James Cameron Reveals the Origin of ‘Hasta La Vista, Baby’ from ‘Terminator 2’

Lawrence Yee
Movies
Movies

“Hasta la vista, baby.”

It’s one of the most famous lines in cinema history, delivered to perfection with an Austrian accent by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Schwarzenegger’s T-800 Terminator model utters the four words before taking out the liquid metal T-1000.

With a 3D re-release hitting theaters soon, director James Cameron revealed to FANDOM the origin of the line.

“I was probably working out before I went to write for the day. There was a Tone Loc video — I think it’s Wild Thing — and he says ‘hasta la vista, baby.’ And I thought ‘oh that works!'”

Indeed, “hasta la vista, baby” is a line from the rapper’s 1988 smash hit. The lyric comes at the very end of the song:

Say what
Yo love you must be kidding
You’re walkin’ babe
Just break out of here
Hasta la vista baby

Tone Loc approved of the use, giving a supportive “okay” emoji to the news.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D returns August 25 in the United States and August 29 in the U.K. Cameron’s team oversaw the 3D conversion from start to finish, which lasted more than a year. Cameron told FANDOM the end product is “bad-ass.”

T2 in 3D will screen exclusively at AMC locations through the U.S. during its first week back in theaters.

Lawrence Yee
Lawrence is Editor in Chief of FANDOM. He grew up loving X-Men, Transformers, and Japanese-style role playing games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. First-person shooters make him incredibly nauseous.