Editorial Staff
With Terminator : Genisys just now active across the post-Judgement Day movie landscape, we thought the time was ripe for a bit of background on how the film came together – and what forms (no liquid metal version, it seems) it took prior to the film you see now.
Here’s 10 things you didn’t maybe don’t know about the fifth “Terminator” movie.
1. If “Terminator Salvation” had ended up the smash director McG planned it to be, then chances are the “Terminator” movie on screen right now would be a direct sequel to it. The script for the film would’ve shared a plot point with “Terminator : Genisys”, in that John Connor would’ve traveled back in time to a pre-Judgement Day time. “I strongly suspect the next movie is going to take place in a [pre-Judgment Day] 2011,” McG told Film Journal. “John Connor is going to travel back in time and he’s going to have to galvanize the militaries of the world for an impending SkyNet invasion.” The thing sounded quite crazy… in a ‘everything but the kitchen sink sense’. “They’ve figured out time travel to the degree where they can send more than one naked entity. So you’re going to have hunter killers and transports and harvesters and everything arriving in our time and Connor fighting back with conventional military warfare, which I think is going to be fucking awesome. I also think he’s going to meet a scientist that’s going to look a lot like present-day Robert Patrick [who famously played the T-1000 in Terminator 2], talking about stem-cell research and how we can all live as idealized, younger versions of ourselves.” Now that would’ve been cool – seeing Robert Patrick play the scientist who, assumingly, ultimately lends his likeness to the T-1000 character.
2. One of the earlier versions of the script saw the Terminator going back to the 1920’s to kill Sarah Connor’s grandparents. “It’s Terminator in the Wild West” co-writer Patrick Lussier told Crave Online of the ‘Westworld’-esque version of the “Genisys” script. “Yul Brynner! Who doesn’t love Yul Brynner?”
The ‘going way, way back’ version of the script was something the writers obviously considered for quite a while, because rumor has it that another variation had the Terminator going after Connor’s parents in the ’40s. Schwarzenegger would’ve played a non-Terminator role – a human who protects the parents of Sarah Connor – utilizing outdated equipment, like pitch-forks! – in the 1940s and 1950s. Theory was that his ability to safeguard Sarah’s parents with outdated equipment leads to the machines building a Terminator in his likeness. At one stage the internet was abuzz that Dwayne Johnson was the frontrunner to play the Terminator in that version.
3. The Terminator : Genisys script was, according to screenwriters Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, inspired by the moment in Back to the Future Part II where older Biff Tannen steals the time machine and goes back to 1955 to change everything.
4. Though we only get a taste of what young Sarah Connor’s life was like with The Guardian (Schwarzenegger), the script originally encompassed a lot more from that time period. Explains producer David Ellison, “At a point in time, there was a more expansive scene that really went into what Sarah Connor’s life was like with Guardian. It was finally something that—the script was much longer at that point in time. That is something we hope we get to explore either through television or comics.” Ellison’s company Skydance is currently working on a TV series spin-off, and his comments suggested it might be set way back when, with young Sarah and young Guardian.
5. Since Kyle Reese was to essentially be the main character in the film, producers spent quite a bit of time meeting young actors for the role. They ultimately – after toying with casting someone more recognizable like Nicholas Hoult (Mad Max Fury Road) in the role – decided they wanted a fresh face, someone not super famous but also someone considered to be on the rise. Among those that they met for the part : Boyd Holbrook,Taylor Kitsch, and Sam Reid.
6. Though producers had floated with the idea of having Christian Bale reprise his role as John Connor for the film, they ultimately decided to try and court his “Dark Knight Rises” co-star Tom Hardy. Hardy passed. Hello Jai Courtney!
7. Suicide Squad star Margot Robbie (Focus) and 21 Jump Street‘s Brie Larson screen tested for the role of Sarah Connor.
8. The grey hair Arnold’s ‘Guardian’ sports in the film? Totally his!
9. Though it’s essentially a cameo this time around, Matt Smith’s character (*spoiler* he’s Skynet! *end spoiler*) will have a much bigger role in the two planned sequels. Though the former “Doctor Who” star is playing a character – sort of – we’ve seen in the previous “Terminator” movies, it’s actually an alternate take. Lussier told Crave Online, “You see in the beginning [Matt Smith] grabs John. He’s not from this timeline. He’s from an alternate universe, in the multiverse. Another of the many universes that exist. That Skynet is not from that timeline… This Skynet has been to this universe, and this universe, and this universe. That’s why he says, ‘I came a very long way to stop you.’ He’s not from here. So he’s watched it. He’s watched it happen a bunch of different times, and each time he’s seen it there is a different result but the same result.”
10. Initially, the producers considered bringing Robert Patrick back to reprise his T-1000 role in this film. That idea – maybe even by Patrick himself? – was nixed, but producer David Ellison has hinted at someone from the previous “Terminator” movies returning in the next movie. Might that be Patrick? “I can’t say what it is, but there is a particular part written into the second movie from somebody that you have seen in the prior film. Who it is we will have to wait to be lucky enough to make the next movie. Maybe that sequel idea discussed by McG, as a potential “Terminator Salvation” follow-up, has made a comeback?
