McG's Grim Alternate 'Terminator Salvation' Ending

This doesn's need a spoiler warning because the ending at issue is no longer the ending of the movie. McG tells io9 that the original ending of Terminator Salvation was so bleak and hopeless that it couldn't possibly pass muster with fans, and in fact, the director indicated it would piss off a lot of people when 15 minutes of the film were shown before a Q & A session in January. Again, this isn't the ending that you'll see on May 21st. But it shows me that McG is really invested in making his Terminator movies as original as he can. We've heard about his ideas for the fifth movie, and this proposed ending to Salvation would have been a game changer. "There was this leak that Connor dies and they put Connor's face on top of the machine body of Marcus," McG says. "Everybody went, "Booooooo, what's that?" That's half of it [the ending]. We had a jet-black ending." A jet-black ending? As if the notion of a Terminator leading the resistance against the Terminators wasn't enough?

"Connor dies, we're in a room with all the people we care about. You take Connor's likeness, you put it on the living machine of Marcus. He sits up, now looking like Christian Bale, takes a gun, kills Kate, kills Kyle, kills Star, kills everybody, eyes flare red, [snaps] the end."

That would be a great cliffhanger, and it would certainly make you rethink how you always imagined the series would end. It might be on the DVD, according to McG, which means they must have actually filmed it, unless it'll just be the storyboards or something. Suddenly, I kind of like what McG and company are endeavoring to do with the Terminator franchise. We'll see the real ending in a couple of weeks and compare it with the one that would completely change the course of the series.

Comments

[Chance]

Is that really the ending they were going to do? Sounds like the end to a cheap slasher movie or something. I would have been pissed too if I were a test screener.

[Asana]

An ending where the bad guys win, I could see where that'd piss people off. It's not unlike what happened with the film Arlington Road. A rather pitched back and forth between Jeff Bridges as a prof. who suspects his neighbor (Tim Robbins) is a terrorist. Bridges' character is right and the race is on to prove it before the villain & co. can pull off their plot. I'll just stop there as not to ruin it for anyone who may want to go and get pissed off but the ending is not at all the satisfaction you hope the movie is building toward.

People go to movies for entertainment and escapism on average and not to come out depressed or angry. Life on its own offers us up things to be sad or mad about for free ...who wants to pay $8 or $10 dollars to get that from a movie? Which is not to say that such emotionally wrenching films should not be made but generally people are aware going in that this film is a tearjerker or that film is probably going to raise their ire. When someone goes to see a movie like the upcoming Terminator chances are they're looking for good guys vs. bad guys, big action and death defying sequences, and where the seemingly hapless David outwits the bigger and more powerful Goliath. Anything less than that outcome... people will leave pissed.

[danny]

Fans may not like that ending but it is quite obvious that such an ending would mean the end of the franchise. Something no Hollywood exec would even dare to attempt.

[shimmy]

actually i think the ending were everyone gets killed is great. just like the real ending to brazil:) it was awesome and black as hell......it's nice to have something different happen for once.

too bad it was taken out.

or now that i think about it the i am legend alternate ending was much better than the screen version. at least it made sense since it was called i am legend and the legend was that the creatures talked about smith as a legend that comes and steals you away in the night.

:)

[M B]

You do understand that ending to IAL was the correct ending, as that was the point of the source book, right? I was super pissed at the cop out happy ending of IAL...Sooo Hollywood. The whole point of that story was that we were following a man during the transition of evolution; humans were no longer the lead inhabitants of Earth, and that humans had essentially evolved into these creatures whom lived at night instead of day. The legend of the vampire had essentially reversed itself with the normalcy of being a human...Something you don't realize until the end. You are actually following the villain, the legend of the vampire hunter, to this new race/species. Of course the 'vampires' in the book are actually intelligent, and not just really fast zombies. /rant

Sorry for the digression! :)

I thnk that the first leaked ending, with TermiBALE leading the resistance was the best outcome, and I'm going to tell you why. It doesn't completely fuck canon, as people could still believe JC was leading the resistance. He would become a realistic figure to lead people through this, as he couldn't be killed as easily, as well as have information/skills needed to destroy skynet. If Marcus-as-Bale had the picture of Sarah for remembrance of John (which somehow skynet finds out the importance of) and the sending back of Kyle ended up being more of a coincidence than planned, that could've been really cool, Not to mention, it would've made Arnold's speech in T3 about killing him true, as well as setting the original T800 up as a "Smith-like" villain, only to be sent back at the end of the last movie when skynet was being destroyed, to be killed by Kyle and Sarah, thus ending the war, even if they thought they were keeping it from beginning. It would have been beautiful. Connor's life would still be important, as his morals and ideals were what saved humanity, as well as the image of him leading the resistance. This is not to mention the metaphor of John (whom represents humanity) melding with his nemesis (technology) to win the war. I always got the impression Terminator was about how technology was an inherent evil that would eventually destroy us all. This would symbolize when used with humanistic ideals, technology is an important tool, capable of the greatest good and the worst evil.

Alas, we get shit. Ridiculous heart transplant FTL.