Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 is the face of the Terminator franchise, but the character has a recurring habit of saying farewell to arms. Introduced in James Cameron's original Terminator film, Schwarzenegger's T-800 is easily one of the most imposing villains in cinema history. Being a machine, it has every advantage over its human prey, at least on paper. It has a hard endoskeleton that's resistant to damage, no need to deviate from its mission to sleep or eat, and no human worries about failure or morality. In essence, the T-800 is an (almost) perfect killing machine.
The fact Schwarzenegger gave one of his best performances in Terminator makes it all the more impressive he and Cameron were able to turn such a terrifying character into a hero. Reprogrammed by the human resistance and with its learning capacity no longer inhibited, Arnold's new T-800 became more human as it spent time with people, even if it can't actually cry. This heroic variation on the T-800 has remained in place for all Terminator sequels, apart from a quick, CGI cameo in the future-set Terminator Salvation.
Despite its high damage resistance though, Schwarzenegger's T-800 just can't seem to stop itself from losing an arm. It's never both arms and never a leg, but always a single arm that gets separated from the rest of its body. Here's a look at all the times that's happened.
Every Time Schwarzenegger's T-800 Lost An Arm
In the most technical sense, Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 didn't actually lose an arm in The Terminator 1984, as much as it lost everything but the arm. When Sarah Connor crushed the T-800 in a hydraulic press, its arm was reaching out of it to grab at her. Still, the fact this arm got separated from the rest of the T-800's body proved pivotal for the franchise, as discovering it enabled Cyberdyne and scientist Miles Dyson to greatly advance the research that would lead to Skynet. In essence, the T-800 almost created itself.
Moving on to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Schwarzenegger's T-800 loses its arm near the end, after having received a no-holds-barred beatdown by the T-1000 that seemingly killed it. The T-800's backup power then kicks in, and it heads back into battle sans-arm. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is the one sequel starring Schwarzenegger in which the poor T-800 doesn't shed a limb. Terminator Genisys went back to the pattern, having Schwarzenegger's T-800 - dubbed "Pops" - lose its left arm during the ending brawl with the T-3000.
Finally, in Terminator: Dark Fate, the T-800, this time called "Carl," does repeated battle with the advanced REV-9, now hailing from Legion instead of Skynet. During one fight, Carl loses the skin on its arm, then in a later underwater tussle, has the rest ripped off. It's unclear why the T-800 has such a propensity for losing arms in the Terminator franchise, but one thing is certain, the poor machine sure could use a hand.