Although the The Terminator movies began with 1984’s dark, propulsive action thriller The Terminator. A star vehicle for both its heroine Linda Hamilton and its villain Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator was a lean, brutal chase movie whose time-traveling sci-fi storyline came second to its horror-indebted thrills. As surprising as it may seem now, The Terminator was as much a horror movie as an action-packed sci-fi epic.

As the Terminator series continued, its budgets ballooned and each subsequent movie grew more and more reliant on Schwarzenegger’s character. By the time Terminator Genisys recast Sarah Connor but brought back Schwarzenegger anyway, it was clear the series needed a new direction. Despite this, 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate saw Schwarzenegger return to the franchise once again even though its timeline had been rebooted for the umpteenth time at this stage. Fortunately, 2024’s Terminator Zero made an overdue change.

Terminator Zero’s Classic Terminator Was Not Played By Arnold Schwarzenegger

Timothy Olyphant Played The Main Villain of Terminator Zero

2024’s anime series Terminator Zero followed Malcolm Lee as he developed Skynet’s main competitor, Kokoro, in 1997 in Japan. The series followed Lee’s attempts to escape a Terminator with his three children in tow, aided by a resistance soldier sent back from the future to shut down Kokoro and protect Malcolm and his family. Unlike all Terminator: Judgment Day’s sequels, Terminator Zero utilizes its main Terminator as the anime’s villain.

Terminator Zero was the first time since The Sarah Connor Chronicles that viewers weren’t treated to Schwarzenegger playing either the main villain or the hero in a Terminator project.

What made this particularly exciting was the fact that, for once, the character wasn’t played by Schwarzenegger. It wasn’t a T-800, but the main Terminator of Terminator Zero was a villain, and it was played by Timothy Olyphant. Although Terminator: Salvation featured numerous Terminator models and both Genisys and Dark Fate introduced their own spins on the cybernetic assassins, this was the first time since The Sarah Connor Chronicles that viewers weren’t treated to Schwarzenegger playing either the main villain or the hero in a Terminator project.

Timothy Olyphant’s Terminator Was Just As Terrifying As The Original T-800

Terminator Zero Wisely Treated The New Terminator As A Straightforward Villain

Olyphant’s performance as the Terminator was appropriately threatening, but this was not the only reason that he made for an instantly iconic Terminator. Terminator Zero treated its Terminator as a horror movie monster rather than a tragic antihero or a secretly sweet figure. This is exactly the approach that Cameron's original movie took to the T-800, portraying Schwarzenegger’s character as an unthinking, unfeeling killing machine. By taking the Terminator series back to its horror roots, Terminator Zero breathed new life into the franchise.

In the intervening decades between Judgment Day and Terminator Zero, the series did everything imaginable to humanize Schwarzenegger’s T-800 but never made him scary again. This might have been because Judgment Day did a great job of making the villain an unlikely hero that it effectively ruined the T-800’s original appeal. Whether it was Dark Fate turning him into a suburban stepfather named “Carl" or Genisys creating a new timeline where he was Sarah Connor’s surrogate father figure throughout her childhood, the franchise thoroughly, repeatedly defanged the Terminator.

This was why Terminator Zero’s villain came as such a welcome surprise. Olyphant’s android assassin didn’t come with the same baggage as Schwarzenegger’s T-800 and, from the moment he was introduced, it was clear that he was a lethal force to be reckoned with. This Terminator was immune to reason and needed to be defeated by force, reminding viewers just how scary the franchise’s title characters can be.

Terminator Zero Was An Important Reminder That Terminator Can Have New Characters

Terminator Zero Proved The Franchise Doesn’t Need To Keep Rebooting and Recasting

Although The Sarah Connor Chronicles successfully recast Sarah Connor, the Terminator series has mostly held on to its original characters as much as possible throughout numerous reboots. Sarah, John, and Schwarzenegger’s T-800 all appear in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator: Salvation, Terminator Genisys, and Terminator: Dark Fate, even though every reboot offers a new timeline and a new combination of these heroes. A recast John is the star of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines alongside Schwarzenegger’s T-800, but his mother Sarah is absent.

It is impossible not to feel like the franchise is scraping the bottom of the barrel by constantly recasting the same existing characters.

While Terminator Genisys recast Sarah and John alike, the reboot still brought back Schwarzenegger in his famous role. In contrast, Dark Fate killed off John Connor in its infamous opening scene but brought back Linda Hamilton’s original Sarah Connor and Schwarzenegger once again. It is impossible not to feel like the franchise is scraping the bottom of the barrel by constantly recasting the same existing characters, so Terminator Zero introducing a whole new set of heroes and villains alike feels outright revolutionary given the franchise’s historic fear of change.

Before Terminator Zero, This Other Terminator Show Also Didn’t Feature Schwarzenegger

2007’s Underrated The Sarah Connor Chronicles Also Left Schwarzenegger’s T-800 Behind

To be fair to the series, the Terminator franchise did try to move on from Schwarzenegger’s T-800 once before. In 2007, the aforementioned TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles was the first Terminator project not to feature Schwarzenegger’s character in a prominent part, although this may have merely been because the star was too big for a television role. In any case, the show was an underrated success that deserved more love, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles now acts as another reminder that the franchise can flourish without its most famous face.

It is ironic that Schwarzenegger was the breakout star of the Terminator movies, since his presence has arguably hurt the later sequels in the series. For Terminator 7’s reboot story to work, the series would need to do something as fresh, unpredictable, and exciting as Terminator Zero did with the franchise. However, this would inevitably mean dropping Schwarzenegger’s T-800.

By now, Schwarzenegger’s presence is a guarantee that a Terminator project won’t rock the boat or try anything too interesting.

It is too late to reinvent the T-800 as a villain, and viewers have already seen no less than four separate heroic and anti-heroic interpretations of the character. If Terminator Zero’s success proves anything, it is that the series must give this character a well-earned rest. Schwarzenegger’s T-800 is not just the face of the franchise anymore. By now, Schwarzenegger’s presence is a guarantee that a Terminator project won’t rock the boat or try anything too interesting. As such, the next Terminator needs to follow Terminator Zero’s lead and drop Schwarzenegger’s T-800 from its plot.