Terminator Salvation First Look

CineMovie was invited to a first look at Terminator Salvation, the latest in the Terminator movies with director McG in Los Angeles.   Appropriately held at the Director’s Guild of America, McG screened a couple of scenes from the work in progress opening Memorial Weekend 2009 to a select number of press. (Watch above trailer)

See an advance screening of Terminator Salvation

Initially when it was announced that director of the mindless Charlie Angels movies would take over the fourth installment of Terminator, fans like CineMovie cried foul including Christian Bale who turned down the role with a f*$#@ to McG after reading the action script.  McG revealed he didn’t like the script either and shared his vision of the film with Bale who in turn offered his own ideas.  McG then hired Christopher Nolan’s Batman contributor and brother Jonathan Nolan to incorporate their vision and rewrote the script to Bale’s liking.  You know the film must have substance, otherwise Bale would not have chosen it as a follow up to the mega successful Batman: Dark Knight.  To further bring credibility to the franchise, he consulted with Terminator creator, James Cameron and special effects guru Stan Winston (died during production) who built the original Terminator cyborg.   

After viewing over ten minutes of unfinished footage from Terminator Salvation and listening to McG’s passionate vision, the film might actually return to it’s original concept, a dark tale about the human race versus technology.  He promised the room that this movie is less about the action scenes and more focused on character conflicts, much in the vein of Dark Knight and Iron Man.  The movie-going public’s expectation has been elevated because of the success of those films from a story standpoint, according to McG, so his goal was to deliver that in this film.  

That is not to say there is no fast paced, special effects laden action scenes in the film.  We were treated to an unfinished action sequence involving a giant robot, robotic motorcycles, and the Cyberdyne aircraft transporting human prisoners to its science lab.  While impressive and action packed, there were some similarities in the hardware such as the Road Warrior-like fortified tow truck and the Transformers-like robot but those things can’t be helped because you can’t be original in every aspect. 

The rest of the clips also peeked my interest and revealed interesting plot points.  While the director revealed some things about the story, the rest we are totally speculating from what we saw.  

SPOILER ALERT! PLOT POINTS REVEALED

The film takes place in 2018, not 2029 (as portrayed in Terminator future) and a young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) has not met the future leader (and son) of the resistance, John Connor.  Reese searches for the underground resistance against Skynet when he meets Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), an ex-criminal waking from an induced sleep after being submitted to a scientific experiment.  In a later clip, John Conner played by Christian Bale exposes Wright as a Terminator sent to infiltrate the resistance but Wright claims he was once a human whose been altered and vows to seek revenge.  Could Wright serve as the good terminator helping Connor in his fight or the opposite?  Another cool factor as mentioned previously is the experimentation on humans and their imprisonment, which I don’t believe, was ever introduced in previous Terminator movies.  This is definitely a new element to the movie that surprised me.

Other reveals include Reese being captured and taken prisoner by Skynet for use in their scientific experiments at Cyberdyne.  John must then race to save Reese, otherwise, if Reese is killed, then he ceases to exist.  We’re totally presuming this point but it would be cool if that were the case.  But the trailer hints at this when Connor says, “something has changed.”  Furthermore, McG confirmed that Linda Hamilton will be making some sort of cameo in Terminator Salvation but “how” remains up to the director who is currently in the edit bay finishing up for it’s May 22nd release. 

This first look at Terminator Salvation has definitely given me hope that the fourth installment of the Terminator series will make us forget T3: Rise of the Machines. 

Director: McG
Writers: Michael Ferris & John Brancato, Paul Haggis, Jonathan Nolan, Shaun Ryan,
Anthony Zuiker
Producers: Moritz Borman, Derek Anderson, Victor Kubicek, Jeffrey Silver
Executive Producers: Peter D. Graves, Mario F. Kassar, Andrew G. Vajna,
Joel B. Michaels, Dan Lin, Jeanne Allgood
Cast: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard,
Moon Bloodgood, Common

TERMINATOR SALVATION In theatres on May 22
(Warner Bros. Pictures/Sony Pictures/Halcyon)