Revealing mistake: After the Female Cyborg kill's the two agents in the car, there is a crane shot of her car turning around in the middle of the road where you can see see the mark in the middle of the road showing the driver where exactly to turn. (00:53:45)
Continuity mistake: During the scene with the hearse the front right hub cap comes off twice. (00:57:45 - 00:58:35)
Continuity mistake: When the Terminator and John are talking while driving the pet truck through the desert with Kate in the back, keep watching out the Terminator's side. In the distance, you can see about three huge cone-shaped trees and every time the Terminator talks, they're always in the shot. In one shot, there's about five, then it's always three again. (00:39:45)
Audio problem: When the female TX is stopped by police during the intro credits, before the officer speaks you can see the TX's lips moving saying "Is there a problem officer" but her audio is muted. (00:08:50)
Revealing mistake: When the hearse has no roof it is obvious at one stage that it is not Arnold sitting behind the steering wheel but his stunt double. (00:57:10)
Continuity mistake: In the scene at the gas station, Arnie removes the iron bar from the truck's doors and discards it. The truck drives off and is seen to have no bar holding the doors closed. There then follows a lengthy conversation between John and Kate. At the end of this conversation the truck is seen driving down a slight hill just before the scene changes to Scott's apartment- look closely and you'll see the iron bar on the doors, despite Arnie having removed it. (00:41:40 - 00:45:20)
Continuity mistake: When the TX runs a red light in the stolen Lexus, a cop stopped at the red light does a one-eighty to begin pursuit. When the TX pulls over, the license plate on the cop's squad car is not the same as when it was stopped at the red light. (00:08:10)
Continuity mistake: When John crashes the Toyota truck into the rear of the silver Taurus, the car's bumper cover lands on the ground to the right of the car, between it and a parked car. When John drives away from the accident, he drives between the Taurus and the parked car, but the cover isn't there to be run over- it's now tucked under the Taurus at the right/rear corner. Then, as the crane smashes the Taurus, the cover is now well to the car's left, in the lane of opposing traffic. (00:31:10)
Factual error: All over the particle accelerator you can read about the dangerous magnetic fields that are caused by it. the radiation that is created by the accelerated particles is mentioned nowhere although there is no possibility to find a wall without radiation warnings in a science lab with a real accelerator.
Other mistake: When Kate is viewing the T-X on the security cameras, the two views of the corridor do not match each other. For example, the first camera shows glass walls, whereas the second shows wall panels. (00:23:30)
Audio problem: While the T-101 takes off the crowbar at the gas station it makes a clanging sound before it even leaves his hands. (00:43:15)
Revealing mistake: When the animal rescue truck crashes through the seminary gate, the sparks that fly come a few seconds after the truck hits. (00:48:25)
Continuity mistake: When the Terminator gets in the Toyota Tundra with John (after destroying the crane that the T-X was in), you can see that there is no seat belt in the seat belt holder. But when the Terminator is examining John for "brain trauma", there is now a seat belt in the seat belt holder. (00:38:00)
Continuity mistake: When John is threatening to kill himself, his finger alternates from being on the trigger of the handgun to being on the trigger guard from shot to shot. (01:04:55)
Continuity mistake: After Arnold has taken the fire truck, John is chased by a single police car. The overhead shot pans left to show the crane approaching from John's right. This shot shows the crane arm is pointing rearward. But when the crane bursts through the wall a split-second later, the arm points forward. (00:36:20)
Continuity mistake: When Arnold shoots the crane tires, the motorbike is shown to have a windshield. Right after when the T-X knocks him off the bike the windshield is missing. The next shot is the ambulance hitting the bike and the windshield is back. (00:33:15)
Continuity mistake: After John crashes the truck into the silver car, the empty emergency vehicles approach from behind. At the right, a red sedan is shown from the rear with a broken tail light and mangled bumper. A few shots later, the crane comes around a corner and hits this red car, but before the actual collision, the tail light and bumper of the car are fine. (00:31:55)
Continuity mistake: When John and Kate are in the bunker and they are talking about why they are there, we see John look down at the timer. It reads one minute 16 seconds. When Montana Civil Defense is talking over the radio, he deactivates it at 7 seconds. It should have read 27 seconds; there had been no breaks in the scene. (00:38:50)
Continuity mistake: When John and the vet arrive at the mountain in their Cessna, the sun casts a shadow straight under the plane. The very moment they walk through the door into the hangar integrated in this mountain (which in the film is immediately after they landed), their shadows are in front of them indicating a low sun. (01:30:45)
Continuity mistake: When the Terminator puts the tyre wrench in the doors of the van he bends the wrench. But later in the desert it's bent differently. (00:25:15 - 00:41:40)
Answer: The difference there would be suicide vs sacrifice. In T2, basically what he meant is he could not commit suicide as it was against his programming. They had beat the T-1000 and had won, but it was too dangerous for Terminator to stick around and knew he had to be destroyed. But he could not purposely do it to himself as it was an act of suicide. However in T3, it was a sacrificial move. The goal of his actions was not to destroy himself, it was to take out the TX and prevent her from reaching John. He had to do this by any means necessary and made a sacrifice play by shoving his core into her mouth and blowing them both up. It wasn't suicide this way, it wasn't self termination. He was taking her out but caused himself to be collateral damage.
Quantom X ★
Also, after watching that scene again, I'm adding this little tidbit. The Terminator didn't actually die from the thing he did to the TX in that move. If you notice towards the end after the nuclear bombs go off, the fall out ash is falling down around its head and its eyes are still on, slowly fading away. It was badly damaged by its move, but the bombs in the end finished him off.
Quantom X ★