The Arnold One-Liner That Never Was
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 12:57AM Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't the first guy to drop a kill-pun, but he's the one who elevated the action movie one-liner to pop art. Anytime he dispatched someone, he'd have to grunt something in that Austrian staccato to make the kill officially official. The beauty is it only served to underscore his total non-grasp of both humor and English, which are literally the two things you need to make a pun. Famous examples:
- Arnold stabs a guy with a knife, pinning him to a wall with it: "Stick around."
- Arnold impales a guy with an enormous power drill: "Screw you."
- Arnold chainsaws a guy in half from the crotch up: "You need to split."
- Arnold freezes a guy with an ice gun: "Chill."
Cut to 1990 and this pearl of an opportunity known as Total Recall presents itself to Arnold. Every minute of this sci-fi movie is drenched in Crazy Sauce:
Future Prostitutes have three boobs.
Arnold transforms into a fat lady to get through Space Customs.
Right after he shoots his wife Sharon Stone in the forehead.
And right before he eats a gun.
This is one of Arnold's homegirls who lives on Mars.
And he makes this face from time to time.
So the movie is a total circus and the grounds on which to drop a one-liner are fertile indeed. But every scene was so jam-packed with bizarre shit that he never said one. And he killed like 200 guys in Total Recall. Never said a thing.
Ok. So we get to the end. Arnie's fighting the main boss and it's so perfect. We're on an elevator with no walls, gruesome death is imminent, we've been one-liner-free the whole movie and here's his last chance to give it to us good...
"See you at the party, Richter."
Huh.
It's not a terrible line. It's a reference to some shit the dude said way earlier. Fine. But what kind of one-liner is that? Where's the jokes? That was such a perfect kill, you stupid Governor! Think about what you could've yelled as you were clutching Richter's freshly-severed arms.
*Woods came up with that one
Reader Comments (7)
"CATCH!"
Song Smith that shit son.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oGFogwcx-E
Dude, the best line is when he's using the hologram and running around trying to avoid the soldiers. The bad guys have been firing at the holograms and hitting nothing, so when Arnold gets cornered for real he tries to fool them into thinking he's the hologram....right before he blows them away.
"Ha Ha Ha! You think this is the REAL Quaid?!.......It is!" BLAM!
he did have a one-liner in total recall. after he killed or hit Sharon Stone, he said....
"consider it a divorce"
Just discovered your blog. mmmm multimedia blogging.
"you're luggage" after killing a alligator is a pertty damn good kill pun.
That drill scene is totally in Total Recall! Screw you!
(hands him his arms back) "let me give you a hand" or just arnolds trade mark "AAARRRRGGHHH" would sufice