This ‘DeepFake’ Of Sylvester Stallone In Arnie’s Role As The Terminator Is Creepily Compelling

The Terminator is one of the most iconic figures in action movie history, and it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone other than Arnold Schwarzenegger playing him — but one fan has had fun trying, creating a new version of the sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, starring none other than a young Sylvester Stallone.

Using “deepfake” technology which manipulates existing video footage, YouTuber Ctrl Shift Face was able to digitally graft Sly’s features over Arnie’s in a number of scenes from the movie, including the opening sequence where the Terminator appears in the present and acquires his trademark biker costume.

It’s a pretty odd viewing experience, occasionally falling into uncanny valley territory, but Stallone’s computer-animated features also suit the machine he’s supposed to be playing.

Stallone, who starred alongside Schwarzenegger in The Expendables, and whose own action movie legacy is also pretty solid thanks to the Rocky and Rambo franchises, shared a clip to his Instagram. In the caption for the video, he joked “This is what a terminator would look like if he was built from spaghetti and pizza!”, prompting one fan to comment: “Hasta la pizza, baby!”

This week also saw Funny or Die create a movie mash-up which inserts Stallone’s Rambo character into the new summer blockbuster Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Stallone shared that video too, describing the fictional movie as “something Rambo did during his summer vacation”.

Honestly, it’s kind of awesome.Between this version of Terminator 2 and Rambo v. Godzilla, we’re thinking that maybe all movies would just be better if they featured Sylvester Stallone. Next up, how about Rambo + Juliet?