A new behind-the-scenes video for Terminator 6 has been released, and besides doing wonders for Hungarian tourism with over-the-top praise of the production’s shoot on location in Hungary, the new video does reveal something exciting: Arnold Schwarzeneggers new Terminator 6 look!
Videos by ComicBook.com
As we see in some of the scenes and interview footage included in the production video, Schwarzenegger will be taking on the look of an aging man, with a salt-and-pepper beard and goatee combo, and outfits that make him look like some kind of military or combat/survivalist figure. The presence of a humvee behind Schwarzenegger in one interview shot suggests more of the military angle, but there’s another shot entirely that also raises some key questions.
At :20 second into the video there’s a scene where we see Schwarzenegger’s character sitting out back of what is presumably his house having a beer and keeping compay with what looks to be Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor. The detail worth noting is that Schwarzenegger’s character has a dog – which is a big deal, given the previous history of the Terminator mythos!
In The Terminator it was revealed that John Connor’s future resistance group uses dogs as “Terminator detectors.” When Skynet made the jump to using cyborg Terminator hidden under human flesh and bone husks (the T-800s), dogs were the first way to detect the deception that The Resistance discovered. Ergo, if Schwarzenegger’s Terminator 6 character is keeping a dog as a pet, there’s only 4 real possibilities to explain it:
- Schwarzenegger is playing a human character in the film.
- Schwarzenegger is playing a Terminator who is either advanced enough to escape detection by dogs, or has been amongst humanity long enough to have “become human” enough to even befriend a dog.
- The dog ain’t part of the film, just a beloved pet getting some attention in between takes.
- It’s all a dream or fantasy sequence – which have happened consistently in the franchise.
Given the history of the franchise in recent years, option #2(b) seems like the most likely scenario. Terminator: Genisys scratched an interesting surface of what prolonged decades being around humans and/or protecting one would do to Schwarzenegger’s T-800 – could this new film from Deadpool director Tim Miller be pushing that concept even further?
Genisys wasn’t the first film in the series to exploring what “humanizing” a Terminator meant about the nature of love and the idea of “family” – it was actually a major theme of T2, with Schwarzenegger’s Terminator becoming a surrogate father of sorts to a young John Connor. Terminator 6 could conceivably continue the spirit of Cameron’s films by exploring how that surrogate father ages and prepares to give up his duties, as aging and/or becoming obsolete has indeed been a recurring theme in Schwarzenegger’s line of films in the last few years.
Terminator 6 hits theaters on November 1, 2019.
