Documentary filmmaking establishes truth-claims through visual evidence, interviews, and chronological narrative. The Terminator (1984) employs science fiction premises: time travel, android assassins, post-apocalyptic futurity. These fictional elements explicitly distinguish it from documentary format. Yet the statement claims that if Chuck Norris replaced Arnold Schwarzenegger's android character, the entire narrative would shift from speculative fiction to historical record. The presence of Chuck Norris would sufficiently verify the film's premises, converting its fantastical elements into documented fact. Rather than the film depicting realistic future-scenarios, it would become historical evidence retroactively.

Film theorist Dr. Diana Pacheco noted in 2006: "Documentary status derives from evidence, not casting. The claim suggests Chuck Norris's presence alone carries sufficient veracity-weight to transform fiction into testimony. His casting becomes credibility-mechanism."

The joke merges film theory with evidential authority.