Christian's 'Salvation'
Latest ‘Terminator’ flick can bank on Western angst over our treatment of the planet and one another
By Lisa Miller 05/21/2009
Set in 2018, “Terminator Salvation” opens with the war between humans and a self-aware network of robots in full swing, and the humans are losing — badly.
Fourteen years after Skynet went online, pockets of surviving humans scramble like rats in the rubble of a post-apocalyptic world, finally coalescing into the Resistance Army while terminators and other robotic seekers (some 60-feet-tall) roam Earth killing or collecting any people they can find.
At this juncture, John Connor (Christian Bale) establishes himself as a valuable fighter, commander and future leader of the Resistance. However, he has a second, equally important goal — saving the life of Kyle Reese, played here as a youth by Anton Yelchin. Reese’s life matters to Connor because, if audiences will remember, it is Reese who will one day travel back in time to impregnate John’s mother, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton).
A second heroic figure of this time period is Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), an unstoppable fighter and Connor’s intellectual equal. Mysteriously, when Wright is found, he has no memory of what has occurred since he was strapped down for execution by lethal injection 15 years earlier
This is where the story about the origins of “Terminator Salvation” gets interesting. How interesting? Well, for starters, the Marcus Wright character was originally slated to be the film’s central hero. But all that changed when director McG (whose real name is Joseph McGinty Nichol) persuaded Bale to sign on the dotted line. Bale’s participation came with conditions, a price McG willingly paid. Though McG had envisioned Bale as Marcus Wright, the actor insisted on playing Connor, which meant expanding Connor’s role and making him the film’s central character. In addition, Bale wanted right of approval over who would be cast as the Wright character (he got it) and, lastly, the actor wanted the script tweaked by Jonathan Nolan, the screenwriter brother of “Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan (Bale got that too).
Consequently, whether “Terminator Salvation” sinks or swims has as much to do with Bale as it does with McG, due mainly to Bale’s expanded and collaborative responsibilities. For example, in addition to approving all the script changes, Bale sat with McG for six to eight hours during each day spent editing in post-production. With a planned trilogy starring Bale, the actor has invested himself heavily into the project. Perhaps this explains why Bale has been willing to discuss his infamous on-set meltdown in several different interviews. That four-minute, profanity-laced tirade — unleashed on a crew member who wandered into Bale’s sightline during the filming of a tense scene — became an issue when an audio recording of the tongue-lashing was circulated on the Internet.
Bale, who says he regrets his behavior, has asked in a series of interviews to be forgiven. But in a separate July 2008 incident, Bale, then 34, was in London for the “Dark Knight” premiere when a verbal altercation between Bale, his sister and his 61-year-old mother resulted in Bale’s mom and sister filing a complaint with police. He was arrested, questioned and released without being charged.
Is Bale simply passionate, or just a bully? I’d guess there’s a measure of each, though Bale claims he’s learning to count to 10.
In addition to Bale’s approval, McG hoped the film would please Arnold “The Governator” Schwarzenegger, who agreed to lend his CGI likeness to the film. During a recent interview, McG happily reported that Arnie had dubbed the movie “fantastic.” The technical wizardry behind Schwarzenegger’s appearance in this chapter is complex, but suffice to say he is played by his double from the “Terminator” films, then fleshed out with a CGI rendition of Arnie’s face, with recordings of his voice from the 1984 original film included.
“Terminator Salvation” seems perfectly poised to reinvigorate the franchise by capitalizing on Western angst over our treatment of the planet and one another. Guilt and fear have recently translated into mega box office receipts for blockbusters placing our species on the brink of annihilation at the behest of a more advanced race.
Could it be that we love the “Terminator” films because they allow us to be the author of our own destiny?
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