What if Terminator 2 kept the T-800 villainous?

[Strategos' Risk]

The twist to turn the original Terminator into a hero was a great twist by Cameron and co., and probably formative to Schwarzenegger's film career as an action star.

But what if they kept the character evil? How would that affect Arnold's perception as an actor, to not have that heroic association in such an iconic role? Would that have knock-on effects that would influence his political career a decade later?

Also how would this affect the rich lore and cohesive story universe of Terminator.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

The twist to turn the original Terminator into a hero was a great twist by Cameron and co., and probably formative to Schwarzenegger's film career as an action star.

But what if they kept the character evil? How would that affect Arnold's perception as an actor, to not have that heroic association in such an iconic role? Would that have knock-on effects that would influence his political career a decade later?

Also how would this affect the rich lore and cohesive story universe of Terminator.

I'm reasonably sure Arnold Schwarznegger had been in 'heroic' roles before Terminator 2, some of them fairly iconic, such as in the two Conan films, a couple of 'soldier' films, and Total Recall.

 

[varyar]

If the T-800 is the villain, then you can't really have the T-1000 at all. It being more powerful than Arnold (let alone the humans) is what makes the movie suspenseful. So you either have two T-800s fighting each other, which works but is still less dramatic, or have it be another human again - then you need to find a way to make them more than "Like Kyle Reese, except not John's dad"

As for the impact on Arnold's career, @Look More Closely Later is right - he'd done Predator, Commando, the Conan movies, etc. by that point. The effect of one last role as a villain would be minimal.

 

[Mister Abbadon]

Assuming Robert Patrick is still cast as the other time traveler he could be Kyle Reeses Brother or something. That failing he's just some other Resistance Fighter.

Frankly if Arnold is the bad guy again the challenge is how to make T-2 different from the first one.

First is Robert Patrick's Character. In stark contrast to Kyle being in over his head and traumatized Robert Patrick's Character should be cold and hardened by years of war. Rather than being sent to a woman he loves he is a ruthless and professional soldier. Killing humans isn't something that he has a problem with and when John protests he responds by saying they probably would have died in Judgement day anyway.

Second is escalating the conflict. Maybe Sarah's preparedness and the other Time Travelers by any means necessary mindset actually help them to the point that the T-800 is destroyed by the Halfway point and the main conflict is destroying Cyberdyne before Skynet can be created. Although why a more ruthless Resistance fighter and Sarah Connor as she was by T-2 wouldn't just kill Miles Dyson.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

What if it’s a T-1000 that looks like a T-800?

edit: what if Robert Patrick is adult John Connor?!

 

[Winestu]

The twist to turn the original Terminator into a hero was a great twist by Cameron and co., and probably formative to Schwarzenegger's film career as an action star.

But what if they kept the character evil? How would that affect Arnold's perception as an actor, to not have that heroic association in such an iconic role? Would that have knock-on effects that would influence his political career a decade later?

Also how would this affect the rich lore and cohesive story universe of Terminator.

Based on the OP, it’d have no impact on Arnold’s career except, maybe, to prove that me really can play both good guys and bad guys.
I do believe that it wouldn’t be the smash hit that it was so it would probably shut down the whole Terminator franchise.

 

[Mister Abbadon]

What if it’s a T-1000 that looks like a T-800?

edit: what if Robert Patrick is adult John Connor?!

Ooo a nice case of Future me Scares me. That could be really cool.

 

[Sam R.]

I had a brief think about this and it doesn’t make sense. In terms of Lacanian/Zizekian analysis. Hear me out.

Terminator 2 is all about fathers and mothers. Mother has gone insane and mastered the fathers arts, creating a conspiracy where she tries to turn her son into the father.

The real father (semen) is long dead to the point of being a joke.

The foster father is impotent, a shown by the state acting as mother and the foster mother: his role has been stolen by mothers.

In contrast to the State a new name of the father is produced in the T-800 reprogrammed by the “boy as the man” to be a father. His future self has imputed his command over the “phallus.”

Sending a real man back in time won’t work: the name of the father doesn’t have emotions or personality in the way that that guy who fucks your mum, “Derrick” does. There’s that awful moment between 12 and 32 when a boy realises that “Father” is actually just Derrick, and it’s an important part of the boy becoming a man.

In terminator 2 this realisation already happens “your foster parents are dead,” and the T-800 becomes the promise that the boy will one day perfect his guerilla war and sexual skills, enough to command the ludicrousness of men’s technicality in the form of a body building governor.

The fluidity of the t2000 speaks to a femininity. Pretty much any male actor could be feminised against Arnies hyper masculinity. But this works here *because* of the argument about mothers and the state. mummy and the mental hospital and the foster parents and the coppers and the evil robot liquid all represent a female controlled state apparatus: in the cowboy narrative they represent the town and the school marm against the cattle rustling leather wearing sweaty motorcycle riding dark sunglasses…

You get the point.

Arnie can’t have been a human being because human beings make shitty symbols. Robots make better symbols.

Given the robot thing and that this is a lionisation of blue collar work, robot as worker means that the good robot has to be buff and blue collar and hands on. The bad robot needs to be rhyzomatic and fluids and *physically becoming* its weapon. Like office workers obviously. Last time I had to ask HR about my overtime in they developed intrusive silver spikes of administrivium and penetrated me with fluid.

Arnie couldn’t have been a human because Teinator 2: Judgement day is a psychosexual cowboy workplace drama.

So you’d need a fundamentally different plot to a cowboy chase film. Try death sex vengeance (mad max 1) or “one last hard action” by the impotent man (unforgiven) and then you could use an evil blue collar killer robot antagonist.

 

[Mister Abbadon]

I had a brief think about this and it doesn’t make sense. In terms of Lacanian/Zizekian analysis. Hear me out.

Terminator 2 is all about fathers and mothers. Mother has gone insane and mastered the fathers arts, creating a conspiracy where she tries to turn her son into the father.

The real father (semen) is long dead to the point of being a joke.

The foster father is impotent, a shown by the state acting as mother and the foster mother: his role has been stolen by mothers.

In contrast to the State a new name of the father is produced in the T-800 reprogrammed by the “boy as the man” to be a father. His future self has imputed his command over the “phallus.”

Sending a real man back in time won’t work: the name of the father doesn’t have emotions or personality in the way that that guy who fucks your mum, “Derrick” does. There’s that awful moment between 12 and 32 when a boy realises that “Father” is actually just Derrick, and it’s an important part of the boy becoming a man.

In terminator 2 this realisation already happens “your foster parents are dead,” and the T-800 becomes the promise that the boy will one day perfect his guerilla war and sexual skills, enough to command the ludicrousness of men’s technicality in the form of a body building governor.

The fluidity of the t2000 speaks to a femininity. Pretty much any male actor could be feminised against Arnies hyper masculinity. But this works here *because* of the argument about mothers and the state. mummy and the mental hospital and the foster parents and the coppers and the evil robot liquid all represent a female controlled state apparatus: in the cowboy narrative they represent the town and the school marm against the cattle rustling leather wearing sweaty motorcycle riding dark sunglasses…

You get the point.

Arnie can’t have been a human being because human beings make shitty symbols. Robots make better symbols.

Given the robot thing and that this is a lionisation of blue collar work, robot as worker means that the good robot has to be buff and blue collar and hands on. The bad robot needs to be rhyzomatic and fluids and *physically becoming* its weapon. Like office workers obviously. Last time I had to ask HR about my overtime in they developed intrusive silver spikes of administrivium and penetrated me with fluid.

Arnie couldn’t have been a human because Teinator 2: Judgement day is a psychosexual cowboy workplace drama.

So you’d need a fundamentally different plot to a cowboy chase film. Try death sex vengeance (mad max 1) or “one last hard action” by the impotent man (unforgiven) and then you could use an evil blue collar killer robot antagonist.

I think I get what you're trying to say.


Forgive my less scholarly and more fanboy approach but how about we maintain the time travel plot with a Vengance angle. As people have said earlier, a scarred up Robert Patrick as A borderline Psychotic John Connor from the future. Not "another would be dad" but a traumatized future who wants desperately to save his lost innocence. Arnie's funky accented manliness is not an ideal to be aspired to but a system to be smashed in fury.

So less "Machine becomes foster dad" and more "Rage against the dying of the light."

 

[Sam R.]

I think I get what you're trying to say.

So less "Machine becomes foster dad" and more "Rage against the dying of the light."

First I sent my father to help me, but he proved useless. Now I must save myself.

You can work that terrain. A self-buddy movie is a bit hard, but so is a “how many dads” chase film. Cameron can work it. He managed to work a one fuck equals death, otherwise entirely dependent on a single theatrical mechanism, for THREE HOURS.

It’s Hollywood not postwar Italy, so how would a self-buddy film work and not end up with Harvey the rabbit does Withnal and I

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Watching how they made a 2006 PS2 Spy Hunter game starring the Rock for a Spy Hunter movie that was never made... what if they made Dwayne Johnson into the new Terminator in the sequels. Instead of, you know, trotting out Schwarzenegger for every single Terminator movie? It would be a bold move but also firmly cements the Rock as a modern day Arnold (which he is, more or less de facto), but in an official way.

I would argue that Schwarzenegger's perpetual presence is both a blessing and a curse for the series in the same way Sigourney Weaver in Alien has been.

 

[SunilTanna]

The original plan was to have Schwarzenegger as the good t800 and Michael Biehn as the bad t1000.

They were not sure if audiences would have understood it, but would have been mind blowing

Rp was great though

 

[BeardedHoplite]

In terms of making a sequel, I'm not sure what else they could have done. Go bigger, of course, but I'm not sure how they could shake up the formula

While I'm absolutely certain that it still would have been a big special effects extravaganza that would be well received and make a bunch of money, you might have people say that it's basically high budget remake of Terminator 1

 

[Gaminguy010]

Radical Idea: What if there was no T-1000? What if Skynet had in fact sent back a cybernetically enhanced human? Perhaps he was a resistance soldier that lost his mental stability from the constant war? Maybe he's lost his ability to feel or care for others and instead loves and revels in war, battle, and combat, essentially becoming a "Terminator" himself? He somehow defected and Skynet gave him cybernetics. Sending him back in time to kill John Conner or maybe prevent the T-800 and John from destroying Skynet in the past as destroying Skynet?

Such a character would be a perfect foil to Schwarzenegger's T-800. A human who's lost his humanity and now acts like a machine. While the emotionless T-800 machine learns emotion and the ability to feel and care for others, essentially gaining his own humanity.

And to answer the question of why he would defect to Skynet? I don't know, he's obviously not mentally well and probably gone insane so maybe why he defected is left to mystery.

Anyway I'm just spitballing here.

 

[Arariboia Guamá]

What if its Terminator 2 because... the number of Terminator = 2?

So we have both the T-800 and the T-1000... as villains.

Could even have a different name. Instead of Terminator, Terminators.

Up the stakes immensely, Skynet not only sent one but TWO Terminators, and one of them is a stronger model. Either one at a time or the two together.
Perhaps T-1000 is sent at first, defeated. Cyberdine becomes the target, then, in order to stop Judgment Day.
Skynet takes exception to this and sends in the T-800 to save Cyberdine - in this movie, Skynet is the one who's trying to save someone using the T-800, while the Connors hunt him.

 

[Nivek]

Watching how they made a 2006 PS2 Spy Hunter game starring the Rock for a Spy Hunter movie that was never made... what if they made Dwayne Johnson into the new Terminator in the sequels. Instead of, you know, trotting out Schwarzenegger for every single Terminator movie? It would be a bold move but also firmly cements the Rock as a modern day Arnold (which he is, more or less de facto), but in an official way.

I would argue that Schwarzenegger's perpetual presence is both a blessing and a curse for the series in the same way Sigourney Weaver in Alien has been.

That was the original idea for the movie become genysis but some backstage drama derailed

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Dwayne Johnson does seem like he’s got a backstage ego that leads to production drama. Maybe Dave Bautista would be a better fit for a new Terminator. Though he’s been getting bigger and bigger now so maybe it was too early to use him in a 2010s pop culture what-if (as in WI they tried to revive Terminator after Salvation by casting a new T-800 instead of using old Arnold?)

 

[Nivek]

Dwayne Johnson does seem like he’s got a backstage ego that leads to production drama

Black Adam and Shazam 2 say otherwise

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I'm thinking mostly about what went down between him and Vin Diesel over Fast and the Furious.

 

[Garrison]

I doubt it would be as well regarded if it were just a rerun of the first movie with a T-800 villain and a human time traveler.