What if Lance Henriksen played the Terminator?

[joseph34]

That was the original idea before James Cameron changed his mind and cast Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular killer cyborg in The Terminator (1984).

How would the changes butterfly outward from the Terminator franchise? Besides a different movie, I think the first noticeable difference might be the trajectory of Arnold Schwarzenegger's career. However I would put forth that Arnold will end up playing an important role in the franchise anyway...as the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). 🙃

How far does Arnold go in politics ITTL?

Does Cameron still direct Aliens (1986)?
If so, do you think they would cast Lance Henriksen as Bishop? By then the audience would have already associated him with killer cyborgs, so maybe another actor would end up in the role.

 

[DougM]

I think the movie would do about the same as it did but you won’t get the T2 monster hit. You may get a T2 (I doubt it but you may) but it won’t be a smash huge movie it was. Arnold was pretty popular by the time T2 was made and without him you don’t get the budget of OTL T2. And frankly Arnold was the draw that made T2 the hit it was.
In effect by using a more typical looking actor for the terminator (something that is logical from an in world perspective) you basically get the Terminator from T2 and no one really talks about him or wants to see another movie with him as the bad guy (or good guy). So you pretty much get the somewhat forget-able terminate.
So no you don’t get the franchise. On the other had after two they went down hill and after 3 they fell off a Cliff so may not be a huge loss.

 

[TimPhillips]

If Lance Henriksen played the Terminator, I think the movie would have a different feel. Closer to the horror movie it almost is (Halloween with guns). If Robert Patrick played the role in T2... the film series would have a nice realistic adjustment in that you couldn't immediately identify a terminator if you'd seen one before (think more the variety we say in The Sarah Conner Chronicles). I think the later movies have ignored the potential fear that ANYBODY you meet could be a Terminator in favor of a singular Big Bad.

My guess is Schwarzenegger would find another role that expanded him beyond the Conan films and he continues as a well known action star.

If Terminator does good business with Lance in the title role, then Cameron probably gets asked to do Aliens. I presume Lance got the Bishop role because he is a good actor and Cameron thought he could do it. It didn't hurt his chances any that he'd already worked with the director and had done a solid job without being a problem on set. Cameron might well cast Lance deliberately thinking viewers would then wait for the presumed evil Bishop to betray the heros as Ash did in the orignal Alien.

 

[DougM]

I actually agree that the concept of the movie works better if the Terminators look like normal people not Arnold and if they all look different. However with a visual medium like Movies you need a visual menace to sell the danger. And in T2 they use the audience’s knowledge of what a Terminator looks like to make you think he is trying to kill vs is the savior in the famously scene in T2.

 

[fastmongrel]

Arnold was pretty well known before Terminator, I had to Google Lance Henriksen as I couldnt remember what he looked like. I think Schwarzenegger was the bigger box office at the time.