How McG made that T-800 at the end of Terminator Salvation

Saturday, May 16, 2009

How McG made that T-800 at the end of Terminator Salvation

One of the big surprises at the end of McG's Terminator Salvation has been well reported, but if you haven't heard and don't want to be spoiled, don't read any further. But if you want to know how McG created the scene, click through.

At the end of the upcoming prequel/sequel film, a T-800 model Terminator appears, looking just like Arnold Schwarzenegger from James Cameron's original 1984 The Terminator, as naked as the first time we see him.

McG told reporters that he used computer graphics to make the T-800 look just like Schwarzenegger from the first movie. But wherever else he could, McG wanted to use practical effects.

For the T-800 scene, in which John Connor (Christian Bale) confronts the old nemesis, Austrian bodybuilder Roland Kickinger played the Terminator so that Bale would have someone to act opposite. Schwarzenegger's face was superimposed on Kickinger's head in post-production.

"Most particularly, you really get the performance you're looking for when you're not stuck telling an actor, 'Oh, the tennis ball is the robot. Be afraid,'" McG said. "That's terrible. I want a 7-foot piece of Soviet tank machinery where if you punch up against that thing, it's going to hurt your hand. And when the red eyes glow, and the puppeteers from Winston Studios do this and smack you, it brings a better performance out of Sam Worthington and out of Christian Bale and everybody else who's interacting in the film. So it was absolutely critical to build as much as was humanly possible, and then when you have to extend in a CG capacity, sure, go for it. But films that take place purely in a CG environment, I find they just feel animated and I detach as a viewer, so I'm less interested in that respect."

McG used as many practical robots and physical effects as possible during the making of the movie, he added. "It's a very militant philosophy when it comes to that," McG said in a group interview last week in Beverly Hills, Calif. "I'm very passionate about that. I think we can all smell the CG component in these films, and you immediately are taken out of the picture. So we wanted to go to great lengths to go to the one and only Stan Winston—who passed in the making of this picture, and we've dedicated it to his memory—to build all the robots and all the machines of Skynet to the best of our ability. We wanted to do as much as possible in camera, so you get that level of physics and that level of response."

If Schwarzenegger had not agreed to allow the use of his face and likeness for the T-800, McG had a backup plan. "You'll notice the door flies off, and Connor goes down on his back, and he shoots the machine gun up the chest of the T-800," McG said. "If we were unsuccessful in getting the likeness of Schwarzenegger, we were just going to have the machine gun having blown his face off. It would have been the endoskeleton, the skull idea, and it wouldn't have been nearly as satisfactory. In the end, I think the governor's very pleased with what we did and the manner in which it was handled. So I think that's a nice moment in the movie, when that shows up."

Terminator Salvation opens May 21.

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Enjoy The Prologue From My Upcoming Book.. "Strolok"............by R.Goldberg

"WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR RACE WAS TARGETED FOR EXTINCTION?"

The Sun is a powerful force in our Universe. It brings us light, warmth and a promise of a galaxy beyond the stars. Often we associate massive flashes of light with the reflection of our Sun's light bouncing off of another surface.

This is not always the case though, especially if you believe that we are truly not alone in the Universe. When we witness things that we can't readily explain we sometimes turn our heads and shrug our shoulders in a display of apathy.

A display such as this occurred on Friday January 29, 1982 at the Crater Lake National Park just outside of Chemult, Oregon. The snow had been falling steadily for a period of four days. The winds had been whisking about at 40 miles per hour.
Then there was one of those unnatural flashes of light. This created an eerie silence as a lanky boy, just nine years old, seemed to appear from out of that flash. If he had walked to this point there would have been a distinct trail in the newly fallen snow.
There was no trail and as a matter of fact the only tracks in the snow were the ones that outlined his feet where he was standing.

He began to trudge through the snow wearing what could only be described as dark brown long johns. He seemed dazed yet, at the same time, very clear about the direction that he was travelling. This boy with no identity or name seemed to be on a mission that would take him to places he had never been before.
His main goal was to reach Chemult, Oregon and he had no intention of stopping until he accomplished this. As strange as it seems the extreme cold seemed to have little or no effect on him at all.

Why Chemult? What was so special about this town located at an elevation of 4,758 feet above sea level in a frozen winter wilderness in Oregon?

The town of Chemult was first opened to the local traffic in 1926 and here in 1982, with its population of only 241, offered little in the way of comfort for a nine year old boy who was all alone. This journey, although prompted by something deep inside of him, did not provide a feeling of comfort and yet he had hoped that he would at least experience a feeling of accomplishment once he reached the town.

The wind was getting stronger and he noticed a small piece of yellow paper tattered and torn from whipping about in the snow. He only stopped long enough to
pick up this paper..........it read:

.....With the winter season here there was a lot of fun to have. Travelling miles of open trails on snow mobiles skiing or simply hiking, but there are dangers of doing so. Please remember safety first. Do not travel alone and be sure someone knows where you are and where you are going before travelling our trails, and please read the safety rules and codes of ethics before hiking the trails...

Nightfall was near and he had already walked 38 of the 40 miles needed to reach Chemult. He was just off of Route 97 when he spotted an old barn just about 200 feet NE of his present location. Making his way to the barn he went in and found it to be totally deserted, it was a perfect place to rest for the night.

Morning had arrived and once awake the boy started to look around the barn in the daylight light to see if there was anything that was lying in the barn that he could use to assist him on his trek.

Over in the far corner of the barn he found an old metal locked box that had long been forgotten. It was all rusted out and the key was nowhere to be found. After several failed attempts to open the box the young boy closed his eyes, sat back on his tired limbs and placed the palm of his right hand on top of the box. All of a sudden a dull red glow appeared from his right palm and the box lid flew open. Strangely enough once the red glow disappeared all that remained was a faint thin black outline where the outside of the red mark had appeared on his palm. Inside of the box he found several items all of which were unfamiliar to him and it was obvious that they had been there
for a very long time.

The contents included a tattered passport with the picture missing, a pocket knife, a compass, an antique pocket watch with a broken crystal, a time-worn souvenir porcelain coffee mug with the words; "Atlanta, Georgia, The Peach State, A Perfect Place to Live", on it and a frayed map of the Metro Atlanta Area It was difficult to make out the name on the passport but with a couple of light brushes with his fingers he saw the name Jason Tredmore. This is now who this boy would become.

Sci-Fi Blast

Saturday, May 16, 2009