The Terminator: How To Recast & Fix The Original Movie In A Proper Reboot
The Terminator movies need to radically reimagine James Cameron’s famous titular robot assassin for a new generation to win back fans of the franchise. Despite its early successes, the Terminator franchise has been stalling for quite some time now, with each new release failing with critics, audiences, or both since the highly acclaimed first sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Original creator James Cameron handed over the directorial reins after Terminator 2, and the Terminator series has never managed to recapture the magic of his first two installments. An intense sci-fi slasher and a more ambitious, action-oriented follow-up that turned the titular killer into a hero, the first two Terminator movies won a rare combination of critical acclaim and mainstream popularity that not many sci-fi action series enjoy. More intense and edgy than the Star Wars saga, and more accessible than the similarly satirical Robocop movies, the first two Terminator installments provided the '80s and '90s with a blueprint for what sci-fi action cinema could achieve.
The original Terminator used horror elements to reinforce its punchy narrative, while Terminator 2 relied on leading man Arnold Schwarzenegger’s considerable charm and jaw-dropping action to ease the transition from the action/horror space to a through and through action movie. Both films benefitted from Linda Hamilton as their tough-as-nails leading lady, but now that both actors have returned to the Terminator franchise only to find diminishing returns with each appearance, how can the stale series win over a new generation of fans after not one or two, but four middling, uneven sequels? The Terminator franchise needs to address the changing face of technology's threatening power in the contemporary world, which means it's time for a new face in the title role.
After a string of sequels which attempted to make the Terminator the hero or tried to write the iconic character out entirely, the series needs to return the Terminator to his original role as the villain of the franchise, and center human characters as the focus of its action. A new Terminator shouldn’t (and can’t) return to the slasher roots of the original, but it can shrink the focus of the movie’s action from the time-traveling convolution of later sequels and the post-apocalyptic drama of Salvation down to an easier-to-follow, smaller-scale thriller. By relegating any heroic Terminator variants to smaller supporting roles, focusing on the human drama, and making the film a simple chase movie in the vein of Fury Road, the series could reboot the franchise properly, and bring back what it does best: intense action sequences and interpersonal drama.
Bringing the Terminator back to its villainous roots could revive interest in the franchise and allow the series to shift gears tonally, but this would require the character to be a new type of villain. Much like any reimagined Jason Voorhees needs to hang up the slasher’s mask, a new Terminator needs to reimagine what a robotic assassin could look like in 2020. The series has made some attempts at reinventing its villains with varying degrees of success, with Terminator Salvation’s underrated (and largely edited-out) Helena Bonham Carter-voiced AI offering one potential route and Kristanna Loken’s unfortunately corny female T-X illustrating a less successful, campier attempt. An effective, modern Terminator would skew closer to the cooly detached villain of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Robert Patrick’s unforgettable T-1000.
Cameron derived inspiration from overpowered and uncaring police and authority figures when creating the lithe, smaller T-1000, and a more modern Terminator should be cast not as a huge imposing bodybuilder, but instead as an unassuming, seemingly harmless figure. With everyone from Paul Rudd to Kumail Nanjiani now getting shredded for Marvel roles, there’s no longer anything scary about a musclebound villain and, as Stranger Things season 3 proved, foreign Cold War villains are a tired '80s trope.
Not only that, but where algorithms and automation were once viewed by audiences as faceless, unthinking robotic threats, modern audiences are more likely to picture overpowered tech billionaires as the face of technology's dark side in the wake of countless controversies involving social media sites, information manipulation, and data harvesting. Thus, the new Terminator shouldn't be a strongman but instead, a harmless face who could be lost in a crowd. A villain based on the underdressed, overpowered young moguls of Silicon Valley would make for a far better 21st century reimagining of the character than the obvious choice of John Cena or the Rock, with a normal-seeming Terminator offering more timely commentary on the new face of corporate surveillance.
Where a heavily-accented bodybuilder effectively embodied the '80s Cold War-era Russophobia, for audiences living in the online era of virtual horror, a face in the crowd is a scarier and more believable face of tech-based villainy thanks to t-shirted, amoral Big Tech billionaires and anonymous trolls alike.
Hard as it may be for fans to hear, a new Terminator villain means the title character of the series needs a new face. Much of what made Arnold Schwarzenegger’s original villain so compelling was his originality, but the stone-faced robot assassin has been parodied endlessly, and ripped off even more in the decades since. The once-scary Terminator has become a recognizable pop culture punchline for decades now, and the later sequels are impossible to take seriously when even Schwarzenegger himself has parodied his most famous part countless times over the years.
A new face for the franchise would leave viewers on unfamiliar territory and take away the comforting sense of certainty that the presence of Schwarzenegger’s iconic Terminator provides. The last thing the franchise needs is another flat, affectless iteration of the eponymous robot, and the more bright-eyed, seemingly-ordinary version of the character outlined above needs to seem harmless. Midsommar standout Will Poulter could reignite interest in the character by offering a more expressive take on the role and channeling his frat-boy insouciance down a darker path.
The likes of Game of Thrones scene-stealer Iwan Rheon or The Devil All the Time’s scenery-chewing villain Robert Pattinson have a shifty, unblinking intensity which would completely reinvent the traditionally stoic and soulless character as well. With the Terminator's villainy no longer rooted in his imposing appearance and instead in his unsettlingly ordinary demeanor, countless actors could fill the role, provided it is now played as a blithe, callous, unassuming villain. The Guest’s Dan Stevens already offered an insight into what a less standoffish Terminator incarnation could look and act like in an underrated 2014 horror satire. However, the Downton Abbey actor is both too imposing and charming to pass as a face-in-the-crowd tech mogul, an issue which the more diminutive Rheon wouldn’t face, having perfectly portrayed a nervy, nerdy antihero as early as E4's cult series, Misfits.
It would be a radical reimagining of the character, and a total reinvention of the role to turn the Terminator into an everyman who could believably be someone's IT guy. But few movies have successfully captured the cultural anxiety around anonymous trolling and Big Tech surveillance that modern audiences are more accustomed to than the original Terminator's fear of nuclear warfare. Who better than a normal-seeming young man with a blank stare to personify the fear of one's trust in technology being turned against them?