Arnold....I am sad,

[Total LOLige]

Don't panic! We've still got Liam Neeson. He's the new Arnie. Or Statham.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

The only guy who I can think of who has similar accomplishments is Brock Lesnar.

Well he's basically a meat head through and through though. I've only seen a bit of wrestling, and wasn't interested, but I noticed that brock lesnar was also really huge, so I looked him up to see if he was more then meets the eye. He's not. Apparently he was last to graduate, skipped a bunch of school and main drive is to hurt the guy infront of him. Arnie actually seems intelligent. Say what you want about politics, even the worst politicians are pretty smart.

God, what's with the new captchas. These are a ***** to read.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Okay this isn't about you but people in general, is it so hard to quote my whole post and just write underneath it?

I think it helps to clarify which points I am adressing and I believe it looks less schizophrenic than drastically changing topic with each paragraph. I'll quote the way I like to and you can do it your way.

It's annoying as all fuck and comes across condescending.

Well if you're replying to really, really long posts and want to address maybe 1 line, it's a little hard to bring attention to the specific phrase.

 

[SadakoMoose]

Nobody really cares about that style of action hero anymore, expect for people who were around for that time. We've seen hong kong style action now, and there's no going back.
Audiences expect either bone crushing, super athletic fight scenes (ie; Michael Jai White, Scott Adkins, The Entire Cast of The Raid) or they expect guys who can at least ACT well enough to be considered credible in their roles, or taken seriously (Liam Neeson, Daniel Craig).

Basically, guys like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Norris made their careers off of being exaggerated cartoon characters. Norris is just a few points removed from ACTUALLY being Eagleheart. Stallone's early work actually does show some effort on his part, such as the first Rocky or First Blood, wherein he at least TRIES to act. After he realized that he didn't need to try in order to draw an audience, he gave up completely.

If you go back and watch those movies, what do you get? The same one liners, the same static shots where they just stand there and fire from the hip, or maybe some sub par hand to hand combat where only one henchman attacks at a time. Chuck Norris only survives now as a walking punch line to a joke that stopped being funny 3 years ago, and Stallone continues to exist basically so that people can make fun of his Bell's Palsy. Arnold? 1 word, JUNIOR.

As per a reference to wrestling earlier, the audience preferences have also changed greatly since then, with the influx of Mexican and Japanese influence that came in the 90's.
Wrestling fans just don't care about big dudes anymore, as they've since realized that having traps the size of water melons and large biceps do not indicate (and often times negate) athletic performance/agility.
The cutting edge of wrestling doesn't look like the Arnold cup:

The changes are coming. Right now, some of the biggest rising stars in the WWE are guys like Bryan Danielson and CM Punk, NEITHER of whom you could argue look like body builders.

The world moved on, because it realized that it could do better.

 

[Soxafloppin]

As an amateur body builder myself, Arnold is one of my Idols. They're have been bigger but Arnie is the still the definitive body builder to this day, Ronnie who?

 

[Guy from the 80's]

Nobody really cares about that style of action hero anymore, expect for people who were around for that time. We've seen hong kong style action now, and there's no going back.

Hong Kong action is pretty crap because we all know Kung Foo doesn't work. On top of that, watching people flip out gets boring after a while. The early Jet Lee was god damn amazing, but today its just stagnated and boring.

 

[Luna]

As a bodybuilding fanatic, I must agree with you. While there may be people who surpass Arnold in the field of bodybuilding (Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman, Phil Heath) there are none that succeed as well in the multiple areas of life that Arnold has. He may not be the best bodybuilder, he may not be the best actor, and he may not be the best politician, but considering all that he has accomplished in his life is truly inspiring.

He was the best bodybuilder of his time.


Also, the only reason why Jay, Ronnie and Phil would beat Arnold if 1970s Arnold traveled through time to compete in 2012 is due to the way the contests are judged; the notion that bigger is better. If it were about aesthetics rather than pure size then Arnold would win IMO.

Bodybuilding is purely a subjective sport, so of course if the judges were changed then in theory anybody could win. Go look at a picture of Arnold in his prime, and while his upper body may have been amazing for its time, his legs were never really anything special. In Arnold's time the lower body was not judged nearly as harshly as it is now, so many competitors got along fine with comparatively lagging lower bodies (Tom Platz is famous for having the exact opposite problem, he was built like a T-Rex with massive legs and a comparatively weak upper body).

Also, to say that aesthetics are dead in bodybuilding is false IMO. Go look at Victor Martinez, he may not be the biggest mass monster out there but he came close to winning the Olympia just because he is so well-rounded.

I never said aesthetics were dead. But I think they were certainly more alive in the 70s than they are today.

 

[SadakoMoose]

Nobody really cares about that style of action hero anymore, expect for people who were around for that time. We've seen hong kong style action now, and there's no going back.

Hong Kong action is pretty crap because we all know Kung Foo doesn't work. On top of that, watching people flip out gets boring after a while. The early Jet Lee was god damn amazing, but today its just stagnated and boring.

And watching the guy from Kindergarten Cop wax philosophical over a sub par Dragonlance fanfic is any better? There's a reason that these men's careers did not survive the 90's.
captcha: one hit wonder

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Yeah, Jason Statham is pretty much the modern Arnold Schwarzenegger, only he can actually act worth a damn.

This is in terms of film career, by the way. Part of what makes Schwarzenegger so popular is that his bad acting makes him so funny and easily parodied (especially all his famous quotes). But other than that, he?s just a unique guy, who has appeared in multiple great films. Like Statham, he?s basically playing himself in every film, but he makes that role his own (although Statham can genuinely act, but he just gets typecast).

Which is why I?m more than peeved that they?re remaking Total Recall, and with Colin Farell. He?s a good actor, but not even he will be able to save Hollywood from shitting all over that unnecessary remake. Rule of thumb: don?t remake classics, and definitely don?t remake Schwarzenegger classics.

Anyway, I don?t know why you?re moaning about Schwarzenegger?s bodybuilding career. That?s largely irrelevant to his cultural phenomenon status that?s mostly thanks to his film career. And I think your qualms about bodybuilding are, frankly, stupid. If he wants to pump up on steroids (which is, like, only one part of the job, and even then, it?s not as if they all do it), then he can.

If models want to starve themselves half to death, then they can. And people sometimes can?t help being role models. I don?t like the fact that Lady Gaga is a role model for many teenage girls, but she?s not necessarily doing anything wrong. Encouraging kids to take up a valid occupation such as bodybuilding is just as bad as encouraging kids to be attention-seeking whores who rely on gimmicks to sell their Madonna rip-off records.

Watch Snatch, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and London. 3 movies where he doesn't kill a single person and he's still a damn good actor.

I didn't say he couldn't act. I said that, unlike Schwarzenegger, he can actually act worth a damn.

I've watched parts of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but not enough to judge his performance in that film. Haven?t seen the other two.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Okay this isn't about you but people in general, is it so hard to quote my whole post and just write underneath it?

I think it helps to clarify which points I am adressing and I believe it looks less schizophrenic than drastically changing topic with each paragraph. I'll quote the way I like to and you can do it your way.

It's annoying as all fuck and comes across condescending.

Well if you're replying to really, really long posts and want to address maybe 1 line, it's a little hard to bring attention to the specific phrase.

Then chop it down to just that line, or bold the line that is the sticking point. Going line by line refuting claims as you go is lazy and disrespectful.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

It's annoying as all fuck

Well I'm sorry

and comes across condescending.

That you feel that way.

I prefer it.

Coming from the guy that if he doesn't have any personal interest in the subject matter it's automatically written off as a silly and trivial pursuit.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Nobody really cares about that style of action hero anymore, expect for people who were around for that time. We've seen hong kong style action now, and there's no going back.
Audiences expect either bone crushing, super athletic fight scenes (ie; Michael Jai White, Scott Adkins, The Entire Cast of The Raid) or they expect guys who can at least ACT well enough to be considered credible in their roles, or taken seriously (Liam Neeson, Daniel Craig).

Basically, guys like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, and Norris made their careers off of being exaggerated cartoon characters. Norris is just a few points removed from ACTUALLY being Eagleheart. Stallone's early work actually does show some effort on his part, such as the first Rocky or First Blood, wherein he at least TRIES to act. After he realized that he didn't need to try in order to draw an audience, he gave up completely.

If you go back and watch those movies, what do you get? The same one liners, the same static shots where they just stand there and fire from the hip, or maybe some sub par hand to hand combat where only one henchman attacks at a time. Chuck Norris only survives now as a walking punch line to a joke that stopped being funny 3 years ago, and Stallone continues to exist basically so that people can make fun of his Bell's Palsy. Arnold? 1 word, JUNIOR.

As per a reference to wrestling earlier, the audience preferences have also changed greatly since then, with the influx of Mexican and Japanese influence that came in the 90's.
Wrestling fans just don't care about big dudes anymore, as they've since realized that having traps the size of water melons and large biceps do not indicate (and often times negate) athletic performance/agility.
The cutting edge of wrestling doesn't look like the Arnold cup:

The changes are coming. Right now, some of the biggest rising stars in the WWE are guys like Bryan Danielson and CM Punk, NEITHER of whom you could argue look like body builders.

The world moved on, because it realized that it could do better.

Hey man, do you know about our Escapist wrestling group? Join us.

It's not that the casual WWE fan doesn't like the big guys anymore, it's that with the way wrestling pyschology works big guys aren't allowed to wrestle the same exciting style as the smaller guys. When I was training I knew a guy that had a Mark Henry build, the guy would study Shawn Micheals and Bret Hart. He told me that he'd love to do some of the stuff the more svelte guys do, but he couldn't because the psychology of the big man essentially being the incredible hulk sort of handicapped what he was allowed to do.

Big Show, in his prime, could do a moonsault off the top rope and do a pretty wicked drop kick:


Plus it doesn't help that the business is plain getting an influx of smaller guys wanting to be wrestlers then heavyweights.

 

[Nash]

Not sure how to enter the conversation without sounding like a smark douchebag...

Fuck it. #ShowOff

 

[idarkphoenixi]

It's because the days of cheesy action movies with hilariously bulky heroes are over. Hollywood doesn't go that route anymore.

Arnold was always a bad actor...and that was almost intended. It was just so men could have escapist power fantasys. But now that women are considered more as a customer we've chosen the path of slightly more believable protagonist males so the chicks can get some eye candy as well as us with the lead heroine.

 

[BathorysGraveland]

Conan the Barbarian is my all-time favourite film. The first Terminator is also great. Know what they both have in common? Arnold actually acts well in those. He played the near-silent 'actions speak louder than words' characters perfectly.

The Predator was also pretty good, lacked the facepalm-inducing cheese of some of his other films (for me, that's a good thing). Running Man and Commando are fun, if silly (but not TOO over the top) films. That's about it for me as far as Arnold is concerned.

But yeah, Conan the Barbarian and the first Terminator - fucking awesome.

 

[nathan-dts]

Arnold Swarzenegger was just a bad actor with large muscles. Why would I want to show a roided up freak to children.

I disagree with your first point; the guy was in countless great films. Other actors that were there to do the exact same things as Arnie didn't do nearly as well.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Well if you're replying to really, really long posts and want to address maybe 1 line, it's a little hard to bring attention to the specific phrase.

Then chop it down to just that line, or bold the line that is the sticking point. Going line by line refuting claims as you go is lazy and disrespectful.

What if you want to do that several times? Sometimes against page long arguments, it's practically impossible if you want to address everything he said and still have people know what you're talking about.

 

[Lieju]

I don't really care.

I'm not a fan of his movies, I really hate him in Batman and Robin, but I'm not blaming the actor for that, but writing and direction.

I think he is ugly, with all that muscle, but it's a matter of taste. I'm not a fan of body-building either, but if someone wants to do that to themselves, none of my bussiness.
I do dislike it, though, when characters I like (like Batman) are drawn as ridiculously muscular. And if he was a big influence in such a body-type becoming popular in action, I guess I dislike his influence, but not really the man for it.