Trivia

Main info

Even with only 77 days of principal photography, things are bound to happen on a big production as Terminator Salvation. What happened during filming? What where key moments in the film? Got special info on cast and crew? Sure... we got lots... and its all collected on this seperate trivia page.

In-depth info

Terminator 4: Salvation is dedicated to the memory of Stan Winston.

After Claire Danes declined to reprise her role as Kate Brewster, Charlotte Gainsbourg was once attached to star before pulling out due to a scheduling conflict with another film. She was replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard.

Helena Bonham Carter replaced Tilda Swinton shortly before filming was set to begin. She filmed her role in 10 days.

Helena Bonham Carter lost four members of her family in a car crash. As a result, filming was halted indefinitely so she could return to the UK to tend to her family.

Director McG asked the cast and crew to read the novel "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick - the basis for Blade Runner (1982) - because he wanted them to absorb the bleakness of the world in the novels.

In early 2008, Paul Haggis was brought on to polish the script. After he was done, three weeks before filming, Shawn Ryan was asked to rewrite the script, and he took "a pretty big whack" at it. However, he later had to return to television, and the filmmakers "subsequently brought in one or two other writers to continue the work," most likely Anthony E. Zuiker and Jonathan Nolan. So extensive were the rewrites that Alan Dean Foster decided to rewrite the entire novelization after submitting it to his publisher, because the compiled shooting script was very different from the one he was given beforehand.

Josh Brolin was asked to play Marcus Wright, but he turned it down.

During filming in the summer of 2008, Christian Bale yelled and used profanity at cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, who was adjusting the light in the background while Bale was doing an intense scene and got distracted by the cinematographer. Bale's tirade was then leaked on the Internet. After it was leaked, Bale publicly apologized for his remarks and insisted that he and Hurlbut are on good terms.

This is the first Terminator film not to feature Earl Boen, who played a doubting psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Silberman, in the earlier films.

Christian Bale is one of seven actors to play John Connor. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the adult John Connor was played by Michael Edwards, the teenage John Connor was played by Edward Furlong and the infant John Connor (who appeared during Sarah Connor's dream sequence of the nuclear attack) was played by Dalton Abbott. Nick Stahl played the fourth John Connor in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Thomas Dekker played John Connor in the TV series, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", and John DeVito playing a younger John in several T:SCC flashbacks.

The first Terminator film to receive a PG-13 rating (the previous films were R).

Principal photography took place over 77 days.

This is the first film in which John Connor and his father Kyle Reese have appeared together (if one disregards the Special Edition of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), where Kyle Reese makes an appearance in a dream sequence that was deleted from the Theatrical Version).

The song "You Could Be Mine" by Guns N' Roses appears in the film. The song was previously used in T2: Judgment Day.

All four Terminator films have had their climactic battle scenes take place in industrial settings. In The Terminator we saw Kyle and Sarah face a skinless T-101 in an automated factory. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day the T-101 and the T-1000 face off in a steel mill. In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines John, Kate and the T-850 are at Cyber Research Systems, where John and Kate escaped the TX in a particle accelerator. In Terminator 4: Salvation we see John and Marcus face off with the very first T-800 in a Skynet factory.

In several scenes, Kyle can be seen wearing Nike shoes. They are strikingly similar to the Nike Vandals Reese wore in The Terminator (1984).

The third Terminator film to have the line, "Come with me if you want to live." In The Terminator, Kyle Reese says it to Sarah Connor at the Tech-Noir club. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the Terminator says it to Sarah Connor when they first meet at the mental institution. In Terminator 4: Salvation Kyle Reese says it to Marcus Wright when they first meet. In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, a paraphrased version of this line ("Do you wanna live? Come on!") is spoken by John Connor to Kate Brewster when he and the T-850 rescue her in the graveyard. "Come with me if you want to live" is also spoken by Cameron in the pilot episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, when rescuing the teenage John Connor from the 'Cromartie' T-888.

The appearance of the clown mascot for the abandoned toy factory is based on serial killer John Wayne Gacy. He entertained children as "Pogo the Clown."

Several shots focus on the feet of the characters. This is a trademark of director James Cameron, who made the first two Terminator films.

Old recordings of Sarah Connor are played in the film, with lines nearly word-for-word from The Terminator. Linda Hamilton voiced the lines herself in an uncredited role.

Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to cameo in the film, stating that a brief appearance would be cheating the audience.

Roland Kickinger was chosen to portray the Terminator's body, while Arnold Schwarzenegger's face was digitally grafted onto the body. Coincidentally, the former portrayed Schwarzenegger in the biographical TV film 'See Arnold Run' (released 2005).

In the original The Terminator, Kyle Reese asks the police "What day is it? What year?" And the first thing Marcus Wright says to Kyle Reese is "What day is it? What year?".

The T-800 arrived in 1984 at the Griffith Park Observatory. This is the same place Marcus and Kyle went to get a car in this movie.

In one scene, we see Marcus snatching the shotgun from Kyle. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the T-800 grab a shotgun from a bar owner in the same manner.

The trick with keeping a shotgun attached around the arm that Marcus shows Kyle Reese, is used by the older Kyle Reese played by Michael Biehn at the beginning of the original The Terminator (1984), after he saws off the butt to shorten the shotgun he stole from the police squad car.

This is the first film where the Series 800 Model 101 Infiltrator is not credited as 'The Terminator', but 'T-800'.

In the intro, the camera focuses on each letter of the film's title before the words 'Terminator' and 'Salvation' intersect with each other before being placed in their appropriate places, is similar to the intro from The Terminator.

Christian Bale was first offered the role of Marcus but took more interest in the character of John Connor so rewrites took place to give him more of a substantial role throughout the film.

Both the original Terminator and Terminator Salvation show the T-800 climbing stairs, showing its feet climbing, and using many of the same fighting acts on an industrial platform.

Terry Crews was cast as Captain Jericho but his scenes ended up being cut from the final film. However, Crews is still visible in one scene as a dead body left in the aftermath of a battle.

The scars that appear on post Judgment Day John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines are a direct result of the final climactic scene in this movie which the molten hot T-800 scratches John Connor's face in their confrontation at the Skynet base.

A similar desert gas station appears in all four Terminator films. In the first Sarah stops at one before driving to the Mojave Desert. In the second film Sarah, John and the T-800 camp in one for the night after she escapes from the hospital. In the third film it is where The T-800 stops for supplies and gas. In this film it is the hideout for the refugees shortly before they are attacked by the Harvester Terminator.

Despite prominent billing, Helena Bonham Carter only gets five minutes of screentime.

Special effects wizard Stan Winston died during filming, making Terminator Salvation (2009) the last film he provided visual effects for.

McG partially believed that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles lessened the impact of a new Terminator film and may have harmed its performance.

John Connor dumps molten steel over a Terminator and then freezes it at the climax. This references Terminator 2: Judgment Day, when the T-1000 was frozen by liquid nitrogen and then thawed out by molten steel at a steel works.

Assuming there is small margin of error between the 'correct' and 'alternate' time lines of the previous films, this installment takes place about 11 and a half years (2018) before the events leading up to the first (2029).

To prepare for the role of Kyle, Anton Yelchin studied Michael Biehn's performance in the first movie a few times to get the character's mannerisms and characteristics.

Presumed brief cameo of Stan Winston as a white-haired prisoner on board the harvester after the petrol station raid.

Director McG actually went to visit James Cameron who was working in New Zealand on Avatar to gain insights and respecting the mythology set in the first two films. It was during there that Cameron recommended his art director Martin Laing to work as a production designer and Sam Worthington to play Marcus.