The making of Terminator Salvation, or what I'm calling Termination for short, is nearing completion.

According to the guy who'd know, the director McG (if that's his real name), principal photography on the fourth big screen installment of the franchise has finished.


The film, starring everyone's new favourite movie tough guy Christian Bale and Australian rising star Sam Worthington, is set to be one of the blockbusters of 2009, with it due for release late May.

"Now we're heavy into post (production),'' McG wrote on his official blog for the movie. "I've already shown early cuts to Christian and Sam. They seem pleased with where the film is headed.

"Our focus is on story and character, but it's fun diving into the world of visual effects."

A lot of pressure is no doubt on McG, the director of Charlies Angels, who has the responsibility, or burden, of reenergising the Terminator series after the relative failure of T3 in 2003, the last starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"It feels like the responsibility of any Terminator film to reinvent the wheel of effects with every outing," Mc G wrote.

"The first movie was a stunning achievement in animatronics and practical effects from Stan Winston.

"The second film brought us liquid metal, which was a true revolution in the effects world. Robert Patrick's (T-1000) head coming apart and putting itself back together again looks as good today as ever."

The film will pick up a few years after the events of T3 when Skynet finally manages to cause a nuclear holocaust. That chapter was primarily yet another chase movie, like the first two, which was ultimately its downfall. It had none of the spark or freshness of its predessessors.

It's a good move by the makers of T4 to finally set the scene in the futuristic world overrun by machines we've been waiting too see for 25 years when the original was released.


McG went on to write, "Long before we ever began we talked about what excited us about making this film. It was the notion of the world after judgment day.

"We set out to create a world that honored the Terminator mythology but was its own new beginning."

As well as seeing how the whole war between man, the creators, and the machines, the destroyers, plays out, I'll be interested to watch Sam Worthington in action as Marcus Wright, alongside Bale's iconic John Connor, son of Sarah.

Wright, who befriends Conner, may or may not be a terminator, and if he is, may or may not know.

McG writes, "Most importantly, Christian and Sam bring power to the rolls of John Connor and Marcus Wright."

2009 is going to be a big year for Worthington - a watershed year on the Hollywood stage - with a starring role also coming up in James
Cameron's much-hyped sci-fi epic Avatar.

He's definitely on the path to joining Bale as one of the new breed of action stars who can actually act.

No offence Arnie, Sly, Chuck, Jean-Claude, Dolph ...