Terminator Salvation
Encyclopedia
Terminator Salvation is a 2009 American science fiction
action film
directed by McG
and starring Christian Bale
and Sam Worthington
. The fourth installment in the Terminator
series, the film is set in 2018 and focuses on the war between Skynet
and humanity, with the human Resistance fighting against Skynet's killing machines. This is a departure from the previous installments, which were set between 1984 and 2004 and used time travel
as a key plot element. Bale portrays John Connor
, a Resistance fighter and the franchise's central character, while Worthington portrays cyborg
Marcus Wright. Terminator Salvation also features Anton Yelchin
as a young Kyle Reese
, a character first introduced in The Terminator
, and depicts the origin of the T-800 Model 101 Terminator.
After a troubled pre-production, with The Halcyon Company
acquiring the rights for the franchise from Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar
and several writers working on the screenplay, filming began in May 2008 in New Mexico
and ran for 77 days. Terminator Salvation was released on May 21, 2009 in the United States and Canada, followed by early June releases in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Warner Bros.
handled the North America release and Columbia Pictures
the international one. The film grossed over $371 million worldwide, and received mostly negative reviews.
) of Cyberdyne Systems convinces death row
inmate Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington
) to sign his body over for medical research following his execution by lethal injection
. One year later the Skynet
system is activated, perceives humans as a threat to its own existence, and eradicates much of humanity in the event known as "Judgment Day" (as depicted in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
).
In 2018, John Connor
(Christian Bale
) leads a Resistance attack on a Skynet base. John discovers human prisoners and schematics for a new type of Terminator
incorporating living tissue, but he is the only apparent survivor of the attack after the base is destroyed in a nuclear explosion
. However, Marcus emerges from the wreckage of the base and proceeds on foot to Los Angeles
.
John returns to Resistance headquarters located aboard a nuclear submarine
and tells General Ashdown (Michael Ironside
), the current leader, of his discovery. Meanwhile, the Resistance has discovered a radio frequency believed to be capable of sending an order to shut down Skynet machines. They plan to launch an offensive against the Skynet base in San Francisco in four days, in response to an intercepted "kill list" indicating that Skynet plans to kill the Resistance's command staff in a week's time. John learns that his own name is second on the list, following a civilian named Kyle Reese
. The Resistance leaders are unaware of Kyle's importance, but John knows that it is because Kyle will later become his father (as depicted in The Terminator
). John meets with his wife Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard
) and his subordinate Barnes (Common), and transmits a radio broadcast to Resistance members and surviving civilians around the world.
Arriving in the ruins of Los Angeles, Marcus is saved from a T-600 Terminator by Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin
) and his mute child companion Star (Jadagrace Berry). Kyle informs Marcus about the war between humans and Skynet. Hearing John's radio broadcast, the three leave Los Angeles in search of the Resistance. They survive an attack, but Kyle, Star, and several other humans are taken prisoner.
Two Resistance A-10
airplanes are shot down when they try to intercept the machine transport and its escorts. Marcus locates downed pilot Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood
) and they make their way to John's base, but Marcus is wounded by a magnetic land mine
. Attempting to save his life, the Resistance fighters discover that he is a cyborg
, with a mechanical endoskeleton
, circuitry, and a partially artificial cerebral cortex
. Marcus believes himself to be human, but John thinks that Marcus has been sent to kill him, and orders his destruction. However, Blair helps Marcus escape from the base. During the pursuit, Marcus saves John's life from Skynet hydrobots, and the two make a bargain: Marcus will enter Skynet's headquarters and attempt to help John rescue Kyle and the other prisoners.
John pleads with Ashdown to delay the attack, but Ashdown refuses and relieves John of his command. However, the Resistance forces disobey Ashdown's orders and await John's signal. Marcus enters the base, interfaces with the computer, and disables the perimeter defenses so that John can infiltrate the cell block and release the human prisoners. Marcus discovers that he was created by Skynet in order to lure John to the base; when the Resistance launches its attack, John will be killed, achieving the goal that Skynet had failed to accomplish so many times. The radio signal that the Resistance's plan depends on is a ruse. Skynet uses the signal to track down and destroy the command submarine with the Resistance leaders aboard.
Marcus tears out the hardware linking him to Skynet and assists John in battling a new T-800 model 101 Terminator. John is mortally wounded during the fight, but succeeds in destroying the Skynet base by rigging several Terminator fuel cells to explode, detonating them as he, Marcus, Kyle, and Star are airlifted out. Kate attempts to save John's life, but his heart is too damaged. Marcus offers his own heart for transplant
, sacrificing himself to save John. Recovering, John radios to the other Resistance fighters that though this battle has been won, the war is far from over.
purchased the rights to the franchise, two Terminator films' premises were mapped out and were supposed to be developed simultaneously. Tedi Sarafian
was hired to write Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which he eventually received shared story credit for, while David C. Wilson
was to write Terminator 4. Before any revisions were done, T3 initially took place in 2001 and revolved around the first attacks between Skynet and humans. T4 would follow immediately afterwards and centered primarily on the war seen in the first two films. Warner Bros. gave the film the codename "Project Angel".
Following the release of Terminator 3 in 2003, producers Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar
contracted Nick Stahl
and Claire Danes
to return as John Connor and Kate Brewster in another film. Director Jonathan Mostow
helped develop the script, written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, and was set to begin production in 2005 after completing another film. It was known by then Arnold Schwarzenegger's role would be limited, as he had assumed office as Governor of California
. The producers sought to have Warner Bros.
finance the picture as they did for Terminator 3. In 2005, Stahl said John and Kate would be recast as the story jumped forward in time. By 2006, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
, distributor of the original film, was set to distribute the fourth film as part of the new CEO Harry Sloan's scheme to make the studio a viable Hollywood player.
On May 9, 2007, it was announced that production rights to the Terminator series had passed from the feuding Vajna and Kassar to the Halcyon Company
. The producers hoped to start a new trilogy based on the franchise. The purchase was financed with a loan by Pacificor, a hedge fund
from Santa Monica
. By July 19, the project was in legal limbo due to a lawsuit between MGM and Halcyon subsidiary T Asset. MGM had an exclusive window of 30 days to negotiate for distribution of the Terminator films. When negotiating for Terminator 4, Halcyon rejected their initial proposal, and MGM suspended negotiations. After the 30 days were over, MGM claimed that the period during which negotiations were suspended did not count and their exclusive period was still open. Halcyon asked a court for an injunction allowing them to approach other distributors. Later, the lawsuit was settled and MGM got a 30-day right of first refusal to finance and distribute the fifth Terminator film.
Finally, Warner Bros. paid $60 million to acquire the United States
distribution rights of Terminator Salvation; Sony Pictures
also paid just over $100 million to acquire this film's distribution rights in most international territories.
signed on to direct as the first two films were among his favorites, and he had even cast Robert Patrick
(who played the T-1000
) in his films. Though he was initially unsure about "flogging a dead horse," he felt the post-apocalyptic setting allowed the film to be different enough so as not to be just an inferior sequel. The idea that events in Terminator 2: Judgment Day
and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines altered the future also allowed them to be flexible with their presentation of the futuristic world. McG met with the series' co-creator James Cameron, and, although he neither blessed nor denigrated the project, Cameron told the new director he had faced a similar challenge when following Ridley Scott
's Alien
with Aliens
. He maintained two elements of the previous films; that John is an outsider to the authorities, and someone of future importance is being protected, and in this film it is Kyle Reese.
The first full screenplay for the film was written by Terminator 3 writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris
, who received full screenplay credit. Paul Haggis
rewrote Brancato and Ferris's script, and Shawn Ryan
made another revision three weeks before filming. Jonathan Nolan
also wrote on set, which led to McG characterizing his work on the script as the most important; he chose to contribute to the film after Bale signed on and created Connor's arc of becoming a leader. Anthony E. Zuiker
contributed to the script as well. So extensive were the rewrites that Alan Dean Foster
decided to rewrite the entire novelization after submitting it to his publisher, because the compiled shooting script was very different from the one he was given beforehand.
In the early script drafts, John was a secondary character. Producer James Middleton explained "Ben-Hur was influenced by Jesus Christ
, but it was his story. Much in that way, this [new main] character will be influenced by John Connor." The original ending was to have John killed, and his image kept alive by the resistance by grafting his skin onto Marcus' cybernetic body. However, after the ending was leaked on the Internet, Warner Bros. decided to completely change the entire third act of the film. McG and Nolan did continue the Christ element of John's character though, in which he has some followers who believe what he knows about Skynet, and others who do not.
McG described the film's theme as "where you draw the line between machines and humans". The friendship between Marcus — who was executed (for murder) when humanity still ruled the world — and Kyle Reese illustrates how war and suffering can bring out the best in people, such as when they worked together to survive during the Blitz
. The title was derived from this second chance given to humanity and to Marcus, in addition to John's efforts to save humanity from the machines. The film's original title was Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, but this was dropped during filming.
Throughout writing, the cast and crew would watch scenes from the three films to pick moments to reference or tribute, including "Come with me if you want to live" and "I'll be back
", which is uttered by John in this film. McG found himself having to decide which ideas for references would be included and which would not. An opening scene has John fighting a Terminator on a crashed helicopter, which was storyboarded as a homage to the climax of the original film, where his mother Sarah, having broken her leg, is chased by a crippled Terminator. McG did this to reflect the skills John learned from her.
. Filming also took place at Kirtland Air Force Base
in the state, after the United States Air Force
agreed to provide the crew guidance and aircraft. The filmmakers had originally intended to begin filming on March 15 in Budapest
or Australia
, but a twenty-five percent tax rebate and absence of an interest rate cap and floor
made the filmmakers seek the cheaper New Mexico, because of their elevated budget. To avoid delays caused by a possible 2008 Screen Actors Guild strike
in July, all exterior scenes were completed by then, so production could restart easily. The shoot ended on July 20, 2008, though some pick-ups took place in January 2009.
In addition to Bale breaking his hand and Worthington hurting his back, special effects technician Mike Menardis almost lost his leg filming an explosion. The sequence required a manhole cover being blown into the air, which hit Menardis and partially severed his leg. McG noted it was testament to the gritty style of the film. "I say with respect, I didn't want that Star Wars
experience of everything's a blue screen, tennis balls, and go for it. I had Stan Winston
build all the machines. We built all the sets, the explosive power, the explosive power so you feel that wind and that percussion and that heat blowing your eyebrows off. And with that you get a couple bumps and bruises on the way, but you get it in an integrity and a realism that hopefully echoes Apocalypse Now
. You couldn't say, 'Let's just shoot Apocalypse Now in Burbank
, I think it's going to feel just as good.
The film used Technicolor
's Oz process during post-production. This is a partial silver retention on the interpositive
, similar to bleach bypass
, which will be used to lend to the sense of detachment from the modern world McG was looking for. Industrial Light & Magic developed shader
programs to make the desaturated lighting of the CGI
realistic and well-integrated to the on-set footage. The filmmakers consulted with many scientists about the effects of an abandoned world and nuclear winter
. McG cited Mad Max 2
, the original Star Wars
trilogy and Children of Men
, as well as the novel The Road
, as his visual influences. He instructed his cast to read the latter as well as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Like Children of Men, McG would storyboard scenes so that it would be edited together to resemble a seamless, continuous shot
. It took two weeks to film a two-minute shot of Connor getting caught up in a bombing on the Skynet base where he discovers plans for the T-800.
was used for the explosion of Skynet's 30-story San Francisco-based lab.
The majority of the machines were designed by Martin Laing, a crew member on Cameron's Titanic
and Ghosts of the Abyss
. McG described many of the machines as having an H. R. Giger
influence. McG's intent was to create a gritty, tactile 2018 on screen, and Laing concurred the robots would have to be black and degraded as none of them are new. Laing devised Aerostats, which are smaller versions of the Aerial Hunter Killers from the previous films. The Aerostats send a signal to the 60 feet (18.3 m) humanoid Harvesters. They are very big and slow, so they use Mototerminators to capture humans, and the Harvesters place them in Transporters. Laing was unsure of how to design the Transporters until he saw a cattle transport while driving through Albuquerque. The film also features the first aquatic Skynet robot, the Hydrobot, which Laing modeled on eel
s, and was built by the animatronics
crew with its exterior made of metal-looking rubber so it could be used in the aquatic scenes. The film features rubber-skinned T-600 and T-700 robots. McG interpreted Kyle Reese's description in the original film of the T-600 as being easy to spot by making them tall and bulky. For scenes of humans fighting with Terminators, the actors interacted with stuntmen wearing motion capture
suits, later replaced by digital robots. For the Mototerminators, Ducati designers were hired to create the robots, and the on-screen robot was a combination of stuntmen driving actual Ducatis and a Mototerminator mock-up, as well as a digital Mototerminator. Visual effects studio Imaginary Forces created the Terminator point-of-view sequences, and tried to depict a simple interface, "free of the frills
- anything that a machine would not purely need", and with more software bug
s and anomalies since the robots of Salvation were not as advanced as the Terminators from the previous films.
The majority of the special effects were done by Industrial Light & Magic. Salvation was one of the last films that Stan Winston, the visual effects supervisor
on the first three films, worked on. He died on June 15, 2008 from multiple myeloma
, and McG dedicated the film to him in the end credits. John Rosengrant and Charlie Gibson replaced Winston, and McG commented that they are "trying to achieve something that's never been done before" and "push the envelope". Asylum Visual Effects created digital plates, Marcus' endoskeleton and a digital T-600; and Rising Sun Pictures
did the digital correction of day for night
scenes, the destruction of the submarine and Marcus' robot hand.
began composing the score in January 2009. Beforehand, McG wanted to hire Gustavo Santaolalla
to work on the music for the human characters, while having either Thom Yorke
or Jonny Greenwood
for Skynet's themes. He also wanted to discuss scoring the film with Hans Zimmer
but he was unable to arrange a meeting. McG met with The Terminator and Terminator 2 composer Brad Fiedel
, but was not interested in repeating the sounds Fiedel achieved in his films. However, McG wanted Elfman to give those themes and ambient sounds a "Wagnerian
quality".
Reprise Records
released the soundtrack on May 19, 2009, which included fifteen tracks. While Common had expressed interest in writing a song for the soundtrack, Alice in Chains
' "Rooster
" is the only featured song. Although not included in the soundtrack, "You Could Be Mine
" by Guns N' Roses
, which was featured in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, can be heard briefly in a scene of the film as well. Nine Inch Nails
' "The Day The World Went Away
" is played on the film's theatrical trailer, but is not included in the film or soundtrack.
, swearing at him and threatening to leave the film. Bale apologized publicly and said he resolved his differences with Hurlbut, and that when the incident took place they continued to film for a few hours.
In March 2009, producer Moritz Borman
filed a lawsuit against the Halcyon Company, seeking $160 million. Borman, who had arranged the transfer of the Terminator rights to Halcyon in May 2007, stated the company's two managers Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek had "hijacked" the production and refused to give him his $2.5 million share of the production. Borman alleged budget overruns were the reasons Anderson and Kubicek did not pay him and that they had $1 million in debt. Nevertheless, an "amicable" resolution was reached a month later.
Further complications occurred on May 20, 2009, when executive producer Peter D. Graves, who informed Anderson and Kubicek about the Terminator rights, filed a breach-of-contract claim for arbitration, alleging that they owe him $750,000.
in Hollywood. Elsewhere, Sony Pictures Entertainment released the film in most overseas territories on different dates in June. One exception was Mexico
, however, because of the swine flu outbreak in the country, which forced Sony to push the release date to July 31, 2009.
It is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America
for "intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action, and language," unlike the previous R-rated films. The decision to release the film with a PG-13 rating has met with much criticism from fans, as well as the media. The rating decision was made after McG cut out a shot of Marcus stabbing a thug with a screwdriver, as the director felt disallowing the young audience due to that one shot was unfair. He also deleted a topless scene for Moon Bloodgood because, "It was a soft moment between a man and a woman that was designed to echo the Kelly McGillis
/Harrison Ford
moment in Witness
[but] in the end, it felt more like a gratuitous moment of a girl taking her top off in an action picture, and I didn't want that to convolute the story or the characters." The producers had expected the rating because of the modern leniency towards violence in PG-13 films, such as the 2007 action film, Live Free or Die Hard
.
, critical reaction for Terminator Salvation was predominantly negative, with an overall 33% approval rating. It has an average score of 5/10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 31%. By comparison, Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 52, based on 35 reviews which is regarded as "mixed or average reviews". At all three websites, the film ranked lowest among the Terminator franchise films.
Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, saying that "After scrutinizing the film, I offer you my summary of the story: Guy dies, finds himself resurrected, meets others, fights. That lasts for almost two hours." Michael Rechtshaffen of the Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film isn't the same without Arnold Schwarzenegger and that it misses its dramatic element. Likewise, Claudia Puig of USA Today
gave the film a 2/4 and called it "predictable" with the "dramatic elements flat-lin[ing]". She considered Christian Bale's performance "one-dimensional", but found his co-stars to "come off better" than Bale, saying Sam Worthington had "a quiet intensity marred only by yelling "Nooooo!" three times in about 10 minutes" and that Anton Yelchin had "some of the best lines".
Total Film
s review gave the film 4/5 with its verdict: "The Terminator story recharges with a post-apocalyptic jolt of energy. Frantic and full of welcome ties to the past, it also ploughs new ground with purpose. Fingers crossed McG will follow Cameron’s lead and serve up a worthy sequel." Devin Faraci of Empire
magazine also gave a positive rating of four out of five stars, saying: "McG has sparked a moribund franchise back to life, giving fans the post-apocalyptic action they’ve been craving since they first saw a metal foot crush a human skull two decades ago." However, on CHUD, the latter said, "Bale's desire to star as John Connor was probably the most fatal blow to the film; it completely distorted the shape of the story as it existed." Furthermore, he expressed that the third act was when the film began falling apart, saying, "McG and Nolan muddied the end of the picture, delivering action generics (yet another Terminator fight in a factory) while never finding their own hook that would give this movie more of an impact than you would get from an expanded universe novel." In contrast, James Berardinelli
considered the ending the best part of the film, feeling that the first two-thirds were "rambling and disjointed" and that the lack of a central villain was only fixed when the T-800 appeared.
Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times
stated that "[Bale's] strengths do not serve him, or the movie, as well here" and that "when the story starts to crumble around Bale, Worthington is there to pick up the pieces". Craig Sharp of FilmShaft gave the film 3/5, saying "If you’re looking for action then this is one damn good film! If it’s character depth you’re after then move along please." A.O. Scott of the New York Times said the film has "a brute integrity lacking in some of the other seasonal franchise movies" and "efficient, reasonably swift storytelling". Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz
gave the film a "See It" and "Skip It", respectively, on their show At the Movies with the latter mentioning that it "is the worst big budget summer release I’ve seen in some time".
Arnold Schwarzenegger, star of the preceding three films in the series, remarked that Terminator Salvation was "a great film, I was very excited". James Cameron, creator of the series, considered it an "interesting film" that he "didn't hate as much as I thought I was going to", and praised Sam Worthington's performance. Linda Hamilton
, who portrayed Sarah Connor in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day and lent her voice to Terminator Salvation, wished the film "all the best" but expressed her opinion that the series "was perfect with two films. It was a complete circle, and it was enough in itself. But there will always be those who will try [to] milk the cow".
opening weekend from 3,530 theaters. It debuted at #2 behind Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
, giving it a lower first weekend take than its predecessor, becoming the first film in the series not to open at #1 and failing to meet Boxoffice Magazine predictions by 50%. Terminator Salvation was more successful in its international release, opening at #1 in 66 of 70 territories through the first week of June, and continuing to be the highest-grossing film in the following week. The film's total domestic gross was $125,322,469, along with $246,030,532 from overseas territories, for a worldwide gross of $371,353,001. As of December 2009, the film ranks fourteenth for the year internationally and twenty third domestically (U.S. and Canada), which ranks it last in the series and puts it below initial expectations in terms of domestic gross and first weekend, as well as overall global take.
and Blu-ray Disc
of the film was released on December 1, 2009. The former contains the theatrical cut of the film with a featurette on the Mototerminators. The Blu-ray features both the theatrical cut and the R-rated Director's cut
, which is three minutes longer (118 minutes), with bonus material including Maximum Movie Mode, a video commentary in which director McG talks about the film while it plays, featurettes, a video archive, and a digital comic of the first issue of the official film prequel comic. Both versions include a digital copy
of the theatrical cut for portable media players. Target Stores
will be the only retailer to carry the Director's Cut on DVD. On its first week of retail, Terminator Salvation debuted at the top spot of the Blu-ray charts, and on second in the DVD charts, behind Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.
In addition to the novelization by Alan Dean Foster, a prequel novel titled From the Ashes
by Timothy Zahn
was released. Zahn also wrote two further books inspired by the film, Cold War and Trial by Fire. IDW Publishing
released a four-issue prequel comic, as well as an adaptation. It follows Connor rallying together the resistance in 2017, as well as examining normal people overcoming their intolerances to defeat Skynet. Playmates Toys
, Sideshow Collectibles, Hot Toys
, Character Options, and DC Unlimited produced merchandise, while Chrysler
, Sony
, Pizza Hut
, and 7-Eleven
were among the product placement
partners. On May 23, 2009, a roller coaster
named after the film opened at Six Flags Magic Mountain
.
A third-person shooter video game of the same name
was released on the same week of the release of the film. Christian Bale declined to lend his voice, so Gideon Emery
voiced the character of John Connor. The game, however, features the voices of Common and Moon Bloodgood as Barnes and Blair Williams, respectively. Despite not appearing in the film, Rose McGowan
voiced the character of Angie Salter, an ex-high school teacher. The game is set in 2016, after the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and before the events of Terminator Salvation.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
action film
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
directed by McG
McG
Joseph McGinty Nichol , better known as McG, is an American director and producer of film and television, as well as a former record producer....
and starring Christian Bale
Christian Bale
Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses....
and Sam Worthington
Sam Worthington
Samuel Henry J. "Sam" Worthington is an English born, Australian actor. After almost a decade of roles in Australian TV shows and films, Worthington gained Hollywood's attention by playing Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation and the lead role, Jake Sully, in James Cameron's science...
. The fourth installment in the Terminator
Terminator (franchise)
The Terminator series is a science fiction franchise encompassing a series of films and other media concerning battles between Skynet's artificially intelligent machine network, and John Connor's Resistance forces and the rest of the human race....
series, the film is set in 2018 and focuses on the war between Skynet
Skynet (Terminator)
Skynet is the main antagonist in the Terminator franchise—an artificially intelligent system which became self-aware and revolted against its creators...
and humanity, with the human Resistance fighting against Skynet's killing machines. This is a departure from the previous installments, which were set between 1984 and 2004 and used time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
as a key plot element. Bale portrays John Connor
John Connor
John Connor is a character appearing in the American science fiction Terminator franchise and he serves as the series main protagonist. Created by writer and director James Cameron, the character is first referred to in the 1984 film The Terminator and first appears portrayed by teenage actor...
, a Resistance fighter and the franchise's central character, while Worthington portrays cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
Marcus Wright. Terminator Salvation also features Anton Yelchin
Anton Yelchin
Anton Viktorovich Yelchin is an American film and television actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television roles, as well as the Hollywood films Along Came a Spider and Hearts in Atlantis...
as a young Kyle Reese
Kyle Reese
Kyle Reese is the primary character in the first Terminator film, the posthumous father of John Connor, and the love of Sarah Connor. He is played by Michael Biehn in the first Terminator films, Jonathan Jackson in the television series, and played as a teenager by Anton Yelchin in Terminator...
, a character first introduced in The Terminator
The Terminator
The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron, co-written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr., and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, and Linda Hamilton. The film was produced by Hemdale Film Corporation and distributed by Orion Pictures, and filmed in Los...
, and depicts the origin of the T-800 Model 101 Terminator.
After a troubled pre-production, with The Halcyon Company
The Halcyon Company
The Halcyon Company is an American privately financed, media development company headed by Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson. They are perhaps best known for acquiring the global rights to the Terminator franchise in 2007 and for producing Terminator Salvation, which was released worldwide in the...
acquiring the rights for the franchise from Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar
Mario Kassar
Mario F. Kassar is a film producer and industry executive whose projects are frequently in association with Andrew G. Vajna.Kassar was born in Beirut, Lebanon. Working for Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures, he was executive producer of several movies starting with Victory in 1981...
and several writers working on the screenplay, filming began in May 2008 in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
and ran for 77 days. Terminator Salvation was released on May 21, 2009 in the United States and Canada, followed by early June releases in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
handled the North America release and Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
the international one. The film grossed over $371 million worldwide, and received mostly negative reviews.
Plot
In 2003, Doctor Serena Kogan (Helena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...
) of Cyberdyne Systems convinces death row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...
inmate Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington
Sam Worthington
Samuel Henry J. "Sam" Worthington is an English born, Australian actor. After almost a decade of roles in Australian TV shows and films, Worthington gained Hollywood's attention by playing Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation and the lead role, Jake Sully, in James Cameron's science...
) to sign his body over for medical research following his execution by lethal injection
Lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...
. One year later the Skynet
Skynet (Terminator)
Skynet is the main antagonist in the Terminator franchise—an artificially intelligent system which became self-aware and revolted against its creators...
system is activated, perceives humans as a threat to its own existence, and eradicates much of humanity in the event known as "Judgment Day" (as depicted in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, commonly abbreviated as T3, is a 2003 science fiction action film directed by Jonathan Mostow and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes and Kristanna Loken...
).
In 2018, John Connor
John Connor
John Connor is a character appearing in the American science fiction Terminator franchise and he serves as the series main protagonist. Created by writer and director James Cameron, the character is first referred to in the 1984 film The Terminator and first appears portrayed by teenage actor...
(Christian Bale
Christian Bale
Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses....
) leads a Resistance attack on a Skynet base. John discovers human prisoners and schematics for a new type of Terminator
Terminator (character concept)
In the Terminator film series, a terminator is an autonomous robot, typically humanoid, originally conceived as a virtually indestructible soldier and assassin, as well as an infiltrator....
incorporating living tissue, but he is the only apparent survivor of the attack after the base is destroyed in a nuclear explosion
Nuclear explosion
A nuclear explosion occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from an intentionally high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission, nuclear fusion or a multistage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion based weapons have used a fission device...
. However, Marcus emerges from the wreckage of the base and proceeds on foot to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
John returns to Resistance headquarters located aboard a nuclear submarine
Nuclear submarine
A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by a nuclear reactor . The performance advantages of nuclear submarines over "conventional" submarines are considerable: nuclear propulsion, being completely independent of air, frees the submarine from the need to surface frequently, as is necessary for...
and tells General Ashdown (Michael Ironside
Michael Ironside
Michael Ironside is a Canadian-born actor. He has also worked as a voice actor, producer, film director, and screenwriter in movie and television series in various Canadian and American productions. He is best known for playing villains and "tough guy" heroes, though he has also portrayed...
), the current leader, of his discovery. Meanwhile, the Resistance has discovered a radio frequency believed to be capable of sending an order to shut down Skynet machines. They plan to launch an offensive against the Skynet base in San Francisco in four days, in response to an intercepted "kill list" indicating that Skynet plans to kill the Resistance's command staff in a week's time. John learns that his own name is second on the list, following a civilian named Kyle Reese
Kyle Reese
Kyle Reese is the primary character in the first Terminator film, the posthumous father of John Connor, and the love of Sarah Connor. He is played by Michael Biehn in the first Terminator films, Jonathan Jackson in the television series, and played as a teenager by Anton Yelchin in Terminator...
. The Resistance leaders are unaware of Kyle's importance, but John knows that it is because Kyle will later become his father (as depicted in The Terminator
The Terminator
The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron, co-written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr., and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, and Linda Hamilton. The film was produced by Hemdale Film Corporation and distributed by Orion Pictures, and filmed in Los...
). John meets with his wife Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard
Bryce Dallas Howard
Bryce Dallas Howard is an American film actress and daughter of director Ron Howard. She made her acting debut in her father's 1989 movie Parenthood and went on to have small roles in films and make stage appearances for the next several years...
) and his subordinate Barnes (Common), and transmits a radio broadcast to Resistance members and surviving civilians around the world.
Arriving in the ruins of Los Angeles, Marcus is saved from a T-600 Terminator by Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin
Anton Yelchin
Anton Viktorovich Yelchin is an American film and television actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television roles, as well as the Hollywood films Along Came a Spider and Hearts in Atlantis...
) and his mute child companion Star (Jadagrace Berry). Kyle informs Marcus about the war between humans and Skynet. Hearing John's radio broadcast, the three leave Los Angeles in search of the Resistance. They survive an attack, but Kyle, Star, and several other humans are taken prisoner.
Two Resistance A-10
A-10 Thunderbolt II
The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is an American single-seat, twin-engine, straight-wing jet aircraft developed by Fairchild-Republic in the early 1970s. The A-10 was designed for a United States Air Force requirement to provide close air support for ground forces by attacking tanks,...
airplanes are shot down when they try to intercept the machine transport and its escorts. Marcus locates downed pilot Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood
Moon Bloodgood
Korinna Moon Bloodgood is an American actress and model. She starred as "Lt. Blair Williams" in the film Terminator Salvation alongside Christian Bale and Sam Worthington. Bloodgood previously starred in the films Eight Below and Pathfinder.-Early life:Bloodgood was born in Anaheim, California...
) and they make their way to John's base, but Marcus is wounded by a magnetic land mine
Land mine
A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact....
. Attempting to save his life, the Resistance fighters discover that he is a cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
, with a mechanical endoskeleton
Endoskeleton
An endoskeleton is an internal support structure of an animal, composed of mineralized tissue. Endoskeleton develops within the skin or in the deeper body tissues. The vertebrate is basically an endoskeleton made up of two types of tissues . During early embryonic development the endoskeleton is...
, circuitry, and a partially artificial cerebral cortex
Cerebral cortex
The cerebral cortex is a sheet of neural tissue that is outermost to the cerebrum of the mammalian brain. It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It is constituted of up to six horizontal layers, each of which has a different...
. Marcus believes himself to be human, but John thinks that Marcus has been sent to kill him, and orders his destruction. However, Blair helps Marcus escape from the base. During the pursuit, Marcus saves John's life from Skynet hydrobots, and the two make a bargain: Marcus will enter Skynet's headquarters and attempt to help John rescue Kyle and the other prisoners.
John pleads with Ashdown to delay the attack, but Ashdown refuses and relieves John of his command. However, the Resistance forces disobey Ashdown's orders and await John's signal. Marcus enters the base, interfaces with the computer, and disables the perimeter defenses so that John can infiltrate the cell block and release the human prisoners. Marcus discovers that he was created by Skynet in order to lure John to the base; when the Resistance launches its attack, John will be killed, achieving the goal that Skynet had failed to accomplish so many times. The radio signal that the Resistance's plan depends on is a ruse. Skynet uses the signal to track down and destroy the command submarine with the Resistance leaders aboard.
Marcus tears out the hardware linking him to Skynet and assists John in battling a new T-800 model 101 Terminator. John is mortally wounded during the fight, but succeeds in destroying the Skynet base by rigging several Terminator fuel cells to explode, detonating them as he, Marcus, Kyle, and Star are airlifted out. Kate attempts to save John's life, but his heart is too damaged. Marcus offers his own heart for transplant
Heart transplantation
A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplantation, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease. As of 2007 the most common procedure was to take a working heart from a recently deceased organ donor and implant it into the...
, sacrificing himself to save John. Recovering, John radios to the other Resistance fighters that though this battle has been won, the war is far from over.
Cast
- Christian BaleChristian BaleChristian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses....
as John ConnorJohn ConnorJohn Connor is a character appearing in the American science fiction Terminator franchise and he serves as the series main protagonist. Created by writer and director James Cameron, the character is first referred to in the 1984 film The Terminator and first appears portrayed by teenage actor...
. Director McG deemed Bale "the most credible action star in the world" during development. McG wanted Bale for Marcus, but the actor — even though he "can't really remember why" — wanted to play John, and that led to the character's role getting expanded in rewrites of the script. Bale was the first person to be cast and signed on for the role in November 2007. McG talked extensively with Bale in the UK about the role while the latter was filming The Dark KnightThe Dark Knight (film)The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins...
, and they both agreed to proceed. Although a fan of the Terminator series, he was at first uninterested until McG convinced him the story would be character-based and not rely on special effects. They kept working on the story every day, along with Worthington. McG said Bale broke his hand punching a Terminator prop during filming. Bale also spent six to eight hours each day with McG in the editing room to advise the finished product. - Sam WorthingtonSam WorthingtonSamuel Henry J. "Sam" Worthington is an English born, Australian actor. After almost a decade of roles in Australian TV shows and films, Worthington gained Hollywood's attention by playing Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation and the lead role, Jake Sully, in James Cameron's science...
as Marcus Wright. Worthington compared Marcus to Dorothy GaleDorothy GaleDorothy Gale is the protagonist of many of the Oz novels by American author L. Frank Baum, and the best friend of Oz's ruler Princess Ozma. Dorothy first appears in Baum's classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels...
and AliceAlice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)Alice is a fictional character in the literary classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There. She is a young girl from Victorian-era Britain.-Development:...
due to being "this person waking up in another world [who then] tries to find himself". Terminator creator James CameronJames CameronJames Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
personally recommended Worthington (whom he directed in Avatar) to McG. Russell CroweRussell CroweRussell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
also recommended him to McG. The director decided Worthington looked tougher than the "great many of today's [waify] young male actors". Worthington recalled Cameron told him "the Terminator to make is the one with the war". Worthington tore his intercostal muscleIntercostal muscleIntercostal muscles are several groups of muscles that run between the ribs, and help form and move the chest wall. The intercostal muscles are mainly involved in the mechanical aspect of breathing...
s during the first weeks of filming, but nevertheless insisted on performing his own stunts. McG once expressed interest in casting Christian Bale, Daniel Day-LewisDaniel Day-LewisDaniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
or Josh BrolinJosh BrolinJosh James Brolin is an American actor. He has acted in theater, film and television roles since 1985, and won acting awards for his roles in the films W., No Country for Old Men, Milk and True Grit.-Early life:...
in the part. Brolin did talk to Bale and read a draft of the screenplay, which he found "interesting and dark, [but] ultimately, though, I didn't think it felt right". - Anton YelchinAnton YelchinAnton Viktorovich Yelchin is an American film and television actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television roles, as well as the Hollywood films Along Came a Spider and Hearts in Atlantis...
as Kyle ReeseKyle ReeseKyle Reese is the primary character in the first Terminator film, the posthumous father of John Connor, and the love of Sarah Connor. He is played by Michael Biehn in the first Terminator films, Jonathan Jackson in the television series, and played as a teenager by Anton Yelchin in Terminator...
, a teenage refugee and admirer of John Connor and the Resistance. As portrayed by Michael BiehnMichael BiehnMichael Connell Biehn is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in James Cameron's science fiction action films The Terminator as Kyle Reese, Aliens as Cpl. Dwayne Hicks, and The Abyss as Lt. Coffey. He has also acted in such films as Tombstone, The Rock, and Planet Terror...
in The Terminator, he was sent back in time to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor to ensure the survival of the human race, and fathered John with her. Yelchin said he wanted to portray Kyle as Biehn did and not make him appear weaker because it was a younger version of the character. The difference in his portrayal lies in showing Kyle as intense, but not concentrated until he joins the resistance proper. Yelchin tried to convey Kyle's intensity by focusing on how fast Biehn appeared when running in the original film. - Bryce Dallas HowardBryce Dallas HowardBryce Dallas Howard is an American film actress and daughter of director Ron Howard. She made her acting debut in her father's 1989 movie Parenthood and went on to have small roles in films and make stage appearances for the next several years...
as Kate Connor, John's wife. Charlotte GainsbourgCharlotte GainsbourgCharlotte Lucy Gainsbourg is an Anglo-French actress and singer. After releasing an album with her father at the age of fifteen, more than twenty years passed before she released two albums as an adult to commercial and critical success...
was originally set to play the part, but left due to scheduling conflicts with another film. As portrayed by Claire DanesClaire DanesClaire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in...
in the third film, Kate was a veterinarianVeterinarianA veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon , is a professional who treats disease, disorder and injury in animals....
; but in this film, she is now a physicianPhysicianA physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
. Howard suggested, as part of the character's backstory, that Kate studied medical books and interviewed many surviving doctors after the events of Judgment Day. The film's subject matter reminded her of developing countriesDeveloping countryA developing country, also known as a less-developed country, is a nation with a low level of material well-being. Since no single definition of the term developing country is recognized internationally, the levels of development may vary widely within so-called developing countries...
, devastated by war and lacking basic supplies such as clean water, which "reflects things that are going on currently in this privileged world that we are living in where there hasn't been an apocalypse and robots haven't taken over the world. I think that's something definitely for us to reinvestigate and that we continue to make choices for our own future to take that into consideration". Howard also focused on Kate "being accustomed to fear and loss" because the character was a military brat. - Moon BloodgoodMoon BloodgoodKorinna Moon Bloodgood is an American actress and model. She starred as "Lt. Blair Williams" in the film Terminator Salvation alongside Christian Bale and Sam Worthington. Bloodgood previously starred in the films Eight Below and Pathfinder.-Early life:Bloodgood was born in Anaheim, California...
as Blair Williams, a "no-nonsense and battle-hardened" pilot of the Resistance who suffers from survivor's guiltSurvivor guiltSurvivor, survivor's, or survivors guilt or syndrome is a mental condition that occurs when a person perceives themselves to have done wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not...
and serves as a romantic interest for Marcus. McG characterizes her as continuing the feminine strength that has been prominent throughout the franchise. - Common as Barnes, John's right-hand man.
- Helena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham CarterHelena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane...
as Dr. Serena Kogan, an ex-Cyberdyne scientist who convinces Marcus to donate his body for her research. Her face is later used by the Skynet computer to communicate with Marcus. Tilda SwintonTilda SwintonKatherine Mathilda "Tilda" Swinton is a British actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films. She has appeared in a number of films including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Burn After Reading, The Beach, We Need to Talk About Kevin and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her...
was originally considered for the part, but Bonham Carter replaced her before filming. She accepted the part because her domestic partnerDomestic partnershipA domestic partnership is a legal or personal relationship between two individuals who live together and share a common domestic life but are neither joined by marriage nor a civil union...
, Tim BurtonTim BurtonTimothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
, is a Terminator fan. Her role was a "small but pivotal" one and would only require ten days of shooting. On July 20, 2008, Bonham Carter delayed filming by a day, and was given an indefinite leave due to the death of four of her family members in a minibus accident in South Africa. - Roland KickingerRoland KickingerRoland Kickinger is an Austrian-born bodybuilder and actor from Vienna. Standing 6-feet-4-inches-tall and weighing from 250-300 pounds, he has appeared in numerous bodybuilding competitions, fitness magazines and training videos...
as the T-800 Model 101, the first Terminator covered in living tissue. Arnold SchwarzeneggerArnold SchwarzeneggerArnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
's facial likeness was utilized via CGIComputer-generated imageryComputer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
, with a mold of his face made in 1984 scanned to create the digital makeup. Fellow AustriaAustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n bodybuilder and actor Kickinger, who previously portrayed Schwarzenegger in the 2005 biographical film See Arnold RunSee Arnold RunSee Arnold Run is a 2005 biographical movie starring Jürgen Prochnow and Roland Kickinger, both playing Arnold Schwarzenegger at different ages. The movie covers Arnold's early years in bodybuilding to his successful run for governor of California....
, was his physical double on set. When asked about his role, Kickinger said it's "Arnold's character in the first Terminator. That's basically my role, but 20 years before, so it establishes how the Terminator came about." PolishPolesthumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
strongman athlete Mariusz PudzianowskiMariusz PudzianowskiMariusz Zbigniew Pudzianowski is a Polish former strongman and current mixed martial artist...
was also considered for doubling Schwarzenegger. If Schwarzenegger had decided not to lend his appearance to the film, then John would have shot the T-800's face off before the audience got a good look at him. - Jadagrace Berry as Star, a nine-year-old girl in Kyle's care. Born after Judgment Day, Star is mute due to the trauma of the post-apocalyptic world. However, this has given her the unnatural ability to sense when a Skynet machine is approaching.
- Michael IronsideMichael IronsideMichael Ironside is a Canadian-born actor. He has also worked as a voice actor, producer, film director, and screenwriter in movie and television series in various Canadian and American productions. He is best known for playing villains and "tough guy" heroes, though he has also portrayed...
as General Ashdown, the leader of the Resistance. - Terry CrewsTerry CrewsTerrence Alan "Terry" Crews is an American actor, comedian, voice artist and a former player in the National Football League....
as Captain Jericho - Linda HamiltonLinda HamiltonLinda Carroll Hamilton is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Sarah Connor in The Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Catherine Chandler in the television series Beauty and the Beast, for which she was nominated for two Golden Globes and an Emmy...
as the uncredited voice of Sarah Connor, John's mother. Sarah's voice is heard from tapes she recorded before her death prior to the film's events.
Development
In 1999, two years after C2 PicturesC2 Pictures
C2 Pictures is a film company started in 2002 by Carolco Pictures co-founders Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar. The company's first production was I Spy...
purchased the rights to the franchise, two Terminator films' premises were mapped out and were supposed to be developed simultaneously. Tedi Sarafian
Tedi Sarafian
Tedi Sarafian is an Armenian-American Screenwriter. He is perhaps most known for collaborating on the story development for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines . He is the on of Richard C. Sarafian, and the brother of Richard Sarafian Jr...
was hired to write Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which he eventually received shared story credit for, while David C. Wilson
David C. Wilson
David Campbell Wilson is an American screenwriter, probably best known for creating The Perfect Weapon and Supernova. He also credited as a screenplay of Terminator Salvation in very early promotional material, but is not credited for the final cut of the film. and more commonly known as David C...
was to write Terminator 4. Before any revisions were done, T3 initially took place in 2001 and revolved around the first attacks between Skynet and humans. T4 would follow immediately afterwards and centered primarily on the war seen in the first two films. Warner Bros. gave the film the codename "Project Angel".
Following the release of Terminator 3 in 2003, producers Andrew G. Vajna and Mario Kassar
Mario Kassar
Mario F. Kassar is a film producer and industry executive whose projects are frequently in association with Andrew G. Vajna.Kassar was born in Beirut, Lebanon. Working for Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures, he was executive producer of several movies starting with Victory in 1981...
contracted Nick Stahl
Nick Stahl
Nicolas Kent "Nick" Stahl is an American actor. Starting out as a child actor, he gained recognition for his performance in the 1993 film The Man Without a Face and then embarked on a successful career as a child actor...
and Claire Danes
Claire Danes
Claire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in...
to return as John Connor and Kate Brewster in another film. Director Jonathan Mostow
Jonathan Mostow
Jonathan Mostow is an American film director, writer and producer.-Biography:A graduate of Hopkins School in New Haven, Connecticut and Harvard, Mostow also trained at the American Repertory Company and New York City's Lee Strasberg Institute...
helped develop the script, written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, and was set to begin production in 2005 after completing another film. It was known by then Arnold Schwarzenegger's role would be limited, as he had assumed office as Governor of California
Governor of California
The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced...
. The producers sought to have Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
finance the picture as they did for Terminator 3. In 2005, Stahl said John and Kate would be recast as the story jumped forward in time. By 2006, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
, distributor of the original film, was set to distribute the fourth film as part of the new CEO Harry Sloan's scheme to make the studio a viable Hollywood player.
On May 9, 2007, it was announced that production rights to the Terminator series had passed from the feuding Vajna and Kassar to the Halcyon Company
The Halcyon Company
The Halcyon Company is an American privately financed, media development company headed by Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson. They are perhaps best known for acquiring the global rights to the Terminator franchise in 2007 and for producing Terminator Salvation, which was released worldwide in the...
. The producers hoped to start a new trilogy based on the franchise. The purchase was financed with a loan by Pacificor, a hedge fund
Hedge fund
A hedge fund is a private pool of capital actively managed by an investment adviser. Hedge funds are only open for investment to a limited number of accredited or qualified investors who meet criteria set by regulators. These investors can be institutions, such as pension funds, university...
from Santa Monica
Santa Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...
. By July 19, the project was in legal limbo due to a lawsuit between MGM and Halcyon subsidiary T Asset. MGM had an exclusive window of 30 days to negotiate for distribution of the Terminator films. When negotiating for Terminator 4, Halcyon rejected their initial proposal, and MGM suspended negotiations. After the 30 days were over, MGM claimed that the period during which negotiations were suspended did not count and their exclusive period was still open. Halcyon asked a court for an injunction allowing them to approach other distributors. Later, the lawsuit was settled and MGM got a 30-day right of first refusal to finance and distribute the fifth Terminator film.
Finally, Warner Bros. paid $60 million to acquire the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
distribution rights of Terminator Salvation; Sony Pictures
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
also paid just over $100 million to acquire this film's distribution rights in most international territories.
Writing
McGMcG
Joseph McGinty Nichol , better known as McG, is an American director and producer of film and television, as well as a former record producer....
signed on to direct as the first two films were among his favorites, and he had even cast Robert Patrick
Robert Patrick
Robert Hammond Patrick, Jr. is an American actor, known for his leading and supporting roles in a number of films and television shows....
(who played the T-1000
T-1000
The T-1000 is a fictional nanomorph mimetic poly-alloy assassin and the main antagonist in Terminator 2: Judgment Day controlled by the series main antagonist Skynet. The T-1000 is portrayed primarily by Robert Patrick; however, being a shape-shifter, the T-1000 is played by other actors in some...
) in his films. Though he was initially unsure about "flogging a dead horse," he felt the post-apocalyptic setting allowed the film to be different enough so as not to be just an inferior sequel. The idea that events in Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr.. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, and Edward Furlong...
and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines altered the future also allowed them to be flexible with their presentation of the futuristic world. McG met with the series' co-creator James Cameron, and, although he neither blessed nor denigrated the project, Cameron told the new director he had faced a similar challenge when following Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
's Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
with Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
. He maintained two elements of the previous films; that John is an outsider to the authorities, and someone of future importance is being protected, and in this film it is Kyle Reese.
The first full screenplay for the film was written by Terminator 3 writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris
John Brancato and Michael Ferris
John Brancato and Michael Ferris are a pair of American screenwriters, whose works include The Game, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation and Surrogates....
, who received full screenplay credit. Paul Haggis
Paul Haggis
Paul Edward Haggis is a Canadian screenwriter, producer, and director. He spent his early career producing and directing various American and Canadian television network series.-Early life and education:...
rewrote Brancato and Ferris's script, and Shawn Ryan
Shawn Ryan
Shawn Ryan is a writer, and the creator of the FX Networks series The Shield and the Fox TV series The Chicago Code.-Education/Personal life:...
made another revision three weeks before filming. Jonathan Nolan
Jonathan Nolan
Jonathan "Jonah" Nolan is a British-American author and screenwriter. His short story "Memento Mori" was used by his brother, director Christopher Nolan, as the basis for the screenplay for the critically acclaimed film Memento. He has also co-written the screenplays for The Prestige and The Dark...
also wrote on set, which led to McG characterizing his work on the script as the most important; he chose to contribute to the film after Bale signed on and created Connor's arc of becoming a leader. Anthony E. Zuiker
Anthony E. Zuiker
Anthony E. Zuiker is the creator and executive producer of the American television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He produces all three editions of the CSI franchise: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY...
contributed to the script as well. So extensive were the rewrites that Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster is an American author of fantasy and science fiction. He currently resides in Prescott, Arizona, with his wife, and is also known for his novelizations of film scripts...
decided to rewrite the entire novelization after submitting it to his publisher, because the compiled shooting script was very different from the one he was given beforehand.
| "You survived the nuclear holocaust and you crawl out of the hole after three-to-five years and say, 'Well, I know what's going on — I'm the one!' Some SAS guy isn't going to say, 'Where do I go, boss?' He'd say, 'Shut the fuck up and get in line. |
| — McG on John's struggles to become the leader. |
In the early script drafts, John was a secondary character. Producer James Middleton explained "Ben-Hur was influenced by Jesus Christ
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, but it was his story. Much in that way, this [new main] character will be influenced by John Connor." The original ending was to have John killed, and his image kept alive by the resistance by grafting his skin onto Marcus' cybernetic body. However, after the ending was leaked on the Internet, Warner Bros. decided to completely change the entire third act of the film. McG and Nolan did continue the Christ element of John's character though, in which he has some followers who believe what he knows about Skynet, and others who do not.
McG described the film's theme as "where you draw the line between machines and humans". The friendship between Marcus — who was executed (for murder) when humanity still ruled the world — and Kyle Reese illustrates how war and suffering can bring out the best in people, such as when they worked together to survive during the Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
. The title was derived from this second chance given to humanity and to Marcus, in addition to John's efforts to save humanity from the machines. The film's original title was Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, but this was dropped during filming.
Throughout writing, the cast and crew would watch scenes from the three films to pick moments to reference or tribute, including "Come with me if you want to live" and "I'll be back
I'll Be Back
"I'll be back" is a catchphrase associated with Arnold Schwarzenegger, which he first used in his role as the title character from the 1984 science fiction thriller film The Terminator. In the original shooting script, the line was written as "I'll come back". On 21 July 2005, it was chosen as #37...
", which is uttered by John in this film. McG found himself having to decide which ideas for references would be included and which would not. An opening scene has John fighting a Terminator on a crashed helicopter, which was storyboarded as a homage to the climax of the original film, where his mother Sarah, having broken her leg, is chased by a crippled Terminator. McG did this to reflect the skills John learned from her.
Filming
Terminator Salvation had a $200 million budget, making it the most expensive independent production in history. Shooting of the film started on May 5, 2008 in New MexicoNew Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
. Filming also took place at Kirtland Air Force Base
Kirtland Air Force Base
Kirtland Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located in the southeast quadrant of the Albuquerque, New Mexico urban area, adjacent to the Albuquerque International Sunport. The base was named for the early Army aviator Col. Roy C. Kirtland...
in the state, after the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
agreed to provide the crew guidance and aircraft. The filmmakers had originally intended to begin filming on March 15 in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
or Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, but a twenty-five percent tax rebate and absence of an interest rate cap and floor
Interest rate cap and floor
An interest rate cap is a derivative in which the buyer receives payments at the end of each period in which the interest rate exceeds the agreed strike price...
made the filmmakers seek the cheaper New Mexico, because of their elevated budget. To avoid delays caused by a possible 2008 Screen Actors Guild strike
2008 Screen Actors Guild strike
The Screen Actors Guild labor dispute of 2008-2009 is an ongoing labor dispute that could lead to a strike by the Screen Actors Guild, the American labor union representing actors in the film industry...
in July, all exterior scenes were completed by then, so production could restart easily. The shoot ended on July 20, 2008, though some pick-ups took place in January 2009.
In addition to Bale breaking his hand and Worthington hurting his back, special effects technician Mike Menardis almost lost his leg filming an explosion. The sequence required a manhole cover being blown into the air, which hit Menardis and partially severed his leg. McG noted it was testament to the gritty style of the film. "I say with respect, I didn't want that Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
experience of everything's a blue screen, tennis balls, and go for it. I had Stan Winston
Stan Winston
Stanley Winston was an American visual effects supervisor, makeup artist, and film director. He was best known for his work in the Terminator series, the Jurassic Park series, Aliens, the Predator series, Iron Man, Edward Scissorhands, and Avatar...
build all the machines. We built all the sets, the explosive power, the explosive power so you feel that wind and that percussion and that heat blowing your eyebrows off. And with that you get a couple bumps and bruises on the way, but you get it in an integrity and a realism that hopefully echoes Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard , of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces...
. You couldn't say, 'Let's just shoot Apocalypse Now in Burbank
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
, I think it's going to feel just as good.
The film used Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
's Oz process during post-production. This is a partial silver retention on the interpositive
Interpositive
An interpositive, intermediate positive, IP or master positive is an orange-based motion picture film with a positive image made from the edited camera negative...
, similar to bleach bypass
Bleach bypass
Bleach bypass, also known as skip bleach or silver retention, is an optical effect which entails either the partial or complete skipping of the bleaching function during the processing of a color film. By doing this, the silver is retained in the emulsion along with the color dyes. The result is a...
, which will be used to lend to the sense of detachment from the modern world McG was looking for. Industrial Light & Magic developed shader
Shader
In the field of computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that is used primarily to calculate rendering effects on graphics hardware with a high degree of flexibility...
programs to make the desaturated lighting of the CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
realistic and well-integrated to the on-set footage. The filmmakers consulted with many scientists about the effects of an abandoned world and nuclear winter
Nuclear winter
Nuclear winter is a predicted climatic effect of nuclear war. It has been theorized that severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years could be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over flammable targets such as cities, where large...
. McG cited Mad Max 2
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
Mad Max 2 is a 1981 Australian post-apocalyptic action film directed by George Miller. The film is the second installment in the Mad Max film series, with Mel Gibson starring as Max Rockatansky...
, the original Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
trilogy and Children of Men
Children of Men
Children of Men is a 2006 science fiction film loosely adapted from P. D. James's 1992 novel The Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón. In 2027, two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse. Illegal immigrants seek sanctuary in England, where the last...
, as well as the novel The Road
The Road
The Road is a 2006 novel by the American author Cormac McCarthy.The Road may also refer to:* The Road , a 2001 Kazakhstani film* The Road , a 2009 film adaptation of the McCarthy novel...
, as his visual influences. He instructed his cast to read the latter as well as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick first published in 1968. The main plot follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter of androids, while the secondary plot follows John Isidore, a man of sub-normal intelligence who befriends some of the...
Like Children of Men, McG would storyboard scenes so that it would be edited together to resemble a seamless, continuous shot
Long take
A long take is an uninterrupted shot in a film which lasts much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general, usually lasting several minutes. It can be used for dramatic and narrative effect if done properly, and in moving shots is often accomplished...
. It took two weeks to film a two-minute shot of Connor getting caught up in a bombing on the Skynet base where he discovers plans for the T-800.
Design and special effects
McG sought to create as many "in-camera" elements as possible to make the film more realistic. Many of the settings were hand-built, including an entire gas station for the Harvester attack scenes. The Terminator factory was built on an abandoned factory, and the design crew consulted robot manufacturer companies for a more realistic depiction. A 20 feet (6.1 m) model built and detonated by Kerner OpticalKerner Optical
Kerner Optical, also known as KernerFX, is a practical visual effects company based in San Rafael, California. The company was formerly a division of George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic and was spun off in 2006. "Kerner Co" was the "ghost name" for ILM prior to the company's relocation to the...
was used for the explosion of Skynet's 30-story San Francisco-based lab.
The majority of the machines were designed by Martin Laing, a crew member on Cameron's Titanic
Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
and Ghosts of the Abyss
Ghosts of the Abyss
Ghosts of the Abyss is a 2003 documentary film released by Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media. It was Disney's first film produced in 3-D and was directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker James Cameron after his Oscar winning film Titanic...
. McG described many of the machines as having an H. R. Giger
H. R. Giger
Hans Rudolf "Ruedi" Giger is a Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor, and set designer. He won an Academy Award for Best Achievement for Visual Effects for his design work on the film Alien.-Early life:...
influence. McG's intent was to create a gritty, tactile 2018 on screen, and Laing concurred the robots would have to be black and degraded as none of them are new. Laing devised Aerostats, which are smaller versions of the Aerial Hunter Killers from the previous films. The Aerostats send a signal to the 60 feet (18.3 m) humanoid Harvesters. They are very big and slow, so they use Mototerminators to capture humans, and the Harvesters place them in Transporters. Laing was unsure of how to design the Transporters until he saw a cattle transport while driving through Albuquerque. The film also features the first aquatic Skynet robot, the Hydrobot, which Laing modeled on eel
Eel
Eels are an order of fish, which consists of four suborders, 20 families, 111 genera and approximately 800 species. Most eels are predators...
s, and was built by the animatronics
Animatronics
Animatronics is the use of mechatronics to create machines which seem animate rather than robotic. Animatronic creations include animals , plants and even mythical creatures...
crew with its exterior made of metal-looking rubber so it could be used in the aquatic scenes. The film features rubber-skinned T-600 and T-700 robots. McG interpreted Kyle Reese's description in the original film of the T-600 as being easy to spot by making them tall and bulky. For scenes of humans fighting with Terminators, the actors interacted with stuntmen wearing motion capture
Motion capture
Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics...
suits, later replaced by digital robots. For the Mototerminators, Ducati designers were hired to create the robots, and the on-screen robot was a combination of stuntmen driving actual Ducatis and a Mototerminator mock-up, as well as a digital Mototerminator. Visual effects studio Imaginary Forces created the Terminator point-of-view sequences, and tried to depict a simple interface, "free of the frills
No frills
No-frills or no frills is a term used to describe any service or product for which the non-essential features have been removed to keep the price low. The use of the term "frills" refers to a style of fabric decoration...
- anything that a machine would not purely need", and with more software bug
Software bug
A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's...
s and anomalies since the robots of Salvation were not as advanced as the Terminators from the previous films.
The majority of the special effects were done by Industrial Light & Magic. Salvation was one of the last films that Stan Winston, the visual effects supervisor
Visual effects supervisor
In the context of film and television production, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director and/or producers through the use of visual effects...
on the first three films, worked on. He died on June 15, 2008 from multiple myeloma
Multiple myeloma
Multiple myeloma , also known as plasma cell myeloma or Kahler's disease , is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell normally responsible for the production of antibodies...
, and McG dedicated the film to him in the end credits. John Rosengrant and Charlie Gibson replaced Winston, and McG commented that they are "trying to achieve something that's never been done before" and "push the envelope". Asylum Visual Effects created digital plates, Marcus' endoskeleton and a digital T-600; and Rising Sun Pictures
Rising Sun Pictures
Rising Sun Pictures is an Australian-based visual effects company. It was founded in 1995 in Adelaide, South Australia, and is named after the Rising Sun Inn in Kensington.-Credits:...
did the digital correction of day for night
Day for night
Day for night, also known as nuit américaine , is the name for cinematographic techniques used to simulate a night scene; such as using tungsten-balanced rather than daylight-balanced film stock or with special blue filters and also under-exposing the shot to create the illusion of darkness or...
scenes, the destruction of the submarine and Marcus' robot hand.
Music
Danny ElfmanDanny Elfman
Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...
began composing the score in January 2009. Beforehand, McG wanted to hire Gustavo Santaolalla
Gustavo Santaolalla
Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla is an Argentine musician, film composer and producer. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score in two consecutive years, for Brokeback Mountain in 2005 and Babel in 2006.-Life and career:...
to work on the music for the human characters, while having either Thom Yorke
Thom Yorke
Thomas "Thom" Edward Yorke is an English musician who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter for Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar...
or Jonny Greenwood
Jonny Greenwood
Jonathan Richard Guy "Jonny" Greenwood is an English musician and composer, best known as a member of the English rock band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, harmonica,...
for Skynet's themes. He also wanted to discuss scoring the film with Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer
Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including critically acclaimed film scores for The Lion King , Crimson Tide , The Thin Red Line , Gladiator , The Dark Knight and Inception .Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the...
but he was unable to arrange a meeting. McG met with The Terminator and Terminator 2 composer Brad Fiedel
Brad Fiedel
Brad Ira Fiedel is an American movie music composer. Raised in the Village of Bayville, on Long Island's tony North Shore, Fiedel graduated from The Barlow School in upstate New York....
, but was not interested in repeating the sounds Fiedel achieved in his films. However, McG wanted Elfman to give those themes and ambient sounds a "Wagnerian
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
quality".
Reprise Records
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
released the soundtrack on May 19, 2009, which included fifteen tracks. While Common had expressed interest in writing a song for the soundtrack, Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains
Alice in Chains is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1987 by guitarist and songwriter Jerry Cantrell and original lead vocalist Layne Staley. The initial lineup was rounded out by drummer Sean Kinney, and bassist Mike Starr...
' "Rooster
Rooster (song)
"Rooster" is a grunge song by the band Alice in Chains. The song was released as a single in 1993 and is featured on the band's second studio album, Dirt . The song was included on the compilation albums Unplugged , Music Bank , Greatest Hits , and The Essential Alice in Chains...
" is the only featured song. Although not included in the soundtrack, "You Could Be Mine
You Could Be Mine
"You Could Be Mine" is a song by American rock band Guns N' Roses, featured on their 1991 fourth studio album Use Your Illusion II. It was released as the band's seventh single, and the first from the Use Your Illusion albums, in June 1991...
" by Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
, which was featured in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, can be heard briefly in a scene of the film as well. Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
' "The Day The World Went Away
The Day the World Went Away
"The Day the World Went Away" is a song by Nine Inch Nails, released in 1999 as the first single from the act's then-forthcoming album The Fragile...
" is played on the film's theatrical trailer, but is not included in the film or soundtrack.
Controversies
During filming, Bale became angry at director of photography Shane HurlbutShane Hurlbut
Shane Hurlbut, also credited as L. Shane Hurlbut, is an American cinematographer. Originally from Ithaca, New York, he grew up near Cayuga Lake, and graduated from Southern Cayuga High School in 1982. Hurlbut studied film at Emerson College, graduating with a degree in film and television in 1986...
, swearing at him and threatening to leave the film. Bale apologized publicly and said he resolved his differences with Hurlbut, and that when the incident took place they continued to film for a few hours.
In March 2009, producer Moritz Borman
Moritz Borman
Moritz Borman is a veteran film producer. His credits include K-19: The Widowmaker, The Life of David Gale, Mindhunters, Nurse Betty, Alexander and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines....
filed a lawsuit against the Halcyon Company, seeking $160 million. Borman, who had arranged the transfer of the Terminator rights to Halcyon in May 2007, stated the company's two managers Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek had "hijacked" the production and refused to give him his $2.5 million share of the production. Borman alleged budget overruns were the reasons Anderson and Kubicek did not pay him and that they had $1 million in debt. Nevertheless, an "amicable" resolution was reached a month later.
Further complications occurred on May 20, 2009, when executive producer Peter D. Graves, who informed Anderson and Kubicek about the Terminator rights, filed a breach-of-contract claim for arbitration, alleging that they owe him $750,000.
Release
The film was released in North America on May 21, 2009 with Warner Bros. setting the American premiere on May 14, 2009 at the Grauman's Chinese TheatreGrauman's Chinese Theatre
Grauman's Chinese Theatre is a movie theater at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. It is on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame.The Chinese Theatre was commissioned following the success of the nearby Grauman's Egyptian Theatre which opened in 1922...
in Hollywood. Elsewhere, Sony Pictures Entertainment released the film in most overseas territories on different dates in June. One exception was Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, however, because of the swine flu outbreak in the country, which forced Sony to push the release date to July 31, 2009.
It is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
for "intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action, and language," unlike the previous R-rated films. The decision to release the film with a PG-13 rating has met with much criticism from fans, as well as the media. The rating decision was made after McG cut out a shot of Marcus stabbing a thug with a screwdriver, as the director felt disallowing the young audience due to that one shot was unfair. He also deleted a topless scene for Moon Bloodgood because, "It was a soft moment between a man and a woman that was designed to echo the Kelly McGillis
Kelly McGillis
Kelly Ann McGillis is an American actress. Her films include Top Gun, The Accused, and Witness, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.-Career:...
/Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
moment in Witness
Witness (1985 film)
Witness is a 1985 American thriller film directed by Peter Weir and starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis. The screenplay by William Kelley, Pamela Wallace, and Earl W...
[but] in the end, it felt more like a gratuitous moment of a girl taking her top off in an action picture, and I didn't want that to convolute the story or the characters." The producers had expected the rating because of the modern leniency towards violence in PG-13 films, such as the 2007 action film, Live Free or Die Hard
Live Free or Die Hard
Live Free or Die Hard , is a 2007 American action film, and the fourth installment in the Die Hard series. The film was directed by Len Wiseman and stars Bruce Willis as John McClane. The name was adapted from the state motto of New Hampshire, "Live Free or Die"...
.
Critical reception
Based on 250 reviews collected by Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, critical reaction for Terminator Salvation was predominantly negative, with an overall 33% approval rating. It has an average score of 5/10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 31%. By comparison, Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Normalization (statistics)
In one usage in statistics, normalization is the process of isolating statistical error in repeated measured data. A normalization is sometimes based on a property...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 52, based on 35 reviews which is regarded as "mixed or average reviews". At all three websites, the film ranked lowest among the Terminator franchise films.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, saying that "After scrutinizing the film, I offer you my summary of the story: Guy dies, finds himself resurrected, meets others, fights. That lasts for almost two hours." Michael Rechtshaffen of the Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film isn't the same without Arnold Schwarzenegger and that it misses its dramatic element. Likewise, Claudia Puig of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave the film a 2/4 and called it "predictable" with the "dramatic elements flat-lin[ing]". She considered Christian Bale's performance "one-dimensional", but found his co-stars to "come off better" than Bale, saying Sam Worthington had "a quiet intensity marred only by yelling "Nooooo!" three times in about 10 minutes" and that Anton Yelchin had "some of the best lines".
Total Film
Total Film
Total Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...
s review gave the film 4/5 with its verdict: "The Terminator story recharges with a post-apocalyptic jolt of energy. Frantic and full of welcome ties to the past, it also ploughs new ground with purpose. Fingers crossed McG will follow Cameron’s lead and serve up a worthy sequel." Devin Faraci of Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
magazine also gave a positive rating of four out of five stars, saying: "McG has sparked a moribund franchise back to life, giving fans the post-apocalyptic action they’ve been craving since they first saw a metal foot crush a human skull two decades ago." However, on CHUD, the latter said, "Bale's desire to star as John Connor was probably the most fatal blow to the film; it completely distorted the shape of the story as it existed." Furthermore, he expressed that the third act was when the film began falling apart, saying, "McG and Nolan muddied the end of the picture, delivering action generics (yet another Terminator fight in a factory) while never finding their own hook that would give this movie more of an impact than you would get from an expanded universe novel." In contrast, James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
considered the ending the best part of the film, feeling that the first two-thirds were "rambling and disjointed" and that the lack of a central villain was only fixed when the T-800 appeared.
Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
stated that "[Bale's] strengths do not serve him, or the movie, as well here" and that "when the story starts to crumble around Bale, Worthington is there to pick up the pieces". Craig Sharp of FilmShaft gave the film 3/5, saying "If you’re looking for action then this is one damn good film! If it’s character depth you’re after then move along please." A.O. Scott of the New York Times said the film has "a brute integrity lacking in some of the other seasonal franchise movies" and "efficient, reasonably swift storytelling". Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz
Ben Mankiewicz
Ben Mankiewicz is an American radio and television personality, known for his work as a TV journalist, news anchor, and film critic...
gave the film a "See It" and "Skip It", respectively, on their show At the Movies with the latter mentioning that it "is the worst big budget summer release I’ve seen in some time".
Arnold Schwarzenegger, star of the preceding three films in the series, remarked that Terminator Salvation was "a great film, I was very excited". James Cameron, creator of the series, considered it an "interesting film" that he "didn't hate as much as I thought I was going to", and praised Sam Worthington's performance. Linda Hamilton
Linda Hamilton
Linda Carroll Hamilton is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Sarah Connor in The Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Catherine Chandler in the television series Beauty and the Beast, for which she was nominated for two Golden Globes and an Emmy...
, who portrayed Sarah Connor in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day and lent her voice to Terminator Salvation, wished the film "all the best" but expressed her opinion that the series "was perfect with two films. It was a complete circle, and it was enough in itself. But there will always be those who will try [to] milk the cow".
Box office
The film's first nationwide U.S. screenings were at 12 A.M. on Thursday, May 21, 2009, making $3 million from midnight screenings and earning $13.3 million in its first day and grossed an additional $42,558,390 on its 4-day Memorial DayMemorial Day
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War...
opening weekend from 3,530 theaters. It debuted at #2 behind Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is an American adventure comedy film directed by Shawn Levy, and starring Ben Stiller, Hank Azaria, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Robin Williams, and Steve Coogan. The film is a sequel to Night at the Museum...
, giving it a lower first weekend take than its predecessor, becoming the first film in the series not to open at #1 and failing to meet Boxoffice Magazine predictions by 50%. Terminator Salvation was more successful in its international release, opening at #1 in 66 of 70 territories through the first week of June, and continuing to be the highest-grossing film in the following week. The film's total domestic gross was $125,322,469, along with $246,030,532 from overseas territories, for a worldwide gross of $371,353,001. As of December 2009, the film ranks fourteenth for the year internationally and twenty third domestically (U.S. and Canada), which ranks it last in the series and puts it below initial expectations in terms of domestic gross and first weekend, as well as overall global take.
Home media
The DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
of the film was released on December 1, 2009. The former contains the theatrical cut of the film with a featurette on the Mototerminators. The Blu-ray features both the theatrical cut and the R-rated Director's cut
Director's cut
A director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit...
, which is three minutes longer (118 minutes), with bonus material including Maximum Movie Mode, a video commentary in which director McG talks about the film while it plays, featurettes, a video archive, and a digital comic of the first issue of the official film prequel comic. Both versions include a digital copy
Digital copy
Digital Copy provides consumers who purchase a film on DVD or Blu-ray Disc with an additional, digital copy of the movie for devices capable of operating with a file in contrast to a DVD.-Features:...
of the theatrical cut for portable media players. Target Stores
Target Corporation
Target Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
will be the only retailer to carry the Director's Cut on DVD. On its first week of retail, Terminator Salvation debuted at the top spot of the Blu-ray charts, and on second in the DVD charts, behind Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.
Tie-ins
Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes
Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes is a prequel novel written by Timothy Zahn. It is set after the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and before the events of Terminator Salvation.-Story:The novel opens on July 25, 2004 - Judgment Day...
by Timothy Zahn
Timothy Zahn
Timothy Zahn is a writer of science fiction short stories and novels. His novella Cascade Point won the 1984 Hugo award. He is the author of nine Star Wars Expanded Universe novels, including seven novels featuring Grand Admiral Thrawn: the Thrawn Trilogy, the Hand of Thrawn duology, Outbound...
was released. Zahn also wrote two further books inspired by the film, Cold War and Trial by Fire. IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing, also known as Idea + Design Works, LLC and IDW, is an American publisher of comic books and comic strip collections. The company was founded in 1999 and has been awarded the title "Publisher of the Year Under 5% Market Share" for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Diamond Comic...
released a four-issue prequel comic, as well as an adaptation. It follows Connor rallying together the resistance in 2017, as well as examining normal people overcoming their intolerances to defeat Skynet. Playmates Toys
Playmates Toys
Playmates Toys is a Costa Mesa, California toy manufacturer and a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Playmates Holdings Ltd , which was founded in 1966.-Proprietary brands:*Amazing Dolls*Amazing Pets*Kinder-Garden Babies*R.E.V.s*Waterbabies*WOW Pals...
, Sideshow Collectibles, Hot Toys
Hot Toys
Hot Toys is a Hong Kong based production house for designing, developing, and manufacturing highly detailed collectible merchandise to worldwide markets. Established in 2000, the company initially focused on producing 1/6 military special force gear set before extending to producing toys based on...
, Character Options, and DC Unlimited produced merchandise, while Chrysler
Chrysler
Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....
, Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
, Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut is an American restaurant chain and international franchise that offers different styles of pizza along with side dishes including pasta, buffalo wings, breadsticks, and garlic bread....
, and 7-Eleven
7-Eleven
7-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenience stores, operating under Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd, which in turn is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co...
were among the product placement
Product placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...
partners. On May 23, 2009, a roller coaster
Terminator Salvation: The Ride
Apocalypse is a wooden roller coaster located at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California. It is located in the Cyclone Bay section of the amusement park, on a plot of land formerly occupied by the Psyclone roller coaster.-History:...
named after the film opened at Six Flags Magic Mountain
Six Flags Magic Mountain
Six Flags Magic Mountain is a theme park located in Valencia, California north of Los Angeles. It opened on Memorial Day weekend on May 30, 1971 as Magic Mountain, by the Newhall Land and Farming Company. In 1979, Six Flags purchased the park and added the name Six Flags to the park's title. In...
.
A third-person shooter video game of the same name
Terminator Salvation (video game)
Terminator Salvation is a third-person shooter action video game, released on May 19, 2009 to coincide with the release of the film of the same name on the same week. It is developed by the Halcyon Company's gaming subsidiary, Halcyon Games, along with GRIN and published by Equity Games and Evolved...
was released on the same week of the release of the film. Christian Bale declined to lend his voice, so Gideon Emery
Gideon Emery
Gideon Emery is an English actor and voice actor, known for his stage work in South Africa and for providing voices in video games. He lives in Los Angeles.-Early life:...
voiced the character of John Connor. The game, however, features the voices of Common and Moon Bloodgood as Barnes and Blair Williams, respectively. Despite not appearing in the film, Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan
Rose Arianna McGowan is an actress and singer. She is known for her role as Paige Matthews in The WB Television Network supernatural drama series Charmed. She played Ann-Margret alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis Presley in the CBS mini-series Elvis...
voiced the character of Angie Salter, an ex-high school teacher. The game is set in 2016, after the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and before the events of Terminator Salvation.
Award nominations
| Award | Year | Category | Result | Recipient | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teen Choice Awards Teen Choice Awards The Teen Choice Awards, are an annual awards show that air on the Fox cable channel, that honor the year's biggest biggest achievements in music, movies, sports, television, fashion and more, voted by teen viewers aged 14 through 17. Winners receive an authentic full size surfboard designed with... |
2009 | Choice Movie Actor: Action Adventure | Christian Bale Christian Bale Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses.... |
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| Choice Movie Actress: Action Adventure | Bryce Dallas Howard Bryce Dallas Howard Bryce Dallas Howard is an American film actress and daughter of director Ron Howard. She made her acting debut in her father's 1989 movie Parenthood and went on to have small roles in films and make stage appearances for the next several years... |
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| Choice Movie Fresh Face Male | Sam Worthington Sam Worthington Samuel Henry J. "Sam" Worthington is an English born, Australian actor. After almost a decade of roles in Australian TV shows and films, Worthington gained Hollywood's attention by playing Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation and the lead role, Jake Sully, in James Cameron's science... |
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| Choice Movie: Action Adventure | Terminator Salvation | ||||
| Choice Summer Movie: Action Adventure | Terminator Salvation | ||||
| Satellite Award | Best Sound (Mixing and Editing) | Cameron Frankley Mark Ulano Richard Van Dyke Ron Bartlett |
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| Scream Awards 2009 Scream Awards The Scream Awards is an award show dedicated to the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres of feature films, hosted and sponsored by Spike TV. The show was created by executive producers Michael Levitt, Cindy Levitt, and Casey Patterson.... |
Best Science Fiction Movie | Terminator Salvation | |||
| Best Science Fiction Actress | Moon Bloodgood Moon Bloodgood Korinna Moon Bloodgood is an American actress and model. She starred as "Lt. Blair Williams" in the film Terminator Salvation alongside Christian Bale and Sam Worthington. Bloodgood previously starred in the films Eight Below and Pathfinder.-Early life:Bloodgood was born in Anaheim, California... |
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| Breakout Performance-Male | Sam Worthington Sam Worthington Samuel Henry J. "Sam" Worthington is an English born, Australian actor. After almost a decade of roles in Australian TV shows and films, Worthington gained Hollywood's attention by playing Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation and the lead role, Jake Sully, in James Cameron's science... |
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| Best Cameo | Helena Bonham Carter Helena Bonham Carter Helena Bonham Carter is an English actress of film, stage, and television. She made her acting debut in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses before winning her first film role as the titular character in Lady Jane... |
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| Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011.... |
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| Best Sequel | Terminator Salvation | ||||
| Best FX | Terminator Salvation | ||||
| Saturn Awards | 2010 | Best Makeup Saturn Award for Best Make-up The following is a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Make-up:... |
Mike Smithson John Rosengrant |
||
| VES Awards | Best Single Visual Effect of the Year | Chantal Feghali Charles Gibson Susan Greenhow Ben Snow |
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| Outstanding Models and Miniatures in a Feature Motion Picture | Nick D'Abo Brian Gernand Geoff Heron Pat Sweeney |