Many were confused to learn that the next trilogy of Terminator movies and its planned companion TV series would introduce a new, alternate timeline, adding further complications to a franchise that already has plenty of them. Fortunately, Terminator stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, who—hailing from the plainspoken heartland of Austria—has long helped viewers untangle the most complex chronologies, or scenes where he is dressed as a fat old lady, but he is hiding underneath, and we find that out later on. And so, “Terminator deals a lot with time travel,” Schwarzenegger explained to MTV News, and suddenly everything became clear.
Suspecting that, despite this, some might still find the concept of Terminator confusing—and particularly the fact that, at age 66, Schwarzenegger could ostensibly be the same cyborg he played in the ’80s and ’90s—he elaborated on the Terminator’s very nature, and how his robotic indestructibility is, most likely, just a mask for his fading beauty. “The way that the character is written, it's a machine underneath,” Schwarzenegger said. Surprisingly, he continued: “It's this metal skeleton. But above that is human flesh. And the Terminator's flesh ages, just like any other human being's flesh. Maybe not as fast. But it definitely ages.”
Of course, much like our modern society that so ruthlessly prizes young cyborgs, Terminator: Genesis must still justify keeping the old around—whether through the retroactive grafting of an “oh yeah, their skin ages, we meant to say that” explanation, or through a slightly less convoluted exposition involving time-travelling robots. “There will be a younger T-800, and then what that model does later on when it gets reprogrammed, and who gets ahold of him,” Schwarzenegger said, previewing both the film’s plot and his eventual DVD commentary.
Still, if this all seems rather tortuous, don’t worry; it’s certainly not putting a strain on Arnold Schwarzenegger. “So it will be all kinds of interesting twists in the movie, but I feel so good,” Schwarzenegger said, erasing any of your last, lingering doubts about a new Terminator movie.