McG Talks Terminator Salvation

Terminator Salvation director McG  attended the New York Comic Con yesterday with a new reel of footage from the unfinished film and to answer questions from Terminator fans.

He also fielded questions about the Christian Bale tantrum which he made light of, suggesting that emotions run high on the set and perhaps more so for a serious actor such as Bale.

“That remix is pretty hot,” said McG, which got a laugh from the crowd and assured everyone that “(Christian and Shane Hurlbut) were fine that day” and that the two are “buddies” who worked successfully together for another month after the infamous incident.

The unseen footage was about eight minutes long and contained plenty of footage of the machines that Terminator fans have only before seen in brief clips in the previous Terminator movies. McG talked at length about the goals of the film, one of which was to portray the evolutionary steps leading to Skynet’s Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator model (the “T-800?). One of the other goals, McG claimed, was to show how Kyle Reese becomes Kyle Reese, “How he becomes the man who would sacrifice himself for John Connor.”

McG answered plenty of questions after the clip was shown and answered the one that seemed most pressing to the fans present; namely, to what extent were the events and timeline of the poor Terminator 3 versus that of T1 and T2 honored in Terminator Salvation. The answer pleased the fans as McG promised them that the spirit of the film was true to Jim Cameron’s original works but that there were aspects of the third film, such as the way Judgment Day comes about, that he incorporated into Terminator Salvation.

The other major question on everyone’s lips was of course about Arnold Schwarzenegger and would he “Be Back” or not. McG told fans that they were currently exploring a never before used method of bringing the Schwarzenegger character into Terminator Salvation although he said it would not be the Arnold Schwarzenegger of ‘today’ which got a laugh. As of yet McG doesn’t know if it will work but they are at least investigating the technique.

McG was keen to convince the Terminator fans present that he too was a big fan and that he had always planned to honor the original Terminator movies done by Cameron.

The footage certainly had the fans convinced so fingers crossed Terminator Salvation may well be a true Terminator movie.