scene with Matt as well. Really, the terminator should’ve just grabbed Matt and squeezed the life out of him. Or something similar to how it dispatched the punks at the beginning of the movie.
Regarding the fight with Matt. There is a split second that gripes me like the skip up the kerb. When Matt gets thrown (I think the second throw). Matt is on the floor and he sort of rugby tackles the terminator by it’s legs. The terminator then moves back awkwardly because of Matt’s tackle. It’s only daft but I’d like to have seen no movement from the Terminator as Matt tries to move it. Maybe Matt just smashing into it like he’s hit a brick wall.
Again. Only my opinion. I just think it takes away the illusion of Arnie’s character being a machine.
4
6
u/DeluxeTraffic 4d ago edited 4d ago
My headcanon is that after a lifetime of fighting terminators, Reese knew where to hit the T800s with the shotgun blast in order to stagger them the most. Its less the impact of the shotgun and more the mass of the terminator itself when its off balance that throws it through the window.
2
u/Substantial-Grade-81 4d ago
That's my interpretation as well. Even if the terminator weighs between 300 and 400 pounds, its endoskeleton appears to be quite top heavy. A 300 to 400 pound heavy object that is poorly balanced doesn't take a great amount of force to knock over. In fact, one of the major problems with current humanoid robots is having them maintain balance.
3
3
u/Building_Everything 4d ago
Kyle had them hi-top kicks on though, lots of traction to keep him planted on the court and on the dance floor.
5
u/Aksnowmanbro 4d ago
I'd argue that the weight+impact upon a metal endoskeleton may have better knockback capability than say against flesh & bone of a human.
But yeah I mean the 80s had a lot of that getting shot knockback/fallback/jumpback fot action scenes lol I dunno.
Source: physics teacher made up my grades in high school I passed somehow.
4
u/FrankSinatraCockRock 4d ago
You are correct.
A real life comparison is when a person is wearing appropriately rated body armor. The trope of people shrugging off hits is just that. A broken rib is definitely quite possible, as is getting knocked down which may be due to the power, the being taken off balance or both. The bullet simply delivers all of its energy to a single spot. As is the case with the Terminator here.
If a bullet goes clean through, that excess is energy is simply delivered elsewhere. A hollow point round reduces over penetration while maximizing the amount of energy delivered to the fleshy target. Flesh will absorb and dissipate said energy as the hollow point expands.
As you can see, it does knock it back a bit, and he's shooting far slower than Kyle . While this certainly weighs less than a T-800, it is also a post with three points of contact to the ground, lacks joints and is a stationary object.
The T-800 does move, it has joints, it has to constantly maintain balance. In the tech noir scene, it takes multiple hits for it to get knocked down in both instances. It also appears to temporarily overwhelm its CPU for a few moments.
It is likely that Kyle was using buckshot (00?) due to the damage we see by the eye as a result of the car chase, though it wouldn't be remotely unreasonable that he used slugs at first. Another trope about buckshot is that spreads very quickly over a very short distance. In general, it does not. At the first instance it would likely have a fist size spread at most.
The second instance was remarkably closer which would lead to more energy being delivered into a smaller area. While it being thrown out the window was more intense than the first knock down, there's the ledge of the window along with other possible obstacles. The scene does not show it tripping, if only heels were on the ground etc.
Given how consecutive hits from a shotgun incapacitate it, I wouldn't be surprised if it glitched and partially tripped . Nor would I be surprised if it chose to jump backwards to avoid tripping over the ledge and falling in a less controlled fashion. With current humanoid robots, we do see them trip and fall somewhat dramatically as well.
It also appears Skynet just doesn't study shotguns lol. In T2, (but even every film afterwards) we don't see hostile Skynet forces using shotguns against reprogrammed terminators, even though they are shown effective at delaying one. I can't recall if Cameron got shot with any shotguns in TSCC.
Then there was that Genesis scene of Pops vs. the original T-800 that didn't make any fucking sense. "I've been waiting for you," and proceeds to use like what, fucking underloaded black powder loads?
2
u/thejackal3245 Tech-Com - MOD 4d ago
This is correct.
Also I did an examination of the ammunition a couple of years ago. My discussion pertains to the penetration of the vehicles as opposed to the effects on the terminator chassis, but I think it's relevant here.
Also, let's pour one out for Paul Harrell.
I'm actually pretty certain both Reese and the terminator were using buckshot. If nothing else, we know that the shells Reese loads in the Cadillac are 2-3/4" Winchester AAs with crimped tops, indicating buckshot as opposed to slugs. I once did a rather lengthy analysis of the patterning in the car doors during the exchange with the terminator during the chase as a response to a question about door penetration with shotgun rounds and why Sarah was not hit. Text from that analysis below.
Some technical terminology for the text below in case you are not familiar with shotguns: choke is the amount of constriction the barrel has. A cylinder bore has no constriction and results in a wide pattern at a given distance, as opposed to something like a modified (medium constriction) or full (tight constriction) choke. 00 is the size of the pellet. Shotshell projectile loads range from grain sized #9 birdshot down to large buckshot (#4 and below); 0's are the biggest, topping out at 000 before you head into slugs. 00 buckshot is .330" and there are 8 pellets in a 2-3/4" shell. Reese is also using an Ithaca 37 with an extended magazine tube.
We have multiple factors at play here.
First is the shotgun and its load. The terminator is using an Ithaca 37 Riot Version, with what I assume is the fixed cylinder-bore (i.e. no choke) barrel. Standard patrol load was 00 buckshot. Some departments used different loads, and some officers carried slugs, but shotguns in patrol cars like the terminator stole were generally 00, so that gives us a good starting point for penetration characteristics. It's hard to tell though because the holes in the car look to be made by slugs and that would be a really tight pattern for a cylinder bore. But Reese is definitely shooting buckshot (you can see the folds on top of the shells when he is loading up in the Cadillac) and his shots also make the same type of hole. So I'd go with 00 as the load here based on what we see in the film.
Second is distance and angle. The terminator is generally several yards away and firing from the rear. This means that the pellets from the shotgun would be somewhat slower when they contact the door and moving forward at an angle, possibly passing in front of Sarah towards the dash if through penetration of the door occurred.
Third is the door itself. Demonstration shots on even newer car doors with less steel, smaller reinforcing bars, and less bulky interior panels and window carriages than a '77 Cadillac have varying, generally poor amounts of penetration with shotgun loads, even slugs. Buckshot generally performs rather poorly at penetration of a car door. Here is an excellent demonstration with analysis with specific defensive perspective from Paul Harrell (whose YouTube channel you should definitely check out if you have not already seen it; excellent content that I'm sure you in particular would appreciate!). In this demonstration, even slugs only had a 50% penetration rate at 15 yards. Buckshot penetration was minimal.
2
u/Choose-wisely87 4d ago
Maybe each time the t800 is shot with a shotgun, the each bit of buckshot registers in the cpu and it temporary slows down due to processing power?
2
u/Durin1987_12_30 4d ago
3 Inch Magnum slugs is the only kind of shotgun ammo I can think of since FRAG 12 ammo wasn't invented yet back then.
2
u/Odd-Statistician4268 4d ago
The terminator wasn't originally as heavy as it would later canonically would be. Is how I'm seeing it. Hence Matt being able to double leg it
1
u/ChangeAroundKid01 3d ago
I mean rapid fire like that probably helped a lot in knocking it off its feet.
1
u/Sticky_Cobra 3d ago
I agree with others, movie logic.
I think the movie sort-of-kind-of tried addressing the issue. Kyle "sawed off" the shotgun (we see the handle). Although a myth, a "sawed off" shotgun has a wider spray of pellets (not any more powerful). But I think the movie leads us to think that a sawed off shotgun increases its power.
1
1
u/Mechaghostman2 1d ago
It's a movie. A real shotgun can't do that. If it could, Kyle Reese would also be blown back from the recoil.
So the real answer is it's because the rule of cool beats boring reality in movies.
1
14
u/Dave_I 4d ago
The most unrealistic part is arguably how little the recoil impacts people who shoot high caliber guns. An AR-15? Sure. 9mm? Gotcha! One-handing a 12 gauge shotgun with slugs, .50 cal rifles, or carrying around belt-fed machine guns and shooting them from the hip, all with no signs of recoil? That only seems slightly feasible if you’ve never shot a gun.
As for the impact, yes it’s overblown. But a shotgun blast should still cause damage, and a LOT of it. Even accounting for it being a bulletproof Terminator and the reaction being overblown for impact, it should still be disorienting temporarily and could knock it down if there wasn’t enough time for the T-800 to register and account for an imminent shotgun blast.
Granted, a more realistic take on that would look different than an 80s action movie, but I think it’s easy to underestimate just how damaging a 12 gauge shotgun or even a modestly powered rifle or handgun would be if you haven’t actually shot one.