Gillinator's Salvation Report: Is McG Really "Blessed"?
A Weekly Roundup of T4 News and Rumors!

Reported By: The Gillinator
Wednesday, October 1, 2008

McG has been taking a beating online lately for supposedly not actually getting Jim Cameron's blessing for T4, even though he said he did. This is one of those stories that makes for an easy "gotcha" moment, but actually everyone is blowing this out of proportion, and really McG is not to blame. Maybe it's just the time of year, but there are so many elements to this story that remind me of the crazy politics we're seeing in the presidential race. Let me set this up, and you can make the parallels:

McG is a young, hot director, who doesn't have lots of experience but the movies he has made have been fairly successful at the box office. He is then nominated to be responsible for one of the most powerful franchises in the world. However, the fans are still undecided about whether they should get behind him fully, whether because of his funny name, his lack of experience, or the fear that he'll mess up the franchise even worse than the last guy did. So he slowly builds up goodwill by speaking to the fans' concerns directly on his blog and by surrounding himself with talented people who the fans do respect. He also seeks advice and approval from the original creator of the franchise, James Cameron, and titular embodiment of the franchise, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He gives a big speech at a convention where he makes a big deal about the support he has gotten from meeting with these people, and in an interview with TAFs says about Cameron:

McG: "I got to talk with Jim (Cameron) at length. And we've had several phone calls and he knows that I respect him a great deal. I did not want to move forward on this picture if Jim Cameron was like 'Fuck you...What are you doing? You have no business moving forward on this.' Very simply, I would have acquiesced and said 'You're right... You're the creator and I respect that.' And he was very encoouraging and we talked at length...and most particularly, we talked about his experience on Aliens and the idea that you can't live in fear. You gotta move forward."

In other interviews he did specifically say that Cameron gave "his blessing." So his speech is a hit, the footage is great, and the fans are getting really excited! Then, James Cameron drops this bomb about T4 during an interview at Canada's Walk of Fame Awards a couple weeks ago:

“It could be a big steaming pile or it could be brilliant. Sam Worthington is in the Avatar and the new Terminator and he likes the script, but I never saw it. There was no blessing involved.”

Hmm... that's awkward! Did McG dream the whole meeting with Cameron up or is it an implanted memory? Answer: neither. Let me be clear, this is not a malicious ploy to deceive fans. Rather it's most likely that McG did have a couple conversations with Jim, and he interpreted Jim's sage advice as being an official "blessing" and why not, it sure seemed Jim was wishing him well, especially comparing McG's situation with Jim's when he made Aliens. Now maybe Jim doesn't want people thinking his hand is in the film (which some were interpreting from McG's comments), or he doesn't want T4 to overshadow his own sci-fi epic Avatar, even though they're releasing several months apart. For whatever reason, Cameron has now chosen to diminish what took place between them, and it's frankly kind of mean when it's obvious McG is genuinely trying to do right by the fans. If we think back to when Mostow was making T3, Cameron kind of said something similar to his above quote:

"I'll be curious to see how they do. Part of me hopes it sucks and part of me hopes it's really good." (Cameron then claimed to really like T3 shortly after seeing it, but then changed that position later on too)

I'm going to side with McG on this one, since I think given James Cameron's personality, he could easily give someone the impression he was blessing the movie but then decide he didn't want others thinking that. Still, others are going as far as calling McG a liar, so he should make another blog posting soon to help clear this up (there hasn't been one since July anyway!), just like when one candidate makes a statement debunking erroneus claims his opponent makes. It just proves, even in Hollywood, you can't escape politics.

As an addendum, if you're looking for some unique Terminator endo costumes for our Halloween contest, here's a couple from ebay that look cool. They are unofficial creations, possibly fan-made (possibly bondage for the suit, check the strange description!) and pretty scary looking too. Click on the images for the auction pages and have a Termo-riffic Halloween!

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The Gillinator