The following interviews are from Wonder Con in San Francisco back in February of 2009. There may be minor spoilers, so if you want to remain spoiler-free consider yourself warned.

Common plays Barnes a resistance soldier and John’s right-hand man. He’s a spiritual man who sees Judgement Day as outlined in the Bible, John is a messiah and Skynet is the anti-christ. Moon Bloodgood plays Blair Williams, Connor’s pilot and is the rough and tough female character so prevalent in the Terminator films.

Working with director, McG

Bloodgood: I’m a type A personality so I love his energy, he’s really bright. He’s a hard-working, passionate and he challenges me.

Common: I see how directors treat their crew to see whether he’s a good leader. Like Moon said, “You respect and love passion,” and that man has passion. McG is a good leader and a great communicator.

The pacing of Salvation as a war film instead of the prior installments being science fiction films

Bloodgood: I feel like they cut the fat. I’m a big fan of European movies and what they do, and you’re right, if it’s a war movie you have to be careful that you don’t do that too much.

Common: They cut a scene of mine that was too fat [Laughs] But that’s good. I was just going on and on. In this film you feel an urgency even when the characters are stopping and talking, like “We’ve got to get this shit done.” When the machines are coming to attack people, there’s that urgency and I think that’s the rhythm that’s there. You still feel a certain humanity in the layers. You don’t just see action, you get a gist of the human struggle.

On the Resistance and The Military of the Future

Bloodgood: There is a command structure and there’s different points to the resistance. For instance when I came in they told me there was a radio that helps us all communicate with each other because we don’t want Skynet to know what we’re doing but we need to know what they’re up to. Their technology is obviously more advanced than ours so there are different points where communication is cut.

And we had a military advisor on-set but it’s a different time so you don’t adhere to the same codes. I had to have this whole post-apocalyptic look, we’re all expressing ourselves the way we’re dressing, but not in a superficial or corny way but as a way to prepare for war.

On her Moon’s nude scene

Bloodgood: I am a woman, I have boobs, it’s a beautiful shot, it wasn’t at all gratuitous, I’m not afraid to say no if I didn’t feel it was right and I’ve done that. But this was beautiful and about the world ending and getting naked and wanting to connect with someone.

Bryce Howard plays Kate Connor, John’s wife and is carrying their child. Her role is vital in that John’s wall of trust is nearly impossible to pass. She is the one he trusts and depends on the most and is sure to be of great importance to the resistance. Fresh off of Star Trek’s set is Anton Yelchin, who plays the resistance soldier, Kyle Reese. Yelchin looked to Michael Biehn’s character in The Terminator despite his portrayal of the younger John Connor admirer.

Bryce Howard on playing a general’s daughter

Howard: I spoke with a lot of family members who are in the military so they’re familiar with fear, and the possibility of losing everything they know at any moment. So I feel that those individuals have a very strong constitution that I wanted to bring to the character.

On the empowered women in the Terminator franchise

Howard: I feel Moon carries the torch for Linda Hamilton even though my character is strong in her own respect, she’s also seven months pregnant and it would have been irresponsible to have her *makes shotgun sound effect* [Laughing]. Know what I mean? There’s a little bit of that, but nothing too memorable. That’s Moon’s main element that she was this passionate, strong, intelligent woman leading. It identifies the franchise.

Yelchin: I also think we have a very young empowered woman, Jadagrace.

Howard: Oh my god, yes.

Yelchin: She’s plays Kyle Reese’s paternal character. The first time you meet her character she’s holding a shotgun and she’s seven years old. It carries that tradition on.

Howard: I also feel this film in particular is about how John Connor become the man and myth we had heard about. Although I think McG was mindful of the expectations were in terms of empowered femininity it was imperative to see Christian’s portrayal come to the forefront.

The mystery of Marcus Wright and his relationship with Kyle Reese

Yelchin: There’s no scene between Marcus and Kyle where he talks about what he is. But we felt there had to be a moment where they acknowledge that and it was Kyle Reese’s duty as a human being to either understand it or maybe misunderstand it. But the complexity to that emotion is huge. They’re friends but Marcus is Kyle’s own paternal figure. it’s an interesting dynamic to play.

This is McG’s most ambitious project. The young director’s filmography highlights include the recent Charlie’s Angels and We Are Marshall but if he’s successful this weekend and the following weeks, Terminator could see another trilogy. Resurrecting a popular science fiction franchise without its biggest star presents a challenge but what Terminator: Salvation has is the future, the dark aftermath of Judgement Day and a full blown-out war of survival between humans and machines. McG also has Christian Bale.

What with the recent controversy with X-Men Origins: Wolverine leaking out to the internet unfinished, here’s what McG thinks about sharing footage with press and fans at conventions while in the middle of post-production.

McG: I love this movie, and I take it seriously that the world is waiting to see it done properly. It’s a big responsibility. There is some trepidation there but I’m taking a leap of faith that you (the fans) are the passionate ones. You are the ones that care, lets all share in the filmmaking process. I think the audience is vary savvy and understands where the CG pencil kicked in and what was done practically in a tactile capacity that I feel very confident in sharing works-in-progress. Every time I’ve been transparent and honest about what this film is, people go from, “Fuck, McG!” to a place of, “Hey, this guy is taking it very seriously. He’s out to deliver what we want him to deliver.” I’m not saying I’m making the right choice or not, but being transparent and honest seems to be the right course of action thus far.

The first Terminator having a rating below R

McG: We never once gave a thought to rating while making this film. You think Christian (Bale) would say, “I need to taylor my performance to a rating.” He doesn’t know how to do that. I don’t want to do that. Having said that, if the film is PG-13, the Dark Knight was PG-13 which I would regard it as without compromise.

What is Skynet’s role in Salvation?

McG: Skynet is indeed very tricky. They tried to kill Sarah Connor with their biggest gun, the T-800, they tried to kill John with their biggest gun T-1000. Now they’re trying to kill Kyle and lure all of them together in Skynet in the spirit of getting it done not by thinking bigger-bigger gun, but by thinking radically, differently approaching a new way to achieve the objective of Skynet which is to kill John Connor.

Inspiration for War

McG: The number one inspiration was Kubrick’s Paths of Glory which was shown with great regularity back at base camp. But of course Apocalypse Now, Platoon had a tremendous effect on me because I saw it right when I was 15 or 16 thinking, “Shit, in two years, I’m that guy.” Children of Men in a certain futuristic war movie. In a world of duress, and a world of grit. We’re at war with the machines. It’s hard to get water and we’re all living in subterranean facilities. In that respect there’s a lot to be said about the Matrix films, in particularly the first one that Andy and Larry (Wachowski) cooked up. These are all influences.

How the current climate of technology altered the script

McG: That’s funny because that’s the reason to make the movie the future war. What was once science fiction in the 1970’s and 80’s is here. I have a blackberry in my pocket that has artificial intelligence. If I spell the wrong word, if I use the wrong syntax it will correct me. By definition that’s artificial intelligence. If I have a bad heart, they’ll give me a new one made out of plastic. That is very, very interesting. And most compelling is, if I’m depressed, the days of “Tell me about your father, was he mean to you?” are over. Here’s some serotonin re-up inhibitors and you’re just going to feel better in two weeks. We don’t need to talk about a goddamn thing. That’s just very terrifying that we’ve come to live in a world where that is all real. We can deconstruct the human genetic code, clone a sheep (arguably a human) make a 70 year-old woman pregnant, where’s the limit?

Wherein does humanity lie? Christopher Reeve became paralyzed from the neck down would any of us regard him less of a man? No, probably more from the courage he exerted. My point is that it’s not in his arm, or left ankle. It exists in somewhere in this magical place of brain, which is a collection of neural firings that will one day be mapped by a computer and we’ll be able to interface with. It’s a scary commentary about the reality of having a soul and what is it that makes us human. Machines got to the place of intelligence where they were able to say for the interest of self-preservation this (humans) is no longer necessary. That’s not impossible. In a great many ways James Cameron is a survivalist who is rather convinced that moment is going to happen.

Ernie Estrella

Terminator: Salvation will open wide May 20th, at midnight screenings at a theater near you.