Arnold Schwarzenegger Has Some Harsh Words For Terminator: Salvation

McG's 2009 sci-fi war picture "Terminator: Salvation" is an outlier in the "Terminator" film series, in that it's the only one that's not a time-travel story. James Cameron's 1984 film "The Terminator" was about a mild-mannered waitress named Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) who found herself being stalked by a killer robot from the future (Arnold Schwarzenegger). A human time traveler named Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) finds Sarah and explains that, in his time, humans and intelligent robots are fighting a vicious, apocalyptic war. He also explains that Sarah is destined to give birth to a son named John, who will grow up and lead a successful resistance against the Machines. The Machines, in desperation, sent an assassin back in time to kill John Connor before his birth. Kyle Reese will protect her. 

The premise of time-traveling robot assassins was repeated in 1991's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," and in 2003's "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." In the sequels, the present-day humans knew that the Machine-driven nuclear apocalypse was nigh, and they did everything in their power to stop it before it could start. Sadly, they were unsuccessful both times, and the Machine War began anyway. There's no fate, except there is. 

"Terminator: Salvation" takes place entirely in the future, in the middle of the Machine War, when John Connor (Christian Bale) is already grown up and leading his resistance. The Earth is a wasteland, and killer Terminators roam the landscape. It's a novel idea for a "Terminator" film, although it wasn't terribly well-received. "Salvation" received only a 33% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 278 reviews), and earned $371 million worldwide on a $200 million budget. By Hollywood accounting, it was only a modest success. Few filmgoers look back at "Salvation" with fondness. Star Christian Bale has even said he "regrets" making it.

"Salvation" was also notable in that it didn't center on Arnold Schwarzenegger. The actor only appeared in CGI during the film's finale. He also hated the movie. In a 2015 interview with "Good Morning America," reported in the Guardian, Schwarzenegger admitted that "Salvation" sucked. 

Schwarzenegger had, at the time, just completed making the fifth film in the "Terminator" series, Alan Taylor's "Terminator: Genisys." When asked which of the five extant "Terminator" films was best, Schwarzenegger couldn't decide between the four he appeared in, saying that "all three had their own personalities and interesting storylines." He did, however, note that he wasn't in the fourth film, giving him the leeway to say openly "Thank God, it sucked." 

His view seems to match that of most "Terminator" fans, who tend to agree that James Cameron's first two movies from 1984 and 1991 remain excellent, while all the proceeding sequels have been sliding down in quality ever since. 

There doesn't seem to be any record of Schwarzenegger's opinion on "Terminator: Genisys," but that film received even poorer notices than "Salvation." It did, however, make a lot more money, earning $440 million on a mere $158 million budget. That encouraged Warner Bros. to release "Terminator: Dark Fate" in 2019, which served as a reboot of sorts (time travel rigmarole allowed for the erasure of past events). "Dark Fate" received largely positive reviews, even though many critics felt it was merely fan service. Sadly, no one seemed to care about the series anymore, as film #6 only made $261 million on a $196 million budget. 

And the series had continued apace. In August 2024, an eight-episode anime series called "Terminator Zero" was released on Netflix. A reboot is currently being discussed, but Linda Hamilton, in Business Insider, might match the viewpoint of most casual filmgoers: it's already been done to death.