James Cameron has explained how Arnold Schwarzenegger completely changed his idea of what the Terminator should be when he met the actor before casting him as the robot assassin.
The Terminator franchise is one of the most successful and popular in history and started with the1984 original which was written and directed by Cameron. It told the story of Sarah Connor, a young woman who must survive after she is targeted for assassination by a murderous futuristic robot, played by Schwarzenegger.
Connor receives help from Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) who would eventually father her child, John, who leads the human resistance against the machines in the future.
In The Terminator, Schwarzenegger's portrayal is all the more terrifying due to his size and strength.
But, the original plan for the T-800 was for him to be your normal, average man, so that he could easily blend into crowds.
“I couldn’t get over how unique face was, how it almost just projected this kind of raw power," director Cameron told GQ.
"And my conception of the character had been that he was more of an infiltrator. But then my perspective shifted and I would say that it kind of pivoted on a dime. All right, if I cast this guy, how are they not all going to see him coming? How does he not stand out in a crowd?
"How do they not all look at him? And I thought, ‘you know what, don’t worry about it because he would make an amazing terminator.’ Because I just saw him as like this kind of bulldozer, this kind of armored tank. And he could just move through a crowd. If anybody was in his way, he’d just push them out of the way and you’d just accept it. It didn’t even have anything to do with the guns, it was just that kind of raw strength, a kind of a machine strength.”
The first movie was released in 1984 and this was followed by Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation, Terminator Genisys and Terminator: Dark Fate.
The Terminator's introduction
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