WI: OJ Simpson was the Terminator?

Its somewhat well known that the original choice to play the Terminator was OJ Simpson, but the studio declined it since they thought OJ was "too nice". However, lets say OJ DID get the role. Would he be succesful with it? Would he become a huge action star (therefore butterflying away the naked gun films, or at least his role as nordberg), taking his career in a different direction (you could butterfly away the later parts of his life if you want)? Also, how would this affect the career of Schwarzenegger? Does he keep his action film status, or does his career go the way of steven segall or jean claude van damme?
 
The irony meter would go to 11.

Seriously, while it may butterfly that particular double homicide, it's doubtful that his anti-social behaviors will be eliminated. The strain of further fame may make him snap a bit earlier. Or perhaps it settles him a bit and it takes longer. Either way it's still likely that he causes some poor woman a lot of bodily harm in a fit of jealous rage. Maybe it will be more public and he won't get away with it.

Ben
 

Cook

Banned
However, lets say OJ DID get the role.
It would have been a shitful B-grade movie that sank without leaving so much as a ripple.

Having Lance Henriksen as the Terminator and Arnie as Kyle Reese would have been interesting, and would have been a very different movie. (This was proposed but Arnie preferred the role of Terminator when he read it.)
 
The legal drama, racial and social issues, cultural shocks, and media circus all are joined by a nigh-endless stream of extremely tasteless jokes and puns.
 
The legal drama, racial and social issues, cultural shocks, and media circus all are joined by a nigh-endless stream of extremely tasteless jokes and puns.

Yeah, I can see the PC crowd (nowadays, since it wasn't so... intense in the 1980s) jumping all over the producers for casting a black man as a killing machine. :(
 
Yeah, I can see the PC crowd (nowadays, since it wasn't so... intense in the 1980s) jumping all over the producers for casting a black man as a killing machine. :(

I'm pretty sure PCness peaked in the late '80s or the 90s. The Internet pretty much killed it.
 
I'm pretty sure PCness peaked in the late '80s or the 90s. The Internet pretty much killed it.

No, it's still around. Not too long ago, there was a big fuss in one of the theaters in Seattle over Oklahoma (the play, not the State.. at least I think that was the play). Anyways, a black man was cast as the villain. Well, the villain ended up hung in the play (was that Oklahoma... dag nabbit, now it's gonna bug me to remember which play it was). Well, to make a long story short, a bunch of people made a big old fuss over a black actor playing the role of somebody who got lynched and accused the director of being racist. I guess it never entered their minds that maybe the bloke was cast because he's a good actor.
 
Yeah, I can see the PC crowd (nowadays, since it wasn't so... intense in the 1980s) jumping all over the producers for casting a black man as a killing machine. :(

You can solve that problem by having Kyle Reese and/or Sarah Connor be black as well.
 
The Terminator franchise would die a painless death. Arnie would probably get famous off another Action film series.

OJ would probably get avoided by the best films and probably resign himself to screwball comedies ala Naked Gun.
 
The irony meter would go to 11.

Seriously, while it may butterfly that particular double homicide, it's doubtful that his anti-social behaviors will be eliminated. The strain of further fame may make him snap a bit earlier. Or perhaps it settles him a bit and it takes longer. Either way it's still likely that he causes some poor woman a lot of bodily harm in a fit of jealous rage. Maybe it will be more public and he won't get away with it.

Ben

OJ anti-social behaviors would be consider as playing the Terminator in Public.
while Cineast like Spike Lee and Civil right men like Jessy Jackson, criticize Camerons Terminator as "To put Fear for Black Man on new High Tech Level"

OJ career will boost with help of Terminator movies, special with Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991
He will get allot of roles but not in Naked Gun series, maybe it's for Peter Lupus (he play in TV series OJ role ) or even Arnold Schwarzenegger in try for Comedy (see Twins)
apropos Arnold Schwarzenegger he will get Cult-status with out Terminator, with Movies like "Commando" or "Red Heat" and
"Predator" & "Total Recall" in the last two was Schwarzenegger involved in production.

OJ career stop in 1994 with Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman murder.
the Media will jump on his Terminator image as merciless Killer machine !

the murder trial would be even more chaotic as in OTL
because Defense attorneys will doubting the Jury, because "they saw the Terminator movies and there are prejudiced"...
 
OJ anti-social behaviors would be consider as playing the Terminator in Public.
while Cineast like Spike Lee and Civil right men like Jessy Jackson, criticize Camerons Terminator as "To put Fear for Black Man on new High Tech Level"

OJ career will boost with help of Terminator movies, special with Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991
He will get allot of roles but not in Naked Gun series, maybe it's for Peter Lupus (he play in TV series OJ role ) or even Arnold Schwarzenegger in try for Comedy (see Twins)
apropos Arnold Schwarzenegger he will get Cult-status with out Terminator, with Movies like "Commando" or "Red Heat" and
"Predator" & "Total Recall" in the last two was Schwarzenegger involved in production.

OJ career stop in 1994 with Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman murder.
the Media will jump on his Terminator image as merciless Killer machine !

the murder trial would be even more chaotic as in OTL
because Defense attorneys will doubting the Jury, because "they saw the Terminator movies and there are prejudiced"...

Honestly, I think Ron Goldman getting killed is probably in the realm of replay bias. He was returning a pair of sunglasses that had been left behind in the restaurant, that somehow wound up in the Gutter.

If they can't find the sunglasses, or if the waiter simply points out that they're being left behind at the time, Ron Goldman doesn't head to the Simpson residence; chaos theory would demand that all of this minor events would be rerolled.

Nicole Brown is clearly the likely victim; she's the one that's likely to get killed by OJ. I'd hope that the chaos theory reroll does some good for the prosecution, because they rolled snake eyes in OTL. The Jury would be rerolled--its randomly generated to start with.

I have to think that OJ, likely to be charge only with killing Brown, is still likely acquitted.
 
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