NEW ORLEANS – It seems right that a facility once used to make components of the Saturn V rocket for NASA now houses a film set being used to catapult the imagination far into the future.
Jules Verne wrote “From the Earth to the Moon,” as science fiction, but the Saturn V helped make traveling to the moon a reality. The tables are now turned as a wholly different, and quite fictional, sort of traveling is being contemplated inside, and it is more of the H.G. Wells variety than the sort Verne envisioned.
On a huge sound stage inside that NASA facility is machine constructed for traveling, not in time but in space. Referred to by those working on the production as a “TDD,” the machine on set is a Time Displacement Device, and it looks as though the entire thing can spin around creating something of a sphere around those in the device. But, you know the results of that spinning already – it drops travelers off from the future into our present, usually to wage war against one another, and sometimes those travelers have a metal endoskeleton.
In July of 2015, more than 30 years after the first film was released, a new “Terminator” is going to hit the big screen, and the people here in New Orleans want to make sure it lands with a massive impact. They hope that this TDD, and a few more will help them stick that landing. It is not yet 2015 though, it is July, 2014, and there is a lot that has to happen between now and then.
Lest you think this is some sort of slap-dash quick cash-in, here on set many folks talk of it as, hopefully, a trilogy (something that has been confirmed since). The producers, in fact, tell us that they know exactly what the final shot is in that final film.
That is a pretty bold statement considering that the third and fourth films in the franchise never reached the lofty heights of the first two and that any direction those films indicated that future ones might go seem to have been left by the wayside. No one is saying that films three and four aren't canon, but there is a lot more talk about the first two than the last two.
Everyone on set is secretive about the trilogy, but they are secretive about more than just that overarching three movie tale – they're secretive about this particular film, constantly watching what they say to us and making sure they don't divulge anything they shouldn't. Even so, we do learn a whole lot, so before I go any further, let's break down some of what this film definitely is about.
“Terminator: Genisys” (during our visit it is known as “Terminator: Genesis”) takes place in three different time periods – 1984, 2017, and 2029. Notably, that first time period, 1984, is the same one seen in the original film. This new movie aims to take everything we know about that “Terminator” and throw it on its ear.
If you have seen all four of the “Terminator” movies, you know that there is a big change in direction after the second movie. “Terminator” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” offer up a viewpoint in which the apocalypse doesn't have to arrive, in which it can be avoided. “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” ends with the notion that Judgment Day could never be prevented, that Skynet would always rise, and the fourth movie, “Terminator: Salvation,” takes place entirely in that post-Skynet becoming aware future.
That is, to some extent, about being tied to our devices (where are you reading this, on your internet-enabled phone?), and more than that, being dependent on them. Not being able to live without them. Is it a large leap then to contemplate the terror of that relationship flipping from how it started – from us controlling them to them controlling us (have they started to already)? That is, after all, what the “Terminator” franchise is all about.
Want another example of technology being incredibly different from when those two movies first hit the screen – Jai Courtney used to watch “T2” on VHS growing up. That is, at minimum, two generations old and relatively unthinkable today. However, his telling us that he believes that's how he remembers repeatedly watching it-he was born two years after the original came out-is just another example of how well ingrained into our collective consciousness those first two movies are.
Even there, it is inescapable – “Terminator” is one of those franchises that means different things to different people but seems to exist in our collective consciousness. I was old enough to go see “Judgment Day” in the theaters, and remember being there opening weekend for it (front row because the theater was sold out).
Even if much is kept secret from us here on set, it all still truly does feel like a labor of love. We aren't just here in July, we are here on July 11th, and Jason Clarke isn't only not scheduled to be on set at all, but he's in the middle of a massive promotional push for “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” which is opening today. Despite that hectic schedule, Clarke makes it a point to sit down with us and talk to us about taking on the role of Connor.
John Connor is, of course, just as legendary a figure as Kyle Reese or Sarah Connor or even Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator, but Connor is also different from those characters. You may have a favorite John Connor, but he's been played by Edward Furlong, Michael Edwards, Nick Stahl, and Christian Bale which is to say that there isn't a single iconic representation of him.
We are going to have to wait to see how it all grows, how it all comes together. Not all of that is in evidence on this day.
That big set we saw with the making of a Time Displacement Device? It is surrounded by a green screen. Arnold Schwarzenegger's make-up and prosthetic setup also contains some green on it. There is a whole lot of computer work that has to happen in order to make the film come together and that is one of the things we don't get to see on this day.
As the weeks and months pass, more and more of that will be uncovered, we will get better looks at the villains (the trailer released today shows something we heard bits and pieces about but got no confirmation on in New Orleans), and the technology, and hints at the story. We don't know if we really will ever see that final shot of the final film that is mentioned, but I for one am curious to know what they meant.