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Arnold Schwarzenegger. The very name conjures up images of...well, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

...and if you've ever looked at the NES's catalog of games, you know that it's heavily larded with crummy movie adaptations.

[Insert linking statement here!], because this week we're going to take a look at several NES representations of Arnie!

He's only equipped with ITEM-PUNCH at the start of the game, but if you're a sucker, you can jump down to the low road on the first screen and gather ITEM-PINE (grenades? Pine cones? Who knows!)

This power-up lets you throw slow-moving, long-fused explosive rocks which both replaces your ability to punch enemies AND gives you a chance to take damage by blowing yourself up, if you're too near to the explosion. Then before you can proceed another full screen, you are then forced to use it to burrow through a huge wall, brick by brick, while a re-spawning soldier nudges Arnie until he (or friendly-fire from your own PINEs) kills Arnie.

I'm pretty sure you're just meant to take the high road.

Actually, this game is pretty neat: not only does your red-headed freedom fighter have a lot of health, but you can shoot your gun at 45-degree angles, which is a rarity for NES platformers!

Also you get to double your Arnie, because in addition to Squarejaw Floorbuffer Terminators, you get to blast Skeletal Terminators, as well:

However all of these ferocious killing machines go down after a couple of shots from your side-arm. I guess they're not making T-100s like they used to! Which brings us to...

Unfortunately he seems to be the same tinfoil-and-balsa-wood edition of the T-100 that our red-headed friend dispatched in the NES Terminator above, because he can't even decisively win a fist-fight with goofy-looking aerobics-dudes at a truck stop:

If you're not careful and stealthy with your platformer beat-em-up punching, your screen will suddenly be drowned out in a blur of static, leaving you with this cryptic message:

There's a certain irony (or titanium-y?) in this: our super-cyborg time traveller has been beaten down by guys who look like extras from Sweatin' to the Oldies.

Most people have seen the amiable "Hi there, I'm Normal Guy Arnie!" title screen, and the hilariously awkward "briefly extend forearm" move that constitutes Arnie's punch.

The fact that he first unleashes this on four-foot-tall bearded men who leap about in pink jumpsuits and kick him in the crotch just adds to the amusement factor:

But if only I could get screenprints from farther into the game -- say, after the incredibly-difficult "burnt-out factory" level, where Arnie has to battle an immune-to-bullets hobo by ducking his infinite supply of hobo-throwing-hats while ducking and punching repeatedly, I could get what is perhaps the greatest movie-adaption-cutscene picture in the history of the NES, if not all video games: Arnie wrapping a towel around his head like he's a frumpy housewife, while spouting dialog that would seem staid in the world's first cut-scene game (Ninja Gaiden).

So instead, I'll have to make due with this forged version of that scene: