Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator has appeared in the franchise multiple times since the first film was released in 1984, but with the actor now in his 70s, how is it actually possible for the cyborg to grow old?
I don’t know about you, but that certainly crossed my mind when I saw Schwarzenegger in the trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate, and apparently it confused many others.
According to CinemaBlend, Terminator creator James Cameron answered that question, saying the answer is all in the first film.
“Sure. Absolutely. Look, it’s all in the first film – sweat, bad breath, everything. [Schwarzenegger’s] a cyborg. The ‘org’ part is organic. There’s flesh over the outside. The bigger question is how something that’s got some kind of synthetic material that’s not flesh can come through the time field. But that’s another geek-out story for another time,” he said.
And when you think about it, it does make sense. The word cyborg is short for cybernetic organism, which means a being made from both organic and biomechanics body parts. So, because they’re part human, if one lives long enough he could end up looking like a 70-year-old man.
Cameron added, “Yeah, no. He’s organic on the outside. He’s got to eat to support the organic part of his body. It might only be 30% of him by weight, but he definitely has human flesh. The science behind that is complete bullshit, but it’s a cool idea, right?
“I think the very first, and it’s in the movie, in the first movie, he’s actually got sort of gangrene and his wounds are kind of rotting by the end of the film. When the guy pounds on the door and says, ‘Hey buddy, you got a dead cat in there?’ It’s like, he’s rotting. His human flesh is dying before it all gets burned off.
“So all biological systems are subject to age unless you were to specifically genetically tinker that out, which obviously they didn’t do. So his outer form ages. His inner form, his nuclear-powered endoskeleton or his power cell powered endoskeleton, can run for… I think he says 120 years in movie two. So the flesh will die and fall off eventually and then he’ll just be the endoskeleton walking around. A little harder to blend in at that point.”
So, theoretically, Arnie could star in the Terminator movies for as long as he wants to!
