Rewriting Arnold Schwarzenegger's terrifying Terminator as a protagonist sounds on paper like a cynical attempt to cash in on his "action star" fame, and to some extent it was. But who would have thought that the cold emotionless robot works better in that capacity? His appearance in the original 1984 film is brilliant, don't get me wrong, but by recasting him as the hero, director James Cameron puts Schwarzenegger's mechanical speech patterns to their best possible use. And what exactly is the Terminator franchises take on the difference between human and android? Its a simple enough answer: tears. The T-800 spends the entire movie (between explosions that is) trying to figure out why this is such a special thing. He becomes almost a bizarre father-figure to young John Connor, and their scenes together could spark a number of discussions on the formation of basic morality. Arnold is so good in this role, he practically transcends his movie star persona, a feat few action stars manage.
Self-evidently a man who writes for the Internet, Robert also writes films, plays, teleplays, and short stories when he's not working on a movie set somewhere. He lives somewhere behind the Hollywood sign.
