James Cameron Was Bothered That Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator Was Seen as a Good Guy
Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s character in The Terminator might have had a surprising impression on audiences. So James Cameron felt he had the opportunity to address the Terminator’s troubling public image in the sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
James Cameron was worried about audience’s perception of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator
The idea for Cameron’s first Terminator film came in a dream. Speaking to BFI, Cameron remembered conceiving the idea while he was sick with a high fever. He saw an image of a chrome skeleton, which would later become the basis for The Terminator, and began drawing the picture immediately.
“The first sketch I did showed a metal skeleton cut in half at the waist, crawling over a tile floor, using a large kitchen knife to pull itself forward while reaching out with the other hand. In a second drawing, the character is threatening a crawling woman. Minus the kitchen knife, these images became the finale of The Terminator almost exactly,” Cameron said.
Arnold Schwarzenegger would help Cameron realize his vision as the cybernetic killing machine. Schwarzenegger’s casting benefited the film, and helped make the Terminator one of cinema’s most iconic characters.
But Cameron saw that most audiences saw Schwarzenegger’s Terminator as a hero.
“He was written as a villain, a chaotic force for death. Subsequently, Arnold did a number of films where he did the same thing as a hero, [and] there was this strange revisionist sense that the Terminator was a good guy. That bothered me a lot and I felt strongly it must be addressed in [the sequel],” Cameron once told the Los Angeles Times.
Cameron did this by changing the purpose of Schwarzenegger’s Terminator.
“I figured why not take that Terminator neo-myth and channel it correctly,” Cameron said. “I’m also tickled by the idea that, yes, he has good imposed on him, but he’s really a kind of anti-hero. The Terminator still has to do things his way.”
James Cameron thought bringing back Arnold Schwarzenegger in ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ might have been a mistake
Even after Cameron disassociated from The Terminator franchise, Schwarzenegger continued reprising his iconic role. He returned in films like Terminator 3, Genesys, and most recently Terminator: Dark Fate. Dark Fate was a special case compared to some of the other more recent Terminator films. The film was produced by James Cameron, who also contributed to the movie’s story. It also saw the return of Linda Hamilton as Sarah O’ Connor.
But despite Cameron’s involvement, Dark Fate didn’t reach the same heights as The Terminator or T2. The majority of critics gave the film unfavorable reviews, and its box-office performance was underwhelming.
In an interview with Deadline, Cameron touched on the film’s lack of success. He theorized that bringing back Schwarzenegger might have played a part in the low turnover for the movie.
“I think the problem, and I’m going to wear this one, is that I refused to do it without Arnold,” Cameron said. “[Director Tim Miller] didn’t want Arnold, but I said, ‘Look, I don’t want that. Arnold and I have been friends for 40 years, and I could hear it, and it would go like this: ‘Jim, I can’t believe you’re making a Terminator movie without me.’ It just didn’t mean that much to me to do it, but I said, ‘If you guys could see your way clear to bringing Arnold back and then, you know, I’d be happy to be involved.'”
What James Cameron would do differently with ‘The Terminator’ franchise
If Cameron was back in charge of The Terminator series, he shared that he would take it to a different direction. Most of the Terminator films have focused on machines hunting humans. But Cameron seemed to be more interested in another approach to his story.
“If I were to do another Terminator film and maybe try and to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided, I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy,” he told The Playlist.
