Terminator Genisys Photos: Let's Over-Analyze The Teaser Trailer
This morning, Paramount Pictures released the first teaser trailer for Alan Taylor's Terminator Genisys. You can watch that trailer here, in case you haven't seen it already. And for those of you who really want to take in all of the visuals revealed in the first Terminator Genisys trailer, we have compiled a batch of high resolution images from the film to let you take in all the goodness one image at a time, complete with an image by image analysis by me. I've also taken the time to compare some of the events in the new film side by side with moments in James Cameron's original The Terminator. Hit the jump to see the Terminator Genisys photos now.
Terminator Genisys Photos
We get a look at post apocalyptic Los Angeles in the year 2029. We see a few Hunter Killer ships fly over the Hollywood sign, headed to the downtown city in the background.
This isn't the first time we've seen the Hollywood sign in a Terminator film; it also appeared in Terminator Salvation. But lets forget about that film for now.
Jason Clarke plays an older John Connor in this film. He is giving an inspirational speech to a large group of rebel troops gathered in an empty building.
You can only see a little bit of John Connor's signature scar in this image.
We see John Connor manning a futuristic gun in a moving 4 x 4 vehicle.
Troops unload from a deployment vehicle as explosions from the war are seen in the background.
We see helicopters flying over the battlefield as plasma guns are being fired from both sides of the fight. An army of T-800 endoskeletons can be seen on the right while the resistance is trying to push the fight on the left.
More resistance soldiers firing futuristic weapons.
John Connor and Kyle Reese run through the battlefield as spark explosions cascade in the background. We can see some resistance troops taking out T-800s in the background. A Hunter Killer hovers overhead catching up to our heroes.
Something lands in front of Kyle Reese and John Connor.
This is Kyle Reese, played by Jai Courtney in this movie. He's John Conner's right hand man in the human resistance.
The thing that landed a second ago appears to be a Centurion, formally HK Series 12 Model 453 Type 900, a.k.a. Hunter-Killer Centurion.
This is Skynet's largest mobile, walker-style ground Hunter Killer unit. According to the Terminator wiki:
It is an autonomous combination platform packing advanced targeting systems, heavy armor and heavy firepower. Used primarily in an anti-vehicle role or deployed in small squadrons to hunt down and terminate humans, the Hunter Killer Centurion is the most expensive (in terms of materials, power and time) Hunter Killer unit produced by Skynet. Due to its large size and the tenacious defending of its posts, this Hunter Killer unit soon gained the nickname "Centurion" from Tech-Com members who had faced it. The Hunter Killer Centurion has a central waist unit that houses a miniature high efficiency fusion reactor and the transmission systems. The gun pods and body of the Hunter Killer Centurion have been designed to subliminally form a demonic face. This is a deliberate feature, implemented by Skynet to induce added psychological threat and fear in any Tech-Com fighters who face this unit in battle.
The HK Centurion was featured in concept art for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (seen below), but not in the film.The model was seen in various comics (Terminator 2: Judgment Day – Nuclear Twilight, Terminator 2: Infinity issue 5), video games (The Terminator: Dawn of Fate) and novels (Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Dark Futures An Evil Hour).
A Terminator 800 model endoskeleton fires an endo-canon. The cannon shoots plasma and lights up red/purple.
We get a glimpse of the war from space as a ton of explosions are lighting up our planet.
"Mankind dies with us!" We get our first real look at John Connor's signature scar in this new film.
Here is a comparison image showing Michael Edwards from Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Christian Bale from Terminator: Salvation and now Jason Clarke from Terminator: Genisys. Its worth noting that while the character was first referred to in the 1984 film The Terminator he first appears on screen in T2.
Glass doors open revealing a refrigerated room with legs of bodies hanging from above. This is the Terminator 800 model, Skynet's first cybernetic organism with living tissue over a hyperalloy endoskeleton. One of the T-800s is lowered to the ground, ready for a mission.
We then see a time displacement machine, sometimes referred to as a TDM.
The film takes place in multiple time periods and we will see three TDMs in the movie. From the teaser trailer, we see one in the year 2029 and they would have to build one in 1984 to leave that time period (we see a more modern day 2015-ish setting later in the teaser) — so there is one more we don't know of. Each TDM looks very distinct because of who created them and the fact they were created in their times with the available technology. We have never seen a time displacement machine in the films to date, only the time displacement sphere effect seen after someone has traveled through time.
We see a T-800 step into the TDM ready to go back to 1984 to kill John Connor's mother Sarah Connor.
We then see John Connor and the resistance in the same Time Displacement Room.
A cutaway of Emilia Clarke who plays Sarah Connor in the new film.
Linda Hamilton played the character in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, but refused an offer to reprise the role in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Emilia Clarke's Game of Thrones co-star Lena Headey played Sarah Connor in the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles television series.
Kyle Reese steps up to offer to go back in time and save Sarah.
Kyle Reese was first played by Michael Biehn in The Terminator and briefly in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and later portrayed by Anton Yelchin in McG's Terminator Salvation. The character is played by Jai Courtney in this movie.
A better close-up of Jason Clarke's scar make-up for John Connor.
John Connor accepts Kyle Reese's offer with a handshake. Notice that Kyle Reese is naked because only organic matter can travel through time.
We get some more shots of the Time displacement machine.
And Kyle Reese being sent back in time.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day featured a deleted scene showing John Connor, Kyle Reese and several Resistance fighters taking over a building where the TDM is housed in 2029. Here is some background info from the wiki:
This "Time Displacement Complex" is located in Los Angeles, with the TDE itself located deep underground, accessible by a long stainless steel elevator shaft. The TDE is located behind vault-like doors, in a large chamber the size of a high-school gym. At the center of the room's floor is a circular hole, with three enormous chrome rings inside it, suspended by a magnetic field. Individuals traveling through time must first be covered with a conductive substance so that the time-field will follow their outline, then step into the hole at the center of the inner ring, where they will be suspended like the rings. As the TDE is started up, the rings rotate around each other on different axes like a complex gyroscope, and the floor splits open like wedges of a pie which pull back from the center. The rings spin faster, and begin to descend into a vast circular space below. Lightning begins to arc in this space below as a charge builds up, and finally there is a blinding flash of light as the traveler is sent through time.
A time distortion bubble appears floating in a alleyway somewhere in Los Angeles in the year 1984. The original film coudn't pull off this effect, we only saw rotoscoped lightning and Michael Biehn falling to the pavement from off screen.
This shot looks familiar, almost an exact replica of the same shot in The Terminator.
Kyle looks around and gets a better sense of his surroundings.
Its cool that Alan Taylor even replicated the light source placement in the background of this shot from The Terminator.
A police car pulls up looking for trouble down the alley. Just as it did in James Cameron's original film.
The police officer goes after Kyle Reese on foot. Just as he did in the original, but in the original his partner zooms off with the police car.
Kyle Reese finds his way into a clothing store. As he did in the original.
The cop is on the hunt to find him. Yes, same as the original.
But this is where things begin to get, strange, different. A truck plows into the front of the store and through the store displays.
The cop (played by Korean actor Byung-hun Lee), not as alarmed as you might expect, looks towards the Truck, which hits him at full force.
And we have the surprise appearance of Sarah Connor in the drivers seat, and she says one of the signature lines from the franchise: "Come with me if you want to live."
In James Cameron's original film The Terminator, Kyle Reese saves Sarah Connor from the T-800 at Tech Noir club by blasting him away and saying the line.
In Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the T-800 says the line to Sarah Connor as they are trying to break her out.
In Terminator Salvation, young Kyle Reese says the line to Sam Worthington's character Marcus Wright as he saves him from T-700s.
The phrase "Come with me if you want to live" is never said in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines but a similar phrase is said. After a T-850 shoots the T-X with a rocket launcher while pursuing Kate Brewster, John Connor opens the door to the car he and the T-850 were in and yells "Get in! Do you wanna live?! Come on!"
Kyle Reese looks nervous.
A big reveal: the cop that is after Kyle Reese is not only still alive, but is a T-1000 Terminator.
We first saw the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day played by Robert Patrick.
Sarah Connor shoots a few shots into the T-1000. He is taken back but not stopped.
"Now Soldier!" Kyle Reese jumps in the truck.
The T-1000 heals up just as he has in the second film.
But healing up over the eye is a bit cooler looking.
Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese weapon up.
Sarah explains to Kyle that the T-800 series Terminator that was sent back from the year 2029 was already killed.
We see a shot of Griffith Park Observatory in the Los Angeles hills.
This is also the setting of the first act of the first film where Arnold's T-800 appears:
But instead of a 80's punk street gang waiting for the T-800 we see Arnold Schwarzenegger as an older, more grisly looking, hooded T-800. He reveals "I've been waiting for you". The reveal here is that another T-800 has been sent back prior to the events of The Terminator, completely changing the timeline.
We flash back a bit to a shot of the young T-800 from The Terminator which had just appeared at Griffith Park Observatory.
This is the same shot from James Cameron's original film The Terminator.
The older T-800, who was referred to as The Guardian in the script and behind the scenes, blows away the T-800 from The Terminator. I'm guessing that the older T-800 actually fights The Terminator T-800 in another shot as the location of his time dispersement is not the same as the original film. Where The Guardian is walking towards is where the original Terminator encountered the punk street gang, so I'm guessing Paramount used the above shot instead because it looked better even though its not the place the Terminator vs. Terminator fight sequence happens.
The T-1000 jumps through the window of a warehouse.
Sarah Connor takes aim.
The T-1000 rips off a piece of himself shaped like a spike and throws it in the air.
And then throws it like a javelin.
We see an explosion in a lab. Could this be Cyberdine or Skynet?
Sarah, Kyle and the T-800 exit a roof top door in a major city, likely San Francisco.
Pull the switch. But what is it for?
We see a second of the time displacement machines turn on.
"The time John sent you to no longer exists... everything's changed!" We see a shot of The Guardian version of the T-800 walking off with a very young Sarah Connor, likely just after having saved her life as a child.
T-800 looks at his cybernetic arm as rain pours down in the background.
The T-1000 melts through the smashed windshield of the cop car and forms on the hood of the vehicle. This is a very cool shot.
The T-1000 leaps off the hood of the cop car towards the truck that Sarah and Kyle used in the escape from the clothing store earlier.
Sarah Connor shoots out of the back of the truck.
The car explodes.
Sarah Connor: "We can stop Judgement Day from happening" Again?
Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor have infiltrated what appears to be Cyberdine. What does that say on the large screen? Could it be...
Actually, if this screen looks familiar it might be because it was the seen in the first behind the scenes photo when Arnold announced the title of the movie on Instagram:
Something behind the metal door is dying to get out.
Sarah Connor yells "Run!!!" before shooting at the ceiling. Could they be teasing a bigger badder Terminator model that we've never seen before?
More shots from the future war against the machines.
The T-800 tackles someone into a vending machine, through a wall. The T-1000 lands on the top of a bus driving over the Golden Gate Bride.
This actually isn't the first time we have seen the Golden Gate Bridge in a Terminator film, the bridge appeared in the post apocalyptic future of Terminator Salvation.
Sarah: "Where is he?!" The bus launches forward.
Almost like a shot from Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.
But instead of just doing a front flip, the bus continues on and does an amazing full flip, all while on the Golden Gate Bridge.
We then see Sarah Connor save Kyle while hanging off the bridge.
And the T-800 is hanging on to them.
Terminator Genisys logo.
We are now in a helicopter over a city and the T-800 Guardian says his signature line to Sarah: "I'll Be Back!"
He then dives out of the helicopter, nosediving through the air. He smashes into another helicopter, probably one that the T-1000 is flying.