The trailers for Terminator: Dark Fate has got fans intrigued and excited with the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger as T-800. But the movie will also have to answer how he manages to return after his demise in Terminator: Judgement Day and his ageing, which the director believes fits perfectly with the narrative.
Terminator: Dark Fate is the franchise's second reboot and it picks up after the events of Judgement Day. Talking to Men's Health, director Tim Miller explained why Arnold wasn't de-aged for the film and how the choice of portraying him as his 72-year old self works.
"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," said the director.
"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," he added.
Arnold may not be at his prime but he certainly looks great for his age. Moreover, Miller's choice to use aged heroes to fight the present age battle is a new twist that fans also seem to be intrigued by. But the older look also seems to have a grim backstory behind it that Miller teases.
"There are moments [in Dark Fate] where you kind of feel sorry for Terminator, for the T-800. It's like, 'I hope he gets destroyed, but I hope he wins against this'," Miller said.
Terminator: Dark Fate will see the return of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, Mackenzie Davis as Grace, a younger cyborg who identifies herself as a human and Gabriel Luna, an advanced Terminator called Rev-9 with the ability to divide himself into two. The movie releases on November 1.
