Kyle Reese indikerade att T-800 var toppmodern i Terminator design:
The six hundred series had rubber skin. We nailed them easy. But the eight hundreds are new. They look human. Sweat, bad breath, everything. Touch it, you’d feel warmth. But by then you’d already be dead. Very hard to spot.
Han var naturligtvis fel. Efter att ha skickat sin topp i produktionsproduktionsmodellen (och insåg att den inte hade fungerat) skickade Skynet också lite lite till matlagningen:
"Not like me. A T-1000. Advanced prototype, A mimetic polyalloy."
Observera att James Cameron tyckte att att skicka T-1000 var en handling av extrema desperation av Skynet eftersom "Learning Mode" Terminator lätt kunde vända sig mot det:
"I started thinking about the film in two stages. In the first stage the future sends back a mechanical guy, essentially what The Terminator became, and the good guys send back their warrior. In the end, the mechanical guy is destroyed. But up there in the future, somewhere, they say, well, wait a minute, that didn't work; what else do we have? And the answer is something terrible, something even they're afraid of. Something they've created that they keep locked up, hidden away in a box, something they're terrified to unleash because even they don't know what the consequences will be - they being the machines, now in charge of the future.