“Terminator Salvation:” What Happened?

By Dan Cohen

It’s now official. One of the most anticipated studio films of the year, “Terminator Salvation” (or T-4) is both a critical and financial failure. So now the question is, how did a franchise that minted so much money for its studio, run out of gas at a point in time when box office is up over 15%?

To get a little perspective we need to go back to 1984, when James Cameron, whose only significant credit up to that time was “Piranha 2,” wrote (with fledgling producer Gale Ann Hurd) and directed the first “Terminator.” Considered a long shot at the time, the 6 million dollar sci-fi starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, mainly known as the body builder who starred as “Conan The Barbarian,” grossed $80 million worldwide. More than anyone dared to imagine.

The original was a hell for leather action thriller about an unstoppable robot who came back from the future to kill a young man who’s destiny was to save mankind from a world dominated by machines. The story borrowed heavily from other B movies, but it was distinguished by relentless energy and a truly remarkable final sequence, where the deathless Terminator is serially shorn of layer after layer of synthetic flesh and bone. Credit this to effects wizard Stan Winston. Basically, the movie delivered more than it promised, the audience rewarded it. It’s also worth noting that it was rated R, which kept a lot of the desired teen demographic from seeing it.

The worldwide success of “Terminator,” earned its creators great credibility. Schwarzenegger went on to make higher level action films, (“Commando,” “Predator,) while Cameron made the wildly successful “Aliens,” another upgraded B movie, and the ambitious but unsuccessful, “Abyss.” (FYI: “The Abyss” currently exists in several different DVD versions, all of them interesting. All of them boast first rate direction. )

Eager to continue with both Arnold and Cameron, Sony spent almost 100 million on the sequel. This was an unthinkable amount at the time, even in light of Cameron’s developing reputation for free spending. Of course, we only have the studio’s number, so we don’t know what the real number was. In any case, it was big.

“Terminator 2: Judgment Day” boasted no real stars other than Arnold. Linda Hamilton, the female lead, was better known for her work on an idiosyncratic TV show (“Beauty and the Beast” ) than she was for any movies she’d made after T-1.

Most prognosticators predicted losses. At the end of the day, Sony was depending on Cameron, who was already proved mortal by the expensive fiasco of “The Abyss.” But the wily writer/director had a terrific plan. Instead of relying on special effects, he constructed his movie around three of the most breathtaking chase sequences ever committed to film. On top of that he turned the original robot into a good guy, worked Arnold’s Teutonic accent for all the humor he could get from it, and made famous a line quoted wherever English is heard; “I’ll be back.” The cash registers rang to the tune of 500 million.

Cameron went on to another big success starring Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis—“True Lies,” a witty action comedy that traded on the well established screen personae of its two leads. Then came “Titanic,” predicted to be a disaster on the scale of the original shipwreck, but instead one of the biggest grossing films of all times, that won Academy Awards and made superstars of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

But Sony still had an itch for the “Terminator” franchise. So, while he didn’t direct it, Cameron and Gale Ann Hurd wrote “The Rise of The Machines.” This time the salaries for the talent, inflation and even bigger effects cost the studio close to 170 million.

The main attraction of “Rise of the Machines,” a very basic B movie at its heart , was a mad, excessive battle between a female terminator played by an icy Norwegian American beauty, Kristanna Loken, and Schwarzenegger, as a different Terminator with the same mission of protecting mankind. Once again, there was the bad robot/ good robot formula that worked so well in T-2.

Although efficiently directed by Jonathan Mostow, a writer/producer with credits in TV and movies, it mainly drew attention to itself for its post-feminist subtext. The female was relentless, indestructible, and humorless. We see her get bashed in every way imaginable, some of them laughably over the top. And like the modern business woman she parodies, nothing stops her.

T-3 did better internationally than in the US, but the studios were now seeing huge numbers from blossoming DVD sales. It was a brief moment in time when people wanted more than just to see movies on DVDs, they wanted to own them. So while T-3 didn’t surpass T-2, it still made money.

That brings us to T-4: “Terminator Salvation.” With the 60-plus Schwarzenegger sitting in the California Governor’s seat, and 25 years having passed since the first installment, was there a compelling need to continue? Well, there’s always a need for big revenue in Hollywood, and there was a perceived value in the name, which Sony had already paid for. They couldn’t resist.

Enter a whole new team, headed by the director McG, a successful TV producer and director of two not-so-good Charlie’s Angel’s movies. Add to that at least (by my count) 16 producers, hundreds of effects, makeup and visual artists, and effects wizard Stan Winston, who sadly, passed away before the film’s completion. New writers were hired too.

The trailer was stupendous. It starred Christian Bale (“Batman Begins,” “The Dark Knight”). It garnered a PG-13 rating, meaning teens could go without their parents. But “Terminator Salvation” opened to dismal reviews and underwhelming box office returns. After two weeks it’s considered a long-shot to break even. And curtains for the “franchise.”

So what happened? The budget was no larger than the third entry into the series. And it’s hard to imagine that bad reviews kept the core audience away.

I, for one, think the critics were too harsh. I found the movie absorbing and exciting. McG’s direction is strong; a couple of the extended chases are riveting. The story is as well crafted as any of these things, and the actors deliver more than the words. But T-4 bears no relation its predecessors, both in tone or substance, and that’s what I think, finally limits its appeal.

“Salvation” takes place in a desperate, near future, where humans are like hunted rabbits. The setting is slightly reminiscent of the Warsaw ghetto, except with epically scaled machines standing in for jackbooted storm troopers

In pre-apocalyptic 2003, a killer facing a death sentence (Sam Worthington) agrees to an experiment that may preserve his body for the betterment of science. He wakes up at the tail end of this apocalypse with a body of steel but the feelings of an ordinary human. He doesn’t know who he is, although his instinct is to turn against the machines that are destroying the last vestiges of his species. What he doesn’t know is he’s been programmed to betray his former species. Meanwhile John Conner, (Christian Bale) is doing his best to keep a rag tag resistance from total capitulation. Complications ensue.

The script has little connection to the others in the series. More to the point, it’s absolutely humorless. Every character is steely cold. Christian Bale, a terrific actor, is intense to the point where he seems more like the machines than the humans he’s trying to save. Sam Worthington, an Australian, and Moon Bloodgood, mainly known from TV, play their parts with as much nuance as the material allows. But the range is narrow.

The problem with the movie’s appeal to a mass audience, I believe, has more to do with this particular moment in time than the movie itself. When they began this project, probably two or more years ago, neither the studio nor the filmmakers could see the economic shadow that was to fall over the entire world. They couldn’t have seen that in these perilous times the mass audience they were courting would probably be more open to an upbeat “Star Trek” than a dystopian “Salvation.” This might not have been so bad had they not spent such a fortune on production. Do these things have to cost $150 million?

As you watch T-4, you marvel at the mechanics and the energy. They’ve put everything in this movie and even found the proper place for it. The problem is we don’t go to these movies to find out what the future holds; we take their visions to be nonsense before we buy our ticket. In fact we probably go because we expect nonsense. And also because movies in this genre are supposed to be fun. And the problem for the mass audience in this case is fun was left out of the equation.