Apparently this weekend was the national Directors Confirm/Deny/Elaborate Rumors day.
Two of the more news-worthy bits that had come about recently, involved two of this summer’s big blockbusters. One involved Rob Zombie‘s H2: Halloween 2, in which we were told that Michael Myers would actually be mask-less for the majority of the movie (Read: Wait, What? Michael Myers To Be Without Mask For Most Of ‘H2’?). Then there’s Terminator Salvation, which has had a couple of big stories regarding the movie’s ending — one involved some insanity with John Connor (Christian Bale), the other being when director McG made it very clear that some people would probably hate how the movie ends, hinting at a big cliffhanger.
/Film had the opportunity to have a little chit-chat with Mr. Zombie recently, where he cleared the air on the whole mask-less Myers rumor for everyone who was worried.
It is total bullshit. [laughs] See, I think Wayne Toth [SFX] said [70% mask-less] when you guys were down on the set. Wayne wasn’t bullshitting you, but that was taken out of context, and to an extreme [online]. We’ve filmed so much stuff and at this point nobody but me knows what we’re going to use or not use. There are more shots of Michael Myers running around in his mask in this movie than in any of the other movies.
This should be a relief to most fans. There was an image that was recently going around in which half of the iconic mask was missing…I wonder if that may have been what was meant of the original statement.
Even better, and much more insane, are the details regarding all of those Terminator Salvation ending rumors. Unfortunately, while the endings in question will not be featured in the final film, there is a chance that they will turn up on the DVD. Because of this, the spoiler warning is officially in effect!
Click over to the other side to see what madness McG had in mind for his ending originally.
OK, now to clarify. The first rumor that we heard was that John Connor would die at the end of the movie, and that Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) would take his skin and become John Connor, who then continues to lead the resistance with the truth only known to a few people. This rumor was shot down as false at first, but has now been confirmed by screenwriter Michael Ferris as an actual idea that they had. No one is sure whether this one was filmed and could possibly make its way to your DVD Special Features menu, but it would be interesting to see.
A second story that broke which was not rumor but fact, at the time, was simply that the ending of the movie might piss some people off. We now know that this ending is not the ending that we will see in theaters, but we also know exactly why it would have pissed off people, and it’s about as ballsy a move as I’ve heard before.
McG explains it all while talking to io9:
That was at a time when there was a very dark ending. There was a great irony in the way this film shook down. There was this leak that Connor dies and they put Connor’s face on top of the machine body of Marcus. Everybody went, “Booooooo, what’s that?” That’s half of it [the ending]. We had a jet-black ending. 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.
Am I the only one that kind of wishes they stuck by this one? Yeah, people would have been definitely livid, but it might just be that kind of extreme shake-up the franchise needs to stand on its own as well as regain that thrill we got from the first two films. Of course, if they went with this ending, the movie probably would have gotten that coveted R-rating, and that thought makes me happy.
In any case, hopefully these risky endings will at least be featured on the DVD (maybe a little “Watch Film With Alternate Ending” good-ness?) so we can see what it would have looked like. In a way, it is still kind of a ballsy move NOT to use one or the other. What if we the fans prefer one of these crazy endings over what they chose to use? Then it’s too late to make it happen for the rest of the trilogy and they’re stuck with the road they chose.
sounded like a great ending…further alone the series the humans find out their great leader is a robot….ugh..awesome.
Comment by mo — May 10, 2009 @ 9:56 am