15 Terrible Mistakes That Almost Ruined Terminator For Everyone

12. Night Becomes Day Within 5 Minutes (Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines)

The set-pieces in Terminator 3 might not live up to those of the previous two films, but they're still a lot of fun to watch and sharply directed by Jonathan Mostow. However, there's one glaring flaw that sticks out like a sore thumb during John Connor's early effort to escape the Terminatrix (Kristanna Loken), and that's how ridiculously fast the skyline changes from night to day. When John flees the veterinarian clinic in a van, it's pitch black, yet when Arnie heads off in pursuit of him three minutes later, it's starting to get light (as pictured above), and another two minutes after that, when John has his unsavoury interaction with the disgruntled driver, it's totally bright and early. While few will argue that the sun rises quickly, that the skyline goes from pitch black to bright within 5 minutes is just totally ridiculous. Sure, shooting a scene set during sunrise must be an absolute logistical nightmare, but the lighting shift is distractingly abrupt, and there's not really any reason why the scene had to be shot this way. Mostow could have saved himself a lot of hassle by just filming it all at night, and having the sun rise off-screen in subsequent scenes. It might not completely derail the movie, but it's easy to imagine that Cameron wouldn't have let such a glaring oversight slip by on his watch.