The other T-800 in Terminator (1982)

The original sci fi-horror is a praised film, with Arnold Schwarzenegger giving the deadly infiltrator an iconic human visage. Yet a seldom brought up aspect, that I feel add much to both world building and atmosphere, is its second skinjob.

Edit: my bad, should be 1984

Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) told Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) about the T-800 hunting her:

“The Terminator is an infiltration unit, part man, part machine. Underneath it's a hyperalloy combat chassis, microprocessor-controlled, fully armored, very tough. But outside it's living human tissue. Flesh, skin, hair, blood, grown for the cyborgs.”

“The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. They look human... sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait till he moved on you before I could zero him.”

Later we share a future memory of Reese, of a cyborg that infiltrates his human refuge. The machine is revealed by guard dogs but not in time to prevent a massacre.

It is a T-800, as apparent from its human features [this being before model inflation befell the series]. And it is not portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger but by his friend, and fellow bodybuilder, Franco Columbu (1941 - 2019).

It makes sense that for efficiency the new infiltration model will come in various skins [literally], and that Schwarzenegger portrayed but one skin among others. Yet, the tv-series apart, we got but his face over and over again, whether IRL or as CGI.

As for me, I adore the paranoia that the short presence of Columbu adds; the paranoia of not before seen faces, borne by deadly machines coming for us in a grim future...