What do you do when you make a movie about a humanoid cyborg and realize that your leading man has pretty much aged himself right out of the role? You make up a time-travel backstory to explain how cyborgs age. That’s what’s happening with the upcoming Terminator: Genisys, which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a much older Terminator alongside an older version of John Connor and a younger Sarah Connor.
So how does all of this aging/not-aging work in Terminator Genisys work? Here’s how original creator James Cameron explained a cyborg’s miraculous aging ability:
[T]he outer covering (of the Terminator) was actually not synthetic, that it was organic and therefore could age. You could theoretically have a Terminator that was sent back in time, missed his target, and ended up just kind of living on in society. Because he is a learning computer and has a brain as a central processor he could actually become more human as he went along without getting discovered.
OK, so there you have it. Some handy manipulation of time, a Terminator who decided to hang out in his newfound home, and bingo! We’ve got ourselves an older Arnie, and no one is going to complain.
I think that most of us have given up on trying to figure out the Terminator franchise’s ever-shifting timeframes anyways. After all, John Connor’s best friend was also his dad, the villain of the first film became the beloved daddy-figure of the second, and everyone pretty much stopped paying attention after that. The exciting thing in Terminator: Genisys (besides, of course, the totally nonsensical title) is the return of Schwarzenegger to the role that he originated so memorably. If they need to make up an organic aging story to explain his return, I have no problem with that.
In addition to Schwarzenegger, Terminator: Genisys also stars Jason Clarke, Jai Courtney, Matt Smith and Emilia Clarke. It’s being directed by Alan Taylor, but with obvious input from the man that no one can get to shut up: James Cameron.
We shall see if Terminator: Genisys is a worthy entry to the franchise when it premieres on July 1, 2015. Until then, ruminate on how a Terminator has spent the intervening years, after adapting to human society. I can totally picture the T-800 gardening in the suburbs, can’t you?
