Director Tim Miller has stated that returning star Arnold Schwarzenegger will not be digitally de-aged for the upcoming sixth film in the franchise, Terminator: Dark Fate. In a conversation with Men’s Health, Miller vocalized his passion for keeping Arnie, and thereby the T-800, old and grey.
“I didn’t want to do a digital Arnold, that’s for f–k sure. We’re [embracing] the reality of what it means to be a person of a certain age who is called upon to be heroic. I love that. I always liked stories like Rooster Cogburn and True Grit, things like that – flawed heroes are so much more interesting than young, perfect ones to me.”
Tim Miller’s name dropping of True Grit‘s endearingly grumpy, world-weary hero Rooster Cogburn is perhaps a suggestion as to the direction of the T-800 when we make our acquaintance with him once again in Dark Fate. Clearly though the director had no qualms with keeping Arnie’s weathered looks for the film, and even leant into the fact that the actor does not look like Hercules anymore.
“And he looks great. There were so many women on the set who were like, ‘Oh my God, this is the best Arnold ever looked.’ It’s different from Mr. Olympia – he was a god, but there’s something about him at this age. He has this regalness.”
Saying this is the best he has ever looked is perhaps debatable, beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all, but Terminator: Dark Fate quite rightly looks to be relishing in its depiction of its aged heroes. Of course, Linda Hamilton is also making her triumphant return to the franchise as the mother of Earth’s savior, Sarah Connor, and much like Arnie, her age appears to be nothing but a number as she once again brings the fight to the murderous, time-traveling cyborgs.
It would have been easy for Miller to de-age Arnold Schwarzenegger for the purposes of Dark Fate as the technology has become rather commonplace in recent years. The most notable examples are those offered up by the MCU, which has so far de-aged the likes of Kurt Russel, Michael Douglas and, most impressively, Samuel L Jackson, who for the entire runtime of Captain Marvel runs around looking much like he did way back in the 1990’s.
In fact, Schwarzenegger’s own visage has been de-aged in the past, with a digital version of his younger self appearing in both Terminator: Salvation and in 2015’s Terminator Genisys, which featured Arnie’s older version of the Terminator, Pops, throwing down with the original T-800 that had been sent back to 1984.
Related: It’s Terminator Vs. Terminator in Latest Look at Dark Fate
Why Schwarzenegger’s Terminator: Dark Fate T-800 is living in a shack out in the sticks, or why he has been given the surprisingly ordinary name of ‘Carl’ is still to be revealed, but we will get our answers come the film’s release on October 25th. This comes from Men’s Health magazine.
