‘Terminator’ Movies Then and Now: 35 Years of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Killer Robot Remembered

‘The Terminator’ (1984)

The one that started it all stars Arnold as a killer robot from the future out to kill Sarah Connor (Linda) to prevent the birth of her son, John, who in the future threatens the machines that have taken control of the world from humanity. Written and directed by Titanic’s James Cameron, the film is more than an incredible (albeit low budget) thrill ride, also serving as a commentary on the present’s connection with the future.

A Warning of Things to Come

“The catastrophe that creates the future,” Cameron says, “happens right around the corner from us today, and the people of that future – 2029 – know the people from the present. There is a direct relationship between the present and the future that I don’t think has been done before. Terminator speaks to the fact that though none of us may think much about the consequences our actions as individuals might have on the future, those actions do have consequences.”

Ahnuld!

For Schwarzenegger, the consequences of playing the lead role was a seismic shift in his career at the time. “The first Terminator was a very, very big stepping stone for me,” he says. “It helped me get out of that genre of muscles films like Conan and into legitimate action films. I wanted to play the Terminator as soon as I read the script. It was a completely new kind of movie character. I must admit, I really enjoyed playing such an evil creature. It really helped me as an actor — it’s always good for an actor to try something different.”

‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)

Seven years later, Cameron decided to try something different himself with T2: Judgment Day, which ushered in a new era of visual effects with its shape-shifting T-1000 and a different kind of Terminator for Arnold to play.

You Can Go Home Again!

“Arnold and I were talking about making another picture,” says Cameron. “I said, ‘Well, I’m not going to make the same film. You’re going to be a good guy.’ He thought it was kind of a wacky idea, but he liked it.”

So did audiences, who thrilled to the big budget adventure as Ahnuld’s new Terminator comes from the future to actually help Sarah and the now teenaged John Connor (Edward Furlong) and save them from the deadly T-1000 (Robert Patrick).

Lady of Action

Hamilton, who helped usher in a new era of female action heroes, enjoyed Sarah’s evolution. “A woman who grows and transforms on screen is always a wonderful thing to play,” she explains. “Sarah went from a vulnerable, normal girl to someone who finds all of her deep reservoirs of strength and comes through it all.”

‘T2-3D: Battle Across Time’ (1996)

Currently located only at Universal Studios Japan, this attraction spent years as part of Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Florida. It’s more or less a mini-sequel to Judgment Day, featuring a rollicking battle between humanity and the robots from the future, with cast members Arnold, Linda, Robert and Edward reprising their roles. It ended its U.S. run in 2017.

‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’ (2003)

Directed by Jonathan Mostow, this one got rid of the Sarah character but kept John (played by Nick Stahl this time around). It also had Arnold back as a good Terminator and cast Kristanna Loken as the so-called Terminatrix, who is programmed to kill John. In the end, the film brings the franchise full circle by triggering the events that lead to the apocalyptic future that opened the original.

Meet the Terminatrix

For Kristanna, playing a character such as this one presented an acting dilemma. “It’s an interesting detachment,” she tells Closer Weekly. “You still have to be connected and you still have to have people feel for you in some way. The great thing about this character is that she does have some sensory-related powers and so, for a moment, you’ll be taken out of the fact that, ‘Oh, she’s a killer.’ You see this human aspect. It’s an interesting dichotomy. I worked with a mime coach for the training, and he really worked with me a lot on internal energies and being able to disassociate different muscular groups from your body. It was really wild. Mimes have that sort of surreal, human-but-not thing happening.”

‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ (2008-2009)

This TV take on the franchise aired on Fox from 2008 to 2009. Set between the second and third films and has cast Lena Headey and Thomas Dekker as the new Sarah and John Connor, with Summer Glau as the reprogrammed Terminator Cameron, sent from the future by John Connor to protect his mother and younger self. The show ignores the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, though ignoring what’s come before is nothing new for this franchise — nor would it be again.

TV vs. Film

Writer/producer Josh Friedman, who developed the concept for television, explains the difference between the films and the series to Closer Weekly: “I think you need to focus on character. The movies always had great character stuff in them, anyway, but I think you need to really explore who these people are and what it’s like for them to live knowing what they know. I’ve always liked idea of heavy sci-fi concepts that blow your mind without having to blow up trucks or buildings. That was the challenge I put forth — for us to write stories that are dramatic and mind-blowing and push viewers without depending upon the big action beats all the time.” He pauses, smiles and adds, “Not that there wasn’t a few.”

Alternate Timeline

The TV show gained some creative freedom by creating an alternate timeline. Says executive producer James Middleton to Closer Weekly, “We did that purposefully to create a scenario where we could invent narrative material to support a show while being true to the themes of the franchise, while also not being a slave to them. There are themes, for instance, of faith and sacrifice that we adhered to pretty rigorously. Those are the key things that drive Sarah Connor’s character and that’s something that the audience identifies with. I think the movies will always contain those themes as well, but in terms of the narrative journey that she is going through, it is separated from the journey of the characters from the movies. They are the same universe, but I think that Josh’s expression of the franchise is unique in that we have a different focus and we really have to. We never intended to be in the business of overlapping with the movies or trying to compete with them. They are $200 million productions and are meant to entertain for two hours, where we are meaning to have our narrative entertain for 22 hours over the course of a season. The amount of narrative ground we covered is much broader than any of the movies necessarily need to be.”

‘Terminator Salvation’ (2009)

Following the events of Rise of the Machines, and the nuclear destruction of much of humanity, John Connor (this time played by Christian Bale) attempts to become the leader he is destined to be. He’s joined by fellow revolutionary (and human/Terminator hybrid) Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington. The film is directed by McG.

Filling in Gaps in ‘History’

Explains McG of his approach to the story in an interview with Closer Weekly, “There’s this giant dark period that’s never been explored; that Judgment Day to 2029 period where people want to know, ‘What happened? How did you get there?’  I like the idea of showing the research and development of Skynet. Before you have airbags and all these sexy things, you’ve got to have big, clunky ‘50s Buicks. Like your computer or anything else in the world of technology, they start off bigger and slower and clunkier and ultimately become leaner and meaner and faster. The same thing goes with the language of Skynet, and I thought it would be fun to show how they got to the Schwarzenegger model. And that’s why there’s sort of a Soviet tank look to everything you see in the picture, from the T-600 to the T-1s, which were established by Jim Cameron. Also we add machines that live in the water, machines that patrol the roads. We just have a larger machine vocabulary.”

Human Experimentation

“In our movie,” McG continues, “humanity is the lab rats. How did we get to the Polio vaccine? You gotta go through a shitload of lab rats to figure that out. In this case, how does Skynet get to a photo realistic T-800 that can infiltrate no problem? Well, they’ve got to rip a lot of stem cells out of people like us and harvest them and that’s a nasty business. This movie looks at that.”

‘Terminator Genisys’ (2015)

This was supposed to be the first in a proposed trilogy (it wasn’t). The setting is 2029 with John Connor (Jason Clarke) as the leader of the resistance against the machines. His fears of an unknown future begin to emerge when he’s notified by his army unit, Tech-Com, that Skynet will attack him from the past and the future. On the verge of winning the war against Skynet, Connor sends his trusted lieutenant Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) — the character who, in the first film, actually impregnated Sarah (played this time by Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke) and is therefore John’s time-torn father — back through the years to save his mother and ensure his own existence. However, Kyle finds the original past changed. In this timeline, a Terminator was sent back in time to kill Sarah as a child and so the Resistance sent their own cyborg (Arnold) back in time to protect her. After the assassin killed her parents, the reprogrammed T-800 raised and trained her to face her destiny, which she adamantly tries to reject.

Now in this altered timeline, Kyle, Sarah and the Terminator have to escape the Terminator models sent by Skynet in the previous films (including a CG version of the younger Arnold) and deal with a new danger in the form of John, who has been converted into a nano-technological human-cyborg hybrid. The question remains: Can they stop Judgment Day?

Why Make This Movie?

“The Terminator from the future who can learn among humans. Sarah and Reese and the love story they never got to have. John as an adult finding himself at the end of the war. Those are all things I really wanted to see that were talked about in the franchise, that were part of the franchise and that weren’t ever on screen,” offers co-writer Laeta Kalgridis to Closer Weekly. “You could see versions of them in comic books, but not on film. Ultimately when you ask why make the movie, you can only answer why you yourself chose to do it.”

Revisiting Old Friends … and Enemies

“We found ourselves in a place where we could revisit characters that we loved and wanted to see more of,” she adds, “and spend more time with and put them in different situations, because the DNA of the franchise allowed for that with time travel. And without doing something that we felt was disrespectful, because I want to be respectful to the person who created this world, James Cameron.”

Notes co-writer Patrick Lussier to Closer Weekly, “The first two Terminator films were such an immersive experience, and having the chance to go back to that world was such a daunting and amazing opportunity to have. Just the chance to look at James Cameron’s world and explore how to expand on the characters that we met and loved and reintroduce them to the audience who knew them well, as well as an audience who never met them.”

James Cameron on ‘Dark Fate’

When the notion of Terminator: Dark Fate came up — and before he signed on as producer and story co-writer — franchise creator James Cameron noted that he had a few idea he’d been kicking around. “There were two questions,” he says. “One is, what can you do that’s interesting and fresh and relevant and still truthful to the first two films and that’s relevant to now? You know, what do we have to say? What can a Terminator movie, which is a product of the ’80s, have to say now decades later? Well, it turns out that a lot of the ideas that were science fiction back in the ’80s are right around the corner if they’re not already occurring.”

Artificial Intelligence is Evolving

Adds Cameron, “The idea of machines that can walk and move like human beings — the advancement in robotics are incredible. You can see now the idea of an artificial super intelligence that is equal to or greater than a human intelligence that was fantasy back in the ’80s. Hal 9000 [from 2001: A Space Odyssey] and Skynet was a product of science fiction, but now people are talking seriously about whether it’s going to happen in the next year or the next decade. Very few people are saying it’s more than 20 to 30 years away for artificial intelligence to be equal to us or superior. The thinking is that once it becomes equal to us, it can iterate itself and expand exponentially. Then we will have created that which is so superior to us that it decides it doesn’t need us.”