British actor Christian Bale says Arnold Schwarzenegger is no longer relevant to the Terminator movie franchise. The Terminator Salvation star who stars in the forthcoming instalment of the sci-fi series insists the new blockbuster is dramatically different from when the 61-year-old actor-turned-politician played the title character in 1984, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

"Terminator 2 is the original nightmare of just being pursued that everyone has, by somebody who just will not stop, never stops, doesn't give up. When you've got someone who looked like Schwarzenegger coming after you, it made a big difference. But nowadays, it wouldn't really - we've seen so many guys who imitated him and it just became a little passe," he said.

"The franchise doesn't need him now because you can't just keep re-hashing the same plot. Yes, Terminator is known for having this one singular figure of villainy that is constantly pursuing but how many times can you keep on doing it?," he added.