This summer’s Terminator: Genisys is looking to take everything we know about the franchise’s longtime lore and tell it "hasta la vista, baby." Indeed, the upcoming sequel/reboot will be pushing the boundaries of what we thought could occur in the Terminator storyline with events that will completely reshape the canon. However, no event may be more surreal than a heavy-duty super-fight sequence that is slated to occur between Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 Terminator… and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 Terminator!
According to a report that has surfaced on Terminatorfans, the film has designs to make this Arnold-on-Arnold violence one of the most epic film battles of all time. Of course, the recently-released trailer for Terminator: Genisys, besides showcasing a brand-new non-Robert-Patrick liquid metal T-1000, heavily hints of a "Crisis of Infinite Arnolds" type scenario between an aged T-800 played by the contemporary Arnold and the CGI-fabricated younger version; presumably the original one sent to 1984 in the first film to slaughter Sarah Connor as an attempted act of retroactive time abortion to resistance leader, John Connor. However, as we’ve already seen, the future is far more malleable than we thought, and now, if the report holds true, we’re in store for some reportedly brutal "Super Terminator Smash Bros." action.
(Warning: Potentially Spoileriffic Material Ahead!)
According to the report, Schwarzenegger’s aged T-800 Terminator will be known in the film as "The Guardian." As we saw briefly in the trailer, he was sent back to protect Sarah Connor at an early age. However, the report fills in the details that this Terminator is her "ultimate protector" and has been "allowed to live in society," while acting as a parent to young Sarah, possibly learning to love and be "more than just a cybernetic organism." Of course, the result of that brand of nurturing was pretty clear, as we see Emilia Clarke’s Sarah Connor giving "The Mother of Dragons" a clear run for her money as a fully-realized badass femme-fatale.
The report goes into detail about the aforementioned epic battle between The Guardian and (an apparently unclothed) young 1984 Terminator, describing it as "the equivalent of tanks colliding." Of course, this report is anything but confirmed and should be taken with an extreme grain of salt.
In this particular sequence the young digitally enhanced T-800 is doing a forward lunge double fist punch and/or crushing the aged T-800’s face with both its knuckles pile-driving into the real Arnold Schwarzenegger’s metal skull, like something out of a wrestling match. The aged T-800 has its left arm locked under the T-800’s right shoulder as if it is going to make a deadly move on the younger T-800. The sequence or choreography could change in the finished product but what we’ve seen looks good! The moves will be devastating and the battle will probably be one of the most spectacular scenes in the movie especially in the VFX department.
The pure ambition of this fight has allegedly made it a centerpiece in the film. While we have seen digital magic provide us with versions of a younger Schwarzenegger Terminator in 2009’s Terminator Salvation (in a sequence that was heavily criticized for its artificial-looking CGI), this one will apparently be taking advantage of advances in technology, looking to make the Salvation scenes look like stop-motion art rendered in MS Paint. Done fully in 3D, the digital violence will apparently attempt to push the limits of what can be allowed in a PG-13 film.
Interesting enough, much of what we could see with the aged "Guardian Terminator" may not be performed by Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, but rather (in a move that makes Arnold’s The Running Man seem prophetic), is said to be done -- like the fabricated younger version -- with a body double, sporting digital mapping of the elder Terminator’s face. Such a move may have its share of criticism from cinematic purists who believe that the idea of the performance itself is becoming more inconsequential to films. However, it seems that the studio and Skydance Productions have high hopes in making the sequence extremely brutal, which, understandably, may be problematic for a live shoot with the 67-year-old Schwarzenegger.
Terminator: Genisys looks to alter the timeline -- and maybe prevent the greenlighting of Junior -- when it hits theater on July 1, 2015.
