Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The nine most awesome Arnold lines and the things that make them awesome.


1. The Movie: Hercules in New York (1970)

The Line: Ha, ha, ha. You have strucked Hercules.

Three reasons why it’s important / awesome:
1). This is the first line that Arnold ever spoke in a movie…sort of, considering his entire part was dubbed.
2) The grammar in this line foreshadows his entire career nicely.
3) The movie contains the most ridiculous fight scene of all time, Arnold fighting a grizzly bear on a busy street in Manhattan…sort of, considering it’s clearly a person in a bear costume. I’d love to include a line from the bear fighting scene, but it’s mostly just grunting, er, dubbed grunting.

2. The Movie: Conan the Barbarian (1982)

The Line: For us, there is no spring. Just the wind that smells fresh before the storm.

Three reasons why it’s important / awesome:
1) Arnold’s first dabble in poetry comes off without a hitch, unless of course you consider long hair and leather underwear a hitch.
2) The looks of confusion on everyone’s face immediately after he delivers the line are priceless. No one knows what the hell it means, least of all Arnold.
3) In a really weird coincidence, this movie somewhat mirrors Arnold’s real life. Small town kid grows huge muscles, becomes a hero of sorts and then, in an unlikely and surprising move, is named king. (Editor’s note: Google Image searches for: ‘Arnold governing California in Conan leather underwear’ were unsuccessful at time of print).

3. The Movie: Conan the Destroyer (1984)

The Line:
Blond babe: I suppose nothing hurts you.
Arnold: Only pain.

Three reasons why it’s important / awesome:
1) Just as he dabbled in poetry in the first Conan movie, in the sequel Arnold tries something else on for size: irony.
2) Legend has it that Arnold has no idea he appeared in this movie – all of his dialogue was dubbed over from Conan the Barbarian outtakes – that would explain why the movie ends with Arnold passing up the throne and the beautiful virgin queen to “find his own kingdom” – no way Arnold would’ve have approved that shit
3) This movie features cameo appearances by Grace Jones, Andre the Giant and Wilt Chamberlain! Really the perfect storm of “what the fuck are they doing in this movie?” appearances.

4. The Movie: Commando

The Line:
Nameless thug (pointing a gun at Arnold): Fuck you, asshole!
[thug squeezes the trigger, but the gun clicks empty]
Arnold: Fuck *you*, asshole.

Three reasons why it’s important / awesome:
1) Arnold goes back to his giant bag of acting tricks and pulls out one of the oldest and most trusted: repeat the line back to the other actor but emphasize a different word. Pure genius.
2) Repeat the line back to the other actor but *emphasize* a different word, asshole.
3) Arnold has made a career out of saying snappy lines immediately after he kills somebody. This was the first time he actually incorporated the line into the killing process. It seems like he uses this trick every few seconds, or maybe he actually he does since he kills 81 people in this movie.

5. The Movie: Running Man (1987)

The Line: I live to see you eat that contract, but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your goddamn spine!

Three reasons why it’s important / awesome:
1) For some reason no three words flare up his accent better than “your goddamn spine.” There’s a good change that “yourgodd amnspine” means something in Austrian and that’s why it sounds so good. (Editor’s note: it doesn’t mean anything).
2) For some reason Arnold delivers this line without any pause whatsoever. The comma after “contract” was only inserted b/c of the high grammatical standards of this blog, it doesn’t exist in the actual quote. Try and say that line in one breath without pausing, no wonder this guy won Mr. Universe seven times!
3) Not to be nitpicky here (oh, who am I kidding, it's a blog), but how big is the actual contract if Arnold is worried there won’t be room in the dude’s stomach for his fist (and yes, I realize how ridiculous that sounds)? Did Running Man have the contestants sign a block of wood?

6. The Movie: Total Recall (1990)

The Line: See you at the party, Richter!

Three reasons why it’s important / awesome:
1) Because any line Arnold delivers while holding two arms that he just ripped off will always make this list. Always.
2) One of the truly awesome Arnold lines that is awesome because of its own awesomeness and not just b/c Arnold said it awesomely. This really is a great line.
3) The truly transcendent moment after the line is delivered when Arnold is standing on the elevator holding the arms and trying to figure out what to do next. You can almost see Arnold’s acting wheels turning inside of his head, “hmmm…what would my character do here? Bring the arms with him? Put them in his belt like swords? Give himself a high five with one of the arms? Or maybe he would just throw them over the side. Yes. He would do that.”

7. The Movie: Eraser (1996)

The Line: (after shooting an alligator): You're luggage!

Three reasons why it’s important / awesome:
1) The first of Arnold’s snappy “I just killed you” lines to be directed towards an actual animal (not counting the Predator, all the weird creatures from the Conan movies and the grizzly bear from Hercules)
2) This line loses major points because he shot the alligator, a line that good really deserves bare hand strangulation.
3) Unfortunately Arnold does not make good on his promise and use the dead alligator as a suitcase at any point in the movie. Pity. Stupid PETA.

8. The Movie: End of Days (1999)

The Line: You want to fuck with me? Oh, you think you're bad, huh? You're a fucking choir boy compared to me! A CHOIR BOY!

Three reasons why it’s important / awesome:
1) It’s important to note that this line is being said to Satan. Satan!
2) “You’re a fucking choir boy compared to me!” Um, might want to consider those track records again, Arnold.
2) Choir boy? He’s squaring off with Satan and that’s the best he can do? Choir boy? Good thing he didn’t call him a “ninny” or a “wee fairy” that really would’ve pissed Satan off.

9. Movie: The 6th Day (2000)

Line: All I know is that there is somebody in my house, eating my birthday cake, with my family, and its not me!

Three reasons why it’s important / awesome:
1) One of those weird Arnold lines in one of those weird Arnold movies where you can’t tell if the screenwriter is trying to be serious or trying to give Arnold a pseudo serious line that will be intentionally unintentionally funny
2) Either way, you’ve gotta like his priorities here, 1) house 2) cake 3) family.
3) One positive of seeing a movie starring Arnold about cloning: sure, you’ve seen your share of goofy high fives and thumbs ups. You’ve probably even done your fair share. We all have. But you haven’t seen a goofy thumbs up until you’ve seen cloned Arnolds goofily thumbs upping each other for a solid hour. The thumbs up has never been the same. In fact, I vote we all watch the 6th Day together as a human race and then retire the thumbs up once and for all.

Movies not considered:
Terminator movies: too iconic
Kindergarten Cop and Twins: too easy
Batman and Robin: too dumb to have any awesomeness in it
Last Action Hero and Junior: neither of these movies actually happened

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