Earlier today, the first trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate dropped, featuring all the human vs. robot vs. maybe-sorta-robot action you’d expect. More importantly, the responsibility of uploading a link to that trailer to Reddit somehow fell to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who graciously stuck around in the comments to answer some questions, AMA-style, about Terminator and beyond.
When asked some nonsense from a Reddit chud about Hollywood “...piggybacking off of classics by using a female lead,” Arnold was absolutely not here for that bullshit, responding, “You know that Linda Hamilton is a leading woman in both Terminator 1 and 2, correct?”
Upon being wished to feel better after being dropkicked by some idiot in South Africa last week, Arnold said, “How can I feel better when I didn’t ever feel bad?” As for the fate of the dropkicker: “I didn’t press charges and hope he gets his life on track. That’s no way to get a Lamborghini.”
The impromptu AMA included a number of other fun nuggets, such as the role Schwarzenegger would most want to reprise next (Conan), the origins of his dog Gustav’s name (he’s named after Arnold’s dad), and plenty of tips on weightlifting. But by far the highlight was Arnold’s response to being asked if he knew how intentionally funny Commando was while he was filming it.
As soon as I carried a thousand pound log with one arm I knew it was funny. But let me share the scenes you didn’t see that I tried to get in.
I wanted to cut off a guy’s arm and kill him with it. This wasn’t in the script. He would throw a knife at me and after he missed, while his arm was still extended, I chop it off at the shoulder with a machete and beat him to death with it. Needless to say, I was asked by the head of the studio, Larry Gordon to come to his office. And he said “what the fuck is the matter with you? Do you want to make money with this movie or an x-rated movie?”
I said “you’re right” and he said “get the fuck out of my office.”
One can only hope that if we should ever see the return of John Matrix in another Commando film, it absolutely should include that scene. In response to a fan’s pitch of “Thanks for lending me a hand” as the rejected scene’s accompanying one-liner, Arnold assured them they were “hired.”
Send Great Job, Internet tips to gji@theonion.com