Looking at Arnold Schwarzenegger today is surprisingly not much different from seeing him appear in the 1980s. The man has aged well, maintaining his chiseled physique and cocksure grin well into his 70s.
What kids these days will never understand is that once upon a time, we didn’t know who Arnie was, and none of the iconic roles he played had been committed to film yet. Kids today will never understand what it was like to hear him say, “I’ll be bok,” for the first time, or the crazy period between 1987 and 1993 when Arnold did his best work.
How Arnold Schwarzenegger Found His Groove
No actor is immediately in his prime, not even Arnie. It took a couple of movies to establish him as a household name before he could go on and do his big stuff. Fortunately, it didn’t take very long: audiences were introduced to Conan the Barbarian, The Terminator, and Commando, among others, to warm up to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
All three of these were breakout roles for him, but in 1984 The Terminator propelled him into the mainstream, even though he played the villain (and the famous one-liner is actually only a throwaway that exploded). The important thing to note about these three entries into Schwarzenegger’s filmography is that they paved the way for his next big hits.
The Golden Age Of Arnie
Arnie of the late 1980s and early 1990s had command of his own destiny. Playing into the genre that made him a star, he stuck to science fiction with Predator (1987), The Running Man (1987), Total Recall (1990), and Terminator 2 (1991). Aguably, these four films comprise Arnie’s prime. All four of them were action hits in their time and put Schwarzenegger in direct competition with action stars like Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, all of whom were also experiencing the height of their careers.
Action heroes were what drew people to the movies, and Arnie was the action hero of action heroes. Sitting down with your popcorn to any Schwarzenegger movie was like opening a Christmas gift for the eyes.
King Arnold Could Do Anything
Arnie was so good that he could also leap across genres. Red Heat was a cop drama that explored tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union (which existed as a country until 1991, so kids would never understand how different it was from today’s Russia). Schwarzenegger also turned in some comedies during this time: Twins, Junior, and Kindergarten Cop all made their debuts, using Arnie’s massive physique as the punchline instead of the punch. That was okay, too; audiences waited on long lines for tickets to Arnie movies and might see one in the theater multiple times.
Eventually, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career reached such a crescendo that he was allowed to spoof himself. In 1993’s The Last Action Hero, Arnie played Jack Slater, a movie character being played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The movie examined all the tropes that made the action heroes of the late 80s and weaved them together in a satire that asks what would happen if we could meet these characters.
Arnie in Last Action Hero (1993)
Despite a nod to Stallone, Arnie was chosen to be the face of all action heroes. To top it off, his sidekick was a pre-teen boy who stood in for every single viewer Arnie drew in over the preceding decade, most of whom were pre-teens and teens themselves.
The Superhero That Ended Arnold’s Reign
Arnie snuck in one more action-comedy before the period of his prime ended. True Lies paired him with Jamie Lee Curtis in 1994 and marked the beginning of a period of movies that were less popular. The real death blow, however, came in 1997, when Arnie played Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin.
That was a movie that featured Bane as a character, an ideal fit for Schwarzenegger, but for some reason, the production decided to cover everything distinctive about Arnie with a tin foil costume instead. This was a huge miscast and ended Arnie as a hit machine.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Rules Hollywood, Literally
Schwarzenegger’s career never really ended, nor was his “movie prime” by any means the peak of his career. He served as the governor of California from 2003 until 2011, during which he refused a salary and even paid for his own transportation. He married into the Kennedy family, but only after a youth of building his own wealth through shrewd real estate investment and meticulous self-care.
He continues to act in new content to this day. The grizzled hulk known to kids today is but a short chapter in a much longer career, a career that was one-of-a-kind and had to be seen in real time to be believed.
