"Before you can be Sean Penn, you have to be Spicoli. Before you can be Johnny Depp, you have to do 21 Jump Street." This is how McG explains away any fanboy outrage about his directing of Terminator Salvation. Is he being overly defensive? Maybe, maybe not. This is a guy who's been the focus of message board rage since it was announced he was bringing back the Terminator franchise to the big screen. "I hate that fuc*ing guy McG," he jokes at the Warner Brothers panel at New York Comic-Con. Moments after the presentation of a kick-ass (and very, very loud) specially edited trailer, I find myself tucked away with McG and a few fellow online journalists in a bland, cozy meeting room.
McG is among the friendliest interview subjects I've ever seen. Within three minutes he's confided that he still suffers a tremendous fear of flying, an inability to assess risk vs reward and is, basically, a sociopath. He says this is such a flat, no-BS way that you can tell that he is just being honest. His parents called him McG since he was a baby and, dammit, he's stuck with that. He really does consider Terminator Salvation his big break and an opportunity to make the kinds of films he "really feels comfortable making." So when he says that Christian Bale shouting down DP Shane Hurlbut was "really no big deal," I believe him.
Since I am a douchebag, I forgot to turn my cell phone off during our quick chat. When my ringtone of the Star Trek theme played loudly (and everyone slapped their forehead over what a knucklehead I was) McG pointed to my phone and asked, "Hey, is that J.J.?!?"
Here's some cool stuff I've learned talking with McG:
His next picture, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, is still under script development. He definitely wants Will Smith in the lead and he wants to make it modern and exciting, but still of the period.
He and Christian Bale hated the script of Terminator Salvation when they first read it and they worked very closely together to rid the movie of goofy jokes and make it very realistic and very stark. "We did not want to make Terminator 4, you know?" Bale is still very involved with the movie. McG and he speak nightly, discussing what happened that day in post-production.
He loves Battlestar Galactica.
The character of Sarah Conner is very important to Terminator Salvation. He all but said that, in some way, Linda Hamilton will somehow, somewhere be in the movie. Which is actually part of a larger point. Much of what sounds so awesome about Terminator Salvation is that we are going to see the research and development into creating the Terminators that we've seen in the earlier films.
Robert Patrick, in some form, will be in the movie.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, kinda-sorta, will somehow be in the movie. If we're seeing how those machines are created, we'll have to see some kind of source reference.
The footage that's been released in trailers so far emphasize the action - but the movie isn't all action. It is about John Connor's evolution to become "The One." The movie might surprise people in how moody it is.
Lots of technical tinkering going on with this film. Unorthodox lenses, a specially generated film stock, they "baked the stock, and added an insane amount of silver to the stock. It gives it a totally unique look." And there are lots of long takes ("I hate cuts! And with an actor like Bale, why cut?")
McG's favorite battle sequence on film is the long tracking shot in the trenches in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory. And Platoon scared the heck out of him.
McG is a funny guy. He yaps nonstop (flinging F bombs all over the place) and then says stuff like "I hate hearing myself talk" and "this movie will speak for himself."
The ending of Terminator Salvation is elliptical. And does not touch time travel.
Terminator Salvation draws its mythology from the first two pictures and the third one solely to do with the timeline. Sarah Connor Chronicles is its own Universe.
