For those who haven't been keeping up with talk of various plot points for Terminator Salvation online, the following could be seen to contain spoilers. But, since it's actually debunking plot rumours, it could probably better be said to contain anti-spoilers. But we'll get to talk of that ending in a minute. If you want just that info, skip right to the last paragraph.

Last night, we were part of a crowd who got to see a world premiere of footage from Terminator Salvation, the fourth movie in the Terminator franchise. The film's director, McG, was also on hand to answer a few questions and talk up the movie (seriously, this guy could win Olympic gold in public speaking). We're not allowed to talk about specifics of the plot - partly because very few were given away and also because Sony would send round a T-800, T-1000 or Tefal sandwich toaster to cause us bodily harm - but we can say that our fears about the early brilliance of the franchise being diluted ever further were significantly reduced after seeing a few scenes.

The Story

Roughly, the fourth movie takes place after the nuclear holocaust caused by Skynet, with humans battling ever more sophisticated robots in the war that's been oft-mentioned in the series but never seen. John Connor is all growns up and looking like Christian Bale, while his future dad (Anton Yelchin) is still basically a kid and teaming up with a mysterious stranger (Sam Worthington), who has been described as the new Terminator in press material, but, frankly, we were a little confused about his origins from what we saw. Everyone involved with the film kept saying that this takes place before any of the other films, but the chronology of the series is so pretzel-like that it technically takes place both before all of them and after all of them. Don't try to think about it too much or you'll likely blow a fuse.

The Footage

Anyway, the look of the film is terrific. McG went to great lengths to explain the processes (something to do with silver), but it basically means that the visuals have a bleached out, grubby feel that works really well and makes it look related to the previous films and yet sufficiently its own thing. And the action - oh, the action. There was one chase scene shown involving a big truck and some wheeled robots that looked like it could be fantastic. We're not going to say it could rival James Cameron's masterful - and similarly bike vs truck - sequence in T2, but it could hopefully be going that way. Performance-wise, we saw little of Worthington at work, so can't fairly comment on how deserving he might be of next big thing status, but he's got the right action-hero look. Yelchin was great in the moments we saw of him, while Bale was suitably gruff and surly, using a slightly less glass-gargling version of his Batman growl. The only criticism of the footage would be that a few lines of dialogue felt a bit lumpy. However, since Jonah Nolan, who co-wrote The Dark Knight, is on board we hold out much hope. I'll freely admit to being sceptical of McG's qualification for taking on such a classic series - or at least a two-thirds classic series - but I'll happily give him the benefit of the doubt until seeing the full thing, based on what he's shown so far. With Bale, Nolan and the late Stan Winston all on board, you have to at least recognise the guy for getting the right people around him. Plus, as he pointed out, everyone thought the then unknown Cameron had no business making a sequel to Ridley Scott's Alien, until it turned out to be Aliens.

That Ending

And, ah yes, that rumoured ending. The internet was afury several months back with the story that T4 would end with a revelation that John Connor would be turned into a Terminator, making the saviour of humanity actually its worst enemy. McG said he did toy with that early on, but promised that it is NOT where the story is going. Recording equipment was not allowed, but we believe his exact words were 'John Connor a robot? No'. Phew. A story arc for two more films has been sketched out, but whether they happen will be dependent on how this film does at the box office. One final thing: McG was asked about the rumours that Arnold Schwarzenegger might cameo as the T-800. There was no confirmation, but there was also a definite lack of denial. Make of that what you will.

Olly Richards