Terminator: Salvation was a PG-13 movie and as such- it did inevitable damage to the project. Project Angel (studio title of Salvation) had a very troubled shoot and it shows in the movie; especially when you read the original script/earlier drafts. The movie feels more like a movie trailer than a complete story; actors jump into scenes from invisible locations hidden in ceilings, “pow!” they appear on camera,- when all they did was jump on the spot before doing a take. A Terminator movie devoid of any real Termination.
McG made many brash claims that he was trying to get R Classification for his movie but most of the internet and media ridiculed him, especially when the age rating for Salvation was revealed on a PizzaHut website promotion. This is how people found out what the rating was after a rating hold-back, and then they set about McG for being a liar as the movie was thought (by the hardcore fan base) to be planned as PG-13 from day dot; Playmates Toys figures anyone?
Victor Martinez the concept Artist of both Terminator Salvation and Genisys revealed to TheTerminatorFans.com in a recent talk that Terminator Salvation was indeed originally going to be Rated R…
Yeah, the whole R rating got dropped for a PG-13 rating, and as a result, we had to dial down the amount of blood and gore.
In the below Animated GIF you can see the transition of toning down gore in this particular concept of Sam Worthington’s character; Marcus Wright (after being exploded by a magnetic mine) soon he was to realize he was a machine but the lack of R Rating took away the impact of the scene as well as showing this scene/big reveal in the trailer for the movie “are we learning yet?”.
Marcus hanging, instead of having chains restraining him; would have been secured via more of a crucifixion method again carrying through the biblical undertone of the movie- a theme which is intrinsic to the Terminator franchise itself.
The following concept art also reveals the various stages of battle damage the character would have experienced in the movie including the description “Napalm Attack” which would have delivered the final stage of heavy and bloody damage to the Marcus Wright character.
We did read early scripts and some examples of R Rating in the movie would have featured scenes like Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) and Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood) not being set on by Carnahan (Michael Papajohn) and his cohorts (perverts) but instead a wild pack of dogs/coyote- Marcus would have wiped them out by killing them and breaking their necks etc and also the scene at the petrol station… the people living there were to be cannibals and the monstrous Harvester would have unintentionally saved Kyle (Anton Yelchin) and Star (Jadagrace) from being eaten alive. The characters sampled the wonderful beef jerky hanging in the sun… swiftly accompanied by the stark realization that they were in fact eating other humans,- this would have been the type of interesting scene that could have made Salvation stand out in the Terminator series.
As time progresses we feel Salvation will be seen in a better light; it had no humor (unlike T3 and Genisys), it might have been miscalculated and executed incorrectly but it definitely is NOT the worst Terminator movie; we would say it firmly sits in the middle of all the Terminator movies.
Would you have liked to have seen Terminator Salvation Rated R? Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cameo would definitely have been much more disturbing!
Director McG also stated that if allowed he would be willing to do a ‘true’ Director’s Cut of Terminator Salvation. We would be interested to see a more complete version/vision of ‘Project Angel’ and especially if they made it Rated R “as god and James Cameron intended”.
Thanks to Victor Martinez for the insight and the look at R Rated concepts seen above and you can check out his website to see more of his work (including Genisys) at the link below.