Last year, we headed to New Orleans to visit the set of Terminator Genisys.
Here’s what happened…
Spoiler note: there are very mild references to sets etc in this piece.
Plot-wise, we discuss whats been given away in the trailers thus far.
By midday on the 17th July, New Orleans is broiling in the summer heat.
Crewmembers are attending to props on work benches and in racks.
There are costumes hanging on hangers.
Outside, there are lorries full of equipment, catering trucks, food marquees and trailers for the stars.
Its the first in a completely stand-alone trilogy based on the universe that James Cameron created.
Jai Courtney takes over from Michael Biehn as a more brawny Kyle Reese.
The common factor, of course, is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who returns as the Terminator.
InTerminator, [age] is not such an issue at all action-wise, hes exactly the same.
The press area around us is festooned with costumes and props from the forthcoming film.
On a table sits a handful of futuristic guns.
One, we later learn, is so big it can only be carried by a T-800.
OnTerminator Genisys,one of the co-writers, alongsideShutter Islandscreenwriter Laeta Kalogridis, is Patrick Lussier.
Generally, slasher movies dont have that.
We wanted to have elements of that in this.
Elements of, what is it that scares you?
In short, the end will come not just with a bang, but with a smartphone app.
All you have to ask yourself is, if Skynet was to appear today, how would it appear?
What would it do?
How badly would it make you want it?
Thats a significant part of this movie.
Now that being said, the significant theme in this movie is mankinds relationship with technology.
I look at them all as individuals.
They only care about function.
This is the most utilitarian example of a gun I think a machine would build.
Thats what this represents.
They dont need sights, they can shoot from the hip.
The resistance, on the other hand, have a far less high-tech arsenal of weapons to choose from.
you’re able to expect some more familiar weapons to turn up in the movie, too.
One is in the armory, he tells us, one is in the future war battle scene.
Ah yes, the armory.
This is one of the sets were shown around during our visit, and its a T-800s paradise.
The concrete walls are bristling with familiar guns, all mounted on racks.
One of them is the grenade launcher fromTerminator 2.
Something happened here, a Paramount publicist tells us, and shes not kidding.
Later on, we see a scene being shot against this very backdrop.
In it, Schwarzeneggers T-800 leads Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese along one of the catwalks.
The T-800 throws down a heavy-looking sports bag, and Sarah shares out the contents.
We cant tell what shes handing out, exactly theyre black, slim things that look like iPad cases.
We dont know for sure.
When we ask Clarke about this later on, hes understandably cagey about it.
He and I have a little difference of opinion at a certain point, Clarke he says, evasively.
And theres no point in remaking what he did brilliantly.
Well be running our full interviews with the cast and crew ofTerminator Genisysover the coming weeks.
