When plans to revisit the Terminator trilogy arose, plenty of questions and doubts surrounded the project, arguably the biggest of them being how they’d treat Arnold Schwarzenegger’s terminator character (the T-800) – biggest, that is, until word came down McG would be at the helm. McG? Realllllly? The guy with only the Charlie’s Angels flicks and some crappy football movie to his credit? Guess he couldn’t do any worse than they did on the fairly awful Rise of the Machines six years ago….
Footage shown at a preview by McG himself at the Directors Guild in Los Angeles, though, should prove the naysayers wrong, if it’s any indication of how the entire movie will look. And hey, any guy who compares a genocidal, self-aware A.I. like Skynet to Scientology can’t be half bad.
The director showed four pretty long clips after discussing the project with the audience. “I refer to the work of Michael Bay as what not to do,” he jibed, adding that they’re in “a healthy competition” (the two are in fact friends). “I don’t want to replicate Transformers, which was colorful--and hip-hop.” He explained the film uses minimal CGI in favor of real stunt work and props created for the actors to act against. Awesome.
McG was refreshingly frank when discussing his much-maligned role on the venerable franchise, saying that James Cameron wasn’t gung-ho about the idea originally and Christian Bale had misgivings about starring in the film. He skirted the biggest issue though, what sort of role Arnold would play, but confirmed he’d spoken with the Governator at length. Linda Hamilton is slated to do a voiceover that will be heard on a tape to lead into the story, and Danny Elfman will do his take on the original theme music. He also gave a nod to last year’s The Dark Knight as how a dark, futuristic movie can be done successfully and get a PG-13 rating.
As for storyline, McG clarified some plot points. The story is set in 2018, before humans have formed a cohesive resistance. When a mysterious stranger, Marcus (Sam Worthington), pays a visit to John Connor (Christian Bale), he realizes that the future isn’t what his mother had led him to expect.
He also addressed the complex time-travel paradox the Terminator movies present, saying that how Kyle winds up being John’s father in the same movie where John has to save Kyle from Skynet when John doesn’t know Kyle is his father (phew) will all be explained. McG’s either Einstein, or a more talented filmmaker than people give him credit for.
On to the clips (and stop reading now if you don’t want to know!):
Clip 1: This was a short one that showed the Resistance going underground and running across a Terminator, that gave a pretty good idea of the general “look” of the whole film – a flinty, silvery, hyper-real futuristic hell full of metal machines, guns, grime and grit. McG explained: “We wanted to give this a really different feel, almost like the film was damaged, so we experimented with different lenses and types of film.”
Clip 2: Parts of the effects were obviously unfinished, but this showed a ginormous Terminator’s attack on an army enclave in the desert. The thing is HUGE, and even not done, it looks like a helluva formidable foe. Young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) and Marcus happen upon the enclave just before it’s gunned down and most of the people killed or collected into the Harvester, a Terminator transporter. Super cool is the chase scene that ensues, as more Terminators in the shape of badass black motorcycles speed off the giant killing machine in hot pursuit of their truck.
Clip 3: Marcus appears in the most interest-piquing and pivotal scene of all, which McG explains comes midway through the film. Is he a Terminator? Some other kind of machine? Even Marcus doesn’t know, because he has no memory. Half his face is human, half exposed robotic parts – so it’s no wonder when he saves John Connor from snakelike water Terminators who make a tentacled attack on John’s helicopter, that John’s not tremendously happy to see him. John makes this clear by yelling at Marcus in a peculiarly Batman-like growl. Marcus tells John, “I want to find out who did this to me” before he swims off into the dark.
Clip 4: This montage clarified a few things about the story. Apparently Skynet is using those Harvesters to collect humans for tissue for use on the T-800, the 1984 movie’s original killing machine, on which Skynet is fast at work developing. Michael Ironside (aw yeah) makes an appearance as a bullheaded military guy who isn’t buying that John’s the savior of mankind, and objects to John’s plans to attack Skynet.
McG and his selected clips just about terminated the misgivings about his take on the series. Who can’t wait until summer?
Send feedback on this column to
editorial@fandango.com.