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In Terminator: Genisys Pops is called "skin job" by Kyle R. IT is obviously a term from Blade Runner, I am guessing this is not incidental but can find little about it online.

Is this a reference to Blade Runner? Is there anything more to it?

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The IMDb trivia page for the film says it is an allusion to Blade Runner, with one extra titbit of information added:

In one scene, Kyle Reese calls the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) a "skin job". This is a nod to Blade Runner (1982), where Rick Deckard's (Harrison Ford's) boss, Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh), refers to the Nexus 6 cyborgs as skin jobs. Schwarzenegger was considered to play Deckard before Ford landed the role.

The term "skin job" was also used in the Battlestar Galactica reboot, again as a reference to Blade Runner. In a science fiction work, it is a pretty easily recognized allusion.

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  • I feel like the term might've also been mentioned in the original Terminator movie
    – John LA
    Sep 16 '19 at 21:18
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    @JohnA The skin of the terminators is mentioned by Kyle in this description: "But outside, it's living human tissue. Flesh, skin, hair, blood. Grown for the cyborgs.... The six hundred series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy. But these are new. They look human. Sweat, bad breath, everything." Those are the only appearances of the word "skin" in dialogue in The Terminator.
    – Buzz
    Sep 18 '19 at 0:31

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