'Terminator 6' Could Explain Why Killer Robots Look Like Arnold Schwarzenegger

Okay, okay – so the killer robots in the Terminator movies aren't technically killer robots, they're cybernetic organisms. ("Living tissue over a metal endoskeleton," as one helpfully explains in T2.) But those time-traveling death machines must look like Arnold Schwarzenegger for a reason, right?

That's a topic that's been on James Cameron's mind lately, and in a new interview, he explains how Terminator 6 – the movie he's producing that has Deadpool's Tim Miller supposedly lined up to direct – will explain exactly why the T-800 models look like a muscle-bound Austrian man. Read his explanation below.

Speaking with The Arnold Fans (via JoBlo), Cameron was asked if he ever considered having Arnold play a human character in any of his movies to show where the models got their inspiration:

"Yeah, you got to ask yourself, 'Why did they make these characters look and sound like Arnold? There has to be a reason. So yeah, it has flashed through my mind that there has to have been a prototype. There has to have been a guy who's DNA was harvested from – that they grew the organic outer layer that they grew the Terminator from...and that presumably was a real person at some point. Now, the question is, did that person have some sort of meaning to Skynet on WHY they chose that one? Or was it like a whole rack of Terminators and the one that happened to be the Arnold model just happened to be closest to the door going out to the time displacement center and all the others looked different? I've asked myself these questions but it's never been resolved...so stay tuned! We're talking pretty seriously now about doing some new Terminator films or possibly a trilogy and you'll just have to see what surfaces in those."

If we're being honest, it sounds like what Cameron has really been thinking about is a way to make sure that his buddy Arnold has a role in the next Terminator movie (should such a movie ever even come to pass, a prospect about which I'm still incredibly dubious). But as far as ideas go, it's not a terrible one: Schwarzenegger's comedic chops were unquestionably the best aspect of Terminator Genisys, and a Cameron-produced Terminator movie without Arnold involved in some capacity just wouldn't feel right.

To those who are doubting this idea, look on the bright side: whatever Cameron comes up with, it has to be better than this deleted scene from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which attempted to explain the same concept in maybe the worst possible way (watch until at least 1:20, if you dare):