August 29, 1997 is an important date in the Terminator franchise, when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T—800, shown in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, showed that it was the day when Skynet gained intelligence. Therefore, naturally, Terminator fans come to life whenever August 29 comes every year, and Schwarzenegger himself is no different, as evidenced by the return he posted on this special day of 2022.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Terminator saga “Judgment Day” and 31 years since the release of the film “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” in cinemas. Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated his arrival on Doomsday this year by sharing a photo below on his Twitter account:
Happy Doomsday…
Publishing a behind-the-scenes look at “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” is certainly an appropriate way to celebrate this apocalyptic event as part of a sci-fi saga, but I am more fascinated by the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger is reading an issue of the magazine “Oh! A children’s magazine on the set. Although it is quite possible that he just wanted to pass the time, and this was the only available reading material, it is worth noting that his daughter, Kristina Schwarzenegger, was born on July 23, 1991, and filming of Terminator 2 began in October 1990. Arnold Schwarzenegger took advantage of the break that day to see if there were any new parenting tips he could learn; Tip #1: Don’t communicate with a newborn while your face looks partially robotic.
In any case, it’s nice to see Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrating the passing of another Doomsday, a time when we can celebrate that fraudulent artificial intelligence did not unleash nuclear annihilation and did not try to destroy the remnants of humanity with its army of machines. The photo also serves as a good reminder of how “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” turned 180 degrees with Schwarzenegger’s character. While in 1984’s Terminator, a former bodybuilder played an android sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor so that her son John would never be born, a reprogrammed T-800 appeared in the sequel, tasked with protecting 10-year-old John. from Robert Patrick’s shape-shifting T-1000. “Terminator 2” collected somewhere from 519 to 520.9 million dollars at the global box office and was met with more critical praise compared to how its predecessor was initially perceived (is “Terminator” better than “Terminator 2”, or vice versa, a matter of opinion).
Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in three more films about the Terminator, which took place in different time frames. Schwarzenegger’s T-800s in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines teamed up with an adult John Connor to fight off the T-X, and in this timeline, “Justice” was delayed, not completely prevented. In Terminator: Genesis, Arnold mainly portrayed an elderly T-800 who had protected Sarah Connor since childhood, and the two teamed up with Kyle Reese to prevent the activation of Genesis, the global operating system that filled the void of Skynet, in 2017. Finally, in Terminator: Dark Fates, which served as a sequel to only Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Schwarzenegger played a T-800 of a different age who killed John as a child, but later defeated the Terminator Rev-9 sent to kill Dani Ramos in 2020. The image of Schwarzenegger was also used in the movie “Terminator Rescue”, which took place in an apocalyptic future, when John Connor, played by Christian Bale, led the resistance to the forces of Skynet.
Given that the Terminator film franchise is at a standstill after Terminator: Dark Fates from a commercial point of view, it’s hard to say if we’ll ever see Arnold Schwarzenegger returning to this property. Nevertheless, an anime series “Terminator” is being developed for Netflix, so perhaps this will give Schwarzenegger the opportunity to show his vocal abilities. The actor’s upcoming projects include a live-action spy series for Netflix and working with Danny DeVito and Tracy Morgan on the movie “Triplets.”
