Remember when McG warned that the end to Terminator Salvation might piss off a lot of people? Turns out the original ending was even more shocking, and it might not even be on the DVD.


We talked to McG at the Terminator Salvation press roundtable today, and asked him about the movie's original ending. What he said surprised us beyond measure.


At the roadshow, you said that fans would either love or hate the ending? Can you address that now that fans have seen the film?

That was at a time when there was a very dark ending. There was a great irony in the way this film shook down. There was this leak that Connor dies and they put Connor's face on top of the machine body of Marcus. Everybody went, "Booooooo, what's that?" That's half of it [the ending]. We had a jet-black ending. Connor dies, we're in a room with all the people we care about. You take Connor's likeness, you put it on the living machine of Marcus. He sits up, now looking like Christian Bale, takes a gun, kills Kate, kills Kyle, kills Star, kills everybody, eyes flare red, [snaps] the end.

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Would you put it in the DVD?

I haven't decided... But, just take a deep breath. Imagine that's the ending. I would hope the oxygen would just go right out. You'd be like, "They can't do that. That's the biggest bummer I've ever seen in my life."


[Screenwriter Michael Ferris explained more about yet another not-so-dark scrapped ending at the press event.]

Ferris: There was an ending of intermediate darkness, in which ... the mechanical Marcus takes over as Connor and goes on to lead the resistance. It's essentially a secret to everybody, except the inner circle, that John Connor is now a robot, is now a Terminator. We're going for some irony there.


Holy hell, that is bleak. Looks like those rewrite rumors were true. To see the real ending, go see Terminator Salvation on May 21st.