The new Terminator movie, Terminator Genisys, is designed as a launchpad for further cybernetic mayhem so there’s plenty riding on it for all involved. One man who’s already convinced, though, is James Cameron. The creator of the franchise rain-checked Avatars 2 and **3 **for a few minutes to taken to the YouTubes and express his support and faith in the production. Click below to hear his thoughts.
“It’s very respectful of the first two films and then all of a sudden it just swerves,” he enthuses. "I feel like the franchise has been reinvigorated. This is a renaissance.” There was also a good-humoured dig at Rise Of The Machines and Terminator Salvation - “I think of the new film as the third film” - and an endorsement for Emilia Clarke’s new Sarah Connor. "For women, I think she represents a kind of empowerment, yet there’s a vulnerability there.”
As he points out, Cameron’s involvement in Genisys has been entirely unofficial. There were meetings and chats with Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures along the way, but he’s approached the film with a layman’s eye and seems to like what’s he’s seen. The featurette also celebrates the work of our own MPC, the VFX house charged with creating the digital Young Arnie.
Plot-wise, the movie sees Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) volunteering to go back in time and save John’s mother, Sarah (Emilia Clarke). He arrives to discover that the timeline has been tinkered with and things are very different from the timeline he (and we) are familiar with.
This is not the be-permed, Everywoman Sarah we met in 1984’s The Terminator. Instead, this Sarah has lost her parents to a Terminator attack but raised by an ageing version of Arnie’s T-800. And Kyle will need her help when an Asian model of the morphing metal T-1000 threatens his life. Together, Sarah and Kyle must figure out what has happened and find a way to once more stop Judgment Day from happening.
**Terminator Genisys **drive a big old truck through your local cinema doors on July 3. Head here for a look at the latest trailer.