Why's The Terminator so popular?

[Reno]

One thing I've never understood with the films is why they kept sending a terminator with the same face and physical appearance. Specially in T2. Are they really suggesting the t-800 series only comes with one face? And if not, why send someone to protect John Connor who looks exactly like the one who tried to kill his mother?

I know the answer is obvious: so Arnie could play the role. Still a big plot hole, unless I'm missing something...

That obvioulsy, but it could be that the human resistance only got their hands on that one model. Maybe a set T-800's fell off a lorry or something.

 

[MooChild]

That obvioulsy, but it could be that the human resistance only got their hands on that one model. Maybe a set T-800's fell off a lorry or something.

They got the crappy reject face

 

[bluestreak]

I saw some of the series the other day. It was OK, but didn';t really do anything for me. I love the first film, and quite like the second one. It's a franchise full of great ideas that are clever without being too clever, a few twists but nothing challenging, great fluff basically.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

What books ?

The ones by Dostoyevzky. Haven't you read them?

 

[Structaural]

One of the main reasons it's so successful is that it has a very strong female protagonist that most women can identify with: ordinary job, bad eighties hair, 'can't even balance my chequebook.' Yet she's strong, too, and smart, and absolutely determined. Most of us can identify with that, too, or would like to.



Yup. The first film actually did give me nightmares: it was extremely simple in its idea, that there is this unstoppable thing which will not stop until you are dead, but it got that sensation across much better than most other horror movies or action movies. I think that was partly Linda Hamilton's acting, and partly, odd as it may sound, Arnie's acting: he was made to play an unstoppable robot that looks barely human!

No acting just being himself really

 

[dylanredefined]

The only good bit of t3 was the deleted scene where they explain how he gets an Austrian accent .
Terminator works very well T2 works as well surprisingly .T3 not so good
the Chronicles are good so far .

 

[elevendayempire]

Yes, apparently that's true. He did mostly play nice guys in films.

Lance Hendriksen who ended up playing the detective was also considered, which I think would have been quite interesting.

Yeah, Henriksen was first choice - he even had himself made up as the Terminator to pitch the film to execs. Interestingly, Cameron originally wanted the Terminator to be an ordinary-looking, fairly slim bloke - an idea which he subsequently used for the T1000, of course...

 

[elevendayempire]

One thing I've never understood with the films is why they kept sending a terminator with the same face and physical appearance. Specially in T2. Are they really suggesting the t-800 series only comes with one face? And if not, why send someone to protect John Connor who looks exactly like the one who tried to kill his mother?

I know the answer is obvious: so Arnie could play the role. Still a big plot hole, unless I'm missing something...

There was a scene in the original T2 script (never filmed) where the future John Connor is walking through the racks of different-model Terminators, until he comes to a row of Arnies with one missing. He looks at the next one along and goes, "That one" - 'cause that's the one he remembers meeting when he was a kid.